International Zionism Declares War on Ireland

Ireland recently spent a week under sustained rhetorical fire from international Zionism. If that seems a bit obscure allow me the chance to explain it and from there try to convey why it matters. I think a great deal of Ireland’s post-boomer political fate will rest upon whether or not tests such as this can be passed. Many western countries face a similar challenge but Ireland might occupy a somewhat specific and pronounced position in this regard for several interesting reasons so it’s worth paying attention to.

It began on October 7th with the release of a report entitled “Anti-Semitism in Ireland – an exclusive report on anti-Jewish hatred” by controversial Zionist activist David Collier. The report itself is reminiscent of the Pepe Silvia meme whereby a neurotic conspiracist demonstrates his theory with paper clippings connected by strings on a corkboard. 200 pages of tweets and Facebook posts from the last 10 years he “analysed” and found offensive, ergo Irish people should have their right to oppose Zionism reined in. That’s it in a nutshell. You’d be forgiven for being amused at a blogger thinking his swivel-eyed internet collage could have that kind of impact. More likely his identitarian “Protocols of the Internet Posters of Éire” would get 110 clicks and never be heard of again, but au contraire it had the red carpet rolled out to a symphony of vitriolic international Zionism and media.

In the days following this, an ostensibly separate scandal ‘emerged’ in both Irish and international media as bestselling Irish author Sally Rooney was put on blast by international Zionists for refusing to allow her latest book to be translated into Hebrew. This was of course a malicious lie to start with as in fact she was simply adhering to her BDS principles by not allowing a specific Israeli publishing house to translate her book for their alleged failure to actively support Palestinian human rights. The vast majority of people, especially Irish people rowed in behind Rooney including Sinn Féin parliamentary representative and former mayor of Derry City Maolíosa Mc Hugh, tweeting; “Maith thú (well done) Sally Rooney. The Irish people are behind you all the way and support your courageous stand in solidarity with the people of Palestine”. Others were less enthusiastic, such as Zionist former politician in Ireland Alan Shatter who wrote that Rooney’s position “uncomfortably mirrors the anti-Semitic language of 1930s Germany and that of some of the most extreme Irish anti-Semites exposed in David Collier’s disturbing recently published Report on Anti-Semitism in Ireland.” That’s almost as dramatic as another Israel advocate who suggested the author should have a steel rod shoved up her rectum, while CEO of the ADL Jonathan Greenblatt was more diplomatic simply advising that “she should reverse this decision”.

So what is this all about? Is it just an independent report blowing in the wind aiming to promote universal understanding and tolerance, and an isolated hubbub about a minor book translation and how it relates to a far-off geopolitical dispute? Far from it. These two “stories” simply set the stage of a rapidly brewing cold war between Irish populism and international Zionism. It goes as follows: the unstoppable forces of Irish discontent and populism have converged on Sinn Féin who will inevitably become the ruling government party, it’s only a matter of time. Anti-Zionism or at least ardent support for the Palestinian cause is an uncontroversial cultural norm in Ireland generally, and an integral aspect of modern Sinn Féin. International Zionism can arguably tolerate this cultural norm or at least chip away at it slowly, but the prospect of that culture seizing control of a significant albeit small western nation state via a populist government – intolerable. Something has to give. After successfully butchering the UK Labour party it might seem like a simple matter of rinse and repeat with Sinn Féin. But are the situations the same? Stay tuned, but for now let’s return to the recent week-long anti-Irish hate campaign, this time taking a wider view.

So we start the clock earlier now, two days before Collier’s so-called report, on October 5th with the publishing of a document from Strasbourg entitled: “COMMUNICATION FROM THE COMMISSION TO THE EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, THE COUNCIL, THE EUROPEAN ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL COMMITTEE AND THE COMMITTEE OF THE REGIONS - EU Strategy on Combating anti-Semitism and Fostering Jewish Life (2021-2030)”.  Given that the European Commission is an unelected effectively anonymous and alien ruling high table, that capitalised title has an unmistakably Bolshevik ring to it doesn’t it?

So here we can see the literal agenda is for states regardless of Government or politics or democratic mandate to “design and implement national strategies” which will be assessed in 2023 whereby member states are ‘encouraged’ to adopt and use the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, and appoint special envoys. IHRA.. now why does that ring a bell? Ah yes, it was Collier who in wrapping up his report says: “At the very least, Ireland should adopt the IHRA Definition of anti-Semitism and ensure that the message is carried through to every political and educational institution.” Or was it the Israeli embassy in Ireland in apparent dismay at Collier’s mean tweet collage also called on “all political parties and both Houses of the Oireachtas to immediately adopt the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism.” Or was it Maurice Cohen, chairman of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland which is the Irish affiliate of the World Jewish Congress and the main body of representation for the Irish Jewish community who requested the same, presumably to assuage his shock having seen Collier’s bombshell report. Or was it the Simon Wiesenthal Centre who the same day tweeted: “Ireland’s ongoing anti-Semitism says much about the stain of its anti-Semitic past. What it does about #IHRA will tell the world about its future!” That sure is an interesting way of putting it.

I’ll return to the IHRA definition in a moment because that really is the crux of the matter but let’s complete the timeline while we’re at it. We had a brief respite on October 9th with Tyson Fury’s crushing KO victory until the Sally Rooney nonsense began the following day. Then on the 12th the European Jewish Association’s Jewish leaders meeting in Brussels was held and attended by none other than a columnist for Gript, Ireland’s own supposed edgy right wing publication. The columnist in question, a gay neoconservative who actress Maia Dunphy one likened to a ventriloquist’s dummy had the following to say, tweeting: “Today I’m attending the European Jewish Association’s Jewish leaders meeting in Brussels for @griptmedia. Rocketing anti-Semitism in Europe is top of the agenda, which—in light of David Collier’s report on Ireland last week—makes me ashamed to be Irish.” We’re ashamed you’re Irish too Killian.

Heading due north-east, the following day October 13th was the Malmö International Forum on Holocaust Remembrance and Combating anti-Semitism, attended by a slew of world leaders such as Justin Trudeau and our very own Taoiseach Micheál Martin who referring to a planned Irish censorship law promised his audience “It will also create a new offence of denying, or grossly trivialising, crimes of genocide, including Holocaust denial.” Why do I get the feeling that under this law we could  ‘get away with’ denying our holocaust the Irish famine, or disputing literally any other historical event.. Regardless, that sure was a well-timed report by ‘independent researcher’ Collier wasn’t it, and so lucky to get such coverage. What a week!

Returning to this business of IHRA. What is it? The acronym is International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance and it’s an organisation that “unites governments and experts” whatever that means, to pursue its agenda. We’re specifically talking about the IHRA’s controversial definition of anti-Semitism, which has an interesting background largely stemming from a global anti-racism conference in Durban in 2001 whereby nations of the world seemed to form a consensus that while America and Europe may indeed be racist, the cutting edge most oppressive objectively racist state was in fact, Israel. Whoops! That’s not how it’s meant to work, they said, and so criticism of Israel now had to be included in the anti-Semitism definition.

Zionists argue their definition still leaves room to criticise their colonial statelet if done correctly. Critics say it can be applied and interpreted in such a way you can’t say the state of Israel is racist, advocate for BDS, call it apartheid or advocate for Palestinian right of return because that would threaten Israel’s “Jewish nature” and therefore be a form of anti-Semitism.. It’s all a bit technical and tedious, I think intentionally so. One minute it matters so little you may as well just sign it who cares, but politely refuse and the fainting couch comes out. Suddenly it’s the most important thing in the world. I’ve even heard them say that hesitation or refusal to sign it based on a concern that it could have a chilling effect on free speech is itself anti-Semitic!

The basic idea is that you’re permitted to critique Israel’s individual policies in a ‘normal’ way without demonising its very existence. So for example you might say this or that action or policy is racist, but you can’t say Israel is a fundamentally racist endeavour or entity. And yet how would Zionists feel about applying the IHRA definition to European nation states and the new world? Think about it - to call Ireland or let’s say the US fundamentally racist would then officially be anti-white or anti-Irish hate speech, and to advocate for policies that would undermine our “European nature” or put us at risk of becoming a minority in our own countries would be officially hate speech and quasi-genocidal. What would Zionists say to that? What would Jonathan Greenblatt say? Or the Simon Wiesenthal Centre? They’d call you Nazi for even thinking about it and probably try to get you fired from your job, but guess what else constitutes anti-Semitism per the IHRA definition – comparing Israel to Nazism or fascism in any way. Can you hear the circus music intensifying or is it just me?

The whole reason they want everyone signed up the IHRA is that when you criticise Israel they won’t have to cast aspersions on your character, they can simply point you to IHRA with a reminder “you yourself say you’re being anti-Semitic look you signed right here.” You’re now an officially labelled anti-Semite, a fate apparently worse than death.

Following the UK general election of December 2019, all 650 MPs were asked to sign a declaration agreeing to adhere to the ICHR declaration of anti-Semitism. 641 of the 650 MPs agreed to sign which included seventeen out of 18 Muslim MPs with the exception of the Labour Party’s Tahir Ali and Grahame Morris. The only political party that refused to sign the declaration was Sinn Féin; with their block of 7 MPs. So how will Sinn Féin cope when put on the spot with anti-Semitism accusations while being leaned on to sign the IHRA? Turns out we do have one previous example to go by, and actually they didn’t do too badly.

Not long after Sinn Féin’s aforementioned failure to pledge allegiance, in February 2020 a scandal ‘emerged’ when it became known that newly elected Sinn Féin TD for Kildare Réada Cronin had years previously posted tweets containing wrongthink. This included tweets from 2012 suggesting fluoridated drinking water makes people docile. Apparently to suggest such a thing is now immoral for some unexplained reason. Not quite as immoral though as sort of half saying the European powers that fought each other in World War 2 were funded by Rothchild banks. Sounds like the harmless rambling of a stoner sitting in an inflatable blue armchair to me, but what do I know.

The ‘story’ was broken by Gript (Gript again perhaps we can see a pattern emerging) after which she deleted her account and apologised “unreservedly and wholeheartedly”. The following days saw excited coverage from every mainstream Irish newspaper and several British ones.

Remember Maurice Cohen of the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland? He said “unfortunately too many people in Ireland have an opinion on everything, whether or not they have any knowledge of the particular subject on which they are commenting” oozing contempt. “A little education on what constitutes anti-Semitism would go a long way to correcting this problem. To that end, we would urge Sinn Féin and other political parties to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA) working definition of anti-Semitism”. Alan Shatter like a bee to honey also had something to say, bloodlessly calling for the mother of four to be expelled from the party and investigated by the police.

Alas, Cronin did not face reprimand or expulsion from Sinn Féin despite pressure. Deputy leader Pearse Doherty offered enjoyably dry sparse commentary “I haven’t seen the comments from Réada”…“they are not in keeping with Sinn Féin Policy”. Party leader Mary Lou Macdonald in noting that she thinks anti-Semitism is wrong added: “I say this as somebody who has a very strong political position and this party has very strong views and positions as regards to the Middle East and the Palestinian people in particular. But that’s a whole different kettle of fish from any suggestion of anti-Semitism”.

In April of this year Sinn Féin opposed a DUP IHRA anti-Semitism definition Assembly motion which was proposed one week after headstones of ten graves in the Jewish section of Belfast City Cemetery were damaged in an alleged anti-Semitic hate crime.

So what does the future hold? In a way it’s an uphill battle for both sides of this ‘disagreement’ in my opinion. On one hand you have the international Zionist lobby with influence via America and the European Commission as we see with the ominous Oct 5th Strasbourg protocol. We also know they’re more than capable of bringing down a party as demonstrated by the UK Labour coup – yet I can’t imagine such a campaign playing out as successfully here in Ireland. For starters, Ireland’s Zionist population is much smaller. We don’t have private Shomrim militias prowling the streets of Dublin for example or particularly vocal civil society groups.

The way we look at it, there is neither philo-Semitism nor anti-Semitism in daily Irish life or the cultural space, and therein lies the problem for Zionists. If you’re familiar with the work of sociologist Ronit Lentin, one of the founding pioneers of the concept of racism in Ireland, you’ll know that when she was originally trying to crack the nut in the 1990s, her qualm was less about racism itself per say but with an Irish self-perception, whereby a degree of ethnonationalism was a baseline unconscious assumption - and yet from our point of view we weren’t racist because we didn’t hate or define individuals by their race. We would get along with anyone provided there was mutual respect, so how could we be racist?

But in order to radically transform the country, that old software would first need radical upgrading. The same is now true for managing Irish views on Israel. It requires a baseline Pavlovian consciousness around anti-Semitism which simply doesn’t exist in Ireland, and that I think is where the frustration lies. Here’s one Israel-defender struggling with it in a way that is very typical: “The conversation about anti-Semitism in Ireland is therefore at a reasonably elementary state. In fact the conversation itself is generally silenced. Such that I imagine that if anybody from Ireland reads this post it will be dismissed before the end of the headline… …Since modern Jewish history in Ireland began, many of that community’s leaders have been happily telling the world that there is ‘no anti-Semitism’ in Ireland. This is a claim that I always felt was flatly absurd. When I had the temerity to suggest that it might be nothing more than a convenient falsehood I was often told that I was imagining things”.

The main reason I can’t see Sinn Féin being Kier Starmered though, is a lack of sufficient political cultural bifurcation in Ireland. There is no comparison with the partisan Democrat/Republican culture of America for example or the British Tory/Labour divide, further enhanced by the Brexit question. That ingredient was crucial to burying Corbynite Labour and therefore populist anti-Zionism in Britain. I can’t imagine the average Labour voter or member was actually moved by breathless media coverage about how a friend of a friend of Jeremy Corbyn’s neighbour was in a Facebook group 10 years ago where someone said Israel is an apartheid state. Nor can I imagine the average Tory voter actually cared, but in a partisan culture you’ll use whatever stick is handed to you to beat your perceived enemy with. Ascendant Tories were half of the population willing to play along with the fainting couch game about supposed anti-Semitism, especially when they realised it could actually get them scalps. Finally a way to cancel the cancellers!

Ireland in my opinion does not have that element. Fine Fail and Fine Gael (FFG) are a conjoined stale legacy party whose remaining constituents include boomers and anyone else economically comfortable and secure, two dying breeds it’s fair to say. They carry out a standard technocratic multinational capitalism with a HR department social agenda while wearing a suit and sometimes allude to themselves as right-wing. No one really believes them on that though, or cares. The only Fine Gael culture I can discern is a few homosexual Eurovision enthusiasts, landlords and a certain type of wine aunt. Meanwhile Sinn Féin are perceived as populist, energetic, young and sort of edgy in a way. They unfortunately do a bit too much BLM and trans nonsense although most voters don’t think of them as *that* kind of left, more the kind of left that stands up to the banks and multinationals.

For Zionists to have any purchase or clout in our internal discourse, that dynamic would need to change. It would require Sinn Féin to fully entrench themselves as the party of open borders and globohomo or cartoonish ‘wokism’ lets say, and for FFG especially as opposition to cast themselves as Boris Johnson-esque anti-woke and anti-socialist while making empty gestures to Catholics and empty dog whistles to nationalists with perhaps a bit of pro-fossil fuel or even anti-lockdown for good measure. That is the only way I think the latter could secure an activist base which is necessary for international Zionism to make their cancellation of the other side appear somewhat legitimate and organic. I just hope Ireland is small and personal enough with our own internal dynamic so that we can resist this process. Sinn Féin would need to avoid becoming like either the American DSA or sniveling bullshitters like Paul Murphy. Err instead toward George Galloway, as much as can be gotten away with under the NGOcracy.

The Irish right should in my estimation always side with Sinn Féin on the question of Zionism, even if we don’t like a lot of what they advocate for these days. If you’re truly ambivalent about Zionism or Palestine, be ambivalent. That’s perfectly normal. Just don’t get caught up in the trap of being Zionist yourself to spite your perceived compatriot opponents. It’s all too common on the right from Italy to Brasil to America to England. I may as well just say that I suspect the prospective vehicle for such machinations would have something to do with John McGuirk and Gript, although I must note there are several writers for Gript I love to read and whom I know have their hearts in the right place.

That brings me in wrapping up to the final question – why care about this at all? Why not take advantage of a chance to demonise Sinn Féin when they wouldn’t hesitate to demonise us? Why not just be ambivalent about the IHRA? Who cares if we can’t criticise Israel?

The first reason I’ve touched on already - how the Zionist lobby distorts politics in the west. The takeover and purge of the Labour party I think will have unfortunate knock-on effects for the British political landscape. Galloway was recently trying to fill the gap with his excellent Batley and Spen campaign of a hybrid left-right politicking. Which special interest group do you think was most influential in generating a vicious smear campaign against his run? Or look at the United States with their regime change wars in the Middle East, and Trump who got more done for Israel than he ever did his heartland voters.

I just think it would be a very unfortunate thing if Sinn Féin become the next Labour which clearly starts with them taking a backstep on the IHRA question. Also, at a basic level I think Sinn Fein or any Irish party or individual Irish person is entitled to have whatever opinion they damned want to have about Israel. Just as an Israeli in Israel is at liberty to take whatever position they like on Ireland and vote for a Government with the same view if they want to. It’s perfectly normal to reject interlopers dictating what you can and can’t say in your own country on behalf of a foreign state.

My second reason is international reputation. Ireland has a great reputation worldwide. We can travel virtually anywhere and receive a warm welcome. Taking orders from a rogue state won’t do that any favours. Look at the harm it’s done to America’s reputation. No thanks. Irish people are respected for example in Lebanon where 47 of our peacekeeping soldiers were killed and some tortured by militias financed, armed and trained by Israel. In a letter dated March 23, 1989 Lebanon defense minister Adel Osseyran writing to his Irish counterpart said: “Whilst offering my sincerest condolences to you and the Irish people, I would like, at the same time, to affirm the deepest attachment of the Lebanese to these forces. We highly appreciate their presence on our soil, their efforts and the sacrifices they make.” That’s from the heart, and the kind of reciprocal relationship and diplomacy Ireland should cherish. No Lebanese ever told me what I can and can’t say in my own country.

My third reason is plainly sympathy for the Palestinians. We in Ireland have for centuries been subjugated, displaced, replaced and occupied in our own country and it occurs in a different way still today– but it’s currently nothing compared to the discrimination and indignity Palestinians must endure on a daily basis under the boot of Jewish supremacy. To this day we are told there is “no such thing” as Irish people much like Zionists say with a straight face there is no such thing as Palestinians.

My final reason is the coordinated hate campaign launched against Ireland in the last few weeks. The irony of Collier’s ‘report’ and Zionists crying about Irish people conflating Israeli policy and the actions of a some Israelis with all Jews while claiming the Irish are horrible and hateful and “get anti-Semitism with their mother’s milk” is too much. Here’s a small sample of the vile Hibernophobic hate speech that Collier’s report unleashed.

Will the Israeli government condemn this Hibernophobia? Will they sign a very specific definition of our choosing on what constitutes Hibernophobia? Will they come up with a national plan to combat Hibernophobia in every Israeli institution at every level? Will they fund organisations to monitor incidences of Hibernophobic hate speech and NGOs to educate their people including their children on Irish suffering and how to recognise Hibernophobia? Will they attend international conferences on combatting vile Zionist Hibernophobia globally? Will Alan Shatter and Maurice Cohen get on board?

Honour and glory to Commandant Seán Russell and all our patriot dead. Free Palestine. Tiocfaidh ár lá.

Social media and donation links