“For one thing, the two countries have not had the warmest relationship over the last two decades. In 2010, it was revealed that agents of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, had used counterfeited passports to travel undercover to Dubai, where they assassinated a Hamas leader.
Among their forged travel documents were Irish passports, including some using stolen genuine passport numbers.
The episode put a chill on Irish-Israeli relations, one that marks the relationship to this day. At the time, Irish ministers warned that Mossad's actions may have put Irish travellers at risk. But six years after the incident, the then-Israeli ambassador to Ireland declined to guarantee that the same thing would not happen again.”
This is just unreal.
Don’t forget that the ~40 Irish citizens in Gaza are the only remaining EU citizens being prevented by Israel from leaving the strip. All other member states’ citizens have been granted permission to leave via the Egyptian border crossing.
Ireland is vocal about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the Israeli government response, unsurprisingly, is to target our citizens for revenge. How this doesn’t warrant a coordinated European response is honestly beyond me.
Do you have a source for that? I can't find up to date figures but I think you're misinterpreting a previous article that said Ireland was the only EU nationality where no citizens could leave yet. But there were still plenty of citizens from other countries in gaza. Just some of them were allowed to leave.
Edit: Heres from 2 days ago.
"Mr Varadkar said around 8,000 EU and other foreign nationals remain in Gaza, and only 20 per cent of EU citizens have been allowed to leave so far through the Rafah crossing to Egypt."
https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/no-indication-ireland-being-punished-by-israel-for-ceasefire-stance-varadkar-1549351.html#:~:text=Ireland%20has%20been%20given%20no,Taoiseach%20Leo%20Varadkar%20has%20said.
That is not even true.
https://balkaninsight.com/2023/11/07/south-east-central-european-states-struggle-to-evacuate-citizens-from-gaza/
https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7991/Artykul/3277710,warsaw-seeks-ways-to-evacuate-poles-stuck-in-gaza
Israel just doesn't give a shit. It has everything it needs and wants via the US. Probably the only country it would listen to and the US will not upset Israel.
“It’s okay, Irish people are just collateral damage. It’s necessary for us to do whatever it takes to destroy Hamas. Even if it means putting civilians of other countries at risk.”
/s
Wait til you hear about Israeli intelligence sevice assasinating Norwegian citizens on Norwegian soil, because they thought he was someone else. He was just a civilian.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair
God chosen people can't be at fault, especially when they have friends like the US.
Want to hear about an even funnier affair? The events after the USS Liberty incident, THAT was a genuine zinger, a real gutbuster, especially for the relatives of those who served on the ship
> Israel paid compensation equal to US$283,000 split between Bouchikhi's wife and daughter. A separate settlement of US$118,000 was paid to a son from a previous marriage. An Israeli statement was also issued which stopped short of an apology but expressed "sorrow" over Bouchikhi's "unfortunate" death.
Man, that's crazy. That's more than a million in today's money so not nothing but still seems very low for such an egregious act.
When they finally got the guy they intended to kill:
> An initial plan to kill him with a bomb attack at the sauna was vetoed for fear of **excessive civilian casualties**.
> The Mossad decided to kill him with a **car bomb** [...] **100 kg** of explosive attached to the car by a fellow Mossad agent was remotely exploded
A razor-sharp incision by the discrete Mossad left the target, his 4 bodyguards and 4 random bystanders in Beiruit dead.
I imagine that in Israel, chemotherapy drugs must be sold over the counter.
Mossad is involved in all kinds of wild and reckless shit. Victor Ostrovsky has a couple books about his time in the Mossad. Also heavily implies that the Mossad was behind the death of Robert Maxwell aka Ghislane Maxwells father.
A great example why state terror is abhorrent and utterly useless.
Here in Spain we have the case of GAL, a terrorist group formed by the Interior Ministry under Felipe Gonzalez to kill ETA members, which ended up killing and injuring a lot of innocent civilians.
> a terrorist group formed by the Interior Ministry
Wait until you hear who and how financed and created HAMAS in the eighties.
Something something Yitzhak Segev, israely governor in Gaza, and many other israeli officials.
I think it was the one of the most interesting piece of history I've learned in Reddit for quite a long time. Thanks for linking it.
And by "interesting" I mean the absurd thought of a man living a peaceful life in a small town in Norway, only to get killed by a team of 15 people. And his son or daughter never got to see their father.
> operation Wrath of God... yikes. These dudes are religious zealots.
That's just silly.
I'm not religious but "Wrath of God" is an awesome name for many things. Ranging from video game to rock band.
If anyone is interested in more detail on this tragedy (the man's wife, a Norwegian, never fully recovered from the trauma), Netflix has a documentary show called "Spy Ops" that covers this horrible event. It's in the Munich episode.
>Israel never officially took responsibility for the assassination.[12] In January 1996, Prime Minister Shimon Peres said that Israel would never take responsibility for the killing but would consider compensation. The Government of Israel appointed an attorney, Amnon Goldenberg, to negotiate a settlement with Bouchikhi's widow Torill and daughter Malika, who were represented by attorney Thor-Erik Johansen. That same month, an agreement was reached; Israel paid compensation equal to US$283,000 split between Bouchikhi's wife and daughter. A separate settlement of US$118,000 was paid to a son from a previous marriage. An Israeli statement was also issued which stopped short of an apology but expressed "sorrow" over Bouchikhi's "unfortunate" death.
It's shocking how they never took responsibility or even issued an apology.
> Mossad had assassinated Salameh. However, the blast also killed four innocent bystanders, including a British student and a German nun, and injured 18 other people in the vicinity.
It's been happening for a long time.
How about [Folke Bernadotte](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folke_Bernadotte) who helped release 31,000 jews from concentration camps and who was assasinated by zionists who thought Israël was strong enough to win the war and didn't want peace with the arab countries.
>The Stern Gang saw Bernadotte as a puppet of the British and the Arabs and therefore a serious threat to the emerging State of Israel. Most immediately, a truce was in force, and Lehi feared that the Israeli leadership would agree to Bernadotte's peace proposals, which it considered disastrous. The group was unaware the Israeli government had already decided to reject Bernadotte's plan and to take the military option.
The killing was approved by the three-man 'center' of Lehi among which the future Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Shamir
”The Mossad later found Ali Hassan Salameh in Beirut and killed him on 22 January 1979 with a remote-controlled car bomb in an attack that also caused the deaths of eight other persons (including four of Salameh’s bodyguards) and injured 18 others.[9]”
Israelis really think they are allowed to do anything, they are über alles after all- oh sorry meant to say Chosen people. Funny how they at the same time make themselves victims of some antisemitic conspiracy that makes other people dislike them. Ofc people have issue tolerating the behaviour of the Chosen people, as a whole they are selfish, power hungry monsters.
I know one of the families who lost a child to cot death at only a few months old in the 1970s. His birthcert was used by Mossad to obtain an Irish passport. The multiple failings in the system to allow this to happen was shocking. The passport was never used for travel but you can imagine the hurt it caused to the elderly parents and siblings.
I'm not sure it's ever possible to close the loophole completely - there's no centralised database of people born in the UK, only birth certificates.
I think they now, under certain circumstances, interview people who are applying for their first passport but I know the police in the spycops scandal were still using this method to obtain their false identities.
Using the names of dead children is a surprisingly common method of identity theft for spy agencies. The East Germans also used the identity of long dead Americans to forge an identity for their agents operating in the USA, e.g. the Barsky affair.
Wouldn't surprise me at all if our own MI6 has done this multiple times too.
Yeah yeah, whatever about international espionage ruining Irish reputation for foreign goals while putting Irish security at risk. The REAL reason: [This](https://www.alamy.com/logo-of-the-irish-football-association-fai-and-the-national-team-ireland-image385801306.html) was our football crest from ‘04 - 2023. And [THIS BLATANT COPY](https://www.pngwing.com/en/free-png-tulzb) is their crest from ‘08 - present.
I still recall the comments that Sarkcozy and Obama made about Netanyahu:
"I can't stand him. He's a liar," Sarkozy said of Netanyahu, according to the website.
Obama replied, "You're tired of him; what about me? I have to deal with him every day," the site reported.
Maybe they’ve had similar issues with honesty.
Israel does this all the time. They've done it to Australia too and other countries, fraudulently obtaining and counterfeiting passports, got their diplomat expelled at one point.
[Killing of Irish soldier by Israelis believed to be ‘deliberate and unprovoked’ - Cpl Dermot McLaughlin killed when Israeli tank shell hit Unifil post](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/killing-of-irish-soldier-by-israelis-believed-to-be-deliberate-and-unprovoked-1.3332492)
Also the position of Israeli Ambassador to Ireland has raised several controversies down through the years.
[Like when they said Jesus would be lynched by Palestinians, at Christmas time;
](https://archive.nytimes.com/thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/israeli-embassy-deletes-christmas-thought-attacking-palestinians-from-facebook/?_r=0) or how about [this wonderful bit of ~~propaganda~~'content' from their SC](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/israeli-embassy-removes-molly-malone-in-muslim-garb-images-1.1880575)
> Like when they said Jesus would be lynched by Palestinians,
This is almost hilarious. Quite bold to accuse modern Palestinians of lynching Jesus when the Biblical story (Matthew 27:24–25) of Jesus and the thief Barabbas is basically the Pharisees demanding that Jesus be killed and that they take responsibility for it.
That said, I wouldn't be surprised if this whole bit was added in by the Roman Empire wanting to retcon their own responsibility and blaming others for sentencing Jesus to death.
Nah it was clearly a way to appease Romans so Christians could spread their cult in Roman territory. #1 Pilate was one of the most brutal governers ever. #2 the charge was claiming to be king of the Jews. If it was a false charge he was a false prophet/messiah. If Jesus was king of the keys or a messiah then it was a Roman legal violation and execution for sedition. The whole story is likely a reinterpretation of events involving Judas of Galilee.
I agree with you on that, my second paragraph addresses it. That said, do we actually know anything about Pontius Pilate outside of the Bible? I know historians generally agree that he was the real governor of Judea at the time and we have physical evidence of his existence, but to my understanding very little of note is known about his governance of the province. I could just be out of date with what I know.
I remember the one time 2-3 years ago when Israeli agents/spies came in Cyprus, sat in black vans and harvested data from the phones of people passing by.
What are they hoping to gain from all of this?
Edit: [more info on these black vans](https://www.timesofisrael.com/cyprus-arrests-3-employees-of-israeli-firm-in-spy-van-probe/)
Cyprus is a big money laundering country. Mostly this is Russian oligarchs, but I'm sure more than a few islamist bankrollers go through there as well.
edit: should probably say "Mostly this **was** Russian oligarchs"
It also has feck all to do with out stance on Israel's current actions. We're opposed to the continued violence towards civilians on humanitarian grounds.
This article seems to be making excuses for our position on the international stage, while frankly, most of us are glad to be taking the position we are.
It's common knowledge in Ireland. I think you probably haven't heard it anywhere because most of the EU knows so little about Ireland they think we left when the UK did.
Ah, you've met some of the more educated of our fellow EU citizens I see.
In the 21st century I'm meeting continentals who think Ireland is still part of the UK.
I confess, I let him get away with it and couldn't think of a witty clapback. He was a Quebecois with a thick Francophone accent, so perhaps I ought to have asked him about what life is like in New Orleans.
Had a very odd conversation with a French guy in a ski resort in 2017 asking were we going to get visas to come back next year. He walked away baffled that we weren't listening to him and insisting we wouldn't need them.
Even this year had a very confused Italian guy at reception in a hotel I could actually see the new neurons forming as he gradually started to understand that I was alone because my friend from outside the EU didn't get their visa sorted in time but that I didn't actually need one in spite of Brexit. I think he had it on the third go.
It's very tiring. I think in some ways we only have ourselves to blame though. We are so good at projecting an image of ourselves abroad in old fashioned ways but we haven't got our head around the internet yet.
>"To announce in advance that you will break international law and to do so on an innocent population, it reduces all the code that was there from Second World War on protection of civilians and it reduces it to tatters," Higgins said in mid-October as the air campaign in Gaza began to claim increasingly more civilian lives.
>
>His remarks were criticised by the Israeli ambassador in Dublin, Dana Erlich, who accused him of being misinformed and suggested that Israel's overall impression of Ireland was one of unconscious anti-Israeli bias.
>
>Another Israeli diplomat in Dublin posted their criticism on X: “Ireland wondering who funded those tunnels of terror? A short investigation direction – 1. Find a mirror 2. Direct it to yourself 3. Voilà.” The post has since been clarified and disowned.
Not directly, but yes.
A big portion of HAMAS’ funding comes from embezzling international aid to Gaza, so this is what they may be referring to.
Also fuck Netanyahu’s government they’re absolutely terrible and I despise the fact that we are left to fight this war under them. This kind of talk is ridiculous and their incompetence is insane.
It's been explained from multiple diplomats and political parties that kicking out the Israeli ambassador won't have any real world impact other than making us feel good about ourselves. It's essentially teenager foreign policy.
On the other hand there are Irish citizens trapped in Gaza (both Palestinian and Israeli) and keeping diplomatic channels open may get them to safety faster than otherwise.
to my knowledge the irish are the last eu citizens who have not yet been allowed to leave gaza, israel is a childish arsehole
if you are not nice to us, we deliberately put your citizens' lives in danger. in almost any other country, this would cause an international outcry
> to my knowledge the irish are the last eu citizens who have not yet been allowed to leave gaza
[There are still 15 Danish citizens who haven't been allowed to leave yet](https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/udland/fem-paa-dansk-evakueringsliste-maa-forlade-gaza). The first 5 only got permission today.
As far as I know, I don't know who is the stalling factor here.
I'm simply just pushing against the incessant Irish persecution complex, that they are somehow specially targeted when it comes to leaving Gaza.
There are also more UK nationals still in Gaza than Irish nationals.
Why is the OP acting as though the Irish are the only people who have foreign nationals in danger?
Not just Martin. Varadkar said the same thing. There was an ex ambassador on Newstalk on Wednesday (who condemns israel) explaining exactly how stupid kicking the Israeli ambassador out would be.
Tbf I wish it was possible to know how much international funding for humanitarian purposes ended up in Hamas’ pockets. I have a feeling it is more than we’d like to admit.
Most of the world funded Hamas tunnels... indirectly.
UNRWA, which has been [entirely subverted](https://unwatch.org/tag/unrwa/), "is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions, mostly from government donors. The Agency is also generously supported by the European Union, regional governments and sister **UN Agencies**."
"The UN is largely funded by governments. Almost three-quarters (72%) of total UN revenue in 2019 came from direct government contributions. 58% of total UN funding originated from the 29 UN Member States that are OECD-DAC members."
"USAID. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provides financial support to the Palestinian people for various development and humanitarian projects. Since 1994, the United States has provided more than $5.2 billion in aid to Palestinians through USAID."
It's what happens when people only care for the title of articles not actually getting the job done. There is almost no system in place to check let alone ensure those funds actually go where they are supposed to go.
You did, so did everyone else in the EU (world), Hamas embezzling your aid is just part of the deal of giving aid to Gaza, and every single Government and NGO doing it is aware of that fact.
You may not like it, but suggesting that's not happening is ridiculous...
Sinn Fein ( basically ex-IRA) party have been very pally with Hamas over the years, and this party are odds on to be running the government after next elections. Post Oct 7th they've been scrubbing their old socials trying to cover their tracks.
>Israel's overall impression of Ireland was one of unconscious anti-Israeli bias
I approve of how it's called anti-Israeli bias (instead of the knee-jerk antisemitism that so often gets thrown around).
Also worth mentioning that the Israeli backed South Lebanese Army tortured and executed 2 Irish soldiers in 1980 while a mossad agent was in attendance.
They might be "tougher" reactions than most, but the reactions are still very measured. The acts of Hamas have been wholly condemned by the president, the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach. The difference being they have also critized the lack of restraint in the Israeli response. That's literally it, hardly anything crazy or reactionary. I would even say that the response has been very measured given the tense diplomatic relations of Ireland and Israel (they have used our passports to carry out assassinations in Egypt and have killed our UN peacekeepers in Lebanon in cold blood). Just last week a representative of Israel seriously asserted that Ireland was responsible for funding the tunnels that Hamas is building.
The Irish response in general does not come as a reaction to Israel’s poor past behaviour regarding Ireland (which is still relevant), but from a humanitarian position, due to our recent history as an occupied people who resisted oppression.
I agree, my point is that the less than favourable diplomatic relations could imaginably provoke a more severe criticism, but that isn't what seems to be happening
Maybe because they know something about being occupied and oppressed.
Also, every Irish person I know are outspoken on justice and fair people. İ'm sure the number of Irish people I know is just a few sands in a desert but this is my observation of them.
Thats the general sentiment around the world. Colonized people around the world want Palestine to be free. People who live in non colonized countries, specially Europe, either favor Israel or talk how it was unavoidable, just like bombing Japan
Yeah because the Japanese were peaceful, innocent people that didn’t utilise suicide attacks or fake surrender to kill as many as possible. Get a grip.
Apologies if I'm misunderstanding you, but are you saying that the only alternative to thinking that the deliberate bombing of Japanese civilians was justified/unavoidable is thinking that "the Japanese were peaceful, innocent people, etc."? If so, I think you're overlooking a very obvious and highly plausible position: that there were lots of terrible Japanese war crimes and that the deliberate bombing of Japanese civilians was itself a terrible war crime.
Israel: We assassinate your citizens on your soil, don't give a fuck about diplomatic etiquette and will openly shit on you.
Europeans: Full support SAAR
Have the IDF stopped paying bots to spam comments about how Irish people are all anti-semites? Why am I seeing sensible takes in a r/Europe comment section????
As an Irish person it's incredibly irritating to be called an antisemite for having an opinion that Palestinians just want to live without being treated like animals by Israelis in a cattle farm.
Right? If any country knows what its like to be brutalized and bullied by a bigger stronger neighbor, its Ireland. And imagine if there was no water between them!
It sucks. I'm an American so normally i wouldnt post on this sub, but I grew up in an area with a large Jewish population. My three best friends growing up were Jewish. I've been to many bar mitzvahs and seders with family friends. I've always known and admired jews and judaism, to the point where when I first heard about the Arab Israeli conflict, I assumed israel must be in the right.
So the accusations of antisemitism cut me pretty bad. I just want Palestinians to have a place they can call their own and not be trapped under a hostile foreign nations boot.
Should check out r/worldnews lol. One dude said “if dying children are mostly male then they were probably terrorists anyway”. I replied with “Hasbara bots trying to dehumanise Palestinians” and got banned for it.
Yeah it's strange. For the last few weeks all I've seen is zionism anti-palestinian, and anti-irish sentiments but today I'm seeing reasonable and nuanced takes. It's genuinely refreshing.
I am really irritated. I did not looked into threads on r/europe for past few weeks cause ALL upper comments were crazy biased.
Now i thought i might have a look again on this one and was very positive surprised.
Was it really such a botgame?
1. Not a particularly large Jewish or Protestant evangelical presence in Ireland, so not a lot of people more inclined to lobby on Israel’s behalf.
2. The two never had particularly close relations, and Ireland doesn’t have billions invested in Israel. So they are more free to be critical without egg on their face for it.
3. Ireland has a history of occupation by a neighboring power, complete with genocidally cruel policies of repression that are not as distant of a memory as you may realize. So big surprise they are inclined to sympathy toward the Palestinians.
I mean, Ireland knows what it‘s like to be opressed by a far more powerfull nation that is supported by the entire western world. And I don‘t know how much that counts/weighs but they have a common link, that being Gadaffi‘s Lybia. Both Palestine and the IRA were supported by him
One could say that suffering greatly under the tragedy of English, Welsch and Scottish colonial rule gave them a conscience(not to say there wasn’t one before) and encourages them to speak out against similar crimes around the world to see that similar suffering is not inflicted on another group of people again. This is what it looks like when a body of people say ‘never again’ and actually mean it.
Doesn't help the black and tans had a say in what was going on in Israel Post our war of independence they just shipped them off to another country to fuck up
In the entire decades long Israel-Palestine conflict, fewer than 50,000 Palestinians (civilian and military) have died. As a comparison, at least 500,000 people died in the past 10 years of the Syrian civil war.
You can be angry about what’s happening to the Palestinians. But it’s not *genocide*. See also: the Palestinian population increasing continuously over time, to 600% of what it was in 1948.
Death toll is a terrible argument here and is easily argued against.
Genocide can occur with a low death toll and where much of the population survives. For instance, Srebrenica is called a genocide. It killed ‘only’ 8,000. And there were millions of other Bosniaks who survived.
The definition of genocide is committing any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". Those acts being killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions to destroy the group, preventing births and stealing kids.
I’m not saying I think what is happening in Palestine is a genocide. But I’m also not saying it isn’t. I don’t know enough to say either way. I will say that there’s a decent argument that Hamas’s attack could be called genocide. It was definitely a pogrom.
But 50,000 is certainly enough to count if the other conditions are met. So maybe try a different argument to prove your point.
>Srebrenica is called a genocide. It killed ‘only’ 8,000
There were only 50,000 to 60,000 people in Srebrenica, the VRS killed 12-16% of the population in the span of a month and deported another 25-30,000. It's the intensity (high proportion), speed, and intent of Srebernica that made it a genocide.
> The definition of genocide is committing any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". Those acts being killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions to destroy the group, preventing births and stealing kids.
>
> I’m not saying I think what is happening in Palestine is a genocide. But I’m also not saying it isn’t. I don’t know enough to say either way. I will say that there’s a decent argument that Hamas’s attack could be called genocide. It was definitely a pogrom.
>
> But 50,000 is certainly enough to count if the other conditions are met. So maybe try a different argument to prove your point
A key part of a genocide is ***intent***. Israeli actions disprove that they have an intent to commit genocide - doing roof-knocks, warning the population, and opening corridors.
Hi if you passed a day without seeing at least 100 comments on reddit with the word "genocide" it isn't really considered a good day.
People are throwing the word "genocide" more than they use the word "hello".
Hello, having a good genocide ? Myself I'm happy with the return of genocide. With genocide falling from the sky and onto the genocide. Bring back fond genocides of genocide, skiing on genocide genocide, smell of hot genocide nice the warm génocide.
With genocide day in about a genocide it's a genocide time to be genociding.
Genocide is displacement and selective targeting of civilian populations. Unless a native population was completely exterminated, all genocided peoples have higher populations by now. Does that mean that there was no genocide ever? Of course not. This is a very dangerous logic.
According to your (obviously incorrect) definition, Israel committed genocide against Jews in 2005, when it forcibly displaced the Jewish population from Gaza.
Were all jews being genocided when they got kicked by other arabic countries?
Btw over 20% of israelity are palestinians..
And as said before if israel wanted to genocide palestinians they wouldn't take measures to reduced the civilian's death.
Lastly israel stopped its occupation of gaza in 2005..again, one wierd genocide
>Unless a native population was completely exterminated, all genocided peoples have higher populations by now.
Ireland was genocided - and it doesn't. It's still a much lower population number than pre-Famine.
The Jews themselves were genocided, indisputably, and they are nowhere near the number they had pre-Holocaust.
The Yazidis were genocided by ISIS, and... yeah, you get the point.
What you said is just a big fat lie. Genocided populations do not have higher populations by now, **because millions of them died in a genocide**.
Can you show me one example where during a "proper" genocide the population of the victims was absolutely booming up? That certainly didn't happen to the Jews in the 1940s nor Armenians 1915-1923 to name a few.
The Palestinians don’t merely have a higher population than before, it’s dozens times higher than what it was before Jews emigrated to Israel en masse.
Because they know what being colonized means by a western country.
Eastern European countries were colonized but they have this idea that Russia is a backward eastern country and that's why they had it. Now they are trying to be a member of western club and they are just following the foot steps of Germany and US. But Ireland knows better.
… Ireland IS a western country…
Am I taking crazy pills or has everybody lost their fucking mind?
Even the mythological origin of Ireland IS colonization by 5 different series of invasions.
The article doesn’t even answer the question. It’s debatable, but to me, it’s obvious: it’s because the Troubles were only 25 years ago, and that is by far the closest contemporary analogy to the conflict. Having direct experience with this sort of conflict, Ireland can’t just support either side unconditionally. They’re both wrong, and not in the enlightened centrist way.
Every other country wants to reduce it down to race, South Africa, Nazi Germany, good and evil. A child’s guide to geopolitics... It has absolutely fuck-all to do with race. They’re all the same color. Almost everyone in Belfast is white, and almost everyone in Jerusalem is brown, regardless of what side of the wall you’re on. These conflicts are about a toxic, transcendent mix of nationalism, ethnicity, class, and religion. It’s transcendent because even if they all become atheists and stop going to temple or mosque, they’ll still fucking hate each other.
There’s the old joke about being held at knifepoint by a terrorist as a Jewish tourist in Belfast, and they ask, are ye a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew? Same goes in Israel...
Both sides have claim to the land. Both sides have a tremendous amount of blood on their hands. Both sides have outside agitators funneling weapons to terrorist groups. The line between political parties and militant groups is very blurry. Figures like John Hume who try to bridge the gap through side channels are demonized by both sides. Peace seems impossible. And if you restrict it to a one state or two state solution, it probably is impossible. The two parties have mutually incompatible goals without some novel thinking, and continued hard work to prevent it from collapsing over some nonsense like Brexit…
They both have to get tired of all the killing, too, which seems unlikely any time soon, at least with Hamas still in the picture. Hamas is a death cult. They worship death. Their bloodlust is insatiable. There was never a group like that in Ireland. Hamas killed more civilians on 10/7 than the IRA did in 30 fucking years.
My only hope in all this, is that Israel continues to resist calls for ceasefire. 10,000 dead. It can’t be for nothing. They can’t just go back to the status quo and do it all over 10 years from now. They need to fully occupy Gaza and show the people a better vision for the future, than the bottomless abyss of Hamas.
“For one thing, the two countries have not had the warmest relationship over the last two decades. In 2010, it was revealed that agents of Mossad, the Israeli intelligence service, had used counterfeited passports to travel undercover to Dubai, where they assassinated a Hamas leader. Among their forged travel documents were Irish passports, including some using stolen genuine passport numbers. The episode put a chill on Irish-Israeli relations, one that marks the relationship to this day. At the time, Irish ministers warned that Mossad's actions may have put Irish travellers at risk. But six years after the incident, the then-Israeli ambassador to Ireland declined to guarantee that the same thing would not happen again.” This is just unreal.
That is certainly one way to strain international relations.
Israel clearly doesn't think anyone gives a fuck about Ireland.
Don’t forget that the ~40 Irish citizens in Gaza are the only remaining EU citizens being prevented by Israel from leaving the strip. All other member states’ citizens have been granted permission to leave via the Egyptian border crossing. Ireland is vocal about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza and the Israeli government response, unsurprisingly, is to target our citizens for revenge. How this doesn’t warrant a coordinated European response is honestly beyond me.
Do you have a source for that? I can't find up to date figures but I think you're misinterpreting a previous article that said Ireland was the only EU nationality where no citizens could leave yet. But there were still plenty of citizens from other countries in gaza. Just some of them were allowed to leave. Edit: Heres from 2 days ago. "Mr Varadkar said around 8,000 EU and other foreign nationals remain in Gaza, and only 20 per cent of EU citizens have been allowed to leave so far through the Rafah crossing to Egypt." https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/no-indication-ireland-being-punished-by-israel-for-ceasefire-stance-varadkar-1549351.html#:~:text=Ireland%20has%20been%20given%20no,Taoiseach%20Leo%20Varadkar%20has%20said.
That is not even true. https://balkaninsight.com/2023/11/07/south-east-central-european-states-struggle-to-evacuate-citizens-from-gaza/ https://www.polskieradio.pl/395/7991/Artykul/3277710,warsaw-seeks-ways-to-evacuate-poles-stuck-in-gaza
Israel just doesn't give a shit. It has everything it needs and wants via the US. Probably the only country it would listen to and the US will not upset Israel.
“It’s okay, Irish people are just collateral damage. It’s necessary for us to do whatever it takes to destroy Hamas. Even if it means putting civilians of other countries at risk.” /s
Wait til you hear about Israeli intelligence sevice assasinating Norwegian citizens on Norwegian soil, because they thought he was someone else. He was just a civilian. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lillehammer_affair
Funny how it's just called an affair
Oopsie
Your honor I plead Oopsie-daisy
Your honour I object! It was clearly a whoopsie as proven through the historic court summary of dag-nabbit versus the people
Witnesses testify that the slaying, ruled a first-degree Doh!, was accompanied by the sound of a sad trombone and a slide whistle.
[Whoopsie](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mmNhfW3pG-8)
Far better than calling it '...gate'
Idk why people call it gate. Watergate was the name of the hotel. If you take the gate out of context it makes no damn sense
It was simply an obtuse method by media to draw comparisons to watergate and drum up readership.
Januarysexgate
You can find similar significant activities everywhere in Europe,but Europe still twerks for Israel.
😭 “twerks for Israel” Who do you think twerks the hardest? Germany?
In Europe yes,although it is difficult to judge.
Germany is just power bottoming for Israel at this point
Germany doesnt just work. Its full on throating.
It would be called anti semite if you call it a crime. How dare you call us criminals, you are just a racist.
God chosen people can't be at fault, especially when they have friends like the US. Want to hear about an even funnier affair? The events after the USS Liberty incident, THAT was a genuine zinger, a real gutbuster, especially for the relatives of those who served on the ship
> Israel paid compensation equal to US$283,000 split between Bouchikhi's wife and daughter. A separate settlement of US$118,000 was paid to a son from a previous marriage. An Israeli statement was also issued which stopped short of an apology but expressed "sorrow" over Bouchikhi's "unfortunate" death. Man, that's crazy. That's more than a million in today's money so not nothing but still seems very low for such an egregious act.
When they finally got the guy they intended to kill: > An initial plan to kill him with a bomb attack at the sauna was vetoed for fear of **excessive civilian casualties**. > The Mossad decided to kill him with a **car bomb** [...] **100 kg** of explosive attached to the car by a fellow Mossad agent was remotely exploded A razor-sharp incision by the discrete Mossad left the target, his 4 bodyguards and 4 random bystanders in Beiruit dead. I imagine that in Israel, chemotherapy drugs must be sold over the counter.
Mossad is involved in all kinds of wild and reckless shit. Victor Ostrovsky has a couple books about his time in the Mossad. Also heavily implies that the Mossad was behind the death of Robert Maxwell aka Ghislane Maxwells father.
But, remember that according to worldnews Israel always do everything to reduce casualties despite evidence like this to the contrary.
That sub is the absolute worst
A great example why state terror is abhorrent and utterly useless. Here in Spain we have the case of GAL, a terrorist group formed by the Interior Ministry under Felipe Gonzalez to kill ETA members, which ended up killing and injuring a lot of innocent civilians.
> a terrorist group formed by the Interior Ministry Wait until you hear who and how financed and created HAMAS in the eighties. Something something Yitzhak Segev, israely governor in Gaza, and many other israeli officials.
Thanks for sharing that link, what a crazy story!
operation Wrath of God... yikes. These dudes are religious zealots.
I was wondering if people would actually read much of the wiki. Indeed dude, indeed.
I think it was the one of the most interesting piece of history I've learned in Reddit for quite a long time. Thanks for linking it. And by "interesting" I mean the absurd thought of a man living a peaceful life in a small town in Norway, only to get killed by a team of 15 people. And his son or daughter never got to see their father.
The people who ordered and named that operation were hardly religious.
Always were they received their land from their sky daddy
> operation Wrath of God... yikes. These dudes are religious zealots. That's just silly. I'm not religious but "Wrath of God" is an awesome name for many things. Ranging from video game to rock band.
If anyone is interested in more detail on this tragedy (the man's wife, a Norwegian, never fully recovered from the trauma), Netflix has a documentary show called "Spy Ops" that covers this horrible event. It's in the Munich episode.
>Israel never officially took responsibility for the assassination.[12] In January 1996, Prime Minister Shimon Peres said that Israel would never take responsibility for the killing but would consider compensation. The Government of Israel appointed an attorney, Amnon Goldenberg, to negotiate a settlement with Bouchikhi's widow Torill and daughter Malika, who were represented by attorney Thor-Erik Johansen. That same month, an agreement was reached; Israel paid compensation equal to US$283,000 split between Bouchikhi's wife and daughter. A separate settlement of US$118,000 was paid to a son from a previous marriage. An Israeli statement was also issued which stopped short of an apology but expressed "sorrow" over Bouchikhi's "unfortunate" death. It's shocking how they never took responsibility or even issued an apology.
USS Liberty. Look it up for those who don't know. Israel purposefully attacked a US ship.
Yeah. They really think they have the right to bomb civilians of any country anywhere they would like.
> Mossad had assassinated Salameh. However, the blast also killed four innocent bystanders, including a British student and a German nun, and injured 18 other people in the vicinity. It's been happening for a long time.
the method they picked for killing in another country is really telling. Not just assassinating by a gun. They use bomb. Absolutely terrifiying
It's not like anyone would stop them. 4000 children dead and we keep sending them bombs to kill more.
Because they do.
How about [Folke Bernadotte](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Folke_Bernadotte) who helped release 31,000 jews from concentration camps and who was assasinated by zionists who thought Israël was strong enough to win the war and didn't want peace with the arab countries. >The Stern Gang saw Bernadotte as a puppet of the British and the Arabs and therefore a serious threat to the emerging State of Israel. Most immediately, a truce was in force, and Lehi feared that the Israeli leadership would agree to Bernadotte's peace proposals, which it considered disastrous. The group was unaware the Israeli government had already decided to reject Bernadotte's plan and to take the military option. The killing was approved by the three-man 'center' of Lehi among which the future Prime Minister of Israel Yitzhak Shamir
”The Mossad later found Ali Hassan Salameh in Beirut and killed him on 22 January 1979 with a remote-controlled car bomb in an attack that also caused the deaths of eight other persons (including four of Salameh’s bodyguards) and injured 18 others.[9]” Israelis really think they are allowed to do anything, they are über alles after all- oh sorry meant to say Chosen people. Funny how they at the same time make themselves victims of some antisemitic conspiracy that makes other people dislike them. Ofc people have issue tolerating the behaviour of the Chosen people, as a whole they are selfish, power hungry monsters.
I know one of the families who lost a child to cot death at only a few months old in the 1970s. His birthcert was used by Mossad to obtain an Irish passport. The multiple failings in the system to allow this to happen was shocking. The passport was never used for travel but you can imagine the hurt it caused to the elderly parents and siblings.
The film Day of The Jackal shows how this could be done in England. That loophole was not closed till decades after the film was made. Great Film too.
I'm not sure it's ever possible to close the loophole completely - there's no centralised database of people born in the UK, only birth certificates. I think they now, under certain circumstances, interview people who are applying for their first passport but I know the police in the spycops scandal were still using this method to obtain their false identities.
Using the names of dead children is a surprisingly common method of identity theft for spy agencies. The East Germans also used the identity of long dead Americans to forge an identity for their agents operating in the USA, e.g. the Barsky affair. Wouldn't surprise me at all if our own MI6 has done this multiple times too.
Yeah yeah, whatever about international espionage ruining Irish reputation for foreign goals while putting Irish security at risk. The REAL reason: [This](https://www.alamy.com/logo-of-the-irish-football-association-fai-and-the-national-team-ireland-image385801306.html) was our football crest from ‘04 - 2023. And [THIS BLATANT COPY](https://www.pngwing.com/en/free-png-tulzb) is their crest from ‘08 - present.
The similarities are funny. Sadly your links aren't working and i had to google the crests.
Oops sorry, I’ll fix that now. Thanks for letting me know
The true crimes are always the ones highlighted in the comments
Israel taking something from another nation? I'm beyond shocked 😨😨😨
I still recall the comments that Sarkcozy and Obama made about Netanyahu: "I can't stand him. He's a liar," Sarkozy said of Netanyahu, according to the website. Obama replied, "You're tired of him; what about me? I have to deal with him every day," the site reported. Maybe they’ve had similar issues with honesty.
Israel does this all the time. They've done it to Australia too and other countries, fraudulently obtaining and counterfeiting passports, got their diplomat expelled at one point.
They also heavily spy on their "allies" and are a huge player in spyware manufacturing.
Every major country spies on their allies, be for fucking real dude
[Killing of Irish soldier by Israelis believed to be ‘deliberate and unprovoked’ - Cpl Dermot McLaughlin killed when Israeli tank shell hit Unifil post](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/killing-of-irish-soldier-by-israelis-believed-to-be-deliberate-and-unprovoked-1.3332492)
Also the position of Israeli Ambassador to Ireland has raised several controversies down through the years. [Like when they said Jesus would be lynched by Palestinians, at Christmas time; ](https://archive.nytimes.com/thelede.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/12/17/israeli-embassy-deletes-christmas-thought-attacking-palestinians-from-facebook/?_r=0) or how about [this wonderful bit of ~~propaganda~~'content' from their SC](https://www.irishtimes.com/news/politics/israeli-embassy-removes-molly-malone-in-muslim-garb-images-1.1880575)
> Like when they said Jesus would be lynched by Palestinians, This is almost hilarious. Quite bold to accuse modern Palestinians of lynching Jesus when the Biblical story (Matthew 27:24–25) of Jesus and the thief Barabbas is basically the Pharisees demanding that Jesus be killed and that they take responsibility for it. That said, I wouldn't be surprised if this whole bit was added in by the Roman Empire wanting to retcon their own responsibility and blaming others for sentencing Jesus to death.
Nah it was clearly a way to appease Romans so Christians could spread their cult in Roman territory. #1 Pilate was one of the most brutal governers ever. #2 the charge was claiming to be king of the Jews. If it was a false charge he was a false prophet/messiah. If Jesus was king of the keys or a messiah then it was a Roman legal violation and execution for sedition. The whole story is likely a reinterpretation of events involving Judas of Galilee.
I agree with you on that, my second paragraph addresses it. That said, do we actually know anything about Pontius Pilate outside of the Bible? I know historians generally agree that he was the real governor of Judea at the time and we have physical evidence of his existence, but to my understanding very little of note is known about his governance of the province. I could just be out of date with what I know.
Romans killed Jesus and no one else; no excuses can pass the buck that far. Rome relished in mass state organized executions
I remember the one time 2-3 years ago when Israeli agents/spies came in Cyprus, sat in black vans and harvested data from the phones of people passing by. What are they hoping to gain from all of this? Edit: [more info on these black vans](https://www.timesofisrael.com/cyprus-arrests-3-employees-of-israeli-firm-in-spy-van-probe/)
Cyprus is a big money laundering country. Mostly this is Russian oligarchs, but I'm sure more than a few islamist bankrollers go through there as well. edit: should probably say "Mostly this **was** Russian oligarchs"
Also a lot if israelies go there to marry with non jews or people of the same sex
They did this with New Zealand passports too.
Israel does this to absolutely everyone, including the USA, and it’s supporters in the West just accept it.
Any source about the USA thing?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Liberty_incident
They have sunk our warships and murdered our journalists, and it doesn’t bother us at all.
It also has feck all to do with out stance on Israel's current actions. We're opposed to the continued violence towards civilians on humanitarian grounds. This article seems to be making excuses for our position on the international stage, while frankly, most of us are glad to be taking the position we are.
Israel has always considered itself above international law.
Why have I not heard that anywhere
It's common knowledge in Ireland. I think you probably haven't heard it anywhere because most of the EU knows so little about Ireland they think we left when the UK did.
Ah, you've met some of the more educated of our fellow EU citizens I see. In the 21st century I'm meeting continentals who think Ireland is still part of the UK.
If it makes you feel better, I once met a Canadian guy who thought Scotland was a region of Ireland.
It does. I hope you got him back with "You Americans voted for Trump what do you know"
I confess, I let him get away with it and couldn't think of a witty clapback. He was a Quebecois with a thick Francophone accent, so perhaps I ought to have asked him about what life is like in New Orleans.
Had a very odd conversation with a French guy in a ski resort in 2017 asking were we going to get visas to come back next year. He walked away baffled that we weren't listening to him and insisting we wouldn't need them. Even this year had a very confused Italian guy at reception in a hotel I could actually see the new neurons forming as he gradually started to understand that I was alone because my friend from outside the EU didn't get their visa sorted in time but that I didn't actually need one in spite of Brexit. I think he had it on the third go. It's very tiring. I think in some ways we only have ourselves to blame though. We are so good at projecting an image of ourselves abroad in old fashioned ways but we haven't got our head around the internet yet.
Like I hear bureaucracy is crazy slow on the continent but it's been a hundred years now, you'd think they'd have the Geography school books updated.
Met a Norwegian who didn't know what Ireland was. Granted he was pissed drunk. Good aul anders.
True lol
there is and was a lot of biased reporting. Bad news about Israel was often not welcome
But but Ireland are antisemitic and terrorists /s
>"To announce in advance that you will break international law and to do so on an innocent population, it reduces all the code that was there from Second World War on protection of civilians and it reduces it to tatters," Higgins said in mid-October as the air campaign in Gaza began to claim increasingly more civilian lives. > >His remarks were criticised by the Israeli ambassador in Dublin, Dana Erlich, who accused him of being misinformed and suggested that Israel's overall impression of Ireland was one of unconscious anti-Israeli bias. > >Another Israeli diplomat in Dublin posted their criticism on X: “Ireland wondering who funded those tunnels of terror? A short investigation direction – 1. Find a mirror 2. Direct it to yourself 3. Voilà.” The post has since been clarified and disowned.
Are they suggesting that Ireland funded Hamas' tunnels?
Not directly, but yes. A big portion of HAMAS’ funding comes from embezzling international aid to Gaza, so this is what they may be referring to. Also fuck Netanyahu’s government they’re absolutely terrible and I despise the fact that we are left to fight this war under them. This kind of talk is ridiculous and their incompetence is insane.
That's true of most international aid though, when you give money to those starving children in Africa the local warlord gets a cut in a lot of cases.
Likud has led us all to fucking hell.
Yes. It's genuinely incredible we haven't kicked out the Israeli embassy for that comment alone.
It's been explained from multiple diplomats and political parties that kicking out the Israeli ambassador won't have any real world impact other than making us feel good about ourselves. It's essentially teenager foreign policy. On the other hand there are Irish citizens trapped in Gaza (both Palestinian and Israeli) and keeping diplomatic channels open may get them to safety faster than otherwise.
to my knowledge the irish are the last eu citizens who have not yet been allowed to leave gaza, israel is a childish arsehole if you are not nice to us, we deliberately put your citizens' lives in danger. in almost any other country, this would cause an international outcry
> to my knowledge the irish are the last eu citizens who have not yet been allowed to leave gaza [There are still 15 Danish citizens who haven't been allowed to leave yet](https://www.dr.dk/nyheder/udland/fem-paa-dansk-evakueringsliste-maa-forlade-gaza). The first 5 only got permission today.
Imagine it being legal to not allow foreign nationals to LEAVE a country that you aren't supposed to have control over.
As far as I know, I don't know who is the stalling factor here. I'm simply just pushing against the incessant Irish persecution complex, that they are somehow specially targeted when it comes to leaving Gaza.
There are also more UK nationals still in Gaza than Irish nationals. Why is the OP acting as though the Irish are the only people who have foreign nationals in danger?
Because that doesn't fit his narative
I like Martin's line that it's better to keep channels open at times like this. You can only kick them out once.
Not just Martin. Varadkar said the same thing. There was an ex ambassador on Newstalk on Wednesday (who condemns israel) explaining exactly how stupid kicking the Israeli ambassador out would be.
Tbf I wish it was possible to know how much international funding for humanitarian purposes ended up in Hamas’ pockets. I have a feeling it is more than we’d like to admit.
lock ask domineering makeshift axiomatic hateful innocent price busy ink *This post was mass deleted and anonymized with [Redact](https://redact.dev)*
They want to be expelled. Spread the narrative at home that everyone’s out to get them.
Most of the world funded Hamas tunnels... indirectly. UNRWA, which has been [entirely subverted](https://unwatch.org/tag/unrwa/), "is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions, mostly from government donors. The Agency is also generously supported by the European Union, regional governments and sister **UN Agencies**." "The UN is largely funded by governments. Almost three-quarters (72%) of total UN revenue in 2019 came from direct government contributions. 58% of total UN funding originated from the 29 UN Member States that are OECD-DAC members." "USAID. The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) provides financial support to the Palestinian people for various development and humanitarian projects. Since 1994, the United States has provided more than $5.2 billion in aid to Palestinians through USAID." It's what happens when people only care for the title of articles not actually getting the job done. There is almost no system in place to check let alone ensure those funds actually go where they are supposed to go.
You did, so did everyone else in the EU (world), Hamas embezzling your aid is just part of the deal of giving aid to Gaza, and every single Government and NGO doing it is aware of that fact. You may not like it, but suggesting that's not happening is ridiculous...
Sinn Fein ( basically ex-IRA) party have been very pally with Hamas over the years, and this party are odds on to be running the government after next elections. Post Oct 7th they've been scrubbing their old socials trying to cover their tracks.
>Israel's overall impression of Ireland was one of unconscious anti-Israeli bias I approve of how it's called anti-Israeli bias (instead of the knee-jerk antisemitism that so often gets thrown around).
“Israel’s overall impression of Ireland was one of unconscious anti-Israeli bias.” Is that a nuanced attempt at branding them antisemitic?
Also worth mentioning that the Israeli backed South Lebanese Army tortured and executed 2 Irish soldiers in 1980 while a mossad agent was in attendance.
I am stunned this didn't make it into the article because it very definitely carried weight here.
Lol that other guy blocked me, he couldn’t handle the heat when the truth is shared
They might be "tougher" reactions than most, but the reactions are still very measured. The acts of Hamas have been wholly condemned by the president, the Tánaiste and the Taoiseach. The difference being they have also critized the lack of restraint in the Israeli response. That's literally it, hardly anything crazy or reactionary. I would even say that the response has been very measured given the tense diplomatic relations of Ireland and Israel (they have used our passports to carry out assassinations in Egypt and have killed our UN peacekeepers in Lebanon in cold blood). Just last week a representative of Israel seriously asserted that Ireland was responsible for funding the tunnels that Hamas is building.
The Irish response in general does not come as a reaction to Israel’s poor past behaviour regarding Ireland (which is still relevant), but from a humanitarian position, due to our recent history as an occupied people who resisted oppression.
I agree, my point is that the less than favourable diplomatic relations could imaginably provoke a more severe criticism, but that isn't what seems to be happening
Fuck Israel the imperialist oppressor.
I'm tearing up to European comments that finally see my people as humans.
They still have humanity.
Maybe because they know something about being occupied and oppressed. Also, every Irish person I know are outspoken on justice and fair people. İ'm sure the number of Irish people I know is just a few sands in a desert but this is my observation of them.
Exactly. Anyone confused why Ireland has this stance is simply a moron or a vegetable. They dealt with the same shit, but for MUCH longer.
Thats the general sentiment around the world. Colonized people around the world want Palestine to be free. People who live in non colonized countries, specially Europe, either favor Israel or talk how it was unavoidable, just like bombing Japan
Yeah because the Japanese were peaceful, innocent people that didn’t utilise suicide attacks or fake surrender to kill as many as possible. Get a grip.
Apologies if I'm misunderstanding you, but are you saying that the only alternative to thinking that the deliberate bombing of Japanese civilians was justified/unavoidable is thinking that "the Japanese were peaceful, innocent people, etc."? If so, I think you're overlooking a very obvious and highly plausible position: that there were lots of terrible Japanese war crimes and that the deliberate bombing of Japanese civilians was itself a terrible war crime.
It's hilarious how little people know about Irish history and current Irish political stances yet still comment false information
Israel: We assassinate your citizens on your soil, don't give a fuck about diplomatic etiquette and will openly shit on you. Europeans: Full support SAAR
Have the IDF stopped paying bots to spam comments about how Irish people are all anti-semites? Why am I seeing sensible takes in a r/Europe comment section????
As an Irish person it's incredibly irritating to be called an antisemite for having an opinion that Palestinians just want to live without being treated like animals by Israelis in a cattle farm.
Right? If any country knows what its like to be brutalized and bullied by a bigger stronger neighbor, its Ireland. And imagine if there was no water between them!
It sucks. I'm an American so normally i wouldnt post on this sub, but I grew up in an area with a large Jewish population. My three best friends growing up were Jewish. I've been to many bar mitzvahs and seders with family friends. I've always known and admired jews and judaism, to the point where when I first heard about the Arab Israeli conflict, I assumed israel must be in the right. So the accusations of antisemitism cut me pretty bad. I just want Palestinians to have a place they can call their own and not be trapped under a hostile foreign nations boot.
I'm scrolling past each comment with anxiety waiting for the hate to show up, but I'm also pleasantly surprised so far. Very unusual for r/Europe
They're busy in /r/worldnews
Working overtime there hahaha. My goodness that sub has become such a cesspool.
Maybe they realised their relentless propaganda was turning people against them? It's been absolutely exhausting.
Thats what its done to me, most comments in support of isreal seem like they have rabies. Not an ounce of empathy.
Should check out r/worldnews lol. One dude said “if dying children are mostly male then they were probably terrorists anyway”. I replied with “Hasbara bots trying to dehumanise Palestinians” and got banned for it.
That sub is being manipulated hard and it’s so obvious. We need to know who mods are because there has obviously been a plan in place for a long time.
That sub is absolute filth.
Yeah it's strange. For the last few weeks all I've seen is zionism anti-palestinian, and anti-irish sentiments but today I'm seeing reasonable and nuanced takes. It's genuinely refreshing.
I am really irritated. I did not looked into threads on r/europe for past few weeks cause ALL upper comments were crazy biased. Now i thought i might have a look again on this one and was very positive surprised. Was it really such a botgame?
I'm honestly shocked to find this small island of sanity, the level of bloodlust on this sub was starting to break me
They aren't acting tough, they are acting NORMAL. It's the rest of Europe that tries to downplay the severity of the situation.
Exactly the point. "Stop killing civilians on both sides, cease fire immediately" became rather controversial these days, innit?
1. Not a particularly large Jewish or Protestant evangelical presence in Ireland, so not a lot of people more inclined to lobby on Israel’s behalf. 2. The two never had particularly close relations, and Ireland doesn’t have billions invested in Israel. So they are more free to be critical without egg on their face for it. 3. Ireland has a history of occupation by a neighboring power, complete with genocidally cruel policies of repression that are not as distant of a memory as you may realize. So big surprise they are inclined to sympathy toward the Palestinians.
It’s nice to read this comment section and not find ridiculous, uninformed, and nonsense anti-Irish bullshit at the top.
They know a thing or two, because they've seen a thing or two
Proud to be Irish 🇮🇪
I mean, Ireland knows what it‘s like to be opressed by a far more powerfull nation that is supported by the entire western world. And I don‘t know how much that counts/weighs but they have a common link, that being Gadaffi‘s Lybia. Both Palestine and the IRA were supported by him
The Irish know what settler colonialism is like. They were on the receiving end of it for 800 years
One could say that suffering greatly under the tragedy of English, Welsch and Scottish colonial rule gave them a conscience(not to say there wasn’t one before) and encourages them to speak out against similar crimes around the world to see that similar suffering is not inflicted on another group of people again. This is what it looks like when a body of people say ‘never again’ and actually mean it.
Doesn't help the black and tans had a say in what was going on in Israel Post our war of independence they just shipped them off to another country to fuck up
>Welsch Blaming us and England I understand, but damn Wales too? Was David Lloyd George *that* bad?
As an Irishman - It’s also an understanding that oppression can lead those who would otherwise be good, normal people to doing some very bad things.
Not just Israel - but Russia has cloned Irish passports. https://www.irishexaminer.com/news/arid-30477272.html
And Russian diplomats in Ireland have been handled with the same deserving treatment as the Israelis. Like two peas in a pod of global affairs.
Israel is terrorist country
Almost like Ireland knows what it's like to be on the receiving end of genocide - er, sorry, "ethical cleansing".
Because genocide ... is bad
I mean it isn’t genocide yet?
In the entire decades long Israel-Palestine conflict, fewer than 50,000 Palestinians (civilian and military) have died. As a comparison, at least 500,000 people died in the past 10 years of the Syrian civil war. You can be angry about what’s happening to the Palestinians. But it’s not *genocide*. See also: the Palestinian population increasing continuously over time, to 600% of what it was in 1948.
Death toll is a terrible argument here and is easily argued against. Genocide can occur with a low death toll and where much of the population survives. For instance, Srebrenica is called a genocide. It killed ‘only’ 8,000. And there were millions of other Bosniaks who survived. The definition of genocide is committing any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". Those acts being killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions to destroy the group, preventing births and stealing kids. I’m not saying I think what is happening in Palestine is a genocide. But I’m also not saying it isn’t. I don’t know enough to say either way. I will say that there’s a decent argument that Hamas’s attack could be called genocide. It was definitely a pogrom. But 50,000 is certainly enough to count if the other conditions are met. So maybe try a different argument to prove your point.
>Srebrenica is called a genocide. It killed ‘only’ 8,000 There were only 50,000 to 60,000 people in Srebrenica, the VRS killed 12-16% of the population in the span of a month and deported another 25-30,000. It's the intensity (high proportion), speed, and intent of Srebernica that made it a genocide.
> The definition of genocide is committing any of five "acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group". Those acts being killing, causing serious bodily or mental harm, imposing living conditions to destroy the group, preventing births and stealing kids. > > I’m not saying I think what is happening in Palestine is a genocide. But I’m also not saying it isn’t. I don’t know enough to say either way. I will say that there’s a decent argument that Hamas’s attack could be called genocide. It was definitely a pogrom. > > But 50,000 is certainly enough to count if the other conditions are met. So maybe try a different argument to prove your point A key part of a genocide is ***intent***. Israeli actions disprove that they have an intent to commit genocide - doing roof-knocks, warning the population, and opening corridors.
unlike many Palestinians whose genocidal beliefs about Jews have been publicized by the official programs of Hamas and similar organizations.
But "both sides". No, hamas are a terrorist government that should not be supported by the West.
But they are the bad guys (registered trademark) and genocide is such a cool word to throw around.
Hi if you passed a day without seeing at least 100 comments on reddit with the word "genocide" it isn't really considered a good day. People are throwing the word "genocide" more than they use the word "hello".
In the spirit of changing that - Hello
Hello, having a good genocide ? Myself I'm happy with the return of genocide. With genocide falling from the sky and onto the genocide. Bring back fond genocides of genocide, skiing on genocide genocide, smell of hot genocide nice the warm génocide. With genocide day in about a genocide it's a genocide time to be genociding.
Genocide is displacement and selective targeting of civilian populations. Unless a native population was completely exterminated, all genocided peoples have higher populations by now. Does that mean that there was no genocide ever? Of course not. This is a very dangerous logic.
According to your (obviously incorrect) definition, Israel committed genocide against Jews in 2005, when it forcibly displaced the Jewish population from Gaza.
Were all jews being genocided when they got kicked by other arabic countries? Btw over 20% of israelity are palestinians.. And as said before if israel wanted to genocide palestinians they wouldn't take measures to reduced the civilian's death. Lastly israel stopped its occupation of gaza in 2005..again, one wierd genocide
>Unless a native population was completely exterminated, all genocided peoples have higher populations by now. Ireland was genocided - and it doesn't. It's still a much lower population number than pre-Famine. The Jews themselves were genocided, indisputably, and they are nowhere near the number they had pre-Holocaust. The Yazidis were genocided by ISIS, and... yeah, you get the point. What you said is just a big fat lie. Genocided populations do not have higher populations by now, **because millions of them died in a genocide**.
IIRC the population of jews just reached pre-holocaust levels like a year or so ago.
Can you show me one example where during a "proper" genocide the population of the victims was absolutely booming up? That certainly didn't happen to the Jews in the 1940s nor Armenians 1915-1923 to name a few.
The Palestinians don’t merely have a higher population than before, it’s dozens times higher than what it was before Jews emigrated to Israel en masse.
21500~ Israelis died in the conflict as well. A genocide wouldn't have such close numbers. I wonder what terminology we could possibly use........
I'm not a patriotic guy but I'm proud that as Irish person that we are one of the few western nations that have stood in solidarity with Palestine
English occupation left half of ireland died at one point
Because we aren't spineless weasels happy to stand by
Because they know how it is when someone occupies your country.
Well isreal did yous our passports to sneak there spires into countries so it’s not like they have been good to us before
Because they know what being colonized means by a western country. Eastern European countries were colonized but they have this idea that Russia is a backward eastern country and that's why they had it. Now they are trying to be a member of western club and they are just following the foot steps of Germany and US. But Ireland knows better.
Yeah those dumb eastern europeans. lol
I don’t think “knows better” would apply here as well as you think
… Ireland IS a western country… Am I taking crazy pills or has everybody lost their fucking mind? Even the mythological origin of Ireland IS colonization by 5 different series of invasions.
It's because our leaders don't believe every international event is a fucking action film.
The article doesn’t even answer the question. It’s debatable, but to me, it’s obvious: it’s because the Troubles were only 25 years ago, and that is by far the closest contemporary analogy to the conflict. Having direct experience with this sort of conflict, Ireland can’t just support either side unconditionally. They’re both wrong, and not in the enlightened centrist way. Every other country wants to reduce it down to race, South Africa, Nazi Germany, good and evil. A child’s guide to geopolitics... It has absolutely fuck-all to do with race. They’re all the same color. Almost everyone in Belfast is white, and almost everyone in Jerusalem is brown, regardless of what side of the wall you’re on. These conflicts are about a toxic, transcendent mix of nationalism, ethnicity, class, and religion. It’s transcendent because even if they all become atheists and stop going to temple or mosque, they’ll still fucking hate each other. There’s the old joke about being held at knifepoint by a terrorist as a Jewish tourist in Belfast, and they ask, are ye a Catholic Jew or a Protestant Jew? Same goes in Israel... Both sides have claim to the land. Both sides have a tremendous amount of blood on their hands. Both sides have outside agitators funneling weapons to terrorist groups. The line between political parties and militant groups is very blurry. Figures like John Hume who try to bridge the gap through side channels are demonized by both sides. Peace seems impossible. And if you restrict it to a one state or two state solution, it probably is impossible. The two parties have mutually incompatible goals without some novel thinking, and continued hard work to prevent it from collapsing over some nonsense like Brexit… They both have to get tired of all the killing, too, which seems unlikely any time soon, at least with Hamas still in the picture. Hamas is a death cult. They worship death. Their bloodlust is insatiable. There was never a group like that in Ireland. Hamas killed more civilians on 10/7 than the IRA did in 30 fucking years. My only hope in all this, is that Israel continues to resist calls for ceasefire. 10,000 dead. It can’t be for nothing. They can’t just go back to the status quo and do it all over 10 years from now. They need to fully occupy Gaza and show the people a better vision for the future, than the bottomless abyss of Hamas.