Israel closing their embassy in Dublin *Read OP for Mod Warning added 19/12/24*

I don't see the economic factor being a big issue for Ireland going forward. Ireland is a small state, militarily neutral and is in no position to shape the conflict in Gaza or anywhere else. The "lobby" don't really have reason to target Ireland in all this, as we are such bit part players. We have no influence whatsoever over Trump or Starmer or the Germans in their support for Israel and don't pose much of a threat to anyone.

A curious aspect of all this is to see the likes of Ian O'Doherty, David Quinn, John McGuirk and Declan Ganley joining forces with the Ireland bashers and the 'Irish people were always closet Nazis' crowd from outside the country.

Nobody could ever accuse these guys of being Irish patriots anyway,

BiBi has been in power for over 17 years. That’s dictatorship stuff for

Dev expressed his condolences primarily for the benefit of Hempel who he felt was in a difficult position, not an ardent nazi, had conducted himself well in his position during the war (better than the American and British ambassadors), etc. It was a gaffe but nothing worth dwelling over 80 years later.

Countries on both sides of the conflict did (and said) things 1000x worse from a moral standpoint during WWII than dev driving down the road to the embassy and exchanging a few words with a diplomat. If that's the worst thing Israel can think to say about Ireland then it's fair to say we have the moral high ground.

Yes,that that is my recollection.

It was appalling what Devalera did though I believe it came from a misguided attempt to show neutrality from Britain, whom he saw as an enemy. In practice the allies were clearly favoured (look it up).

I'm not sure if any anti Semite beliefs from Devalera either - surely if he was willing to give condolences to Hitler he would have been open about any anti Jewish prejudice he had.

There are a long long list of countries who have done far far worse to prejudice the Jews, who are getting a free pass on their shameful histories as they are now supporting Israel's war. I don't believe there has been a single case of anti Semite killing in Ireland's history, though I am open to be proven wrong.

Needles to say, that was 80 years ago, and if the current iteration of the Irish government were in power back then as they are now, they would be defending Jewish human rights I the face of genocide as they are the Palestinians today.

Opinions are not facts.
A "book of condolence" never existed. No idea where your quote is from but here is the relevant portion from a comprehensive article from RTE:

"When news came through on 2 May 1945 that Hitler was dead, de Valera called on the German Minister, Eduard Hempel, ‘to offer condolences’ on his death.

Despite the popular legend, he did not sign a book of condolences, no such book existed."

Dev is one of the few Irish people honoured by the Jewish people, they planted a forest in Israeli in his name.

nor butchering hundreds civilians October 7, 2023

Double post

would be hard for Alex Ferguson to be doing that now as an octogenarian ……particularly as he appears to have some mobility issues now.

I mean, it's pretty funny though that a definition of "holding Jews collectively responsible for the actions of the state of Israel" is given for antisemitism (not unreasonably of course) — but then once you criticise Israel as a state for its actions this is also considered antisemitic because you're apparently singling out Israel as a Jewish nation. So the very thing which is considered antisemitic is used as the basis for calling everyone else antisemitic if they criticise Israel.

It's pretty convenient. Uphold a religion as an intrinsic part of a state's fabric and you can simply dismiss all criticism as being tied to hatred of that religion. We should probably consider reintroducing the Catholic Church as an intrinsic part of our state so that we can channel all criticism through a lens of anti-Catholic bigotry I guess.

There's no doubt that antisemitism exists, though Ireland is a strange place to claim that it is genuinely a forefront motivation — especially given the fact that there is a far more readily-understandable thematic historical lens for explaining Irish sympathy for Palestine. It's a definition however that's just routinely made to fit to anything that involves criticising Israel and — even though people can have double standards about any number of things — in the specific case of Israel this is (apparently) purely, inevitably, invariably and exclusively simply about hatred of Jews.

And to be fair, the Irish State's stance on Israel wasn't as resolute on this prior to this escalation. Things have escalated in the Middle East and Ireland's stance has escalated too — the former came before the latter.

Any what values might they be: genocide/ Palocost

Given that Israel’s government has decided to label our Taoiseach as “anti - Semitic” and is advocating for our loss of standing on the world stage, I would bluntly say that continuing to support them as an Irish person is treasonous. You are advocating for a state that is now directly hostile to us, and has threatened our peace keepers in Lebanon, etc.

Are these Israeli posters disingenous or ignorant of their own history? I ask because If they are calling out Irish people as terrorists supporters then they should also acknowledge that many Israelis are terrorists lovers too since people like the Irgun terrorist Yitzshak Shamir,a former prime minister of Israel,are considered heroes in Israel and celebrated for being instrumental in the state of Israel being founded.

here is a reminder of why we are critical of Israel:

70 percent of casualties in Gaza are women and children.

There are tens of thousands of Palestinians under the rubble that will never be identified.

There are Palestinians who were killed by 2000lb bombs dropped on crowded refugee camps.

We had Mark Regev admit this tactic would not be used in Tel Aviv to kill Hamas fighters.

The IDF murdered a little girl, alone and terrified in a car, surrounded by her dead family. They proceeded to kill the medics that came to help her

The IDF sniped nuns, Journalists, children, aid workers .

The IDF killed civilians carrying white flags, fleeing to positions they were told were safe

The IDF have deliberately withheld food. You may remember David Cameron got into a dispute with an Israeli spokesman for Bibi over the issue. The spokesman was subsequently fired over it.

We have had numerous incitement to hatred comments and comments that could be construed as calls for ethnic cleansing from some Israeli governments ministers.

A former Israeli defense minister has even denounced what is going on in Northern Gaza as war crimes.

The IDF murdered three of their own hostages who were surrendering

The IDF sniped sheep- and laughed about doing iso.

Medics have been murdered.

Palestinians have been used as human shields by the IDF- we have seen videos of it happening.

Very sick children have been refused access to medical care in neighbouring countries.

This is a pattern of behavior that has been going on long before the Gaza war.

We see very few IDF members prosecuted over these crimes.

So this is why we are critical of Israel. You can continue to portray it as unfair bashing, but I bet in this post if I substituted Russia in Ukraine for Israel ,you wouldn't describe it all as bashing of Russia- you'd likely be saying the criticism was more than merited.

We have already established in this thread that Ireland does indeed criticise other nations for human rights abuses. So with this in mind, why should Israel get a pass, Bren?