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Ireland's Obsession with Boycotting Israel Has Reached Farcical New Heights
(Telegraph-UK) Michael Murphy - Ireland in recent years has been finding new ways to injure or embarrass itself in pursuit of moral gratification. The latest act of self-harm came last week when the country's national broadcaster, RTE, announced Ireland's withdrawal from the Eurovision Song Contest in protest of Israel's participation. What we are left with is less an act of diplomacy than performance art, conceived more to flatter the vanity of RTE than to influence events in the Middle East. Boycotting a music competition while offering no solutions to a war 3,000 miles away is hardly the bold gesture some appear to think it is. RTE's coverage of the war in Gaza seems to present it as a David and Goliath morality tale, in which UN organizations with well-documented ties to Hamas, including UNRWA, are cast as neutral observers. However, the decision will no doubt be applauded by Ireland's many self-declared "Paddystinians."