Terry Glavin
National Post, Nov. 22, 2023
“… there’s something else in the Irish psyche that’s impolite to mention in the comfy Dublin pubs and bistros of Portobello, Ranelagh and Rathmines. Not a few of Ireland’s gallant and celebrated champions of the underdog, its heroes of Irish freedom, were vulgar antisemites and Nazi collaborators.”
There’s something wrong with Ireland.
For several years now, the nouveau-riche political class that dominates the republic has been something of an embarrassment. The scandals and the cronyism, the gross domestic product data masking a tax-haven economy with hundreds of thousands of people scraping by below the poverty line, the pathological unseriousness.
It’s all a bit much, but ever since the bloody Simchat Torah pogrom of Oct. 7, which drew Israel into a last-straw determination to smash the Hamas terror infrastructure in Gaza entirely, Ireland has become the unbearable, hectoring, sanctimonious bore of the entire 27-nation European Union.
Three weeks ago, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar kicked things off by asserting that Israel’s military operations in Gaza constituted “something approaching revenge.” On Sunday, Varadkar told Ireland’s national broadcaster RTE that the EU is applying “double standards” in the case of Vladimir Putin’s war of conquest in Ukraine, compared to Israel’s Operation Swords of Iron in Gaza.
… [To read the full article, click here]
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