The Roots of Ireland’s Anti-Semitism Problem

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.

Read more at Gatestone

More about: Anti-Semitism, BDS, Ireland, Muslim Brotherhood

What a Strategic Victory in Gaza Can and Can’t Achieve

On Tuesday, the Israeli defense minister Yoav Gallant met in Washington with Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin. Gallant says that he told the former that only “a decisive victory will bring this war to an end.” Shay Shabtai tries to outline what exactly this would entail, arguing that the IDF can and must attain a “strategic” victory, as opposed to merely a tactical or operational one. Yet even after a such a victory Israelis can’t expect to start beating their rifles into plowshares:

Strategic victory is the removal of the enemy’s ability to pose a military threat in the operational arena for many years to come. . . . This means the Israeli military will continue to fight guerrilla and terrorist operatives in the Strip alongside extensive activity by a local civilian government with an effective police force and international and regional economic and civil backing. This should lead in the coming years to the stabilization of the Gaza Strip without Hamas control over it.

In such a scenario, it will be possible to ensure relative quiet for a decade or more. However, it will not be possible to ensure quiet beyond that, since the absence of a fundamental change in the situation on the ground is likely to lead to a long-term erosion of security quiet and the re-creation of challenges to Israel. This is what happened in the West Bank after a decade of relative quiet, and in relatively stable Iraq after the withdrawal of the United States at the end of 2011.

Read more at BESA Center

More about: Gaza War 2023, Hamas, IDF