Ireland's anti-Israel posturing could cost it dearly

Telegraph

14 hours ago

In 1996, the foreign editor of the Irish Times, Paul Gillespie, leafed through Ireland's first military white paper. The document was notably vague on the country's role in global affairs.
'Precisely the absence of strategic interests,' he warned, 'can tempt small states into a moralistic response to international political issues.'
How prescient that now seems. After October 7, the Irish government wasted no time clambering onto a soap box to issue proclamations about the most complex urban war in living memory, from the comfort of an island on the edge of Western Europe.
Free from threats, and with the RAF guarding its skies, the solutions to a conflict 3,500 miles away seem irritatingly obvious to Dublin.
Hamas tunnel networks dwarfing the London Underground, booby-trapped homes, hospitals repurposed as terror bunkers, were mere details repeatedly brushed aside with calls for 'de-escalation' and, more fatuously, a 'two-state solution.'
This may have had a cathartic effect – for both politicians and constituents, who are joined by much of the world in their dismay at the destruction in Gaza.
But wars are not won with platitudes, nor with hollow gestures dressed up as policy.
To the extent this basic truth has dawned on Dublin – and the odd glimmer of self-awareness suggests it might have – it hasn't dampened its appetite to intervene.
This week, Ireland raced to become the first European country to ban imports from Israel's occupied territories.
'There isn't another country in the European Union,' boasted the foreign minister, Simon Harris, 'that you can visit today and ask a government minister about their bill to ban trade… because they don't have one.'
The braggadocio didn't end there. Ireland stood, in his estimation, as a lone beacon for humanity, 'speaking up and speaking out against the genocidal activity in Gaza.'
All very well. But what exactly does that entail?
On Wednesday, the cabinet approved the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill.
The Bill is a curious artefact – not least because its acronym, PIGS, invites unfortunate interpretations, particularly given the Irish government's increasing animosity toward Israel.
If passed, it will ban imports from the West Bank, East Jerusalem, the Golan Heights, and Gaza – a wide net.
Camp David is firmly in the rear-view mirror
The connection between the first three regions and the war in Gaza is tenuous at best. When someone raises the issue of the settlements in this context, it's often a sign they view the current conflict through the lens of an earlier, more sanguine era. Camp David is firmly in the rear-view mirror.
Today, the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, loathes Hamas and shares Israel's desire to see them expunged.
There remains no party with which to negotiate the stewardship of the territories now commonly referred to as 'Palestinian' – each captured, incidentally, by Israel in wars it did not initiate.
Such nuances vanish under the telescopic moralism through which Dublin views the conflict in the Middle East.
No one is glued to that telescope more firmly than Simon Harris, the former taoiseach whose tenure saw the re-opening of an embassy in Tehran and the closure of Israel's embassy in Dublin, shortly before its foreign minister branded Harris 'antisemitic.'
That accusation may be too simplistic. There's no reason to suspect Mr Harris is prejudiced against Jews, as such, but the Jewish State is another matter.
Last year, upon becoming the leader of Fine Gael, Mr Harris disinvited the Israeli ambassador from his first party conference. Her Iranian counterpart, meanwhile, was free to attend.
Mr Harris is determined to, as he puts it, 'pull every lever' at his disposal to pressure Israel to end the conflict.
Needless to say, depriving the Israeli economy of €200,000 worth of mostly dates and avocados won't exactly blow a hole in its war chest.
With the addition of East Jerusalem, the bill would, however, make it illegal for Irish tourists to bring home souvenirs from the Old City. The sight of customs officers quizzing arrivals on where in the Jewish State they bought their Madonna sculpture could prove an unpleasant novelty that the 'land of a thousand welcomes' may come to regret.
'Ireland... is on a hateful, antisemitic path'
The repercussions may be further reaching than that. On Wednesday, senator Jim Risch, chairman of the US Senate Foreign Relations Committee, lambasted the decision.
'Ireland, while often a valuable US partner, is on a hateful, antisemitic path that will only lead to self-inflicted economic suffering,' he warned.
This is not idle talk. More than 30 US states have enacted anti-boycott laws which sanction companies boycotting Israel. Donald Trump has already indicated he would do the same.
With the US as its largest trading partner, Ireland has effectively assembled a financial landmine and publicly declared its intention to step on it.
One would have thought Mr Harris has more pressing matters to attend to than inflicting economic harm on his countrymen for a gesture that is, by the government's admission, purely 'symbolic.'
The US has already threatened to reshore its pharmaceutical industry, on which Ireland's economy depends. Only this week, Japan expressed concerns to the taoiseach over the security of subsea cables off the Irish coast – vital arteries for data and energy between Europe and America – which are increasingly stalked by Russian submarines.
Of course, from Dublin's point of view, this is someone else's problem – namely the Anglo-American defence umbrella which has allowed it to get by with negligible defence spending while its European colleagues scrabble for funds. How else would Ireland find the time, and the resources, to arbitrate Israeli settlements?
Small countries that believe in their own exceptionalism often develop the peculiar neurosis of needing to, as it were, punch above their weight. With limited material power, this tendency is usually expressed by grandstanding on the international stage.
Sweden once styled itself a 'moral superpower,' until its rhetoric collided with reality, helping turn it into the bomb and grenade attack capital of the developed world. Ireland, increasingly, appears determined to trace the same path.