Photosales
niJobfinder
niCarfinder
Home Delivery
Propertynews
The Holocaust, anti-Semitism, and why so few can lecture the Israelis
Tuesday, 6 January 2009
One cannot generalise, but it is a fact that there is a tendency for the loyalist-Protestant-unionist interest in Northern Ireland to side with the Jewish Israelis in the endless conflict in the Middle East.
Similarly, the republican-Catholic-nationalist interest tends to side with the largely Muslim Palestinians. At one point during the violence here, an advertising agency retained by the Northern Ireland Office actually proposed that the Government run a campaign likening the terrorism directed at unarmed civilians in Northern Ireland to the Nazi assault on the Jews between 1933 and 1945. There were obvious parallels, but the disparity in scale was so great as to drown them and the campaign was never launched.
Many will feel the Israelis are justified in seeking to quell the cross-border rocket assault by Hamas from Gaza. But what happens after the invasion? Another Iraq? Hamas has been armed from Iran and by the peddlers of Russian missiles. No doubt the conflict could be continued from Egypt if the Israelis succeed in expelling Hamas from Gaza. Wars, notoriously, are more quickly started than ended. Regarded with the coolness of the distant observer, one feels the Israelis' all-out assault, although understandable, is unwise.
For one thing, they have allowed themselves to be astutely provoked into it. By provoking Israel and then siting their rockets in populated areas — are there any other sort in crowded Gaza? — Hamas is playing the old, unscrupulous game the IRA perfected in Northern Ireland. Already, displaying the terrorists' routine indifference to the slaughter of the uninvolved, Hamas is reaping its reward, as television screens worldwide are filled with weeping women and children, shattered homes — and media reportage sharply angled in the Palestinians' favour. The Israelis' game, of course, has an element of domestic politics about it. Tzipi Livni, the new woman leader of the Kadima party, is struggling to construct a durable coalition and has decided that a general election could give her the means. Cynics see the Gaza campaign as electioneering. Livni is a former Mossad agent, militantly Zionist, whose conservative pedigree — given election success — might allow her to negotiate her way to the two-state solution she favours for the conflict. Thatcher at Hillsborough in 1985 all over again?
Meantime, the British and the Irish have little room to reproach the Jews. Some 10 years ago, one of Blair's ministers, Ian McCartney, a Scot who was to become chairman of the Labour Party, described the then Shadow Chancellor, Oliver Letwin, as Fagin. (“No Oliver Twist, this man — more of a Fagin.”) Fagin, of course, was not merely a thief and a liar, as you may recall: he was also physically revolting and a Victorian caricature. So the comparison was quite outrageous. There were suggestions afterwards that Mr McCartney was entitled to a fool's pardon because he did not know that either Mr Letwin or Fagin was Jewish. The significant fact was that there was scarcely a murmur of criticism at his offensive remark — from his own party or from its supporting media. But if Oliver Letwin had been Muslim and McCartney had likened him to Ali Baba? By George, I feel sure we should have seen the roof lift off!
As for the Irish, between the wars they did not hang about talking about what to do about the Jews fleeing from Hitler. In 1935 they passed an Aliens Act expressly to keep them out. One was Robert Briscoe's aunt. Bob, a Jew, was Lord Mayor of Dublin twice in the 1950s and 1960s and a Fianna Fail TD. His aunt was in Berlin. But in 1938 the Department of Justice refused her a visa.
She died in Auschwitz. When the terrible Belsen concentration camp near Hanover was liberated by British troops in April 1945 and the horrific pictures of its cadaverous Jewish inmates were screened in cinemas throughout Northern Ireland, they were banned by the censor from all screens in Eire. Two weeks later de Valera paid his notorious visit to the German Legation in Dublin to express his condolence on the death of Hitler. In London, the wartime coalition Government had known all about the Holocaust for years. The |decoders at Bletchley Park read the daily reports of the SS to Berlin detailing how many Jews had been murdered in the concentration lager that day. The RAF could have bombed the gas chambers at Auschwitz or the railways whose miserable cargoes fed them. The Government had the aerial photographs. But nothing was done. To those who know the history, |neither David Miliband nor Micheal Martin has much room to lecture the Israelis.
- Text Size
Comments
22 Comments
Israel must defend its self as all sovereign nations must. Hamas is a terrorist group & its actions are wrong for its own people & wrong for the region. However, only the most blinded cannot but realize that the response of Israel to these Hamas missiles is disproportionate. The cost in lives of innocent civilians in Gaza is monstrous. Until there is a real political peace in the region Israel will find its self embroiled in ongoing conflicts that will undermine its long term stability. The arguments that past injustice to the Jews should impact on our ability to comment on & criticize unacceptable behavior by Israel is nonsense. Israel made peace with Jordan & Egypt so it can be done. Until the plight of the Palestinian people is resolved there will not be peace in the region. A two state solution where both have their sovereignty & dignity secured is the only way out of this mess. The Israelis do not have more rights than the Palestinians - both peoples deserve peace & security.
Posted by Jake M | 13.01.09, 10:23 GMT
i wouldnt suggest eric agrees with this comment of mine, though i agree with his analysis here ... my comment is this ... its nice for once in human history that people who were slaughtered and massacred and butchered and victimised for literally centuries, millennia even, mostly by the white liberal cultures of the west, have finally reached the point in history where no one - thats no one - is going to be in a position to render that evil and that violence again.
the arabs first and now the muslim maniacs in iran, taliban, al-quaeda and hamas want to sacrifice 'the jews' to their own insane dogmas. they lose wars then complain about the effects of losing, as if its not fair they lost. oops, that history for you.
they post photos of their children killed by israelis while justifying their own recruitment of their own children as suicide bombers and gloating over dead jews, past and present.
as irish, as a catholic, i have nothing in common at all with these barbarians.
Posted by catholic | 11.01.09, 00:14 GMT
Yes our history towards the Jewish people is shameful. Or should I say our ancestors' history towards the Jewish people's ancestors is shameful.
I just don't understand how on Earth that makes it wrong for me to express an anti-Israeli view in the current crisis, or even a more generalised anti-Zionist view in the longer term.
If only Israel was the idealistic western society it was set up meaning to be and not beholden to the (Russian-origined) ultra-Orthodox groups it now is and if only the Gazans hadn't voted for religious extremists!
religion eh
Posted by irishpaolo | 10.01.09, 19:34 GMT
I'm an Irish Jew living happily down in Dublin, with an Irish Jewish mum and a Jewish Israeli dad. I'm a regular visitor to Israel.
I think that it's great that some protestants support Israel and it's cause and on the I see how catholic support the Palestinians. Yet, I can't help but think a lot of this is just blind support just because one side thinks this way, therefore I must think the opposite. I find it a bit cringey. Especially to see Israeli and Palestine flags flying in various parts of the North, flying flags from two middle eastern countries that couldn't be any more different than the small rural Ulster villages they might be flying in. Your struggles are nothing compared, so stop moaning about your 'troubles' today in 2009 and spend some pounds as a tourist in Israel...
Posted by Shayna Goldfarb | 09.01.09, 18:55 GMT
Sorry eric very very selective insight please dont forget the views of unionists like Eileen Paisly now baroness paisley after our dose of historical amnesia because she said all those nice things at the boyne , who said her o'neilite opponnent harold smith couldnt be voted in beacause of the fact that he was jewish and said, "The Unionist party are boasting he [Harold Smith] is a Jew. As a Jew, he rejects our Lord Jesus Christ, the New Testament, Protestant principles, the Glorious Reformation and the sanctity of the Lord's day. The Protestant throne and the Protestant constitution are nothing to him." may be you might urge jeffrey Donaldson and other DUP members
who are using israel as a sap to win friends on the american right to apologise about this comment
Posted by T O Kane | 09.01.09, 17:46 GMT
Hello Eric,
I can't help but wonder if you would take the same line of argument if the blacks of South Africa were to be backed and armed by Russia, then went out and brutally murdered in the indiscriminate fashion as Israel to the Palestinians - using F16 bombers and tanks in built up highly populated districts of Johannesburg.
You could title that piece; 'The British and The Boers, Apartheid and Racism, and why so few can lecture the Native South African'.
Posted by Real Time | 08.01.09, 20:37 GMT
The British and Americans had all the co-ordinates for the Nazi gas chambers and internment camps during WWII, but were not interested in the slightest in destroying these places of death before they were put to use. They were not interested in the plight of the Jews then and now feel guilt and shame through upper echelon Zionists in the US and UK. I ask Matt Parrot and 'mickey' what they abhorred about the Holocaust - the mass murder of innocents, including those from the Warsaw ghetto who so rightly had the right to arm and defend themselves? Today in Israel/ Palestine the might of the Israel Attack Force (Defense must be a joke) are crushing skulls and ripping bodies to shreds of innocent men, women and children - if you deny this, you are lying only to yourself! Check Israels record - it speaks for itself. You believe their propaganda because you blindly trust those in power - you find safety in it. 'None are more hopelessly enslaved than those who falsely believe they are free'.
Posted by David McKenna | 08.01.09, 20:19 GMT
The Aliens Act that should be remembered is the Brititish one of 1905. This was brought in to curtail Jewish immigration into Britain when the English ruling class was offended by flamboyant displays of Jewish wealth in Park Lane. The author of the Aliens Act was none other than Mr Arthur Balfour of the Declaration that led to the establishment of the State of Israel. If Mr. Waugh wants to find a connection between anti-Semitism and Israel he should look at Britain where the founders of the Zionist cause recognized that their greatest allies in the world were English anti-Semites.
Posted by Padraig Walsh | 08.01.09, 12:05 GMT
On the subject of information arriving in England of alleged gassing of inmates in German camps, which, in this article, the Allies are credited with having put to an end (notably by destroying much of Europe), this should, I submit, be taken into consideration:
"There were no references in the decrypts to gassing."
F. H. Hinsley,
"British Intelligence in the Second World War: Its Influence on Strategy and Operations",
Vol. 2, HMSO, London, 1981, p. 673
Cited in Robert Faurisson, "Pope Pius XII's Revisionism", HRP, Sussex, England, 2006, p. 17. A book that cannot be sold legally in the author's country, France.
Posted by Guillaume Fabien | 07.01.09, 19:30 GMT
I don't call dead children propaganda. I call it a tragedy.
Posted by Yip | 07.01.09, 10:51 GMT
quote
" The decoders at Bletchley Park read the daily reports of the SS to Berlin detailing how many Jews had been murdered in the concentration lager that day."
that's nonsense. The codes were intercepted by codebreakers who recorded death by typhus and other means NOT murder
Sir Frank Hinsley was one of those codebreakers and wrote that and he became an official historian after the war
Posted by alan barbour | 07.01.09, 05:39 GMT
Excellent article. Despite the Anglo-Irgun conflicts of the 40's which were condemned by the Jewish National Council (a situation largely created by the White Paper which essentially condemned millions of Jews to death), the Jews have been loyal to the British, had 25,000 fighting in the British Army in WW2 and had their own Jewish Legion, the Zion Mule Corps fighting for the British in WW1. Synagogues, not just throughout the United Kingdom but the entire Commonwealth have large mounted prayers for the Queen and Royal Family on their walls. The small number of Jews in Northern Ireland have also by enlarge been loyalists.
The Irish Protestants were also the only group of people that tried (in vain) to protect the Jewish population of Limerick from the Catholics who eventually ethnically cleansed them.
Israel deserves the support of those who have also been the victims of inhumane terror.
Posted by James H | 07.01.09, 04:23 GMT
another great piece in the Tele on the conflict.
the one thing that unites extreme right and extreme left is their loathing of the jewish people and it continues today. people who don't know their shiites from their sunnis - oooh its all too complicated - know to hate the israelis anyway. its always been the default position for thickos.
and we irish have always thought of ourselves as the same as the blacks, the arabs, the palestinians, the native americans and just about any minority we could find, even while we spent 200 years either killing them in the British or US armies or trying to convert them by cultural bribery and blackmail. Hypocrites and fantasists.
fact is, no one bothered to save the jews in the war and they're not relying on anyone else anymore.
Posted by catholic | 06.01.09, 21:51 GMT
The Israelis are getting away with state sponsored terrorism because they have the full backing of that expert in state terrorism the USA.
Posted by Patrick Murphy | 06.01.09, 21:16 GMT
Patrick - Israel's only big backer is the US. Tell your mother.
Posted by Perry | 06.01.09, 20:49 GMT
Mr. Waugh deserves praise for this necessary article.
You Irish people have no right to speak out against this atrocity because you are Irish. Your ancestors didn't do enough to stop a previous atrocity, therefore you yourself are guilty, and will need to shut up and sit back down while they commit this atrocity.
It certainly is a relief that you folks have a print media brave enough to stand up to your wretched leper colony of anti-semitism which is partially responsible for the Holocaust.
Posted by Matt Parrott | 06.01.09, 19:58 GMT
Don't forget the TD Oliver J Flanagan, who reckoned the Jews deserved the Holocaust because they killed Jesus!
Posted by neil | 06.01.09, 18:43 GMT
Nothing like a bit of distortion, Patrick. The Afrikaner Nationalist government annoyed the Arabs by preventing Muslim South Africans from going to Mecca and ended up in a weird relationship with Israel as a result. Many Afrikaners objected to the Jews of South Africa, regarding them as not quite properly white South African, and many Jews eg Helen Suzman, an anti Nat. MP and Joe Slovo of the ANC were prominent in the struggle against apartheid.
Posted by maggie | 06.01.09, 18:41 GMT
As a unionist I feel I have to sympathise with the Palestinian cause and all innocent victims on both sides. An elderly friend was wounded by Jewish terrorists when serving with the Royal Ulster Rifles back in 1947.
Patrick - if you can think of any way the unionists have backed Israel, do let us know. Meanwhile, check out their US supplied firepower on the news tonight. You might think about where Sinn Fein's sympathy lay in the Boer War.
Posted by neil | 06.01.09, 17:19 GMT
Interesting parallels are mentioned here in Hamas deploying the IRAs old trick of not giving a damn about the lives of those destroyed during the troubles (either their "own" or the "enemy") but ensuring that propaganda was milked in the shape of weeping women and children, shattered homes etc.
People ought to be able to make up their own minds about who is to blame for what is currently going on in the middle-east.
Posted by mickey | 06.01.09, 16:54 GMT
22 Comments