Assassinated in a roadside ambush at the age of 32, Michael Collins inspired underground fighters around the world, including future Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir. His underground name “Michael” was borrowed from an Irish rebel.
The Jewish and Irish liberation movements had much in common, including ethnic trauma, a dormant language, a continental diaspora, and a British enemy, and they initially respected each other.
At one point, Collins disguised himself as an Orthodox Jew and hid among the Jews of Dublin. Robert Briscoe, an Irish Jew, was an arms purchaser for the IRA and an advisor to Menachem Begin when he tried to turn his anti-British militia into an actual political party.
This was also the case when Jews were anti-British. However, by the mid-1950s, when Britain and Israel became allies, Ireland became Israel’s enemy. Last week, it became clear that the hostility had gotten out of hand and that it was time for Jews to stand up to Ireland’s abuses.
When did hostilities in Ireland begin?
Irish hostility toward Israel arose on two levels. The IRA secretly encouraged and supported Palestinian terrorism. Officially, Ireland postponed its ambassadorial exchange with Israel until 1993.
Dublin’s explanation for the conflict was that Israel was violating UN resolutions. This claim alone was not only controversial, but also hypocritical, since many of the countries that Ireland did not shun were in violation not only of UN resolutions but also of the UN Charter itself.
Still, it is part of self-respect to condemn Israel, even for its protests against the bombing of Saddam Hussein’s nuclear reactor in 1981, and Romania’s occasional anti-Soviet statements played a role at the time within the Eastern Bloc. It was a kind of role. .
The Israeli side had more pressing issues to deal with and saw the Irish position not as part of the Israeli situation, but rather as part of the Irish ethos. After all, the Israelis considered Ireland to be part of the Western world, even if it was a peripheral part. In 1993, this “leave it alone” attitude seemed to be paying off, as the Oslo Accords finally allowed the Israeli embassy to move into Dublin.
Yet Ireland never pursued a compromise between Israel and the Palestinians. Dublin sided with the Palestinians. Dublin, the most anti-Israel country in Europe, is actively inciting other European countries against Israel, Israeli diplomats reported. Dublin is under the illusion that it is still living in the days of Michael Collins, adopting and spreading the smear that Israel is part of what Ireland’s liberators fought for.
Irish politicians and activists are running an anti-Israel boycott campaign. For example, in 2018, Dublin City Council passed a resolution supporting the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and calling for the expulsion of Israel’s ambassador.
Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar tweeted his joy at the release of 9-year-old Irish-Israeli hostage Emily Hand, saying, “A missing, innocent child has been safely rescued.” It was in the spirit of condemnation against Israel. found. ”
Like a flat-Earth believer watching the moon landing, this Irishman can’t help but acknowledge that the Palestinian hero’s victims were abducted rather than “missing” and released rather than “found.” There wasn’t. Her ordeal was about a crime, not some accident, as he had hinted. It is the mass deployment of mass murderers, rapists, hijackers and arsonists, hailed by the very Palestinian leaders that Ireland has celebrated as a force for freedom and peace for decades.
This was the general atmosphere that took Ireland’s anti-Israel audacity to the next level last week when the Irish women’s basketball team refused to shake hands with the Israeli team at an official game.
Yes, like previous Irish bravados, this one caught the Jewish state at a time when it was busy with more pressing matters. But from Jerusalem to Dublin, there are some things that need to be said now, in very plain language.
First of all, we Israelis have nothing to apologize for. Palestinians are starting wars and getting killed, and Israelis are fighting back.
Are you concerned about Palestinian civilian losses? Like us, the heroes of Palestine are deliberately hiding among and under their people with weapons that they clearly plan to use to slaughter us. If there is a better way to fight this and save civilian lives, please let me know. Since you have no such advice, we conclude that what you are trying to prevent is not the death of the Palestinians, but the victory of Israel.
The next thing you need to know is that you are not a freedom fighter like your ancestors. All of you were not yet born when you bravely fought for the freedoms you enjoy. None of you have been on the battlefield, none of you have dodged bullets, none of you have attended the funerals of fallen soldiers, none of you have suffered the sorrows of war. We were and still are.
There is nothing to teach us about the horrors of war. And in the case of this writer, there is also nothing to teach about making sacrifices for peace. So when you burst into our arena as self-appointed popes who say anything to one side of our war and nothing to the other, you show your political bias. , only exposes the end of morality.
Finally, you may not remember this, but we Jews were not allowed to join the Allied Powers during World War II, when Ireland declared neutrality and despite Winston Churchill’s pleas to join the Allies. I remember rejecting it. It was more important to despise Britain than to defend justice, freedom, and human dignity, let alone the Jews.
Indeed, some Irish heroes actively collaborated with Hitler, most notably IRA chief of staff Sean Russell, and SS officer Edmund Feh, who later became one of the organizers of the extermination of Hungarian Jews. He spent three months training in Nazi Germany under Senmeyer’s tutelage.
The Irish diplomats, who had just humiliated our own players by their own players, are now picking up where Mr. Russell left off and waltzing in with jihadism, as they did then with Nazism. ing. What Dublin did at the time was a tragedy. It’s already a farce.
www.MiddleIsrael.netThe author, a fellow at the Hartman Institute, is the author of the bestseller Mitzad Ha’ivelet Ha’yehudi (Jewish Folly, Yedioth Sefarim, 2019), a revisionist historical account of Jewish political leadership. It is.