Israelis/Zionists crap themselves about success of BDS in Ireland

OK.

I am mystified as to why Israelis and their supporters, such as Mr Horowitz linked to above, are so interested in Irish attitudes to Israel. And also why so many of them seem to assume that as a country we have a dangerously hostile viewpoint towards them.

As evidence of this I can point not only to Mr Horowitz's "Ground Zero" documentary linked above but also to articles such as this one and this one both of which appeared in the Jerusalem Post, Israel's English language newspaper, in recent years.

The latter article is the one I referenced earlier about an Israeli family masquerading as Americans (which they were originally) during a holiday in Ireland because the father assumed that people would be hostile. His slightly less paranoid daughter disabused him of this. (Read the article for more)

Then of course there were the juvenile actions of the local Israeli embassy playing around with Photoshop to disseminate anti-Arab and anti-Muslim images during last year's Gaza conflict. ("What did you do in the war, Daddy?" "Meh, I fecked about heroically on my laptop")

I'm curious as to why they care.

After all, prodigious though it certainly is, ours is a tiny Jewish community. It is, so far as I can tell, well respected and rarely bothered. It has contributed out of all proportion to our cultural, political and financial life but it has never numbered more than about 5-6000 people at any one time and is now I believe less than about 2000 strong.

Our military is tiny and we are a neutral country.

Trade between Israel and Ireland is less than half a billion US$ a year, combined, according to the Israeli Ministry for Trade and Labour and is mostly taken up with elecronics and medical goods. I suspect (or surmise:)) that much of that is accounted for by the multinational sectors in either country. Intel has a strong presence in each.

We have very little real experience of antisemitism. OK so there was the Limerick Pogrom of more than 100 years ago which is a stain but it can be offset by the acknowledged support for the Jewish people from a range of prominent Irish personalities ranging from O'Connell through Michael Davitt to Eamon de Valera. (Yes. De Valera, the one who signed the Book of Condolences for Hitler. He was one of the first premiers to visit Israel after it achieved independence when few other Europeans deemed it politic to do so. While he was there he caught up with his old mate Rabbi Herzog, former Irish Chief Rabbi known as the Sinn Fein Rabbi whose son became president of Israel and whose grandson is now the leader of the opposition)

Ireland has supported Israel in the United Nations on many of the really important resolutions it faced. For example during the debate on the "zionism is racism" motion when the Israeli delegation was led by one of the aforementioned Messrs Herzog. Check out his Dublin accent



Now it's probably fair to say that a lot of Irish people, maybe even a majority, sympathise with the plight of the Palestinians. Why wouldn't we? They are the ones most wronged by the situation in Israel. They are the ones being subjected to the most ruthless heavy handed subjugation by one of the world's strongest military powers because they refuse to knuckle under to a brutal dispossession of their lands and national identity.

But that is NOT an anti semitic viewpoint. Indeed, inasmuch as Ireland recognizes Israel's existence and maintains diplomatic relations we are a pro-Zionist country. I would even argue that arriving at a just and realistic two-state solution is in Israel's long term interest because at the end of the day it doesn't matter a damn what people in small country thousands of miles away think of you; it's how you get on with your neighbours that is the only guarantee of peaceful existence.

What characterizes Irish popular attitudes to the middle east is vicariousness. Irish people don't hate Israelis, or Palestinians. Most of us don't know any Israelis or Palestinians. We hate other Irish people who hold contrary views to their own on who is more deserving of their support. A bit like hating local supporters of Manchester United or Arsenal.

The vehemence of an interest combined with total disinterest.