During 1948 the Department of Justice refused permission to allow 100 Jewish orphans come to Ireland. Though the families of these children had been wiped out in the Holocaust, it was departmental policy to severely restrict Jewish immigration. Ultimately, the children were allowed in, but only on the proviso that their stay be temporary and be paid for by a private charity.
Just before they arrived, their destination, Clonyn Castle in Co Westmeath, was damaged in an arson attack. The episode is a reminder that what some fondly imagine is an instinctive Irish solidarity with the oppressed was lacking in 1948. But Ireland was hardly unique there. Across Europe, even as news of the Holocaust emerged, there was often scant sympathy for its victims. The year 1945 saw the local Conservative Association in London’s Hampstead gather thousands of signatures opposing the housing of Jewish refugees.
Anti-Semitism is a form of racism with deep roots in European history. Before the 1950s its public expression was commonplace, usually (though not always) on the political right. But, as Rachel Shabi illustrates in this important book, we are living in confusing times. These days right-wing parties across Europe (some with fascist origins) laud Israel as a bulwark of western civilisation and anti-immigrant mobs wave the Israeli flag. In contrast it is often the left who are accused of anti-Semitism.
For many, especially those watching helplessly as Gaza is pulverised, the issue may seem at best an irrelevance, or as Shabi puts it, at worst, “a stick with which the right clobbers the left”. Indeed, she asserts, “the way anti-Semitism is talked about – on air, in newspapers and by our leading politicians – has made it entirely incomprehensible”.
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Shabi is the author of an acclaimed book on the Mizrahi Jews, those like her own family from Iraq and elsewhere in the Middle East, who make up about half of Israel’s Jewish population but who feature little in popular understanding of that country. She deserves credit for attempting to traverse territory that is often, as she puts it, “a horrible divisive battleground, an ugly distorted mess of claims and counterclaims”.
Hers is a nuanced and humane study, written with empathy in the hope that a “joined-up anti-racism” might emerge that makes the fight against anti-Semitism part of a broader progressive movement. Shabi’s book covers a lot of ground, some of it navigated more comprehensively than others. It is convincing on the nature of much of the discourse around “settler-colonialism” and its limitations, as well as reminding us of the complex roots of Zionism.
It is too often ignored that Zionism, increasingly used as an all-purpose term of abuse, emerged as a “national project of a persecuted people”. It gained mass support because of relentless persecution, culminating in genocide. Not for nothing did Edward Said lament that the Palestinians were the “victims of the victims, the refugees of the refugees”.
Most of Shabi’s examples are drawn from arguments in Britain, the United States and to a lesser extent Europe. In some of these places pro-Palestine activism carries a high cost; careers and livelihoods can be lost for protesting against Israel’s policies. But Ireland (thankfully) is different. Sympathy for the Palestinians is mainstream here, across the political spectrum (with Ulster unionism a notable exception).
This has less to do with our colonial past than some might believe. Irish republicans once actually supported Zionism and indeed lauded its most violent exponents. More knowledge of that might see fewer facile comparisons between October 7th and the Easter Rising, or between Hamas and the Fenians; indeed even a basic understanding of the difference between Hamas and historic national liberation movements would be welcome.
But the general atmosphere here also means that much of the most reductive and simplistic “anti-Zionist” assertions are rarely challenged. Some might ask if it matters that a few people say stupid things in the face of what seems like never-ending horror in Gaza. After all, most of those who imagine they are fearlessly battling oppression online are often just being rude to people they’ve never met. But ultimately it does matter.
On the right there are bad actors working hard to turn anger over Palestine into hatred against Jews. Anti-Semitism remains central to conspiracist politics of various forms, some of which, unfortunately, are no longer just the preserve of the right. As Kenan Malik has argued, on much of the left, universalism has been replaced by identity politics. Presuming Jews are “privileged” and denouncing “Zionism” as a uniquely malign force allows people to imagine they are “punching up” rather than falling for the “socialism of fools”. If Shabi’s book provokes the discussions it should, then some might hopefully avoid those traps.
Brian Hanley is assistant professor of history at Trinity College Dublin
