(Jerusalem Post) Alan Shatter - In World War II, while thousands left Ireland to join the British forces fighting Nazi Germany, the Irish state assumed a position of neutrality, acting as a bystander. Charles Bewley, the anti-Semitic Irish ambassador in Berlin during the 1930s, advised the Irish government to refuse German and Austrian Jewish families trying to escape Nazi rule permission to live in Ireland, concerned Jews would contaminate Catholic Irish purity. Prime Minister Eamon DeValera expressed his condolences in Germany's Dublin embassy in May 1945 on Hitler's death. Debating last month's Israel-Hamas war, all opposition parties and various Dail deputies engaged in an orgy of condemnation of Israel. Israel was pilloried for defending Israelis. Ireland demanded more Israeli dead for Israel's defensive action to be justified. Embraced by the Irish government and passed unanimously, the Dail labeled Israeli "settlements" in eastern Jerusalem neighborhoods and on the West Bank as the sole barrier to a two-state solution. Legislators, including Ireland's foreign minister, celebrated the motion's anti-Semitic objective of achieving a Judenrein eastern Jerusalem and West Bank. It is truly delusional for politicians of a country which denied a safe haven to persecuted Jews to claim moral authority to dictate where it is permissible for Jewish people to reside today. The Irish foreign minister also had a much-publicized friendly meeting in Dublin with Iran's visiting foreign minister. No public criticism was voiced of Iran for its many threats to eliminate Israel, for its funding and training of terrorists or for cheering on Hamas rockets. The writer, a former Irish minister for Justice, Equality and Defense, was a member of the Dail (primary house of parliament) for 30 years.
2021-06-03 00:00:00Full ArticleBACK Visit the Daily Alert Archive