Ireland’s strange lack of affinity for the Jewish people

How strong an affinity is there between Ireland and the Jewish people? I would say, little enough. As a country we do not have a history of warm relations with them. We have never had a strong Jewish presence in the country. In World War 2 we did not take in many Jewish refugees (mind you, we were not alone in that), and there was quite an amount of Catholic inspired anti-Semitism in the past, although anti-Semitism was (and is) widespread in non-Catholic cultures also.

It is now one year since Hamas terrorists came over the border from Gaza into Israel intent on killing as many Jews as they could. This was not a military strike in which innocent civilians got caught up in the fighting or were near a military target. No, the direct intention was simply to kill Jewish people, and the more the better. Some died in horrific and sadistic circumstances.

The Hamas fighters live-streamed what they were doing, glorying in the killing and boasting about it. Hundreds of Israelis died at a music festival, hundreds more in nearby kibbutzes. In total, around 1,200 were killed, including soldiers and police. Many were raped. Hundreds were taken hostage.

Solidarity

You have to try and imagine something similar happening in Ireland. Imagine a large number of terrorist fighters suddenly invading the likes of Cavan and Monaghan and killing as many people as possible and in deliberately sadistic ways. And imagine if the organisation behind the killings said they wanted to do it again and again and again, as Hamas said after October 7? How would we react? How would we want our own Government to react? Certainly, we would want the threat removed.

When the massacres happened on October 7 of last year, Ireland was one of the very few countries in Europe not to display the Israeli flag with its Star of David – the symbol of the Jewish people – anywhere. It was not to be found on or near any public building, as was happening elsewhere in Europe. We must remember that this was the biggest deliberate killing of innocent Jewish people since the Holocaust and Hamas would have killed many, many more if they could. If they could, they would have driven the survivors into the sea.

We can express solidarity with the suffering of each, even though much of the time they are inflicting suffering on each other”

Instead, Palestinian flags were displayed by many. Irish Christian leaders did not seek out Jewish leaders to express public solidarity, which they did in some other countries. This was very odd, and basically indefensible. Both the Catholic and Protestant Churches tolerated, and even encouraged, too much anti-Semitism in the past so how could they not be aware of the need to express solidarity with the Jewish people in light of that history and what happened a year ago?

This is not even a question of having to choose either the Palestinian people or the Jewish people to the exclusion of the other. We can express solidarity with the suffering of each, even though much of the time they are inflicting suffering on each other.

We can condemn Israeli actions in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon while giving equal attention to the murderous activities of Hamas in Gaza, Hezbollah in Lebanon and their big backer, namely the Islamic theocracy in Iran (whose president our own President Michael D Higgins recently chose to congratulate).

The Irish feeling of solidarity with the Palestinian people is not surprising. We suffered occupation for a very long time and so we feel a natural affinity for those who are struggling for their own freedom.

Still, there are many people in the world seeking independence, for example the Uighurs and Tibetans in China, and we seem to spare no thought for them.

But we could also feel a deep affinity for the Jewish people if we chose. No people have suffered more in history. The Holocaust was merely the capstone on a very long history of persecution.

History

The Jewish people fled their homeland at the time of the Roman Empire and became homeless for almost 2,000 years. Yes, some continued to live in their ancestral home, but they had lost control over their destiny as they were flung out sometimes to the far corners of the world, always leading an extremely insecure existence, never knowing when they might be attacked and forced to move on again.

Many of the Jews who came here in the late 19th and early 20th centuries arrived from various parts of the old Russian Empire or Eastern Europe, forced out by pogroms.

If you have ever seen Fiddler on the Roof, that took place against the background of a looming new pogrom in Russia, and at the end we see Tevye and his family loading all their possessions onto their carts as they prepare to flee to America.

‘Zionism’, a now hated term associated in the minds of many people with Nazism, is simply Jewish nationalism, similar to Irish nationalism and our desire to have an independent Ireland where we could control our own destiny.

The tragedy of history is that this inevitably gave rise to a conflict between the Arabs and the Jews”

The Jews decided they need to return to their ancestral home, the ‘Promised Land’ in the Middle East because they were safe nowhere. They couldn’t even be sure, ultimately speaking, of America. Jewish people take a very long view. Even if they are safe there now, what about in 100 or 200-years-time?

Even before the Holocaust, the British, who now ruled over Palestine, had promised them a homeland based on dividing the country between the Arabs already living there and the Jews. The Holocaust gave this massive added impetus. There are many Arab and Muslim homelands, but there was no Jewish one.

Awareness

The tragedy of history is that this inevitably gave rise to a conflict between the Arabs and the Jews. Arabs did not want to have a Jewish State in their midst and so they sought repeatedly to eliminate it.

Israel for its part has often been extremely brutal towards the Palestinians and we can see this taking place now as Israel seeks to eliminate Hamas and ensure something like October 7 can never happen again. They are also seeking to remove the threat posed by the terrorist group, Hezbollah in Lebanon.

Most people still support a two-State solution. Is one possible? I don’t know. But what I do know is that Ireland needs to have a more balanced, more nuanced view of the situation in the Middle East, one that is aware of the plight of the Palestinian people but is also far more aware of the extremely vulnerable situation of the Jewish people in the past, the present day, and going forward.