Sir,—It is indeed true that the Israeli state’s labelling of all its critics as ‘anti-Semitic’ is shameless and designed to muzzle opposition to its brutal war in Gaza (HI 33.2, March/April 2025, editorial), but two things can be true at the same time. Defending Ireland’s position on Palestine should not mean having to whitewash anti-Semitism here in the past. One problem in discussing this is that there is a presumption that anti-Semitism always means genocidal Nazism. In actual fact anti-Semitism is a form of racism that can take many forms, including those of everyday prejudice. No study of Ireland from the 1900s onwards could avoid the fact that anti-Semitism was pervasive and that negative stereotypes of Jews were widely held across classes, religions and political points of view. Indeed, anti-Semitism was so ubiquitous that it was rarely challenged. It was notable that when Oliver J. Flanagan made his notorious speech praising Hitler for his anti-Jewish policies in 1943 the response in the Dáil was silence. There is no doubt either that anti-Semitism influenced Irish government policy towards Jewish refugees before, during and after the Holocaust. Indeed, public reactions to news of that genocide here were coloured by widespread assumptions that such stories were exaggerated or that the Jews had contributed to their own persecution. One can acknowledge all this and still oppose Israeli policy towards the Palestinians. Conversely, there also exists another myth. That is that because of our colonial past Irish nationalists automatically and naturally identify with the Palestinian struggle. In reality, many Irish republicans from the 1920s onwards sympathised with Zionism, including its most violent exponents. There is little evidence of concern for the Palestinians until the 1970s, when, like elsewhere, their cause became a central issue for the Left. Indeed, in the Republic of Ireland, until relatively recently at least, popular distrust of Israel has had more to do with the experience of Irish troops on UNIFIL duty in Lebanon than with post-colonial solidarity. We live in grim times. There are bad actors attempting to make political gains out of the horror and confusion that decent people feel about Gaza and elsewhere. Rather than simply pander to people’s prejudices, historians should also point out the complexities of our past.—Yours etc.,
BRIAN HANLEY
Belfast