Amotz Asa-El
Jerusalem Post, Feb. 17, 2024
“You care for the Palestinians’ civilian losses? So do we, but your Palestinian heroes deliberately hide among and under their population, along with the arms they clearly plan to use to massacre us. If you have a better method for saving civilian lives while fighting this, tell us what it is. Since you have no such advice, we conclude that what you are out to prevent is not Palestinian death, but Israeli victory.”
Assassinated at age 32 in a roadside ambush, Michael Collins was an inspiration for underground fighters worldwide, including future prime minister Yitzhak Shamir, whose underground name – “Michael” – was borrowed from the Irish rebel.
The Jewish and Irish liberation movements had a lot in common – national traumas, dormant languages, intercontinental diasporas, and the British enemy – and initially respected each other.
Collins at one point hid among Dublin’s Jews disguised as an Orthodox Jew. An Irish Jew, Robert Briscoe, was the IRA’s arms purchaser and served as an adviser to Menachem Begin as the latter set out to turn his own anti-British militia into the political party it indeed became.
That’s how things were when the Jews were anti-British. But by the mid-1950s, as Britain and Israel became allies, Ireland became Israel’s foe. Last week that enmity got out of hand, making it plain that it’s time for Jews to stand up to Ireland’s abuse.
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