Irish in Germany are caught between starkly different perspectives on the war in Gaza
Simon Harris
to discuss on Friday in
Berlin
with his new
German
foreign minister colleague, Johann Wadephul. After a chilly meeting of
Irish
and German foreign ministers last year, no joint press conference was planned this time around.
Berlin and Dublin, traditionally close partners on
EU
and foreign policy, have found themselves far apart following the Hamas-led attacks on Israel on October 7th 2023, which claimed at least 1,200 lives.
In his January 2024 visit, then-tánaiste Micheál Martin suggested Berlin's view of the
Gaza conflict
was constrained 'by the historical prism of the Holocaust', though 'evolving'. Germany's position has evolved quite a bit further since then, with growing public outrage here over Israel's Gaza blockade, settler violence in the West Bank and a Palestinian death toll nearing 60,000. A more critical tone towards Israel from the new German government, however, has yet to be matched in any significant policy shift.
The current Israel-Hamas conflict, for many Irish people living in Germany, resembles what John le Carré once called a 'looking glass war'. In their daily lives here and during visits back to Ireland, the German-Irish negotiate two separate minefields with one common denominator: dissent from the majority opinion – or attempts at differentiation in the public debate – are often denounced.
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The most visible sign of tension surrounds
two Irish citizens who face expulsion from Germany
in connection with their alleged role in pro-Palestinian demonstrations, including a violent confrontation at a Berlin university.
Their precise role in what happened there has yet to be established and, in an emergency injunction, a Berlin court has halted expulsion proceedings until after trial, likely in the autumn. That didn't stop Berlin's governing mayor Kai Wegner prejudging them, in a national newspaper, as 'anti-Semitic criminals'.
Many Irish people here who join Gaza solidarity marches, as they would if they were in Ireland, report harassment in their workplace and police violence.
Some face charges they view as spurious and – after 18 months and counting – the charges have neither come to trial nor been dropped. That keeps them flagged in police databases, making every re-entry to Germany a stressful business of arbitrary delays and border police questions. For them, this is official Germany's intentional chilling effect for holding the 'wrong' views on Gaza. (A similar chilling effect, critics of Israel's Gaza war say, follows German efforts since November 2023 to outlaw every public utterance of 'from the river to the sea' as an illegal slogan supporting the proscribed Hamas group. In May a Berlin court
dismissed one such prosecution
as a politicised endeavour lacking evidence and any legal standing.)
The colonial framing of the Gaza conflict, as popularised by Kneecap, gets an airing in Germany, particularly in universities, but others reject it as ill fit for the complexities of the conflict
All of this is attracting outside attention. Last month the Council of Europe, the continent's leading human rights body, sent a two-page letter of concern to the Berlin federal government. Police violence, limits to freedom of assembly and 'the blanket classification of criticism of Israel as anti-Semitism', the letter warned, do a disservice to democracy and may even endanger it'.
While German officials dismiss such concerns, campaigners are already collating information about the crackdown they see. And writer Maxim Biller has even devised a diagnosis for the motivation:
Morbus Israel,
Germany's Israel disorder. 'At the core of [this] neo-German Orient neurosis is, very loosely: Germans' disappointed love for their former victims,' he argued in a column for Die Zeit weekly. His polemical text was later removed from the Zeit website following protests over his description of the 'strategically correct but inhumane hunger blockade of Gaza'.
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An Irishman in Berlin: 'For Germans, everything is forbidden unless it allowed'
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As the conflict drags on, though, some Irish in Germany wonder – quietly and cautiously – if Ireland has a disorder of its own. Earlier in the conflict, before everything was eclipsed by the real and justified horror over children being starved – or shot dead by Israel soldiers – one Irish acquaintance asked: where was the Irish protest over Hamas contempt for – and human rights violations of – its own people?
Given the unprecedented degradation in Gaza, such questions may seem like cynical what-aboutery. Yet another middle-aged Irish acquaintance, living in Germany as long as the Belfast Agreement, wondered aloud recently how Irish people, who resented the IRA killing people on their behalf, feel about Hamas doing the same for Palestinians?
The colonial framing of the Gaza conflict, as popularised by Kneecap, gets an airing in Germany, particularly in universities, but others reject it as ill fit for the complexities of the conflict.
After a strange start, Germany's debate has shifted radically in recent months. The popular Bild tabloid still ignores the reality in Gaza and denounces Palestinian solidarity marchers as 'Jew haters', but other outlets offer a broader and more challenging range of views.
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Israeli foreign minister finds shifting moods as he visits Berlin
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On Wednesday, the Süddeutsche Zeitung daily printed a harrowing 5,000-word report on the starve-or-be-shot reality in Gaza. A day later, it ran a full-page essay by French-Israeli sociologist Eva Illouz, asking 'Is anti-Zionism a form of anti-Semitism?'
With large Jewish, Israeli and Palestinian communities, Germany's Israel-Gaza-Hamas debate is messy, emotional, confused and conflicted. A diverse range of voices compete to be heard, airing grievances which not all share but are nonetheless real. Two conflicts are playing out, as Berlin arms one side and tries to feed the other. Attempting to meet two non-negotiable postwar obligations – to Israel and human dignity – has created a domestic conflict of conscience with an equally unpredictable outcome.
By comparison, many Irish living in Germany perceive Ireland's debate as Irish people telling other Irish people, at no personal cost and from a safe distance, how terrible things are for the Palestinians.
A recent public television poll here asked who respondents feel is responsible for the plight of the civilian population in Gaza. Some 69 per cent said the Israeli government was fully or partly to blame while 71 per cent said the same of Hamas. How would a similar poll look in Ireland?
Ireland and Germany hold competing views on the conflict, yet both have considerable credibility among Palestinians and Israelis respectively. How can our two countries leverage that good will for a better future in the Middle East? That is a debate worth having.
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Dublin Live
2 hours ago
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Social welfare Ireland: TD says €12 dole rise in Budget 'not feasible' as row deepens
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Irish Times
3 hours ago
- Irish Times
Letters to the Editor, July 9th: On Gaza suffering, anti-Semitism and women in the home
Sir, – As the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade this week continues its pre-legislative scrutiny of the Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2025, we must keep the reality of life for Palestinians in both Gaza and the West Bank to the fore. In the West Bank, illegal settlements, the separation wall, severe restrictions, forced displacement, and violence create a daily reality of profound suffering. Meanwhile, the situation in Gaza is catastrophic. The Israeli and US backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation has replaced 400 UN aid distribution points with just four overcrowded militarised aid sites which have become deadly flashpoints. Armed groups, reportedly backed by Israeli authorities, routinely open fire on starving civilians, resulting in more than 500 desperate and hungry Palestinians being killed and nearly 4,000 injured while trying to access food in the last month alone. READ MORE The long-awaited and welcome draft Occupied Palestine Territory Bill proposes to ban the importation of goods from illegal Israeli settlements. However, it omits services, which make up around 70 per cent of Ireland's trade with Israel. This omission risks rendering the Bill toothless, leaving the bulk of Ireland's commercial ties with illegal settlements untouched. This is an issue close to home. For example, Airbnb, which operates its European headquarters in Dublin, continues to profit from illegal settlement activity and recording global revenues of $2.5 billion in 2024. If services are excluded, companies like Airbnb can legally continue facilitating and profiting from breaches of international law through their Irish operations. We urge Irish politicians to act with courage. 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Sir, – The qualification rounds for the 2025-26 UEFA competitions are under way. Yet, the 2024-25 season is effectively still in progress, as the FIFA Club World Cup hasn't concluded yet. There used to be a clear boundary between seasons, but it has been whittled away so much that the seasons are now overlapping. – Yours, etc BRIAN QUIGLEY, Drumcondra, Dublin 9. Public access and Ireland Sir, – Keep Ireland Open welcomes Wicklow County Council's announcement that public access to the splendid Magheramore Beach has been secured (' Magheramore Beach: The €613,000 Wicklow council paid to secure access was likely less than cost of court challenge ,' (July 5th) However, we are dismayed that it required a payment of €613,000 to a Chinese investor who had recently bought the site at auction. This was the cost of avoiding the risk of having the High Court adjudicate if a right of way that has been used by the public for decades, at least, is in fact a public right of way. Unfortunately, Magheramore is but one of many beaches and seashores that are rendered inaccessible to the public because Irish law permits paths that were traditionally used to access the sea, and the countryside generally, to be blocked with barriers and barbed wire. Contrast this with the situation in England where the default is to manage land for the benefit of people and nature – as recently described in your pages (' No denying that King Charles is a climate visionary ', (July 1st). The 2,700 miles long King Charles III England Coast Path will be the longest managed coastal path in the world. It is a scandal and a disservice to our citizens that traditional access routes continue to be lost to the public because neither legislation or the political will exists to protect them. A clause legally obliging local authorities to identify and preserve public rights of way which give access to seashore, mountain, lakeshore, riverbank, cemetery, monument or other places of natural beauty or recreational utility by marking them on maps and indicating their location on a list, was removed from the Planning and Development Act 2024. There is still an opportunity to have this clause reinstated as the legislation passes through Leinster House. Keep Ireland Open calls on politicians to implement legislation to protect the social, economic , health (mental and physical) and environmental benefits of outdoor recreation in the same way as they are respected and protected in English law. – Yours, etc, TONY McDERMOTT, Director, Keep Ireland Open, Dublin 6W. Buses and timetables Sir, – I can empathise with Gillian Lawless' experience regarding Dublin Bus delays en route (Letters, July 7th). As a regular bus user, I dread hearing the announcement 'there will be a short delay ...'. Firstly, how 'short' is short? I once experienced a delay for the best part of six or seven minutes. In that time, a number of buses overtook us, as we languished at a bus stop, counting down time. Secondly, any delay on the bus has consequences for me and no doubt many others ( in my case missing a connecting train, waiting up to 45 minutes for the next train, and being late home in the evening). Thirdly, there is no indication on the outside of any bus that it may be subject to a delay en route. Why not put an initial beside the bus number (to indicate the possibility of a scheduled delay), so that passengers can make an informed decision prior to embarking? Or better yet, get rid of this 'on schedule' requirement entirely. – Yours, etc, MARY FOGARTY, Balbriggan, Co Dublin. Sir, – Ms Lawless feels passengers who are already on board buses are penalised by buses being held at stops to get back on schedule. Surely the customers who would be penalised are those who turn up at their stop to find the bus has departed earlier than time-tabled? One of the basic aims of any transport provider is to stick to the published schedule where possible. Buses being held at stops to stay on schedule is common in many other countries. – Yours, etc, DAVID GORDON, Clondalkin, Dublin 22. Ireland's links with Japan Sir, – During my years in Japan I have noted with bemusement the surprising manifestations of Ireland's soft power: the presence of Lafcadio Hearn (1850-1904), famous in his adoptive country though forgotten in Ireland until a few decades ago; the Japanese fascination with Yeats (translated into Japanese in the 1890s), Wilde, Joyce, and Beckett; the visits of Irish writers (Heaney, Montague, Muldoon, Mahon, Kennelly, Welch, O'Toole) as guests of the Japanese branch of the International Association for the Study of Irish Literatures, flourishing since 1984; the children singing Beidh aonach amárach i gContae an Chláir at the St Patrick's Day parades in a dozen cities; the brilliant young performers of the harp and of Irish dancing; the diligent Japanese students of the Irish language. Now, with the opening of Ireland House, which dominates an attractive new piazza in the very centre of Tokyo, proudly displaying the Irish and European flags, and combining Japanese and Irish spaces in an architectural poem which provides a radiant new platform for Irish hospitality, it is clear that the affinity and interaction between the two nations is something wider and deeper than I had suspected. Ireland has made a weightier investment in the new embassy than in any other overseas project. And it is a sound investment, injecting new life and colour into the Tokyo landscape, confirming economic opportunities for both countries, and sealing an alliance in devotion to the values of democracy and peace. A threshold has been crossed, and the Irish-Japanese entente is no longer a matter of sentiment, but a significant factor in global civilisation today. – Yours, etc JOSEPH S. O'LEARY, Tokyo, Japan. Sir, – Your correspondent Denis Staunton contributed an interesting article regarding the life of Lafcadio Hearn (' Celebrating the Irish writer whose ghost stories still grip Japan, ' (July 4th). Should anyone want to further their knowledge of the writer's life and times they would be well advised to visit the beautiful Lafcadio Hearn gardens in Tramore , Co Waterford. They celebrate his peripatetic life with a section of the garden given over to Victorian, American, Greek and Japanese gardens. – Yours, etc, DARREN MAGUIRE, Co Meath. Guardian ad litems Sir, – The Association of Guardians Ad Litem (AGALI) was established last year and is mandated to represent the majority of guardians ad litem in Ireland. The guardians are independent, court-appointed professionals who are charged by the court in child care proceedings to represent the voice of the child and what is in the child's best interest. AGALI notes Harry McGee's article (' Unregulated court guardian service cost €21m last year ', June 27th) and welcomes the Child Care (Amendment) Act 2022 which provides, inter alia, for the setting up of the national guardian ad litem service, and has met the officials appointed to lead the service. AGALI is committed to collaborative engagement with the new service and will continue to seek appropriate resourcing, professional standards and effective legal representation for children. This is part of creating a nationally consistent, child-centred and trauma informed service; one that upholds the integrity and effectiveness of the crucial independent service that guardians provide to the 3,500 children who are the subject of current active child care proceedings. AGALI is concerned the plans as outlined for the new service will dilute the voices of children. The service is also to be a division within the Department of Children, Equality, Disability Integration and Youth, when the State continues to fail so many children in its care. Guardians work tirelessly in the discharge of their duties under close review of the court. The role of the guardian is one element of our childcare system that has, because of its independence, been able to continue to deliver a high quality service that responds to the individual needs of our most vulnerable children. – Yours, etc, Dermot Simms, Chairperson, AGALI, Dublin.
Irish Examiner
3 hours ago
- Irish Examiner
Pádraic Fogarty: U-turn shows Government is unwilling to protect Ireland's sea creatures
At last month's United Nations Ocean Conference, held in Nice, France, the Spanish government announced that it would be creating seven new marine protected areas (MPAs) which will bring its total network to 25.7% of its territorial waters. Spain is hardly a great champion for marine protection, it is currently in court for allowing bottom trawling in its MPAs and has virtually nowhere that is 'strictly protected', that is, off limits to all kinds of fishing or extractive activities. Nevertheless, it can credibly say that it is on track to achieve protection of 30% of its waters by 2030, an international benchmark that many countries, including Ireland, have signed up to. Taoiseach Micheál Martin was also in Nice for the summit but, unlike the Spanish, announced no initiatives on MPAs. In a speech he said that 'Ireland understands the need to protect our marine environment', which may be true, but this is scarcely reflected in the apathy and inaction from him and his government on this topic. Unlike nearly every other European country, Ireland lacks even the basic legislation for the creation of MPAs, something that we agreed to pass back in 2008 with the adoption of the EU's Marine Strategy Framework Directive. It took 13 years before a Fine Gael-led government commissioned an expert report on the issue, which appeared in 2021. In 2022 there was a public consultation which, in the government's own words, demonstrated 'strong support' for MPAs and which received an impressive 2,311 submissions, mostly from ordinary people. A draft bill was published at the end of that year while the Joint Oireachtas Committee published its report on this early in 2023. Last year the bill came within a hair's breadth of being approved by the government but was pulled at the last minute for reasons that have not been explained publicly. As recently as the run-up to the last election, Micheál Martin wrote to the campaign group Fair Seas assuring them that upon a return to office the MPA bill would be passed 'as soon as possible.' However, last weekend it was reported that the Taoiseach is doing a full U-turn on this policy. A report in the Sunday Business Post said that the bill would now be dropped, and that they were looking at ways to shoehorn MPAs into existing legislation. Padraic Fogarty: 'There is huge popular support for taking action. People love the sea.' There are those who will say that it makes little difference whether the provision for MPAs lies within standalone legislation or not. Theoretically they might be correct, but the reality of what has happened points to something far more worrying. Creating the foundations for an MPA network that will actually deliver the recovery of marine life requires a substantial level of detail to be nailed down in law. There is work by scientists to identify where the best places for MPAs should be but drawing the lines on maps is the easy part. How will they be monitored? Who will enforce the rules? Where will strictly protected areas be located? Of critical importance are the details on how they will be managed on a day-to-day basis; where will responsibility lie and how will local communities be able to participate? We know these questions are important because the existing network of protected conservation areas, which were designated as part of the EU's Habitats and Birds directives, has failed miserably in achieving its aims and has only served to anger local people and distance them from our most precious nature sites. It is an approach that has landed us, repeatedly, in the European Court of Justice and is a leading reason why the scale of the biodiversity crisis in Ireland is much greater than it might have otherwise been. Micheál Martin's backflip on the MPA bill signals that they don't have the willingness to go through with this. Much easier is adding a few clauses to an existing bill to allow for the nominal designation of MPAs and the creation of more 'paper parks', something that will allow the government to claim that it has met international commitments, but which delivers nothing in the water for biodiversity. Fishing industry This is not only about recovering the rich marine life that is currently a shadow of its former self due to decades of fishing activity, pollution and, more recently, warming waters. The fishing communities that rely on healthy seas have dwindled away also. The situation has become so dire that whatever fish are left are far out to sea being hoovered up by industrial factory boats leaving lobsters as the only reliable catch for the guys in small boats. On the other hand, the director of the National Inshore Fisheries Forum told a conference in Cork in 2022 that 'MPAs could be the saviour of the inshore industry'. It is not just the MPAs that highlights the Taoiseach's inaction. His government has also failed to legislate for the exclusion of large trawlers from coastal waters, something that was promised a decade ago. Lack of food has seen the large whales abandon the south coast, something which this year prompted long-time boatman Colin Barnes to close up his whale watching business in Union Hall. In 2022, when the EU asked member states to stop bottom trawling in existing protected areas, the Irish government just shrugged its shoulders and carried on. It is perfectly allowable for someone to drag a dredger, a long iron bar with outward teeth that dig into the seafloor, through one of these so-called 'special areas of conservation'. Frustration with Government inaction Why is the government seemingly so incapable of taking any action? How is it willing to stand like a frightened bunny and watch ecosystems and fishing communities collapse and do nothing about it? Ireland is a dynamic place. We had a successful Citizens' Assembly on Biodiversity Loss which clearly outlined the action that needs to be taken. There is no shortage of community groups, businesses, NGOs and fishermen who are willing, eager even, to roll up their sleeves and start the task of restoration. There is huge popular support for taking action. People love the sea. Yet the lack of action, the reneging of promises, the endless, meaningless speeches are sapping motivation. This was demonstrated in a recent Climate Conversations survey which showed that public anxiety on environmental issues is rising due to government inaction. 'Frustration was the main feeling reported,' according to pollsters. Our politicians are the only ones who can pass laws, without which change where it matters cannot happen. I have seen this first hand in my work as an advocate for nature for over 20 years. The government should not be allowed backslide on its duty to pass a standalone law for MPAs, like it promised, like the people of this country want. Read More Anja Murray: Radical changes required to let the oceans recover
