Collier noted that the British and Scottish governments are "relatively" pro-Israel, moderating the antisemitic elements in their societies. In contrast, the Irish government, in a "top- down approach," actively encourages "anti-Israel activism" and has legislated in favor of the Boycott, Divest and Sanction movement (BDS) against Israel. Collier said there is even a "sitting Irish politician" who "liked" a Facebook post saying, "Hitler wasn't wrong." Collier was further shocked that "not a single newspaper" would report on the politician's action because "the media is also extremely hostile to Zionism [and] the state of Israel."
Collier said that the problem encompasses Ireland's members of parliament as well as its media, where any antisemitism from the left is compartmentalized and attributed to "anti-Zionism." The only antisemitism the media will report on is from "the hard right." He raised the example of Alan Shatter, Ireland's Jewish former minister of justice in 2014, who was subjected to false allegations by antisemitic and anti-Zionist members of parliament. After Irish media fueled these conspiracy theories against Shatter, Ireland's Supreme Court determined in 2019 that the justice minister had been wrongly condemned and his rights violated. During the years Shatter underwent his ordeal, he endured antisemitic abuse on social media and the street, had his political career ruined, and his reputation damaged. Despite these abuses, Shatter received no apology from the Irish government, and the travesty of justice was completely ignored by the media. Collier is firmly convinced that Shatter was "hounded out of power" because he is Jewish.
Collier said there are different causes behind the virulent anti-Zionist/anti-Israel atmosphere in Ireland. The first is the "distinct anticolonial strand going through the whole of Irish politics" which is evident in the rise of Sinn Fein, "historically the Republican Independence Movement" political party. Many Irish people, who "hate England," mistakenly believe "Britain gave the Jews Israel" and are convinced that the Jewish State epitomizes "settler colonialism." Ironically, as Israel was being established post-1945, the Zionists fought to oust the British from its mandate in Palestine.
The second cause of rampant antisemitism in Ireland is found in the country's "strand" of "classic antisemitism," now seen coming from both the "far left and the far right." Collier pointed out that even though the Irish were "officially independent" during World War II, "many of the Irish Republicans sided with the Nazis." The third cause of Irish antisemitism is rooted in the second — particular "ideologies within Christianity", which are "very strong in the Irish Catholic Church." The church is replete with belief in "replacement ideology, supersessionism, or the idea ... the Christians are the new Jews."
That the Jews have returned to their ancient homeland in Israel creates a "major ideological problem" for the Catholic Church, driving it to align with the Palestinians. Collier said that Christian charities will donate to anti-Israel non-governmental organizations (NGO's), some of which are affiliated with Palestinian terrorist groups. He said an exception in Ireland to the widespread antisemitism is that Northern Ireland, which is part of the United Kingdom, and whose predominantly Protestant citizens identify with the British, tend to be pro-Israel.
The fourth and final issue driving Irish antisemitism, Collier said, is attributable to "Islamist extremism." Whereas the U.S. and England experienced Islamist attacks after mistakenly, over the past three decades, "placing the bar for extremism far ... too high," he said Europe is "paying a deep price for it now." In Ireland, which has not experienced a large influx of Muslim migration, the antisemites there share the same "anti-colonial, anti-imperial" messages with Islamists, whom "they've accepted ... wholesale." The Islamists, essentially, are "coming in speaking the same anti-colonial, anti-imperial messaging, that the Irish do." Collier said, "anti-Zionist rhetoric," unabashedly rife on Irish streets, also creates a "hostile environment" for Jewish students on campuses. He said there are mosques preaching hate, Irish universities with Islamist academics, and the local church, all in league "bashing the state of Israel."
Collier believes that Sinn Fein's growing popularity will be accompanied by an "escalation" of antisemitism in Ireland, which he tracks through social media. He is dismayed at the trends because he said Hitler and the Holocaust "didn't just happen." Rather, their emergence can be traced back to "European antisemitism and beyond it, Christian antisemitism."
Collier is alarmed at what he sees taking place "on the ground" in Ireland, where the government and the people are "in tune with each other." Having experienced the rise in antisemitism and anti-Zionism in Scotland, as well as on U.S. campuses, Collier decided to "go public" in 2019 and expose his findings when he saw Jeremy Corbyn's rise in Britain's Labour party. "We were almost Ireland," he said, and what worries him now is "the lack of pushback" from "wider society" against the spread of antisemitism.
(full article online )
David Collier, an independent investigative journalist focused on exposing antisemitism, spoke to a September 12th Middle East Forum Webinar (video) about the ideology and drivers of antisemitism in the anti-Israel movement in England, Scotland and
www.meforum.org
www.algemeiner.com
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