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 on Gatestone: https://www.gatestoneinstitute.org/18011/ireland-antisemitism