Ireland has a proud history of opposing anti-Semitism
's new ambassador to Ireland,
Ed Walsh
, is a man with a mission: to combat the anti-Semitism allegedly rife here. At his confirmation hearing, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Jim Risch, told Walsh to convey the message that Ireland is 'very much out of step with the
United States
' in its criticisms of
Israel
. Walsh replied that this 'will be a big part of my conversations' in Dublin.
Risch
has since claimed
that Ireland 'is on a hateful, anti-Semitic path that will only lead to self-inflicted economic suffering'. He has warned that the Trump administration will retaliate against the
Occupied Territories Bill
which seeks to ban trade with illegal settlements in the
West Bank
and
Gaza
: 'If this legislation is implemented, America will have to seriously reconsider its deep and ongoing economic ties. We will always stand up to blatant anti-Semitism.'
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The Occupied Territories Bill: How long will it take to become law and will there be international implications?
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Ambassador Walsh said at his hearing that he would be seeking a detailed briefing on alleged Irish anti-Semitism. It might, then, be useful to inform him of the history of Irish solidarity with the Jewish people and help him understand a concept that Risch seems incapable of grasping: Ireland's horror at the collective torture of Gaza springs from the same moral outrage that made Irish leaders such powerful opponents of anti-Semitism.
The ambassador might ask his officials to brief him on the two figures whose achievements – Catholic Emancipation and the transfer of the land of Ireland from the Ascendancy to the tenant farmer – did most to shape the nation we have become. They might tell him how (and more importantly why)
Daniel O'Connell
and Michael Davitt raised their voices against the systemic injustices inflicted on the Jewish people.
READ MORE
Those who experience collective oppression can react in one of two ways. The first is to imagine themselves as unique victims whose exceptional status entitles them to use any kind of violence against those they perceive to be their enemies. The second is to develop a deep disgust at all oppression. It is to say that what happened to us should happen to no human being.
In the first, victimhood is hoarded as a special form of entitlement. It closes down all compassion. In the second, victimhood is shared. To know what it's like for yourself is also to know what it must be like for others. To claim justice for your own people is to uphold it for everyone.
An important moment in the history of this second kind of response is a letter O'Connell wrote in 1829 to Isaac Goldsmid, one of the leaders of the Jewish community in England. O'Connell had just forced Catholic Emancipation on the British government and been elected as the first Catholic allowed to take his seat in the House of Commons.
Goldsmid wrote to congratulate him on his victory. O'Connell's replied: 'I entirely agree with you on the principle of freedom of conscience, and no man can admit that sacred principle without extending it equally to the Jew as to the Christian ... With these sentiments you will find me the constant and active friend to every measure which tends to give the Jews an equality of civil rights with all the other King's subjects ... I think every day a day of injustice until that civil equality is attained by the Jews.'
O'Connell's point was simple but potent: there are no rights that are not universal rights. Liberation for one group is a mere concession that can be withdrawn at any time – unless it extends equally to all.
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Daniel O'Connell used contradictions in his own life to achieve goals, says historian
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In 1903, Davitt travelled from Ireland to Kishinev (now Chisinau, capital of Moldova). He went there to investigate a pogrom fomented by the Tsarist authorities against the Jewish population of the city. His reports for the Hearst newspapers in the US and his book
Within the Pale: The True Story of Anti-Semitic Persecution in Russia
still stand among the most powerful accounts of the systemic terrorisation of a defenceless population by a cruel and cynical state.
Davitt went into the houses where Jewish families had been massacred: 'I saw blood spattered on the walls of the rooms and yard, and picked up a child's schoolbook on which some murderer had wiped his hands.'
Today, of course, he would pick up bloodied schoolbooks in southern Israel after the Hamas massacres or in shattered homes in Gaza. It is striking that much of what Davitt writes about the treatment of the Jewish communities in Tsarist Russia is so eerily redolent of the status of
Palestinians
now. Jews are 'confined by law within a kind of economic concentration camp'. They are 'routed from their dwellings as if they were so many noxious animals'.
Davitt quoted with approval a letter from the English Catholic cardinal Henry Manning on the position of the Russian Jews: 'so hemmed in and hedged about' that 'they are watched as criminals'. This system constituted 'both a violent and a refined injustice'. And it created a duty of protest: 'The public moral sense of all nations is created and sustained by participation in [the] universal common law; when this is anywhere broken, or wounded, it is not only sympathy but civilisation that has the privilege of respectful remonstrance.'
The question the ambassador might ponder is this: should the Ireland of his ancestors now abandon the tradition of O'Connell and Davitt? They believed that anti-Semitism, both in its 'refined' forms (legal discrimination in Britain) and its 'violent' expressions in the Russian pogroms, was a breach of universal law. They abhorred such smooth and rough abuses, not because they were inflicted on Catholics or Jews or Irish people, but because they were perpetrated against human beings. They believed that there is a duty to speak out when that law is 'anywhere broken or wounded'.
Respectful remonstrance about Gaza is part of our heritage of opposing anti-Semitism. For the best part of our political tradition, the rights of Jews and of Palestinians to live without persecution are not in binary opposition. They are the same human rights – and their violation demands the same protest.
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RTÉ News
4 hours ago
- RTÉ News
Mood shifts on Israel-Gaza, but will it bring change?
There's no doubt the mood has shifted on the Israel-Gaza war. In the past week, three powerful G7 nations - France, the UK and Canada – announced their intention to recognise the State of Palestine at the United Nations General Assembly in September. That means four of the five permanent members of the Security Council - the UN's highest decision-making body - will join the more than 140 member states that already recognise Palestine, leaving the United States diplomatically isolated on the issue. With pressure mounting over starvation in Gaza, the United Nations held a major conference this week aimed at reviving the "two-state solution" for Israel and Palestine, a decades-old idea favoured by most of the world, but largely written off as dead in the water - until now. Boycotting the two-day event, the Israeli ambassador called it "a circus" while the US State Department said it was "unproductive and untimely". But even here, in the US, where support for Israel has been an unshakeable article of faith across the political spectrum, but especially in the Republican Party, key allies of President Donald Trump have begun to dissent. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the MAGA congresswoman from Georgia, took to X to voice her opposition to American policy on Israel. "It's the most truthful and easiest thing to say that Oct 7th in Israel was horrific and all hostages must be returned, but so is the genocide, humanitarian crisis, and starvation happening in Gaza," she wrote. That made her the first Republican in Congress to call Israel's actions in Gaza a genocide. A handful of Democrats have already used that term. Previously, Ms Taylor Greene introduced an amendment to cut funding for Israel's missile defence system – although that failed to garner any real support in Washington. But outside of Congress, fellow MAGA leaders - including the former White House strategist Steve Bannon and the right-wing podcaster Tucker Carlson - have been damning of US policy in the Middle East, seeing it at odds with their "America First" doctrine. Mr Bannon – though still a staunch supporter of Israel – has little time for the current prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu, whom he once called a "bald-faced liar". Mr Carlson criticised US aid to Israel, arguing the money would be better spent at home to tackle the opioid epidemic, among other domestic crises. He also slammed the recent Israeli airstrike on a Catholic Church in Gaza City. "They're not allowed to use my tax dollars to bomb churches," he told a US podcast. "I'll put up with a lot of stuff, but I don't understand how any Christian leader in the United States can sit by and not say something about that," he said. Scepticism of American involvement in "forever wars" is certainly a hallmark of the MAGA movement. Indeed, last year, ahead of the election that returned Mr Trump to power, I reported from his rally at New York's iconic Madison Square Gardens. During an Israel-focused speech beamed onto the giant outdoor screen, a man in the crowd shouted, "why are you talking about Israel – what about America?". In another post on X this week, Ms Greene pressed that case. "Most Americans that I know don't hate Israel and we are not antisemitic at all," she wrote. "We are beyond fed up with being told that we have to fix the world's problems, pay for the world's problems, and fight all the world's wars while Americans are struggling to survive even though they work every day". Then there is President Trump himself, who this week made headlines when he contradicted Mr Netanyahu's denial of starvation in Gaza. Asked if he agreed with Mr Netanyahu's assessment, Mr Trump said: "Based on television, I would say not particularly, because those children look very hungry". "They have to get food and safety right now," he added. The following day, a UN-backed report found that the "worst-case" famine scenario was unfolding across Gaza. Mr Trump dispatched his Middle East special envoy Steve Witkoff and Ambassador to Israel Mike Huckabee to inspect aid distribution sites run by American contractors under the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (GHF). The GHF sites, set up to replace UN aid distribution networks which the US and Israel said were hijacked by Hamas, have become the scene of near-daily mass killings of starving Palestinians, prompting international outrage. The French Foreign Minister, Jean-Noel Barrot, co-chairing this week's conference, called it a "bloodbath". Last weekend, a group of Democratic senators wrote to the US Secretary of State Marc Rubio urging him to "immediately cease" all US funding for GHF and resume support for UN-led operations, with increased oversight. Adding to the pressure, a former US contractor with GHF gave an interview to the BBC saying that in his entire career, he had "never witnessed the level of brutality and use of indiscriminate and unnecessary force against a civilian population, an unarmed, starving population". Anthony Aguilar, a United States Army veteran, dismissed by the GHF as a disgruntled ex-employee, continued to speak out on US and international media platforms. Gaza aid today, he said, was like The Hunger Games. 'Turning point' With the mood apparently shifting in Washington and across the world, diplomats gathered for the UN's two-state solution conference this week feeling like the momentum was behind them. "It can and must serve as a decisive turning point," the UN Secretary General António Guterres said in his opening remarks. "One that catalyses irreversible progress towards ending the occupation and realising our shared aspiration for a viable two-state solution," he said. The sentiment was echoed over the following two days and the conference's final declaration won more support than diplomats initially expected. The ambitious seven-page document called for an immediate ceasefire, the release of Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners, recognition of Palestine by countries that have not yet done so, normalisation of relations with Israel, the disarmament of Hamas, and a commitment to a political solution with the Palestinian Authority, subject to major reforms in control of Gaza and the West Bank. Significantly, it was the first time a UN document, signed by Arab nations, officially condemned the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on 7 October, 2023. But two critical players – Israel and the United States – were not there. In their absence, was this a case of the UN shouting into the void? I asked Mary Robinson, former president and UN High Commissioner for Human Rights at a news conference on Monday. She said that she felt real pressure in the conference room that the world had to move forward. "I think that can't be ignored, even by a powerful United States supporting Israel, the current Israeli government," she said, adding, "they particularly can't ignore the widespread sense now of an unfolding genocide and the starvation of children, of women, pregnant women". This could be the point of realisation, she said, that the US "is becoming complicit in a genocide". "That could be enough," she said. It is certainly true that Americans' support for Israel's military campaign has waned. A recent Gallup poll showed just a third of US citizens polled backed Israel's actions in Gaza – the lowest since November 2023. It is also worth noting, as an aside, that New York could be on the brink of electing as mayor Zohran Mamdani – an outspoken critic of Israel's military assault on Gaza, who has said he would arrest Mr Netanyahu were he to come to the city. On Monday, the UN conference's co-chair Faisal bin Farhan Al Saud, Foreign Minister of Saudi Arabia, was upbeat about the prospects of finding common ground with the White House. After all, it was Mr Trump who brokered the Abraham Accords during his first term – a deal to normalise relations between Israel and the Arab states of United Arab Emirates, Bahrain and Morocco. "I think we've all heard President Trump statements on many occasions that he is a man of peace, that he is someone who opposes war, and he is a humanitarian," Mr bin Farhan Al Saud told reporters at the conference. He said he believed US engagement, especially the engagement of President Trump, could be a "catalyst for an end to the immediate crisis in Gaza and potentially a resolution of the Palestinian Israeli conflict In the long term". Saudi Arabia's eventual sign-up to the accords was always the big prize for Mr Trump. But the Saudi foreign minister made it clear this week that there would be no negotiation on the matter, without an end to the war and the establishment of a Palestinian State. The Saudis certainly have a good deal of leverage in Washington. But then, so does Mr Netanyahu. Some experts remain sceptical that the shift in mood will yield any real change. "I think we've reached a turning point in terms of perceptions of the war, and I think a tipping point in the coverage of the catastrophe," Michael Hanna, US Programme Director at the International Crisis Group, an NGO aimed at conflict prevention. "I'm not yet sure that that is going to fully translate into a change in policy," he added. He said there was always a gulf between public opinion and the political class in the US. "That gap is shrinking in some respects - we see a rise in criticism," he said. "Again, criticism is not the same as policy shift". Ms Greene, for example, was largely alone in Congress on the Republican side, he said. Indeed, while the week started with Mr Trump sympathising with the plight of hungry Palestinians, by Thursday, he was issuing barely veiled threats against Canada over its intention to recognise a Palestinian State. The State Department also announced sanctions against the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian Liberation Organisation on Thursday, which means members will be unable to travel to the US for the UN General Assembly in September. As for diplomatic isolation at the UN, that is something the US is prepared to bear, Mr Hanna told RTÉ News. "It is notable when the isolation also encompasses other Western members of the permanent five, UK and France, so maybe it's magnified isolation. "But the US has been willing to endure that isolation for a very long time, so it's not clear that that is particularly uncomfortable," he said. A lot hinges on President Trump's own views of course, and it is anyone's guess what he will decide next. His approach to the Middle East has been "all over the map," Mr Hanna said. There have been moments of tension between Mr Trump and Mr Netanyahu, he added. "There were direct contacts with Hamas, which I think shocked the Israelis," he said, "then the U-turn on the Yemen campaign". Mr Trump abruptly declared an end to the bombing of Houthi rebel group positions in May. "And then, of course, then another big shift on intervention in Iran," he said in reference to the US joining Israel's bombing campaign of Iran's nuclear sites in a surprise move in June. The flip-flopping continued this week, when President Trump initially said he had "no view" on the matter, when the British Prime Minister Keir Starmer announced the UK's intention to recognise the State of Palestine. But within hours, Mr Trump had labelled recognition "a reward for Hamas". Amid all the rhetoric and noise, Mr Hanna said, the point is that there is "still no ceasefire in Gaza".
Irish Times
4 hours ago
- Irish Times
There's one scenario in which tariffs won't be a disaster for Ireland
I have enough grey hairs to remember trade deals being done in the past, notably the massive Uruguay round of talks which concluded in 1994 and was – though we didn't know it at the time – the high point of a long postwar drive to free world trade and reduce tariffs. The media spent many hours outside meeting rooms as negotiators from more than 120 countries went through complex line-by-line negotiations to cut tariffs and trade barriers. For Ireland, it was always a case of trading off the potential gains for industry with the threat to farmers. But over time, the State was a huge winner. The world had already started to move away from the relentless globalisation drive which had lasted well into this century. And now we have Trump's new world order and trade 'deals' which are a mix of reality, spin and fudge. We still do not know the full details of the deal between the United States and the European Union – before we even start to worry about how Trump might try to rewrite it. Ibec chief economist Gerard Brady calculates that exporters accounting for about 10 per cent of our export value to the US now know their tariff and another 10-15 per cent await news on exemptions from tariffs being negotiated between the US and the EU. The remaining 75 per cent or so of pharma and semiconductor exporters will have to wait for separate investigations now under way in the Trump administration. READ MORE There is a potential outcome from all this which, while damaging, would not be disastrous for Ireland in the short term. There will be problems, but the economy could adjust and adapt. While the Department of Finance estimates that the tariffs could lead to employment being 70,000 lower in five years' time and the economy 1.5 per cent smaller are, at best, a rough guesstimate, they do look to be in the right direction. On current trends, this would mean growth continuing, just not as quickly as it would have. We can assess the potential damage for Ireland only when we know the full details. The spirits and whiskey sectors look exposed, for example, as the US says it is a target for the 15 per cent tariffs. As this is a big issue in France, there will be an EU push in the week ahead, before final details of the deal with the US are published, to try to lower the burden here. As well as the impact on Ireland, this is one to watch at political level in the EU, as France puts pressure on Ursula von der Leyen 's European Commission , which negotiates on behalf of the EU. As butter, another vital Irish export, was already subject to a tariff of about 16-17 per cent (which will remain), things will at least not get any worse here. If we want to identify problem areas, smaller companies reliant on the US in a range of sectors is one. Small may no longer be beautiful in a complex and politically-driven world market. And it is also worth focusing on the risks to parts of rural Ireland – as highlighted by Chambers Ireland chief executive Ian Talbot – particularly those reliant on sectors such as food and also pharma and medical products. Towns such as Westport and Kinsale will anxiously await details on the pharma tariffs. [ EU-US trade deal analysis: Tariffs have a price for both sides. Trump was willing to pay it Opens in new window ] And here things remain a bit woolly, largely because the US president is undertaking study of this sector under a so-called section 232 process – referring to a section of a 1960s US act. This is separate from the big so-called reciprocal tariffs announced on Friday. The EU view is that its deal caps tariffs on pharma at 15 per cent – including any outcome from this separate process. If this holds, the sector at least knows its maximum charge. A big report – due shortly – has been drawn up for Trump under section 232, which looks at national security issues from trade and how more of the supply chain of key products can be brought back to the US from countries such as Ireland. Let's hope Trump does not revisit the 15 per cent maximum tariff figure as part of this. Tariffs are only one of Trump's policies options. On Thursday, he issued a letter to 17 of the big pharma companies demanding they cut prices in the US to the lowest level applying elsewhere. As a big buyer of pharma, the US state machinery has a lot of power here. Imposing high tariffs appears to run counter to the drive for lower prices. So the interaction between Trump and big pharma is another key thing to watch in the weeks ahead. What we do know is that the US president is determined to return pharma investment to the US and get better prices for American consumers. For Ireland, the initial impact may be slow enough to emerge. But this is likely to mean somewhat lower investment by pharma here in the years ahead and a sector which may be more focused on EU and other markets rather than exporting back to the US. Changes in the pricing and accounting practices of the multinationals – now designed to report massive profits in low-tax Ireland – are also likely to cut corporate tax revenue here. Like the rest of the economy, the Irish pharma sector will adjust. But there will be a cost, the scale of which depends on the extent of US policy action. The longer-term strategic questions will take time to clarify themselves. A major issue is whether Trump's policy direction will stick. If you are, say, a big pharma company, do you base your investments on an expectation that this is now the new world, or that Trump's policies will, in time, be rolled back either by him or by his successor? US court challenges to his powers to impose wide-scale tariffs are only now playing out. US consumer prices are surely set to rise – the only question is how much and whether there will be a cost in jobs. And the financial market calm could be upset at any time, given the crazy and risky course on which Trump has embarked. On Friday, they were already looking jumpy. So the uncertainty will roll on. Ireland should get through the first wave of this, albeit with some collateral damage. But the big question is our place in a world which seems to be breaking up into new trading blocs and alliances. And whether the valuable certainty which a final, agreed trade deal might bring can last - Ireland and Europe now needs Trump to direct his attention elsewhere.
Irish Times
5 hours ago
- Irish Times
Ireland has too many quangos and too many lawyers feeding off its clientelist politics
If government is the group of people who run a state and the formal rules and institutions by which they do so, governance is how they go about that through networks, processes, interests, ideologies and political actors at different levels. The Republic of Ireland has a well-defined and clearly identifiable government structure, formally accountable through elections and the Oireachtas and amply covered by media . In contrast its governance is much more opaque, less visible to its citizens and its media coverage is patchy and uneven. This matters because the Republic currently suffers from a series of problems – in housing, energy, water, climate, health and care infrastructure and in its economic model – that arise from suboptimal governance just as much as from short-sighted or incompetent governments. These problems are often made more visible by comparisons with similar states in Europe and elsewhere. This State is one of the most centralised in Europe , whether defined by the functional and geographical concentration of executive and political power in Dublin or the comparatively puny powers of both parliamentary and local government. Such centralisation puts an onus on political leaders and executive managers to get things right through coherent, integrated policymaking. READ MORE The abiding localism of Irish life is channelled to the capital by networks of TDs, private lobbying and clientelism that dominate the distribution of resources. That perfectly matches the retail, consumerist and reactive side of everyday Irish politics – and provides much of the media agenda. Less often discussed are the resulting poor outcomes across a range of public services because more local and regional structures of governance are unavailable to policymakers. [ Fintan O'Toole: The three pillars of Ireland's political system are crumbling Opens in new window ] Instead policymaking is often outsourced to quangos (quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisations). An OECD report identified 800 of them and said they clog up Irish governance and inhibit local government . Notorious examples of poor practice and opaque structures in health and educational bodies provide daily headline news. If we are over-quangoed we are also over-lawyered in planning and insurance per head of comparable European populations. These issues show up plainly in how Irish governments responded to the growing population over the past decade during the economic recovery and expansion after the financial crisis. Immigration of skilled labour through work permits has increased the population by 16 per cent, or more if refugees are also factored in. Imperatives of economic growth drove the expansion; but it was not accompanied by plans to increase housing and infrastructure to provide for a growing and more complex society demanding greater public services. Instead market forces prevailed, but they failed to meet that demand. [ Chronic inability to build anything big in the State is baked into the system Opens in new window ] These widening gaps were identified by some analysts and commentators, and they then became part of the political and election agenda. But they have dominated public debate only since being put there squarely by big economic players and international organisations over the past year. Infrastructure deficits inhibit new investments, they say – and that coincides with wider concerns about how vulnerable the Irish economic model has become to international shocks, particularly from Donald Trump. Hence the level of interest in the National Development Plan and its methodology. Rather than base it on an analysis of changing demographics, economic trends and social needs which generate development priorities, its method is more ad hoc in response to the uncertain international backdrop. Detailed project plans await definition, as the scale of the Trump tariff shock is assessed. In the meantime, different Government departments are allocated capital expenditure envelopes based on their bargaining power. How will the updated National Development Plan shape Ireland in years to come? Listen | 35:59 It's a far cry from the strategic foresight approach to governing increasingly advocated by analysts, companies, the EU and international organisations. That involves gathering information about relevant trends and potentially disruptive risks, developing scenarios about plausible futures and integrating such insights into anticipatory planning. The OECD has advocated such an approach for Ireland and there are several initiatives in government and academia to apply them. Had they been deployed over the past decade we could have been better prepared to tackle these development gaps – not to mention linking them to the equally plausible prospect of a united Ireland. Notwithstanding the highly centralised nature of Irish government, it has lacked the capacity to aggregate governance coherently and to resist particular interests. The consequences of changing demographics and economic growth should have been more effectively foreseen, but were not. For that politicians and executive managers should share the blame. [ Tariff 'uncertainties' could 'weigh heavily' on Irish economic growth Opens in new window ] The problems are exacerbated by the narrow base of Irish taxation, in which 10 US corporations provide 40 per cent of corporate tax revenue, along with the glaring six-fold contrast between the multinational sector's high productivity and that of indigenous industry. Tackling these problems requires structural change in the Republic's governance to decentralise and redemocratise power, by prioritising and co-ordinating development gaps more effectively with better analysis. That would help repair the seriously widening distributional and political gaps between older and younger generations.
