Is It Time For Israel To Break Off Relations With Ireland?
Ireland’s hatred of Israel is starting to feel institutionalised. Is it time for Israel to cut ties?
This is a lightly edited update of the first version of this post:
The story of Ireland and Israel is not one that will be remembered in the lore of geopolitical matches cooked up in diplomatic heaven.
A country with a historically tiny Jewish population, Ireland only granted permission to Israel to open an embassy in Dublin in 1994 after receiving belated de jure diplomatic recognition in 1975.
If one were to suggest that a good deal of begrudgement and passive aggression could be read into that luke-warm acknowledgement of the mere existence of the Jewish State, I would suggest that they would be entirely correct — and that Ireland’s frosty reception to the State of Israel set the tone perfectly for the evolution of this rancor-filled relationship.
The Irish Government’s Hatred Of Israel — Obsessive, Pervasive, Relentless, Legendary
As a Jew born in Ireland, who lived there until the age of 25, Ireland’s obsessive fixation with Israel — almost always highly negative in character — made me feel increasingly alienated from the society I grew up in.
As I grew up, I found myself increasingly disturbed by the fact that the Irish discourse about Israel that took place online — in web fora, on media websites, and elsewhere — was frequently tainted by the hallmarks of antisemitism.
Skeptical voices opined (they still do) that the online sphere is not a good barometer of more widespread opinion. But increasingly I found myself dubious of these attempts to sanitise the debate.
Ireland is a country with little firsthand experience of Jews beyond those depicted in its literature, and with a generally meagre grasp on Jewish history. In the Ireland of 2024, ‘Zionism’ is still thrown at Jews intended as an insult.
In Ireland, ‘Zionism’ Is A Dirty Word
‘Israel’ in the Ireland I grew up in was something akin to a dirty word too.
To be uttered only under one’s breath. It was better not to talk about Israel at all — at least out of the house. One would hate to make people uncomfortable and attract dirty looks. Fake equanimity is arguably even worse.
To be a compliant Irish Jew, I understood, was to be tepid in support of Israel at best — or preferably to offer ideological support to the other side.
Ireland’s limited Jewish population aren’t quite full-blown Marranos. But perhaps not more than half a step above. The last time I voiced support for Israel after announcing myself as Irish-born, my inbox was flooded with a deluge of hate mail for quite literally days. In fact this patterns recurs every time I broach the uncomfortable topic of why Israel seems to rouse the animus and interest of the Irish like quite no other topic on the planet.
It was befitting, therefore, that it was an Irish rabbi who invented a camouflaged mezzuzah intended to allow community members to fulfil the miztvah (commandment) of erecting a traditional Jewish doorpost outside their dwellings while finding a way to also disguise its nature. With due respect to the inventor, any country in which owning a “Camozuzzah” is necessary is not one I would wish to live in as a Jew.
Irish Jews being scarce, for the Irish left, Irish Jews who are openly anti-Israel are something of a unicorn-like commodity. Jews of course are the ultimate collectors’ pieces to buttress oneself against allegations of anti-Semitism. Pointing to the presence of a Jew at your demonstration is a powerful way of saying “look, it’s not about Jews. It’s about Zionism!”. This has been the reflective argument of Irish critics of Israel since the State was established.
If Jews opposing Israel can’t be found in Ireland, they can be imported like prized delicacies from the UK and carefully hemmed into the ideological hate bubble of the Irish political mainstream to ensure that their opinions don’t unexpectedly waver. Richard Boyd Barrett and the militantly anti-Semitic party over which he presides knows a thing or two about this.
The hatred of the Irish political class towards Israel waxes and wanes. But it predictably reaches an explosive crescendo whenever Israel conducts a military operation in Gaza. Whatever Israel does, and however it conducts itself, in Irish eyes, it is always in the wrong.
Whenever Ireland’s ire towards Israel reached a fever pitch, things got very uncomfortable very quickly. Those who make the delusional argument that Ireland is bereft of antisemitism have obviously never lived as an Irish Jew during one of these periods.
A high school teacher used to repetitively rant about how “the Jews” stole “Palestine” from the Palestinians. I’ve received more hateful messages from Ireland than anywhere else in the world. “Friends” told me candidly about how they believed Israel to be something like the devil incarnated in a state.
I left in 2015 and have spent as little time as possible in Ireland since.
Almost a decade after this decision — which I haven’t regretted for a moment — I’m not surprised to notice that Irish online commenters still regard ‘Zionism’ as a good insult to level at Jews.
If anything speaks to a profound ignorance of Jewish history and the centrality of Zionism to the Jewish people then this is probably it.
To call me a “dirty Zionist” entails insulting my personal hygiene but also affirming my belief in the essential centrality of Israel to my people.
Should I be flattered or outraged? I still can’t decide.
So … Why Do The Irish Appear To Hate Us So Much?
For decades now, curious observers and those (like me) with skin in the game have fallen over themselves attempting to explain Ireland’s historical antipathy to everything to do with Israel.
The only commonality between these repetitive acts of excuse-making — often proffered by non-Jewish Irish commentators writing in Irish media — is to ensure that anti-Semitism is never pointed to as an explanation.
Everything else is fair game. But to point out that some degree of the obsessive and vitriolic brand of anti-Israelism that suffuses Irish society seems to be rooted in anti-Semitic beliefs and conspiracy theories is an unspeakable claim that would instantly draw allegations that one were “playing the anti-Semitism card” or “playing victim.”
Increasingly I no longer believe that anti-Semitism is a minor contributory factor to Ireland’s hostile stance towards Israel and Israelis. I think it’s a significant factor.
But why ask this question in the first place?
Ireland’s opposition to Israel isn’t unique. Far from it, of course.
But in terms of its near universality, vitriol and almost complete lack of opposition it’s a different beast than that which is encountered in most of the non-Arab world.
Last November a former Irish diplomat (who represented Ireland in the PA) candidly told a British newspaper how Ireland’s relative lack of a Jewish community enabled the country to take a “freer hand to take what we consider a more principled position” vis-a-vis the conflict. That such a statement could be proferred so directly is telling.
And so it was within this cosy climate of acceptance for anti-Israel rhetoric that Irish politician Richard Boyd Barrett chose to label Israel a “dirty” “psychopathic” country against which an “intifada” to be levelled to “bring it down” in Dublin late last year.
Boyd Barrett’s language describing Israelis as collective subhumans evoked chilling echoes from history — a comparison not helped by the manic mannerisms with which he delivered the statements:
“You can only make peace with human beings. With people who have some humanity. You cannot make peace with a psychopath. With a mass murderer. With a savage. And that is what the State of Israel is!”
Shocked by what I saw on the internet, and how they had apparently been deemed to be completely un-notable, I brought the remarks to public attention in a tweet that ended up being viewed more than one million times.
The issue attracted the attention of Ireland’s newspaper of record, The Irish Times. Did Ireland have red lines when it came to Israel!? We were about to find out the disappointing answer.
A few days later, a reporter put the statements to Micheal Martin, Ireland’s Deputy Prime Minister and Minister for Foreign Affairs. He opined that it was “wrong” to describe a State as “psychopathic” but refused to comment on whether the remarks would fall afoul of hate speech laws the Republic was considering.
One day later, another journalist offered Boyd Barrett the opportunity to retract or apologise for the remarks. He refused to the deafening echo of no condemnation from the other 159 members of Ireland’s main legislative chamber. A month later, in fact, his party published a manifesto advocating that the State of Israel be replaced by a replacement state … called Palestine. No, really.
While many world governments are critical of Israel, at least at times, Ireland stands head and shoulders in the relentless of its persecution of Israel.
In the last few days alone, Irish public debate has been bustling with debates about whether the country should boycott the Eurovision song contest because of the noxious presence of an Israeli contestant. Half of Ireland’s basketball team have refused to play against Israeli opponents.
Ireland’s PM, Leo Varadkar, has gone for the jugular at the EU, attempting to get Israel’s trade agreement with the EU repudiated on the basis that Israel is in breach of human rights. Watching the news coming out of Ireland one would assume that Israel were a neighbouring country rather than a Middle Eastern state thousands of kilometres away.
If kind words have ever been uttered in the Oireachtas about the Jewish State, frankly, I’m not aware of them. Had they been uttered, I would have expected whoever uttered them to be shunned and dis-elected. In Ireland, only one opinion about Israel is a permissible one.
Although I try to resist the temptation to watch the gory phenomenon of Ireland’s spectacular hatred for Israel from afar, I’ve had a hard time keeping away from it entirely.
As I’ve done so, I’ve noticed how the mask of those apparently protesting for “Palestinian” rights has slipped and revealed them to be primarily concerned with ensuring the elimination and marginalisation of the world’s only Jewish state.
The Irish are particularly motivated by the idea of driving Israel’s embassy out of Dublin (one imagines perhaps bearing pitchforks). Calls to “globalise the intifada” now accompany those to “free Palestine.” A Palestinian advocate in Dublin urged the crowd to shout “Palestine will be free from the river to the sea” and to do so extra loudly because “they hate when we do that.” I took the ‘they’ to mean us Jews.
During this bout of observation, I set up a small YouTube channel that attempts to point out how tolerated anti-Israel hate speech is in the Irish discourse with the fantastical aspiration that perhaps doing so might at least highlight the problem.
Last week in Cork protesters chanted their support for the Houthis encouraging them to “turn another ship around.” An Irish musician has made a popular melody out of the chant “from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” Despite continued highlighting of the fact that the slogan is viewed by many as a call to exterminate Israel of Jews, its bars continue to ring out in Irish cities week after week. But it’s okay. People Before Profit wrote a pamphlet confirming that the slogan isn’t tainted with anti-Semitism.
The findings have been grim and have frankly made me — now a Jewish Israeli — terrified of the prospect of ever setting foot in Ireland again. It’s easy to understand how Irish anti-Semitism doesn’t really need to feature explicit acts of violence against its vanishingly small Jewish population.
Ireland has succeeded in creating an atmosphere of such intense hostility towards Israelis and Jews that only the truly diehard — or those steeped in denial — would consider staying in the first place.
Ireland Claims To Be Neutral. In Reality, It Pursues A Diplomatic War Against Israel On Several Fronts
The hostility of much of the Irish population towards Israel is reflected in the representatives they elect and how they comport themselves at international institutions.
When EU Commissioner Ursula Von Der Leyen affirmed that the EU “stands with Israel” in the wake of October 7th, Ireland’s president felt the need to distance Ireland from the remarks.
At fora like the UN and EU, Ireland sides with any motion that condemns Israel. More recently it has decided that it wishes to take up the mantle of leading the charge — pushing whatever sanctions it can to harm the Jewish State.
In the immediate wake of October 7th, Ireland unsuccessfully attempted to force the EU to interject a perverse moral equivalency into its condemnation of the atrocities. Fortunately nations with straighter moral compasses rejected the attempt.
Last week, in Brussels, Ireland was pushing to have the EU-Israel Agreement scrapped based on a “human rights” clause.
Hearing what it so badly wanted to hear, Irish media have spun the ICJ interim judgement as a vindication of the fact that Israel must be committing a non-existence genocide. Ireland is now actively considering joining South Africa’s absurd persecution of Israel at the ICJ. Its justice minister has made clear that she would be thrilled to see Ireland do so.
Not content with stopping even there, Ireland works through the murky world of NGOs to fund highly politicised organisations which are almost universally anti-Israel in outlook. These include the official charity arm of the Catholic Church of Ireland, Trócaire.
The important work of NGO Monitor lays bare the shocking extent of this bias which flatly contradicts Ireland’s absurd claims of “neutrality” around this conflict. Not that anybody in Israel was buying that claim in the first place.
Ireland’s Representative Office in Ramallah enjoys a particularly cosy relationship with Al-Haq — which Israel proscribed as a terrorist organisation and which, in the wake of October 7th, proudly affirmed Palestinians’ right to “resist” the “Israeli occupation”
After revelations about UNRWA’s long-known associations with Hamas were revealed last week, Ireland again bucked the international trend by proudly announcing that it would continue channelling money into the entity thereby ensuring that Hamas continue to enjoy some useful facilities in Gaza within which to hide weapons.
Ireland, unsurprisingly, is one of UNRWA’s main funders. It could now be argued that Ireland is wilfully channelling aid into an organisation which has been proven to directly abet Hamas. Perhaps Israel should consider hauling Ireland before the ICJ as a state sponsor of terrorism.
Of course as friends of Ireland in Israel are wont to remind me, things aren’t entirely bleak.
Organised activities to defend Israel in Ireland are well-intentioned but find themselves attempting to swim against a tsunami of hate. A pro-Israel march was organised last week. I expect that anybody who could be identified as having intended will face the same deluge of hate that I will likely receive for writing this.
So Irish friends of Israel exist. But most are understandably reluctant to draw the vitriolic ire of the much larger pro-Palestine faction upon themselves.
In the Ireland of 2024, even local governments have free reign to jump in on the Israel-hating bandwagon. In the neighboring UK, central government decided to ban local authorities from stepping into the realm of foreign policy setting. In Ireland, unsurprisingly, no such measures have been tabled.
According to their website, more than 100 businesses and spaces in Ireland have chosen to proclaim themselves to be “Apartheid Free Zones” (AFZs). Successive local government bodies have chosen to fly the flag of Palestine over their local legislatures. Needless to say, in the wake of October 7th, no similar acts of solidarity were expressed with Israel.
Last week Cork County Council passed a motion officially endorsing BDS. It also declared the county — the largest in Ireland — a space of “proactive solidarity with the Palestinian people.” And for good measure it even announced its intention to boycott those who merely “supported” the evil State of Israel. If we accept that the majority of world Jews can be described as being “supportive” of the State of Israel in some way, then this boycott is not only anti-Israel, it’s anti-Jewish.
Defenders of Israel in government are virtually non-existent or reduced to meek criticism of sometimes wildly anti-Israel discourse. Those who break the social contract that demands obsequious criticism of the Jewish State — like Alan Shatter, an Irish Jew — find themselves open to an avalanche of hatred.
And when Ireland’s pin-up anti-Semite Richard Boyd Barrett intones in its chamber that Israel has “no right to defend itself but Palestinians do” and that Israel has no right to exist (for, Boyd Barrett maintains, it is an “apartheid state”) the utterances are met with tepid rebuttals or studied silence. Boyd Barrett — for the record — last said that he “doesn’t know what happened” on October 7th.
The traditional explanations for Ireland’s virulent strain of anti-Israelism don’t tell the full picture
We’re told that Irish opposition to Israel stems from false parallels between Ireland’s experience of British colonialism and what they perceive to be happening in Israel.
This however entails providing an excuse for historical illiteracy. Why do that? Anybody with an internet connection can refute this claim in a few minutes. Almost everybody in Ireland is fortunate enough to have internet.
Amid this growing climate of hate, a newsletter circulated in Dublin — The Irish Light — now openly peddles in the kind of anti-Semitism that would have felt right at place during the height of Nazi Germany.
Its pages tell crazy tales of how Jews “conquered” Ireland. How they’re secretly controlling all aspects of Irish society and the media. How they bring the scourge of money-lending wherever they go. Its publisher brags that Ireland never evidenced significant persecution of Jews because it had the good wisdom to never let them in in the first place.
The fact that this publication’s visionary is transparently insane does not (in my view) excuse the fact that the material is allowed to circulate, apparently without impedance. Month after month blatant hook-nose-Jews style anti-Semitism is being pushed into letterboxes and foisted onto newsstands in Ireland.
Just today, Ireland’s majority government party Fianna Fáil tweeted that “All of us in this House are united in our view that what is happening in Gaza must stop.”
If a descriptive statement of what’s problematic about Ireland’s outlook on Israel could be offered, maybe this is it. If those words were true, every one of the 160 elected representatives in Ireland’s government denies Israel — and of course only Israel — the right to prosecute a war to ensure its security.
Much as being a good Jew in Ireland requires being reticent about Israel, being a respectful member of the Irish parliament appears to require repudiating Israel’s right to self-defence.
The Israeli Response Can And Must Be More Hawkish
So what can we do about this from this side of Europe?
We can take a few actions, I suggest.
For one, Israel should stop engaging with the Irish Government who seem to harbor the delusional vision that they can be of help in resolving the Middle Eastern conflict.
Governments of course change and so can foreign policies. But this is certainly the most appropriate posture to adopt towards Ireland’s current set of incumbents.
Ireland is not a “critical friend” of Israel. It has morphed into something far more sinister than that. It is an apologist for Hamas which tries to mask its relentless persecution of Israel under the guise of neutrality.
Ireland’s Next Government May Be Even More Anti-Israel Than Anything Which Has Come Before It
Why am I writing this now? Because I believe that Ireland is embarking upon an interesting direction that calls for a calculated reaction from Israel. Ireland has surpassed any other EU member state in its hostility to Israel. For Israel’s strategem, this means that we need to adopt different postures to different parts of that bloc.
For those who find Ireland’s reaction since October 7th to be shocking, I would counter that it’s only a continuation of business as normal. Why expect different from a government that took more than a decade to acknowledge our State’s existence?
Ireland has shown throughout its history that it will act against Israel however and wherever it can. It just finds the current climate a particularly good moment to try to turn the knife in our back.
I suggest that when it comes to relations between Ireland and Israel that we haven’t yet hit the bottom of the barrel. We might only be half-way there.
The current crop of Israel-haters in Ireland’s parliament will seem meek if the nationalist Sinn Fein accedes to power as is planned.
So I say act now before things get worse.
Albert Einstein once said that insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.
And by the great physicists’s definition, Israel is worthy of being called insane.
What else can and should we do?
For one, as an Israeli taxpayer, I would very much like to see Israel’s embassy in Dublin shuttered.
Consular affairs can be managed as they were previously from a non-resident embassy in the UK.
If the annual budget saving were enough to offset even a tiny part of the budgetary shortfall caused by the ongoing war I would say it was an opportunity cost well realised.
Israeli entrepreneurs should wake up to the fact that Ireland is hostile territory. I would even caution those looking at temporary relocations to Ireland to explore other options.
In the last few years, the Israeli software company Wix opened an office in Dublin creating 100 jobs in the process. Years later it found itself forced to defend itself for firing an employee who derided Israel as a “terror state” on social media.
Ireland’s Prime Minister chimed in on the matter, recommending that the employee pursue an unfair dismissal case citing protections around freedom of speech — which seems to always be ensured in Ireland whenever Israel is the unfavourable target of that discourse.
The lesson for Wix, I suggest, is simple: pay more taxes but preserve your dignity. The jobs could probably have been kept in Israel anyway.
The current war which Israel is pursuing against Hamas and other paramilitary factions in Gaza has clarified much about the relationships Israel enjoys in the international community. There are critical friends, certainly. But several nations have marked themselves out as enemies by virtue of their sheer animus. I suggest that Ireland should properly be reckoned among this category.
In diplomacy as in life, the closing of one door often leads to the opening of another. Let’s weld shut ties with the Emerald Isle and see if it can drown out just a little of the constant din of their hatred and negativity. We could use the peace and quiet.
And we should do this now. Before things get worse.
