Phelim McAleer: Ireland should keep in mind just how financially dependent it is on US when it takes a strong stance against Israel
It’s not easy being Irish in America at the moment. And no, I’m not talking about President Trump’s immigration crackdown.
In truth, there are very few illegal Irish in America. You wouldn’t think that if you listened to the Irish immigration lobby groups and their Irish political partners. It is in their interests (financial and political) to exaggerate the numbers. It allows them to pretend there is an Irish vote.
These wanna-be power brokers quite like their invitations to the White House, but the reality is that there has been no significant Irish immigration to America since the 1980s, and most of the illegals have either regularised their situation, gone home, or moved to Australia or Canada, which has a bigger welcome on the mat, visa-wise.
No, the Irish are feeling a little uncomfortable because friends and colleagues are approaching them wide-eyed and disbelieving at the rancid amount of anti-Semitism emerging from Ireland.
It’s a big change for the Irish in America. Until now, if you lived in one of the big Irish cities, you had access to jobs and patronage. And you were celebrated. And there was a whole Irish infrastructure of GAA, clubs, music, plays, and Irish writers.
It’s not all positive. Every so often, you’d be forced to go and watch Riverdance with some friends, but that can be written off as part of the price to pay for the opportunity of living in America.
And if you are lucky enough to live where there’s not too many Irish, then you have less culture, but you also generally have less corrupt cities. And until recently, you’ve been viewed as an exotic foreigner with a cute accent from a beautiful country.
And so it was in Los Angeles, where I live. Then the October 7 attacks happened in Israel. It’s worth remembering just how barbaric Hamas was on that day. They attacked a bunch of drug-taking peaceniks at a music festival and slaughtered and raped at will.
They killed 364 young unarmed partygoers, men and women, and abducted a further 40. It didn’t matter that the partygoers would have been among the most pro-Palestinian of Israelis and had pretty much rejected Judaism by partying and taking drugs on the Sabbath. They were born Jewish, and that was enough for Jew-hating Hamas.
In total, around 1,200 people were massacred on October 7, including 37 children – a further 37 children were abducted and held hostage in Gaza.
However officials and activists in Ireland immediately started criticising Israel, before they had even started responding on October 8. Since then, Ireland and Irish people have been obsessively anti-Israeli, often justifying the Hamas attacks.
Israelis and Jews have been feeling increasingly unwelcome and threatened in Ireland. Pubs have announced publicly and proudly they have barred “Zionists.” Jews have been followed around the posher parts of Dublin and Dún Laoghaire, assaulted, and spat upon.
The Irish government has been even worse than their anti-Semitic citizens. Their response to the worst murder of Jews since the Holocaust was to reward the perpetrators by being one of the first countries to recognize the ‘State of Palestine’.
They also joined that morally upright country of South Africa in their ‘genocide’ case against Israel in the International Criminal Court. The president used a Holocaust memorial event to attack Israel’s defence of its people, and a pregnant woman who turned her back was dragged out of the venue. It got so bad that Israel was forced to withdraw its ambassador.
This weird obsession with Israel and the Jews now means that Ireland is known in America as the most anti-Semitic country in Europe, which is a competitive field, it has to be said. And so Irish people who used to be told how beautiful their country is are now being approached by American colleagues and neighbours with one question on their mind.
“What’s wrong with Ireland?” they are asked, and they really hate that question. The Irish in America left an Ireland that is known for its green fields and hospitality, its neutrality and peacekeeping forces. Now they are known for Jew-hunting and blaming victims for having the audacity of wanting to exist.
The Irish stand exposed – every Israeli is a genocidal murderer, and there is no bad Palestinian despite carrying out and filming one of the worst massacres of recent times.
So far, Ireland has escaped the consequences of its bigoted stupidity. However, they have an economy that is incredibly and perhaps fatally dependent on American multinationals. A few tech companies account for almost 25 per cent of the taxes taken by the Irish economy. And guess who owns tech companies? An awful lot of Israeli and Jewish people.
l Phelim McAleer is from Beragh, Co Tyrone. He currently lives in Los Angeles. He wrote and produced a verbatim play about October 7. www.October7thePlay.com