Stars of David in a dark sky

When Bono of U2 tweaked the lyrics of the song ‘Pride’ a year ago in the wake of the massacre of young people at a music festival in Israel he came in for immense criticism. “Early morning, October 7, the sun is rising in the desert sky. Stars of David, they took your life but they could not take your pride.”  For many the horror of that event was to be equivocated, dismissed or even justified and yet for those who know peace and decency in their hearts there was only innocent young people celebrating life and youth when all the politics and lies and whataboutery is stripped away, young people who had every right to live and not be slaughtered.

Our President Michael D Higgins has not equivocated.  He wrote on social media this week: “The month of October is and will always be a month full of sorrow for so many families.

It will include those innocent people, so many of them young people, horrifically murdered by Hamas while attending the Supernova Sukkot Gathering music festival in Israel on October 7, the outrageous killing and brutal assault, including sexual assault, of so many others, and the taking of hostages, the anxiety for the safety of so many of whom is permanently in the hearts of their families.”

There is a growing antisemitism in Europe and America, and yes, here in Ireland. Outrage at Israel for the civilian toll the war has taken is justified.  Yet only a fool would think that there is not something a lot more sinister at play in a lot of the more forceful criticism, that is in fact undisguised hatred.  This is not new since October last year, it has been growing.

In 2013 the now late Rabbi Lord Jonathan Sacks gave a speech that the “never again” of the Holocaust was beginning to sound like “ever again”.  He said: “And at the heart of it is hostility to Israel. Of course, not all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. But make no mistake what has happened. In the Middle Ages Jews were hated because of their religion. In the 19th century and the 20th, they were hated because of their race. Today, when it’s no longer done to hate people for their religion or their race — today they are hated because of their State. The reason changes, but the hate stays the same. Anti-Zionism is the new anti-Semitism.”

He went on: “Friends, anti-Zionism is today rife throughout the world. All our students on campuses know about it. And what is our crime? What is Israel’s crime? It’s that we have chutzpah. Let me tell you the chutzpah we have. After all, there are 56 Islamic states. There are 125 nations whose majority is Christian. And now Jews want a State of their own. How dare they?  Friends, we dare because we are human. We dare because to be denied the right to self-defense is to be treated as less than human.”

Speaking in 2013 he predicted: “Today, the struggle against Israel is no longer just against Israel. Today what is at stake in Israel’s survival is the future of freedom itself. Because make no mistake, this will be the defining battle of the 21st century.”

“How likely is it that after 2,000 years of exile our people should have come back to our land and there in — having stood eyeball to eyeball in Auschwitz a mere three years earlier, eyeball to eyeball with the Angel of Death, in 1948 said, despite the worst crime of man against man, lo amut kiechyeh – “I will not die but I will live?” Israel is the greatest collective affirmation of life in the whole of Jewish history.”

Let us pray for peace among the children of Abraham.