In the conflict between the secular liberal democracy of Israel
and its reactionary religious totalitarian enemies Hamas, Fatah, Hezbollah, Syria and Iran,
the western left, for some reason,
has sided with the religious totalitarians.
The Irish left follows the rest of the western left in this bizarre prejudice,
which seems to be based on
western self-loathing
rather than on logic
and standing with people like us.
The Palestinian resistance (and much of the Arab world)
is openly anti-semitic and unashamed of it
(just see their TV and schoolbooks).
The western leftists who support them claim not to be anti-semitic.
Often this is true.
Apart from the surviving remnants of old European anti-semitism,
there are a range of new, trendy
reasons why people support the Palestinians:
Hezbollah flag openly displayed at IPSC march, Dublin, Apr 2008.
From here.
Attending this demo which contained open support for Islamist terror were
David Norris,
Michael D. Higgins,
Eamonn McCann
and Mary Lou McDonald (of SF-IRA).
Do they not notice this kind of thing?
Do they not know what the Hezbollah flag looks like?
Ireland strongly opposed the
building of the life-saving
Israeli wall
in 2003.
FF governments were consistently pro-Palestinian throughout the 1980s (and since).
FG was little better.
Labour was even worse.
The Irish taxpayer has been forced to send money to the Palestinians
through the UN since 1959,
and directly since the 1980s
(and still today).
It seems that some of our money has been used to pay for
hate-filled schoolbooks
that promote jihad and Islamic terror.
Ireland was the last EU country to grant permission (in 1993)
for an Israeli embassy.
PLO terrorist dictator
Arafat
made an official visit to Ireland (1993)
before any democratically-elected Israeli prime minister ever did (1996).
The PLO terrorist even spoke before the
Oireachtas foreign affairs committee.
Arab Crimes Against Palestinians Overlooked,
Rory Miller and Alan Shatter,
Irish Times,
15 Aug 2006
- on endless Irish criticism of and demos against Israel,
yet silence on far greater killers, including the non-Israeli killers of
Palestinians.
Hyperlinked by Tony Allwright.
"The truth is that Israel's use of military force, combined over the 60 years since its birth, has caused far fewer casualties and damage than war, conflict and oppression in Afghanistan, Algeria, Angola, Bangladesh, Bosnia, Burundi, Cambodia, Chad, Chechnya, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Eritrea and Ethiopia (and that's only the beginning of the alphabet; if we go to countries beginning with "I", there's India, Indonesia, Iran, Iraq)."
"Why was the fact that King Hussein killed more Palestinians in the course of a single month than Israel managed to do in decades never held against him, or even raised, on his visits to this country?"
He writes about breaking with the Irish left on Israel, 11 Mar 2012.
"An Irish artist is supposed to sign boycotts, wear a PLO scarf, and remonstrate loudly about The Occupation. But it's not just artists who are supposed to hate Israel. Being anti-Israel is supposed to be part of our Irish identity".
Not all anti-Israel people in Ireland are anti-semitic.
There are
a range of new, trendy reasons
why people are against Israel.
However,
anti-Israel prejudice is pushing an open door with many people in Ireland.
Above, the Mayor of Limerick in 1970,
Steve Coughlan
(Labour)
makes a speech defending the
1904-06 Limerick pogrom against the Jews.
He refers to the alleged existence of Jewish money-lenders,
who he calls
"warble fly bloodsuckers".
From Limerick Leader, 20 April 1970.
From here.
In fairness, he caused
uproar in the Labour Party,
and there were resignations.
(But he was not expelled.)
Irish politicians of all parties have a sorry record when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians.
Fianna Fail's hostility to Israel.
In 1980, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Brian Lenihan,
claimed the PLO was no longer a terrorist organisation, describing Arafat as a "moderate".
He claimed the IRA had no involvement with the PLO.
Noel Davern (FF)
in the
Dail, 22 April, 1997,
compares Israel to the Nazis:
"What I fail to understand is that a people, so badly treated themselves in the course of the Second World War, and beforehand, can suddenly begin to treat others in almost similar fashion."
"Almost" similar, if we ignore the fact of rounding up millions of them for industrial gassing.
Oh, and the fact that Israel are fighting ruthless
terrorists who target their civilians.
(Whereas the Nazis attacked and killed the Jews of Eastern Europe
for .. no reason whatsoever.)
Bertie Ahern to Arafat, 3 May 1999:
"We will continue to support your just cause in every way we can."
Brian Cowen in the Dail,
13 December, 2001,
as Israelis are being slaughtered in
Arafat's intifada:
"the only way to end this dreadful conflict is to resume the peace process. There is no military solution".
This turned out to be rubbish.
There was a military solution.
Brian Cowen,
25 June 2003, says Arafat is
"the symbol of the hope of self-determination for the Palestinian people".
Bertie Ahern
said Arafat was a
"great leader and a great man".
He absurdly described Arafat's death as tragic:
"It is perhaps the most tragic aspect of President Arafat's death that he did not live to see the fruition of his ambition of a Palestinian state
... He will be greatly missed".
Mary McAleese absurdly described Arafat's death as
"a tragic loss to the Palestinian people".
Even Fine Gael leader Enda Kenny talked anti-Israeli crap after Arafat's death.
What a dead loss Irish politics is.
Micheál Martin,
Fianna Fail's appalling anti-Israel
Minister for Foreign Affairs.
(And now the FF leader.)
Dear Irish Foreign Minister Micheál Martin, David Harris, 7 Apr 2010,
responds to Martin's anti-Israel nonsense.
"Is it ignorance? Are you unaware of what's been going on in Gaza, including the brutal nature of Hamas rule, the smuggling of ever more sophisticated weapons, or the thousands of rocket attacks launched against Israel?
...
Is it projection? Do you assume that all the people of Gaza today want nothing more than the people of Galway, namely, peace on earth and good will toward men?
...
Someone without any knowledge of the region would deduce from your article that Israel, having nothing else to do, simply decided one day to make life unbearable for neighboring Gaza.
...
Your narrative recalls other instances where outside observers misread conditions in largely unfamiliar authoritarian societies. They were not able to grasp what was really going on beyond the surface."
This shows Israel's view of FF's prejudices against it:
"I think that what Ireland has been doing lately - to put itself in the position of being so vocal against Israel and so extreme in its criticism - is wrong because then it might lose its power to influence Israel and the peace process."
And Israel's view of Ireland in general:
"I knew it's a challenge. ... I knew that politically there is a lot of work to do.
My colleagues back in the foreign ministry in Jerusalem would look at Ireland as a lost cause.
This is a very bad sign. We should do our utmost that this is not the case. There is a lot of things to be done and clearly there is a lot of difficulties and there is a lot of criticism - some of it comes from a good place; people really care and they want to influence but some of it is really vicious."
Éamon Ó Cuív,
Deputy Leader of Fianna Fáil,
is as anti-Israel as the FF leader Micheál Martin.
Here he is in the Dail,
22 Sept 2011, supporting a unilateral declaration of Palestine in the 1967 borders, without any peace process with Israel.
"When the late Brian Lenihan was Minister for Foreign Affairs, he supported the request of the Palestinian people for statehood on behalf of the Irish people. It is disappointing that the United States has apparently decided to veto the Palestinian bid. It is even more disappointing that the Tánaiste appears to be supporting President Obama’s stance on the issue."
When you read these awful Israel-condemning debates in the Irish Senate,
remember that Ireland is a country
that was neutral
during the Holocaust,
that sent condolences to Germany on the death of Hitler,
and that refused to allow almost any Jewish refugees in,
either before, during or after the war.
I don't at all think the Irish politicians are anti-semitic.
Rather, they have
a range of trendy reasons
for their views.
But I think Ireland - like most of Europe
- should shut up about Jews for a few hundred years.
Bizarrely, in June 2008,
Mary O'Rourke called for the dictator Mugabe of Zimbabwe to be shot.
"I think the only way he'd be got rid of is somebody shooting him.
I mean, I know it sounds stupid, but that is the only way. ...
Somebody should shoot him."
It's great that she said it, but then
why on earth did she oppose killing Yassin?
What makes Yassin in any sense superior to Mugabe?
Labhras O'Murchu of FF,
Irish Senate, 20 May 2004
- "The war crimes being perpetrated by Israel against the Palestinian people
will shock the world and will be seen for what they are. The Minister for Foreign Affairs
has been particularly forthright in support of the rights of the Palestinian people.
It is important for this nation, and for all nations, to impress on Israel
that of all the nations on earth, it should be wary about engaging in activities which could be perceived as being genocidal."
Terry Leyden of FF,
Irish Senate, 20 May 2004
- "we should make a request of the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Cowen,
who is now President of the EU Foreign Ministers and has been exemplary in his work on Palestine
and recognising the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination.
I suggest that we withdraw the special status that Israel holds in the eyes of the European Union.
A boycott of Israeli products should be undertaken."
Mary O'Rourke of FF,
Irish Senate, 20 May 2004
- "Senator Leyden wants the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Deputy Cowen,
as President of the EU Council of Foreign Minister,
to withdraw the special status afforded to Israel by the EU,
and calls for a boycott of Israeli goods.
.. Perhaps it is a point that could be considered."
Terry Leyden (FF) on Hamas, 4 July 2007:
"Obviously, Hamas is playing an important role in Gaza. It has taken control of the region and will prove a success there. It is the legitimate government of the West Bank, Gaza and Palestine, and should be recognised as such by the Government and the European Union. Hamas was elected to that position."
Senator Eoghan Harris, 2010:
"I would probably be the only voice currently in the upper house of the Irish parliament to support Israel."
Terry Leyden (FF)
in the Senate,
22 Sept 2011, complains that the FG-Labour Irish government is not anti-Israel enough:
He supports the
Palestinian bid for statehood.
He says it is the only Jew in the Cabinet who is influencing the government.
(Actually, I hope that's true!)
"In my view there is an undue influence exercised by the Minister for Justice and Equality, Deputy Shatter, to ensure that this Government vetoes the policy of the Irish State regarding the recognition of Palestine and the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. There is undue influence being brought to bear in the Cabinet in this regard."
And Obama is now pro-Israel apparently!
"The massive Jewish vote in the United States of America influences government policy and Obama is now a tool of the Israeli State."
Supporting the 1967 borders means supporting a Judenrein West Bank
It is standard in Ireland to support the 1967 borders.
(As in the
Palestinian bid for statehood.)
No one seems to care what happens to the
550,000 Jews in the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
Either there are absurd, naive claims that they should live under Fatah rule.
Or it is assumed they should just "go back" to Israel.
Either way, their wishes and desires
are of no concern.
The ethnic cleansing of the Jews in the West Bank
is the only ethnic cleansing that it is popular (indeed fashionable) to support
in Ireland.
Jewish population by country.
From here.
The
cleansing of Jews
has been continuing
all across the Arab Middle East since 1948,
and the entire region is now nearly Judenrein.
It continues today. Recently, 9,000 Jews were cleansed from
Gaza in 2005
and it is now Judenrein. (It is now a hellhole sharia state.)
But this is still not enough for the international community.
Now they want to clear out the
550,000 Jews in the West Bank and East Jerusalem,
and make that area Judenrein too.
For this is what a Palestinian state with the 1967 border means.
"As President Obama was making
his now forgotten prostrations in Cairo,
his Secretary of State was hectoring the Zionist Entity, regarding the West Bank, that there has to be “a stop to settlements — not some settlements, not outposts, not natural-growth exceptions.”
No “natural growth”? You mean, if you and the missus have a kid, you’ve got to talk gran’ma into moving out? To Tel Aviv, or Brooklyn, or wherever? Consciously or not, Mrs. Clinton had endorsed the Muslim world’s position on infidels who happen to find themselves within what it regards as lands belonging to Islam: the Jewish and Christian communities are free to stand still or shrink, but not to grow.
Would Obama have been comfortable mandating “no natural growth” to Israel’s million-and-a-half Muslims?
No. Yet the administration had no difficulty embracing the Muslim world’s confident belief in one-way multiculturalism, under which Islam expands in the West but Christianity and Judaism shrivel inexorably in the Middle East, Pakistan, and elsewhere."
- Mark Steyn in
After America
(2011)
points out that people lecture Israel and make demands of it
(no natural growth, ethnic cleansing)
that they would never dream of making for their own country,
or for other groups.
Shame on anybody who ever signed any of these petitions.
Irish politicians sign a
petition calling for sanctions against Israel, June 2004.
Of course, they all have signed similar petitions calling
for sanctions against
Cambodia,
China,
Cuba,
Egypt,
Iran,
Libya,
North Korea,
Pakistan,
the Palestinian Authority,
Russia,
Rwanda,
Saudi Arabia,
Sudan,
Syria,
Vietnam
and
Zimbabwe.
Of course they have.
Proinsias De Rossa (Labour).
Michael D. Higgins (Labour),
"signing on behalf of the entire parliamentary Labour Party".
Mick Lanigan (FF).
Terry Leyden (FF).
A load of people from the Greens
and from the violent group Sinn Fein.
Dennis Prager describes the
General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA)
as
"committing evil"
by calling for sanctions against Israel.
I agree.
They are on the wrong side of history.
Nazi boycott of Jewish shops in Berlin, 1933.
The placards say:
"Germans defend yourselves! Don't buy from Jews."
From here.
And more images.
You would think that Europeans would avoid any boycott of Israel because of its echoes of the
Nazi boycott of Jews.
But sadly no.
Irish thugs
protest at an Israeli kiosk selling beauty products in
Jervis Street Shopping Centre, Dublin, Jan 2009.
In Odense, Denmark, in Dec 2008,
the mob at a similar kiosk selling hair-care products eventually
shot the Israelis.
Irish band
Dervish cancels their tour of Israel, 30 Apr 2012, after foolishly listening to
Irish Israel-haters.
They claim they don't want to be political.
Too late for that.
You've just made an ignorant political statement.
From their facebook.
Shame on them.
Dervish played on
an Irish trade mission to China in Jan 2005.
From Irish Times,
1 Feb 2005
(also here).
Hypocrites.
One of the most annoying things about the anti-Israel lefties is they are not
content to just campaign themselves.
They want to force me to pay to support it through my taxes.
"Settlement", 2003.
A taxpayer-supported anti-Israel exhibition.
"This project acknowledges that artists are not 'neutral' beings, divorced from social and political realities, but often hold partisan viewpoints which are articulated through numerous and complex strategies."
Though, oddly enough, none of them hold a pro-Israel viewpoint.
The Israeli Consul General
said:
"I was annoyed that they mixed culture and politics and joined the anti-Israel bandwagon.
A gay and lesbian event is not just another festival,
gays and lesbians have fought for their rights,
events such as these should promote openness and dialogue, a boycott rules out dialogue.
A boycott ignores the fact that that
none of the other Mediterranean countries would even dream
of offering sponsorship for an LGBT festival.
They see scenes from Lebanon and think it means all Israelis are bad,
you wouldn't expect an arts festival to be so closed minded."
I am forced to pay through my taxes for this politicised body.
Ian O'Doherty attacks the vote:
"The fact that Israel is the least segregated society in the region,
and that Israeli Arabs enjoy more freedom than their counterparts
in other, Arab-run, countries is something that tends to be conveniently forgotten"
I am forced to pay through my taxes for this politicised body.
I am also forced to pay through my taxes for Irish and EU
aid to the vile Palestinian Authority.
Hamas brags about aid money "turned into weapons":
"Two years ago, one bullet in Gaza cost around €3.50 - now it would cost 35 cents. The American aid money has been translated into weapons. Thank you, America!"
I am forced to pay through my taxes for Palestinian "security" forces (i.e. Islamist terrorists)
and for indoctrination of hatred in
Palestinian schools and TV.
Raymond Deane
of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Raymond Deane
defends
Hezbollah's July 2006 cross-border attack on Israel
(killing 8 Israeli soldiers, kidnapping 2,
and launching dozens of random rocket attacks on civilians in Israel,
injuring several civilians).
He describes Hezbollah's raid as
"the perfectly legitimate capture by uniformed combatants
of soldiers engaging in upholding illegal policies".
Raymond Deane, 19 June 2008, supports Iranian aid to Hamas!
"President Ahmedinejad has repeatedly expressed hopes for an end to the Zionist regime, a hope shared worldwide - including within Israel - by people of more impeccable democratic credentials than the Iranian president. "The provision of training and logistical support to Hamas" - nominally the democratically elected government of the Palestinian people - is to be welcomed as a small counterbalance to US and EU support for the murderous Israeli regime."
Cead mile failte to Hell, Mr Israeli ambassador, Kevin Myers, 20 Aug 2010, on Ireland's anti-Israel prejudice.
Of the
Irish artist jerks
who are boycotting Israel, he says:
"Yet strangely enough, these 'artists' don't condemn the totalitarian Islamo-Nazism of Hamas, or the emerging Fourth Reich of Iran. No, instead, they obsess over the misdeeds of a democratic state the size of Munster in a democracy-free, Arab landmass as big as the US."
Raymond Deane, 21 Aug 2010, replies, showing his true colours.
"The fact that they "don't condemn the totalitarian Islamo-Nazism of Hamas, or the emerging Fourth Reich of Iran" is because these phenomena are figments of Mr Myers' overheated and Islamophobic imagination."
Raymond Deane, 4 May 2011, is shocked by the killing of Bin Laden:
"an extra-judicial assassination and a violation of Pakistani sovereignty".
He also absurdly claims that:
"9/11 .. was .. an act of revenge for US crimes against the supposedly subordinate peoples of the non-Western world."
All these years and he has still never heard of Islamism.
Kevin Squires, February 5, 2012, complains about the Irish Chief Rabbi’s website
linking in his opinion to "extremist" groups.
One of the "extremist" groups he complains about is
Israel National News!
I would have said Kevin Squires is a member of a far more extremist group, the IPSC.
A group that regularly marches
with jihadist terrorist flags
through the streets of Dublin.
Desmond Fennell, 6 Feb 2009, suggests the world should arm the Palestinian Islamists with better weapons (planes, tanks, etc.)
with which to fight the Israeli liberal democracy.
This foolish intellectual
seems innocently unaware of the fact that if the Palestinians
had the weaponry, they would carry out a full-scale genocide of the Jews.
The only thing stopping them is not lack of will, but rather lack of ability.
John Pilger
is the classic example of this narrow world-view.
Only the desire to oppose the west
can explain the strange, highly-selective collection of
human-rights causes
the modern left supports.
This is why they almost never complain about Islamic or communist regimes,
for example.
Kevin Myers, November 24, 2011, points out the pathetic nature of Raymond Deane and his fellow travellers,
as they protest yet again against Israel - this time against a harmless
Israeli film festival:
"Egyptian embassies across Europe have had to endure no angry demonstrations over the Christians slaughtered by Islamic fundamentalists. And when Copts protested in Cairo, they were crushed -- quite literally in some cases -- by the army. This European Christian tolerance of the oppression of their Arab co-religionists, accompanied by a general approval for the oppressors, is rather unusual, but is unlikely to make much historical sense."
Raymond Deane
compares supporting Israel
to supporting paedophilia.
Open support for Hamas Islamist terror at "Gaza Solidarity" March, Dublin, Jan 2009.
From here.
See here.
See also
here.
Indoctrination in Hamas Islamist terror in Palestinian pre-school.
Ireland's largest trade union,
SIPTU, abuses its position by using the fees of its members
to pay for anti-Israel agitation
and partnership with the oppressive and terrorist Palestinian Authority.
This is an event called "Palestine: A Celebration"
hosted by SIPTU and the Palestinian Authority, 17 Sept 2011.
Mags O'Brien (Irish trade unionist)
expresses the left's delusion that in supporting the Palestinians they are somehow
"non-violently"
standing for "civil liberties",
like the
"freedom riders"
in 1960s America.
This rather ignores the fact that:
(a) the Palestinians believe in
the most appalling sadistic violence,
and:
(b) the Palestinians
do not believe in civil liberties.
From SIPTU magazine, June 2011.
Martin Luther King
would have been unimpressed by this.
He said in 1968:
"I see Israel as one of the great outposts of democracy in the world, and a marvelous example of what can be done, how desert land can be transformed into an oasis of brotherhood and democracy."
Sadly, it
looks like just another
pro-Palestinian-Islamofascist group.
They visit Lebanon and visit every anti-Israel activist and killer they can find,
yet no one pro-Israel.
They link to the website of the Islamofascist mass killers of women and children
Hizbollah
with the simple tag-line
"Resistance organisation in Lebanon".
The challenge:
Find any
pro-Israel, pro-gay or pro-atheist group
in the entire Arab Muslim world.
Other issues
The Irish "Peace" Society is
against violence by democracies,
but sympathetic to violence by non-democracies.
It has no problem with what they call the
"liberation" (what a joke) of Lebanon by Hizbollah,
but it
opposed
(and here)
the real liberation of Iraq.
They also
entertained
the
Cuban Ambassador
and the Pakistani
Ambassador
in 2003.
These
representatives of two non-democracies
were listened to with respect instead of abuse.
I note the Israeli, US and British Ambassadors were not entertained.
Their error was in being free democracies.
Some updates:
Congratulations to the Irish Peace Society for
protesting
the visit of the Premier of
China,
May 2004!
At last we agree on something!
Victoria Firmo-Fontan,
the "peace studies"
professor
who brought the students on the pro-Hizbollah
tour of Lebanon,
turns up in Jan 2005 wanting to be
"embedded"
with the
Iraqi fascist "resistance"
as they suicide bomb women and children
in their attempt to stop democracy.
Bruce Bawer
has a nice put-down of "peace studies" programs.
"For the Peace Racket, to kill innocents in cold blood is to buy the right to dialogue, negotiation, concessions - and power. So students learn to identify "insurgent" or "militant" groups with the populations they purport to represent."
"Peace" groups inevitably do not have any clue
how to actually bring about world peace.
Chris Andrews
issues a
rather dodgy tweet, June 2011, about the only Jew in the Irish government,
Alan Shatter.
I was pleased to see Chris Andrews lose his seat in the Feb 2011 election.
Chris Andrews with
Syrian terror-state leader
Bashar al-Assad in 2009.
From a 2009 Chris Andrews constituency leaflet.
(He actually chose to display this photo of himself to the voters!)
Credit to Monique Walsh for finding this.
See larger
and full page.
Might be put online here.
It is interesting to see that
Todd Andrews
(grandfather of
Chris Andrews
and Ryan Tubridy)
was friendly with the Nazis.
He socialised at the Nazi embassy in Dublin during the war.
This is an extract from his memoir,
Man of no Property
(and here), 1982.
He was not a Nazi himself, but he expressed a common Irish unwillingness to support the democracies
against their enemies,
or even make distinctions between the two -
a tradition
that his grandson Chris Andrews continues today.
It is also interesting to consider,
given Chris Andrews posing with Assad above,
that
Assad
is from the pro-Nazi
Ba'ath Party.
Assad senior
(and possibly Assad junior too)
sheltered the
top
Nazi war criminal
Alois Brunner
for decades.
Above are French protesters
against the 1998 visit to France by Assad senior.
The placard remembers the
Vel' d'Hiv Roundup
of Jews in Paris in 1942.
Photo from here.
Open support for Hezbollah Islamic terror at March to Israeli Embassy, Dublin, 10 Jan 2009.
March held by
Irish "Anti War" Movement
and IPSC.
Speakers included Chris Andrews TD (Fianna Fail).
From here.
(2012).
From here.
Since 1995.
