1. In response to my post about Ireland’s law of return, a reader who signs himself “lapsedmethodist” asks,
Who would the potential Irish citizen be displacing upon his/her return to Ireland should he/she avail of that option?
I think that this question reflects a view of history that plagues much commentary on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Those who hold it see the Zionist enterprise as unjust from the outset because it sought and seeks to persuade a great number of people to move somewhere else, to a place where people who are not part of that enterprise already live.
Continue reading ‘The Philosophy Of History Of Anti-Zionism’
Israel’s Law of Return is sometimes held to be racist because it confers the right to citizenship on Jews born outside Israel who may have had no previous connection with it. In posts on this blog I’ve often made the counterargument that many countries offer privileges to members of their diaspora when it comes to obtaining citizenship and in this regard I’ve pointed to the example of Ireland, of which I myself am a citizen, and stated that having just one Irish grandparent entitles any good-for-nothing from Buenos Aires or Brooklyn to an Irish passport.
Continue reading ‘Ireland’s Law Of Return’
Earlier in the year the government of Ireland expelled an Israeli diplomat because it suspected Israel of using cloned Irish passports in the assassination of Mahmoud al-Mabhouh in Dubai in January. Quite right too, states have to do what they can to defend the integrity of their passports.
Continue reading ‘Irish Passports, Russia and Israel’
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People who today regard themselves as Irish are either perpetuating a fraud or victims of it. That’s because the “Irish” are not a people and the idea that they have continuously inhabited the island of Ireland over a period going back two thousand or more years is a myth invented by the revivers of the ideology known as “Irish nationalism” in the nineteenth century.
Continue reading ‘The Invention of the Irish People’
Long live Ireland! Tony Blair pelted with eggs and shoes at book signing in Dublin
Guess who tweeted that a few minutes ago?
Continue reading ‘Ali Abunimah And Ireland’
I regret having to return soon to the wretched Northern Ireland analogy but the persistence with which people appeal to it is really amazing. They seem to be unable to accept Hamas on its own terms and driven by a desire to wish it into being something that it is not.
Continue reading ‘The Northern Ireland Analogy And Irrational Yearnings’
Regular readers of this blog will know that we have repeatedly argued against the usefulness of the Northern Ireland analogy applied to the Israel-Palestine conflict. Nevertheless, like the corpse of a drowned dog, it keeps bobbing to the surface again and again. The latest example is by Ali Abunimah in the New York Times. With a deep sigh and a heavy step I’ll now proceed to take it apart.
Continue reading ‘Northern Ireland: Refutation Number 4539′
Michael Collins isn’t a name that will mean much to many readers of this blog. For present purposes it will suffice to say that he was a key figure in the War of Independence that led to Ireland winning its freedom from Great Britain. He was shot dead in an ambush during the Irish Civil War 88 years ago today.
Continue reading ‘Michael Collins, 88 Years and Burying the Past’
My latest article on the Huffington Post examines the extraordinary and shocking case of Cliona Campbell, a young woman being victimized by anti-Zionist thugs.
By way of Haaretz I learn of a pledge by 150 Irish artists not to perform in Israel. Most of the signatories are nonentities whose undertaking not to perform in Israel is about as meaningful as one by me not to run for president of Azerbaijan would be.
Continue reading ‘A Noble New Recruit For The Boycotters’
The publication of the Saville Report into an atrocity carried out by the British Army in Northern Ireland in 1972 has tempted Andrew Sullivan to write a post of remarkable stupidity.
Continue reading ‘The Saville Report and Andrew Sullivan’
Fintan O’Toole is a prominent Irish writer, journalist and theater critic. If you’re Irish and have a comfortable station in life but consider yourself progressive in your politics you probably have a very positive view of O’Toole and have incorporated a good deal of his worldview into your own.
Continue reading ‘Israel = Nazi Germany Says Top Irish Writer’
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The Guardian here makes great play of the fact that the autopsies carried out on those killed on the Mavi Marmara show that five of them received gunshot wounds to the head and one was shot between the eyes. The piece quotes a pro-Palestinian activist in the UK as accusing the Israeli commandos having had a “shoot-to-kill” policy.
Continue reading ‘Shot In The Head On The Mavi Marmara’
The Celtic Tiger is dead and buried and Ireland is going through an economic crisis unprecedented in seriousness in the history of the state. The banks are all bankrupt, unemployment and the budget deficit are soaring and emigration is starting to rise again. The Irish Congress of Trade Unions held a special one-day conference to address these issues today.
Continue reading ‘Dues Against the Jews’
I don’t look at the Irish Indymedia site very often but I had time to have a glance at it today and what did I come across but this little gem, an education in itself about the mindset of some pro-Palestinian activists and not only in Ireland.
Continue reading ‘Nativism vs. Uppity Jews in Ireland’
