Ruth Dudley Edwards: Ireland’s Future’s new strategy is not a great way to win hearts in US
“Every generation”, said ex-taoiseach Leo Varadkar last week to an enthusiastic Irish-American audience in Philadelphia hosted by Northern Ireland-based Ireland’s Future, “has its great cause.”
They were, he told them, a gathering “in the city of brotherly love”, friends of Ireland who were “dreamers and architects of its future” and shared “the cause of uniting our island”.
There hasn't been much in the press recently about that campaign group or one of its masterminds, Professor Colin Harvey, Professor of Human Rights at Queen’s.
It is chaired by the singer and independent Irish senator Frances Black, who reduced mourners to tears with her rendition of “On Raglan Road” beside the coffin of famous terrorist Martin McGuinness.
But now it has issued a new statement from its board.
It used to be keen on down-playing its nationalism, but all has changed utterly.
Having achieved little breakthrough in Ireland, the board’s new strategy is to persuade Irish-America to gain White House support for a diplomatic offensive.
But it now has a new twist.
Its statement promises that in addition to working to achieve “a new and united Ireland” with a “better and fairer society for everyone”, the future it seeks “will unequivocally stand in solidarity with the marginalised, disadvantaged and oppressed, everywhere”.
And that’s focussed on challenging guess who? The rulers of Afghanistan who have imprisoned and muted the entire female population?
Nope.
The Iranian mullahs who hang gays from cranes?
Nope.
The Chinese government who have enslaved the Uyghurs and are eradicating their culture?
Sorry. Wrong again.
It’s the usual suspect. The only democratic state in the Middle East.
Frances Black is showing “courageous leadership…in the face of a genocide being committed by Israel”, says the board.
That would be the country that quit Gaza in 2005 and left it intact for the Palestinians to build a prosperous future, since when Hamas terrorists have subjected it to attacks that have included 20,000 rockets and mortars, more than 100 suicide bombings, have fed their population a diet of Jew-hate, allowed them no elections and are cowed by an armed militia with its enormous network of terror tunnels which never offer refuge when Gaza comes under attack.
Oh, and in October 2023, in an orgy of rape, torture and slaughter, Hamas brutally and proudly murdered 1,200 civilians and participants at a music festival.
“Ireland’s Future stands in solidarity with the Palestinian people”, the statement concluded.
Varadkar had said, “I believe ours is the cause of uniting our island, working to embrace differences instead of trying to erase them.”
The Ireland’s Future statement does not mention Hamas but uses the language that anti-Israeli extremists do about genocide. What has this to do with Northern Ireland? Hamas is a death cult. Its aspiration is the eradication of Israel and all Jews. And, of course, their leadership would like to follow suit with the whole of the non-Muslim and therefore heretical West.
Does Leo think Ireland’s Future should be taking a radical anti-Israeli position? If so, it isn’t a great start for bringing unionists on board your new campaign.
And it’s not the way to the hearts of Irish-America, let alone Donald Trump or JD Vance.
Trump has tweeted his enthusiasm for the new book by Douglas Murray, On Democracies and Death: Israel, Hamas and the War on the West. I’m half-way through it. It’s brilliant and should frighten the wits out of even the most credulous peaceniks.
Maybe Messrs Harvey and Varadkar should buy it.
l Ruth Dudley Edwards is the author of ‘The Faithful Tribe: an intimate portrait of the loyal institutions’ and 'Aftermath: The Omagh Bombing and the Families’ Pursuit of Justice.’
l Ruth’s website is www.ruthdudleyedwards.com, Twitter is @RuthDE, Facebook is Ruth Dudley Edwards