In Ireland, they tell the truth that Israelis refuse to hear. Maybe we should move there?
By Rogel Alpher • Translated by Sol Salbe
Wait a minute, perhaps it is possible to arrange for the Irish government to take ad space in Haaretz? Ireland, don’t forget us. We, Haaretz’s staff and subscribers, are your faithful servants. We have felt for some time that you represent our views better than our government. We congratulated you on your recognition of a Palestinian state. In regard to you joining the lawsuit in The Hague against Israel for genocide, we say: Genocide may be a bit exaggerated, but there is no question that the IDF has killed far too many uninvolved civilians in Gaza, destroyed too many buildings, and even abused the population and committed war crimes there.
On this issue as well, the position of the Irish government is much closer to our own than that of the Israeli government, which denies the war crimes it is committing in Gaza. In general, we believe that this war should have ended many months ago — in order to free the abductee and to save unnecessary blood and destruction. It’s possible therefore be call us “Israel’s Irish folk.” If Israel and Ireland are on the way to breaking up relations, many of us are already feeling our way, seeking the possibility of receiving political asylum in Dublin.
In our opinion, the Irish government is neither antisemitic nor anti-Israel. It is anti-government of Israel. So are we. For similar reasons and thousands of other reasons, which bother the Irish a bit less. That government also declares us to be anti-Israeli. That government is boycotting Haaretz just as it is boycotting Ireland. It is seeking to close the embassy just as it had cut ties with Haaretz. In order to punish, silence, ignore, deny and suppress everything that the shunned one says. The reality they describe. The action is the same: an act of force, accompanied by demonisation and delegitimisation.
Democracies seek links, dictatorships seek to sever them. To isolate themselves, to wallow in paranoia, to demonstrate “independence”: this is the new key word of the month, which replaces “normalise”. The government preaches “independence” as a supreme value, democracy needs the whole globe; The dictatorship wants to show the world that it doesn’t need it, that its own product is the best: culture, identity, meaning, consciousness. Unity rather than diversity.
When will we get to the stage of boycotting of Beckett’s plays and Joyce’s books in the homes of Israeli people? If you have a copy of Ulysses translated by Yael Renan in two volumes, please hand it over to the nearest police station by February 1. Closing the embassy in Ireland is like closing the Bibiist embassy in Haaretz-Land. Another announcement, this time by the minister for moral degeneration [Hitkarnafut -being rhinocerosised- an allusion to Eugene Ionescu’s rhinoceros], Gideon Sa’ar, states that Haaretz subscribers have no place in the State of Israel under the Bibi regime. The door is closing on our values in Dublin. The closure of the embassy heralds the closure of freedom of expression in Israel: What the government is unwilling to hear from foreigners in Ireland, it will certainly not agree to hear from its subjects in Israel. Maybe it will put us in jail for crossing the red line, or maybe actually because of the request for political asylum.
