Israel’s Propaganda Campaign Against Ireland
On Sunday 15th December Israel announced that in response to the Irish government’s criticism of its conduct in waging war on the Palestinians it would close its embassy in Dublin. Following this, social media has seen wave after wave of anti-Irish sentiments from sources as varied Israeli journalists and British Jews – what business is it of theirs, anyway? – from high ranking ambassadors and lowly internet trolls. All choose to lazily repeat baseless allegations of anti-semitism in a bid to ward off distaste of most Irish people for the very real dispossession and slaughter of Palestinians.
There should be no doubt that the social media onslaught directed against Ireland is an instigated, deliberate campaign orchestrated by the Israeli state. They organise thousands of activists, journalists, and straight up military personnel to monitor and respond to any criticism, many of whom are paid while others receive copious benefits in the entirely unrelated sinecures of NGOs, etc. Only the particularly dim amongst them supply their labour in service of genocide for free.
This propaganda effort takes the usual turn when addressing criticism of Israel from Europeans: it’s anti-semitic. Further, they allege that there is an inherent anti-semitic strain that runs through Irish life. Not that there is any consistency in their accounts. For some it emanates from Christianity, for others from Irish nationalism.
The details do not matter for them because there just isn’t very much to complain about. There aren’t – and weren’t – any legal discriminations; indeed de Valera was at pains that space was carved out for Jews in the early years of independent Ireland. Nor are there is the slightest reason to think that Jews are in some way subject of informal discrimination. They certainly do not suffer from levels of poverty, homelessness, and violence that would cause concern.
No, what is occurring with the Israeli propaganda campaign is simply the weaponisation of anti-semitism, that is using people’s dislike of anti-semitism as a means to suffocate criticism of Israel. No significant Irish organisation, or even individual, even thinks negatively about Jews qua Jews, let alone instigates a social policy that would discriminate against them.
The extremely thin allegations should therefore not be treated seriously. In fact they should be treated with contempt and dismissed out of hand. If anything, the now daily wave of propaganda smearing Ireland in service of Israel should be seen as a deliberate anti-Irish strategy. The Irish government, for all its flaws, is not overseeing the colonisation and murder of tens of thousands of natives. The Israeli propaganda wave and the disappointing connivance of some Irish and British Jews in it, displays an inability to understand that the mass murder of Palestinians may, in fact, be more concerning than measured criticisms from Ireland and bespeaks to a loss of moral reasoning that foreshadows more – many more – crimes to come.
The assertion that Israel represents a safe haven for Jews and that a specifically Jewish state is required to protect Jews disregards the fact that Israel cannot survive with being propped up by the west. It does not constitute a self-reliant nation. It must always, therefore, attempt to assert domination over western countries vis–á-vis their Middle Eastern policy, hence the Zionist lobbies active in the west, not least in the overthrow of Jeremy Corbyn as leader of the British Labour Party. If active support from the west ceases, so too will Israel. This is the fundamental reason for the vehemence with which Israel is attacking the Irish people; Ireland’s policy leads inexorably to the delegitimisation of Israel’s colonial project and thence the cessation of western subsidies without which it cannot survive.
But nevertheless Israel is a powerful state. True, its power depends largely on retaining the services of the United States but it possesses a substantial influence in the heart of the Empire, far greater than the fading Irish-American (or Italian-American etc) lobbies, that enables it to fight with advanced weaponry against poorly armed militas. It also benefits from billions in subsidies and technology transfers from the west.
With some delight, their partisans, including pro-Israeli Irish writers such as David Quinn and John McGuirk, point to the vulnerability of the Irish economy if American multi-nationals wind down their presence in response to their pressure, as if they are determined to confirm the very idea they invent others of asserting. This shows the profound stupidity of placing the Irish economy in such a place of dependence on American capitalism – Israel is a vastly more powerful country than Ireland given its relationship with America.
If Ireland wants to stand with the Palestinians in the longer term, indeed with all those who oppose colonialism, it will have to rethink its economic dependence on the United States for that does not come without conditions. The Irish government, so willing to toe the liberal capitalist line on a host of issues, such as siding with Ukraine, is learning just exactly what is permitted. If Ireland wishes to exist as an independent country we need to rethink not only our approach to American foreign and cultural policy positions, but begin the process of putting the economy on an alternative economic footing. In the meantime, the pro-Israeli hysterics spouting anti-Irish nonsense on social media should be treated with derision.
Written 18th December, 2024.
