Is Ireland Obsessed with Israel?

[King_David]

Alan McEneaney discusses why Ireland was named the most anti-Israel country.

There is no shortage of humanitarian causes across the world to keep the modern bleeding-heart liberal occupied. Oppression in Tibet has been an issue for over six decades now with no compromise in sight. I’ve never seen a Tamil Tiger solidarity march down O’Connell Street and West Papua’s struggle for independence from Indonesia barely gets a mention in Western mainstream media. The average Joe on the street could even be forgiven for being unaware that such a campaign exists.

However, there is one volatile region of the world that hasn’t left the Irish political consciousness since the 1970s. I am of course talking about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict – an issue so divisive that it can send an ordinarily placid, peace-loving hippy into an apoplectic fit of rage. Ireland has an internal and external image of being very pro-Palestinian whilst also being very anti-Israeli. We were deemed the most “hostile country in Europe” in 2011 by the Israeli foreign ministry after an over-the-top pantomime performance on Grafton Street where activists portrayed IDF soldiers as Nazis – a particularly insensitive and hard-hitting insult to the majority Jewish state.

Why are we as a nation so obsessed with a land over 4000 km away, with which we have no historical ties? Surely we should be more concerned with getting our own back yard in order?

http://universitytimes.ie/?p=22528

[sgtbenobo]

1. I met a man in Dublin once....

.... who showed me the keys to what had been his house. It seems the British put him off his land when Israel was created and made him stateless. It's complicated.


Carry on.

[azurnoir]

2. so Irish Jews were kicked off their property when Israel was established? Links please

fill us in this is a little known chapter in Irish/British history

[sgtbenobo]

3. He was a Palestinian....

.... forced to flee in 1947 and never allowed to return. Prior to that he'd been considered a citizen of the British Commonwealth. When he arrived in England he was denied residency. So he made his way to Ireland and they took him in.


Carry on.

[azurnoir]

4. Thanks for clarifying

[TexasProgresive]

5. After 700 years of having their land systematically stolen from them

by a foreign power why wouldn't the Irish be sympathetic to the Palestinians?

[seattledo]

7. And fighting against two governments that have so little regard for their people...

that they don't give a damn about how many of their subjects die in bomb attacks.

[jessie04]

8. They DO give a damn...

The more that die, the more they can use propaganda and blame the Jews.

What ? You want the people to have freedom and think for themselves ?

[BlueMTexpat]

6. I remember reading Leon Uris's novel

"Trinity" many years ago and wondering then how Uris did not seem to see the Irish parallels to the Palestinian situation?

That was likely not the reaction - nor the comparison - Uris had intended.