Israel’s embassy in Ireland got itself in hot water for an inflammatory posting on its Facebook page that embarrassed the Jewish state. The post stated that were Jesus and Mary alive today and walking around Bethlehem without security, they would be lynched as Jews by the Palestinians. When a controversy over the post ensued, it was soon deleted and an apology was issued. But the Dublin embassy is not getting off so easy. The New York Times quoted Haaretz’s diplomatic correspondent as reporting that this was just the latest though most egregious example of an aggressive stance taken by Israel’s envoys in Ireland. Apparently the embassy is guilty of speaking of Irish anti-Israel activists. It even had the temerity to re-post a satirical video about Irish media bias against Israel by the Latma comedy troupe.
All of this has brought down the opprobrium of Haaretz and the Times on the Dublin embassy. The Times even closed its piece on the subject by quoting a Palestinian response to the posting about Jesus and Mary that said that Christmas is freely celebrated in Bethlehem each year. But that remark, as well as much of the criticism of the supposedly undiplomatic behavior of the envoys, is off the mark. As much as it might have been wiser for anyone connected to the Israeli government to avoid any mention of the holy family or Christmas, their “offensive” post was primarily guilty of doing the one thing that diplomats are generally urged to avoid: telling the truth.
As the Times notes, Ireland has become a hotbed of anti-Israel incitement in the past few decades. Though Irish independence fighters and Jews struggling to free their ancient homeland once identified with each other due to their common British foe, the Irish Catholics now seem to identify more with the Palestinians while it is the Ulster Protestants who think of Israel as a role model for survival as a minority in a hostile environment. The Irish media is well known for its anti-Israel bias and agitation against the Jewish state that seems to be louder and nastier than in even neighboring Britain.
Perhaps that’s why Israel’s Dublin embassy has come to the reasonable conclusion that it needs to stop playing defense when it comes to correcting misperceptions about the Middle East conflict. In too many instances, Israeli diplomats and spokespersons have avoided getting into scrapes but in the process failed to adequately defend their country at a time when a rising tide of anti-Semitism has distorted the debate about the Middle East conflict in Europe.
More to the point, the embassy’s Facebook comments about Jesus, Mary and Bethlehem actually were very much to the point in dealing with that troubling trend. For decades, the Palestinian leadership has sought to portray Arabs as the true descendants of the biblical Jews. That serves the double purpose of delegitimizing Zionism and Israel while also allowing them to play upon the sympathies of Christians. Modern Christianity has embraced the notion that Jesus was a Jew as part of an effort to move away from a tradition of theology-driven anti-Semitism. But the Palestinians want you to buy into the anti-historical concept that Jesus was Palestinian rather than a Jew.
It should also be stated that the post did no more than state the obvious when it noted that Jews without security in Palestinian Authority-ruled Bethlehem are at grave risk. Indeed, Rachel’s Tomb, which is located outside the town, is often besieged by violent Palestinians seeking to take over that Jewish shrine.
In raising the subject, the embassy did the unthinkable and told the truth about Palestinian violence and prejudice. While that might have been considered undiplomatic, that is something that more Israeli diplomats as well as members of the media ought to be doing more often.
As Muhammed Ali said n n'It ain't braggin' if it's true"
That's the problem with Ali and other blowhards — bragging is bragging even if it is true.
Excellent and remarkable post for anyone who has ever met Israeli diplomats abroad, most of whom are anything but proud exponents of Israel and of Judaism. Many actually seem to be sympathizers of Meretz or other leftist groups, which is probably the reason they have chosen foreign service, allowing them to spend ever less time in Israel. My favorite is Mordichai Levy, the current ambassador to the Vatican, who publicly called Pope Pius XII a friend of the Jews and who on a visit to the Bologna synagogue said American Evangelical Christians supporting Israel should not be trusted; far preferable he said were Catholics. He also condemned those Jews expelled from Gush Katif saying they had ripped off Israel and were never satisfied no matter how much money they received from the state. Again, with diplomats like these Israel would be better off without any diplomatic staff. Let's hope in the future we see more of the kind currently manning the fortress in Dublin. For this small change we should probably thank Avigdor Liberman, who has waged war against the far-leftists and anti-Zionists controlling the Israeli Foreign Ministry internal bureaucracy, much as they control almost every Israeli government ministry.
Since the PA took over Bethlehem the population has increased, but the percentage of Christians has dropped from 60% to 15%.
You have to understand that the anti-Semitic goyim in Europe don't care one whit about the deplorable conditions of Christians everywhere in the Islamic world; their only concern is hounding Jews and driving them from their homeland. That is what it is all about. All the rest is commentary.
Real problem here is that Facebook posts and Twitter tweets are too easy to slap down or get indignant about. They are a weak and ephemeral form of communication. Far better for the embassy to make a well argued, tough speech about this subject and avoid cutesy little phrases that can get easy re-tweeted with invective poured on top. Facebook and Twitter are like throwing bean bags at your opponents. Better to hit them with a really hard stick, after a good long wind up, and with strong follow through. But diplomats (and others) are fallling prey to the temptation to just "post" on Facebook or "tweet" on Twitter. I'm afraid that you have to play this game with a bit more gusto.
Good point. They should also be doing weekly releases detailing Palestinian incitement and hatred.
Irish Catholic-Jewish relations follow a pattern and Irish Catholic racism and antisemitism did not begin yesterday. n nRecall that Oliver Cromwell who called Irish Catholics "monkeys with tails" and piled up Catholic bodies in Ireland in numbers Catholics claim ran into the "millions" was a friend to the Jews. Happily, the ugly portrait of Cromwell by playwright Robert Bolt in "A Man For All Seasons" has been corrected by Hilary Mantel in her more sympathetic novel "Wolf Hall" and its sequel "Bring Up The Bodies." n nRecall that the Irish Catholics sided with Hitler and the Nazis–overtly in Ireland and more covertly here in the United States where they filled out the ranks of the American-German Bund. Recall Irish Catholic Father Charles Coughlin who dominated hate radio in the 1930s and is remembered for statements like, "When we get through with the Jews in America, they'll think the treatment they received in Germany was nothing." n nFortunately for the Jews, Irish Catholic hatred was limited to invective–by the English in Europe and by a Protestant majority here in the United States. African Americans were not nearly so lucky. Recall that the worst racial incident in American history did not occur in the South but on the island of Manhattan in New York. n nDuring the the Civil War Draft Riots, 70,000 armed and organized Irish Catholics rose in open rebellion against the Union, raised Confederate flags over New York and rampaged unchecked for three days, hunting down, beating, lynching and mutilating every black man, woman and child–most of them ex slaves–they could lay their hands on. n nThe horror of such events is found in the details. After blacks were beaten and hung from lamp-posts by the drunken Irish men, their drunken colleens had their turn for fun. The Irish Catholic harpies cut hundreds of pockets into the flesh of the victims, filled the pockets with lamp oil and turned the suspended naked black bodies into human candelabras around which mobs of drunken Irish Catholic witches orgiastically danced and reeled. n nWhen Union troops–fresh from the horrors of Gettysburgh–arrived to to quell the rioting, the Irish Catholic mob slaughtered them as well and mutilated their corpses. (It is a little remarked fact, too, that the assassination of Abraham Lincoln was a Catholic plot.) n nIn a politically correct time Americans like to forget such things. The patriotic Nineteenth Century Protestants who opposed Irish Catholic immigration are remembered for ignorant bigots. In movies like "The Gangs of New York" the Protestants are the heavies while the Irish Catholics are portrayed as their heroic victims. To ingratiate the Catholic gangsters with modern moviegoers, Scorsese even goes so far as to place a black man in the Irish gang. n nJesuit trained Scorsese's portraiture here as elsewhere is ahistoric and deliberately false. A more absurd notion than a black man in an Irish Catholic gang of that period is hard to Imagine. No African American was welcome in an American Catholic Church until the second decade of the Twentieth Century. n nAnd Irish Catholic bigotry extended to Scorsese's people, Italian Americans, as well. In Boston, Italian Catholics were compelled to build their own churches because they were unwelcome in Irish Catholic Churches where the Holy Father in Rome was referred to as the "Dago Pope." Late Nineteenth and early Twentieth Century pulp fiction is filled tales of with manly Irish Catholic heroes who fight honorably with their fists against sneaky "olive skinned" Italians armed with "shivs." O. Henry turned out story after story in this vein. n nIrish Catholic sympathy and identification with Muslim Jew haters is entirely consistent and predictable. n n n n
A good account but some other facts make Irish anti-Semitism and pro-Nazi fervor a little more nuanced. Although Irish President Eamon insisted on regularly sending Hitler birthday cards and had his ambassador in Berlin convey condolence on his suicide in 1945, tens of thousands of Irish from the Republic did cross the Irish Sea to enroll in the British Army and fight the Krauts. Dublin also had a Jewish mayor. And when Conor Cruize O'Brian was editor of the Irish Times, the paper was quite sympathetic to Israel. On the other hand, you did fail to mention that the last pogrom in western Europe occurred on Irish soil in Limerick in 1904.
Is pogrom the right word? That's what it is called but, compared to the Russian version, it was a small event. Several other facts should be noted: n n1. Nobody was killed. Actually no Jew has ever been killed in Ireland because of his or her religion (the IRA killed a Jewish businessman along with numerous Catholic and Protestant businessmen). n n2. The event was condemned by John Redmond, the leader of the largest political party in the country and by Michael Davitt, a writer and activist who did much to publicize the Russian pogroms. n n3. The priest who instigated the attacks was exiled.
'Recall that Oliver Cromwell who called Irish Catholics "monkeys with tails" and piled up Catholic bodies in Ireland in numbers Catholics claim ran into the "millions" was a friend to the Jews. Happily, the ugly portrait of Cromwell by playwright Robert Bolt in "A Man For All Seasons" has been corrected by Hilary Mantel in her more sympathetic novel "Wolf Hall" and its sequel "Bring Up The Bodies." ' n nThat paragraph may cause some confusion. I have not read either of Hilary Mantel's books about Thomas Cromwell but I doubt if they feature much about his sister's descendant Oliver Cromwell. That would hardly be historically authentic now, would it? n nBTW Ireland did NOT side overtly with Hitler and the Nazis but that's a long story.
Monkeys with tails? I thought monkeys had tails? It would make more sense to say 'monkeys without tails'. Still highly insulting, mind, but more sense in that.
Good Lord but this is such hysterical nonsense.
Don't Israeli embassies post the excellent videos that Ayalon made for that purpose? n nI like Latma, but you really do have to be Jewish to get the satire. n nThe embassy in Ireland should just post Pat Condell's videos.
"When a controversy over the post ensued, it was soon deleted and an apology was issued." n nIf something is followed by a deletion and apology, it should never have been published in the first place.
Or, the deletion and apology should have never been made.
I sincerely hope that this is just beginning. Let Israel's diplomats plop good ones like this one after the other, grin sheepishly and apologize…and then do it again and again. It will make the antisemites nuts and while the weak-kneed brigade sweats over such "undiplomatic" behaviour which could never have worked so wonderfully under the fist of the old media and would be pointless in the halls of the UN, thousands have now been introduced to a topic worthy of examination. And there are many more topics.
I don't see why Israel shouldn't do and say exactly what it wants to: the entire world is against it no matter what. the world yawned while rockets rained down from Gaza; but when Israel decided to fight back, it was suddenly a human rights crisis. the world yawned when Meshaal went to Gaza and confirmed that destroying the evil Zionists was still #1 on his bucket list. but the Jew-haters are up in arms because someone in Ireland said something that offended the Pals? oh my goodness.
A few more words about pogroms. This from Wiki: n n'The word pogrom originally derives from the Russian verb u0433u0440u043eu043cu0438u0301u0442u044c (Russian pronunciation: [u0261ru0250u02c8mu02b2itu02b2]), meaning "to destroy, to wreak havoc, to demolish violently,"[10] and its "international currency dates back to the anti-Semitic excesses in Tsarist Russia during the years 1881–1883."[11] The word may have come into English and European languages from the Yiddish word u05e4u05d0u05b8u05d2u05e8u05d0u05b8u05dd as a loanword from Russian.[12] It gained widespread currency through the writings of Irish journalist Michael Davitt in his coverage of the Kishinev pogrom.[citation needed]' n nOne usual feature is that the state seems to approve of the violence and does nothing to stop it. In the case of Limerick, three key institutions, the British government in Ireland, the Irish Parliamentary Party and Catholic Church showed that they did NOT approve of what happened. This deplorable event is thus better classified as a sectarian attack rather than a true pogrom. n n
Only group I know of to sponsor a college with a sports team known as the "Fighting Irish," and a proud tradition of fierceness. As a college football fan, I never really understood this very much. I was shocked to go to a game on their campus in 1988 when they played the mostly black Miami team, the campus and fans were adorned with T-shirts and signs showing their deep hate. Maybe it's all coming together after reading your comments.
Supporters of the Palestinians incessantly conflate religion and politics in their propaganda around Christmas. For example, Palestine Solidarity organisations sell Christmas cards showing Mary arrested by Israeli soldiers, the Three wise men blocked by the security fence etc. It is only right and proper that the embassy in Dublin started hitting back, using the tactics of their opponents. Why not?