The Republic of Ireland’s unrestrained hatred of Israel was exposed last week when the Irish national football team, in concert with the Irish government and the larger public, demanded a boycott of the Israeli national football team. When the Irish team finally voted to play Israel, The Daily Mail quoted Ireland’s football boss, Heimer Hallgrimsson, saying, “We are not playing with genocide, we are playing against genocide.”
In one of the ugliest displays of disrespect, the Irish football team, its managers and coaches lowered their heads as the Israeli national anthem was played. Prior to the commencement of a game, in a show of sportsmanship, team captains and referees generally meet to shake hands and exchange team pennants. The Irish captain refused to shake the Israeli team captain’s hand or exchange the traditional pennants. This behavior was unprecedented in the world of football.
One of the definitions of antisemitism is the use of double standards. One standard is applied to the Jewish state and another for the rest of the world.
A case in point: The Irish football team had no problem playing the Islamic Republic of Iran in 2002 without controversy or boycott. They were playing a team whose regime has butchered thousands of its own people and continues to be the world’s leading sponsor of international terror. In other words, Iran has one of the world’s worst human rights records.
Central to Ireland’s loathing of Israel is its false charge of “genocide” against the Jewish state.
The term “genocide” was invented in 1944 by a Polish-Jewish lawyer named Raphael Lemkin, who coined it in his book Axis Rule in Occupied Europe. Key to its accepted international definition is intent. For example, Nazi Germany intentionally planned to wipe out the entire Jewish people, making it guilty of genocide. Without genocidal intent, genocide has not been committed.
Israel’s defensive war in Gaza was in response to the unprovoked Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad massacre of 1,200 Israelis, most of them civilians. The victims included babies, children, women, Holocaust survivors and the elderly. Along with this went the mass rape of girls and women of all ages. The Hamas murderers proudly videotaped their “heroic” deeds for the world to see. Ireland seems not to care.
Across Europe, there are right-wing parties positively inclined toward Israel, but not in Ireland.
Israel clearly has no genocidal intent. Its actions in Gaza are aimed strictly at Hamas and Palestinian Islamic Jihad terrorists. The Israel Defense Forces have dropped fliers and leaflets, and made phone calls to civilians, informing them to move to safe zones. Indeed, Gazans were physically moved from north to south and back again during the war with Hamas.
While the actual casualty numbers provided by Hamas’s Ministry of Health are subject to dispute, it is not disputable that Hamas forced many civilians to serve as human shields, thus greatly increasing civilian casualties. And that weapons are stored in schools, hospitals and even mosques. Additionally, many Hamas murderers dressed as civilians to avoid detection. Obviously, the high casualty count was a deliberate ploy to ensure that antisemites such as the Irish would be triggered to cry genocide.
The factors that led the Irish to hate Israel and identify with the Palestinian Arabs are rooted first and foremost in the Irish struggle with Britain. Immediately after World War II, the Irish actually identified with the Jewish underground in pre-state Israel that fought the British for independence.
In later decades, however, the terrorist Irish Republican Army supported the equally terrorist Palestinian Liberation Organization, and trained with it in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley and in Libya. In more recent times, decreased religiosity and the rise of progressivism have completely erased any remaining sympathy the Irish once had for the Zionist struggle.
In a sense, Ireland is an exception in Europe. Across the continent, right-of-center parties are positively inclined toward Israel. Even in Spain, where the left-wing government virulently hates the Jewish state, there is a strong right-wing opposition that is favorable toward Israel.
That is not the case in Ireland.
Influenced by Soviet propaganda, the terrorist IRA adopted the false claim that Zionism is a form of Western colonialism. In fact, Jews, not Arabs, are the indigenous population of the Land of Israel, while the Arabs are descendants of imperial conquerors and colonists. Nonetheless, the Irish adopted the Soviet version that characterized the Palestinian Arabs as alleged “natives.”
Ireland has recognized a Palestinian state and recently backed South Africa’s action against Israel at the International Court of Justice. It further asked the court to change its definition of genocide with the obvious intention of wielding this new “definition” as a weapon against Israel.
In December 2024, the Israeli government announced that it was closing its embassy in Ireland. Israel’s Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar stated that “the antisemitic actions and rhetoric that Ireland is taking against Israel are based on delegitimization and demonization of the Jewish state and on double standards.” He added: “Ireland has crossed all red lines in its relationship with Israel.”
Fifteen years ago, Irish bed-and-breakfast owners refused service to Israeli passport holders. These days, a 2026 bill passed by the Irish parliament bans the importation of goods from postal codes linked to Israeli settlements, as designated by the Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade.
It’s clear that Ireland’s hatred of Israel has continued to metastasize into raw and ugly antisemitism.
