In May, the lower house of the Irish parliament voted unanimously to advance a motion to endorse boycotting, divesting from, and sanctioning Israel (BDS)—following what Lawrence Franklin describes as “an avalanche of vituperative anti-Israel and anti-Semitic diatribes” by various parliamentarians. A simultaneous bill to expel Israel diplomats failed to pass, but did garner the support of one third of the house’s members. As Franklin explains, these votes reflect powerful anti-Israel and anti-Jewish sentiments in Ireland’s public life:

Sinn Fein, a democratic socialist party that won the most [first-preference] votes in Ireland’s 2020 parliamentary elections, has been spearheading the increasingly anti-Israel orientation of Ireland’s foreign policy. Unfortunately, there has been virtually no push-back from Ireland’s general public or civil-society institutions. This lack of support for Israel is distressing, as much of the pro-Palestinian rhetoric and criticism of Israel are not only unjust but have morphed into blatant anti-Semitism. . . . One legislator, Catherine Connolly, raised the anti-Semitic theme of “Jewish supremacy.”

[But] there is little evidence that the bulk of Irish citizenry supports this prejudicial assault on Israel, much less the poisonous anti-Jewish rhetoric. . . . In Ireland, Jew-hatred does not well up from the general public but seems clearly driven from the top down. These Goebbels-like attacks on Israel include salvos from several Sinn Fein members of parliament. One of them, Martin Browne, represents Tipperary and claims, falsely, that Israel created Islamic State. Another, Matt Carthy, representing Cavan-Monahan, has stated that Israel is the worst human-rights offender on earth—presumably dwarfing China, North Korea, Venezuela, and Iran.

The behind-the-scenes launch pad for much of this anti-Semitic rhetoric might be the outsized influence enjoyed by Ireland’s Muslim Brotherhood-affiliated Islamic Cultural Center. . . . Another impetus for the appearance of Jew-hate in the Irish parliament is the full-time activism of pro-Palestinian propagandists on Ireland’s college campuses. This campus activism is spearheaded by Palestinian students who have been granted scholarships to study in Ireland. . . . There also exists an apparent tacit alliance of convenience between pro-Palestinian politicians, academics, and Sinn Fein leftists, on the one hand, and right-wing, racist, Holocaust deniers [on the other].

Perhaps also contributing to the problem is the long history of cooperation of the Irish Republican Army—of which the Sinn Fein is a branch—with Hizballah, the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO), and other Middle Eastern terrorist groups.

As we mentioned in yesterday’s newsletter, Israeli special forces carried out a daring boots-on-the-ground raid on September 8 targeting the Scientific Studies and Research Center (SSRC) in northwestern Syria. The site was used for producing and storing missiles which are then transferred to Hizballah in Lebanon. Jonathan Spyer notes that the raid was accompanied by extensive airstrikes in Syira,and followed a few days later by extensive attacks on Hizballah in Lebanon, one of which killed Mohammad Qassem al-Shaer, a senior officer in the terrorist group’s Radwan force, an elite infantry group. And yesterday, the IDF destroyed a weapons depot, an observation post, and other Hizballah positions. Spyer puts these attacks in context:

The direct purpose of the raid, of course, was the destruction of the facilities and materials targeted. But Israel also appeared to be delivering a message to the Syrian regime that it should not imagine itself to be immune should it choose to continue its involvement with the Iran-led axis’s current campaign against Israel.

Similarly, the killing of al-Shaer indicated that Israel is no longer limiting its response to Hizballah attacks to the border area. Rather, Hizballah operatives in Israel’s crosshairs are now considered fair game wherever they may be located in Lebanon.

The SSRC raid and the killing of al-Shaer are unlikely to have been one-off events. Rather, they represent the systematic broadening of the parameters of the conflict in the north. Hizballah commenced the current round of fighting on October 8, in support of Hamas in Gaza. It has vowed to stop firing only when a ceasefire is reached in the south—a prospect which currently seems distant.