Declan Bourke

Father, husband, Christian. No to racism and anti-semitism. Maigh Eo go Deo.

[Loay Alshareef لؤي الشريف @lalshareef]

My dear Western friends, many of whom I know have good hearts and sincerely support humanitarian causes, including the Palestinian cause:

please hear this from someone who knows the Middle East deeply.

It is entirely noble to support Palestinians in their aspiration to live with dignity, security, and prosperity alongside Israel.

It is noble to mourn innocent Palestinian lives lost in war, just as it is noble to mourn innocent Israeli lives.

But what is neither noble nor compassionate is supporting a terrorist movement disguised as a humanitarian cause especially one that openly or indirectly calls for the annihilation of another state and an entire people.

This is what I call suicidal empathy: compassion detached from judgment, directed toward an ideology that would eventually turn against the very freedoms and societies protecting it.

The moment you wear their symbols and celebrate their slogans, and want to “free” them by annihilating others (this is what their slogan means), remember that good intentions do not make an evil ideology good.

Supporting evil does not make you virtuous. It makes you a fool.

You’re welcome. 🌹

[Kilkenny Friends of Israel 🇮🇱 @KilkennyOf]

Worth thinking about #Ireland

'Anyone trying to destroy Robbie Keane’s career because he coached in Israel isn’t standing up for human rights - they are practising pure, unadulterated bigotry dressed up as virtue'

Fact

[Ireland Israel Alliance @irlisrAlliance]

It's all very well people telling us there should be 'more events' in Ireland for Irish people to stand with Israel and the Jewish people, but the unhinged and brainwashed mobs are determined to shut down our voices.

Last Saturday, outside a church in Bray, Co. Wicklow (as we reported in an earlier post) this unhinged mob stood for over three hours shouting and screaming obscenities at Christian supporters of Israel such as 'Nazis', 'murderers' and 'baby-killers', as well as trying to drown out the event with very loud music. Thankfully, the mob didn't succeed, and the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ) event went ahead as planned.

However, because of tightened security at the church, the mobility access gate to the side had to be locked, forcing elderly attendees to enter and exit via steep steps to the church building.

Last month, the ICEJ annual conference was forced to go online because of intimidation aimed at two venues (one a church) who eventually caved in to aggressive email and phone campaigns. Simultaneously, an equally aggressive campaign aimed at the National Concert Hall was successful in cancelling an event to raise funds for Magen David Adom Ireland, an Irish registered charity that raises funds for Israel’s national medical emergency, disaster, ambulance and blood service.

What's REALLY needed is for more Irish people, including church leaders, to grow a backbone, show some courage and to not cave in to intimidation.

And to the Christians among us who say 'this is not our fight', you are badly mistaken. When a society tolerates the targeting of Jews and more recently their nation state, it's the Christians who will be next.

[Declan Bourke @declanj67]

@Dublinmarti @gardainfo @OCallaghanJim Disgusting antisemitism. Would not be out of place in Der Sturmer in the 1930’s. Deeply disturbed about where public discourse is headed in my country regarding the Jewish people, and the lack of condemnation of this evil bile by much of so-called mainstream media.

[Henrik Dahl @SociologenHD]

If a country sitting on a rock in the North Atlantic comes to regard a conflict nearly 4,000 kilometres away as more important than almost anything else, it is worth asking why.

I like Ireland. It is a small country living next to a much larger neighbour. A country that has never been afraid to speak its mind or stand on its own feet. In that respect, it reminds me of something.

But Ireland's apparent obsession with condemning Israel at every opportunity is not healthy. Especially when many of the arguments involved turn out to be the same exaggerations, distortions and manipulations that have long been commonplace in Middle Eastern politics.

Why is it not the starting point of public debate in Ireland that Israel, as a state, has every right to exist?

Why is it not the starting point that Israel has repeatedly been attacked by opponents who have never reconciled themselves to the establishment of a Jewish state nearly eighty years ago?

Why is it not the starting point that the current war began when Hamas committed the worst massacre of Jews since the Second World War on 7 October 2023?

Why are so many people in Ireland willing to accept even the most extravagant accusations coming from the Palestinian side, while showing remarkably little interest in hearing the counterarguments?

And then there is the critical question.

If Israel were to lose this war against Hamas - an outcome that some voices in Ireland seem surprisingly relaxed about - what exactly would follow?

Hamas is not a liberal democratic movement. It is an Islamist movement whose ideology has far more in common with groups such as ISIS than with any Western political tradition. An Israeli defeat would be celebrated as a major victory by Hamas and by the Iranian regime, a regime that has spent decades repressing its own citizens and destabilising the wider region.

I do not believe that many Irish people genuinely wish to see Hamas achieve its political objectives. Nor do I believe that many Irish people would welcome a major strategic victory for Iran.

Or rather, I hope not.

Because if there really is a large majority in Ireland that believes a victory for Hamas and Iran over Israel would be a positive development, then the discussion should no longer be about Israel alone.

It should also be about Ireland itself - and about what role Ireland wishes to play in Europe.

[David@TOPCHEFS 🌐 @TOPCHEFSIE]

I can't remember anything quite like this, at any time in my lifetime. I suspect that, outside of some of the more irredentist Arab states, there hasn't been a state-mandated campaign of defamation — and let's call it what it is, anti Jewish hate-mongering — on such a scale and for such a prolonged period since late stage Weimar Republic Germany. Our media in general (almost all of whom relay on government payment) and especially the government broadcaster, RTE, seem to only reluctantly cover anything other than Israel. It's reached such degree of myopic focus that it can only be described as monomaniacal.

Most worryingly it disgraces us as a people. I would be less bothered if RTÉ were doing this on their own steam, but the fact that they are a state-funded broadcaster makes it worse. We are now looking at a lost generation here. A generation of young people who've been so propagandised that there isn't even a western contemporary point of comparison. It will take a long time to de-radicalize large sections of the Irish population from the effects of this state mandated brainwashing. It's disastrous for us and subsequent generations will try, and fail, to live this down long after we’re all gone.

These are dark days for Ireland and we as a people will be tainted by the antics of a select few members of official Ireland in the media, academia, and politics for decades to come.

The darkly comic backdrop to this is that its happening in the aftermath of Ireland having just played an entirely optional, and pointless, friendly against the slave state of Qatar, one of the middle east's top two funders of terrorism who hosted the architects of October 7th, the event with precipitated all the tragic loss of life in the Gaza conflict over the last few years.

I no longer have the foggiest what will do us the most damage, playing Israel, or not playing them. I'm beyond even arguing about whether that game should go ahead or not. I suspect that official Ireland has poisoned the well so completely now that the prospect of this match taking place fills me with pure foreboding and dread.

[Dr Gerard O’Keeffe @GerardOKeeffe62]

This is absolute crackpot pseudo-anthropological hocus pocus from Catherine Connelly's sister, Margaret, one of the Irish champagne socialists who participated in the HAMAS/Hezbollah-linked/organised so-called 'humanitarian flotilla'.

Meanwhile, her sister, @PresidentIRL, rolled out a céad míle fáilte red carpet for the ambassador of genocidal Iran, which in January slaughtered at least 40,000 unarmed protesters and maimed hundreds of thousands, in just three days, under internet blackout. This pariah regime has been merrily executing hundreds of innocents ever since, and is now 82+ days into a current internet blackout as it blocks a strategic international maritime route.

Further, Ireland's so-called national broadcaster @rte, which cannot be trusted to even ethically manage its taxpayer funded finances and bailout, lauds as peaceniks those who participated in this anti-Israel flotilla, the sole aim of which is to, by one means or another, make common cause with with Iran and its proxies in incessantly trying to obliterate the sovereign state of Israel, the world's only Jewish state.

Moreover, using the unbecoming behaviour of a SINGLE Israeli politician as pretext, the Irish political establishment, already allied to a vexatious Israel-linked genocide lawfare case brought before the ICJ, has now rushed to form coalitions of the willing in Europe to achieve the same end, to seek to vilify/ delegitimise/join in undermining the same unique Jewish state, tacitly in consort with Iran and its ACTUAL genocidal terrorist proxies. Israel rightly pulled its embassy from Ireland over this. All this as it now uses the same pretext to boycott Jewish goods and commodities emanating from the historical homeland (Judea/Samaria) of the Jewish people, including its ancient capital, Jerusalem.

BUT PLEASE PLEASE REMEMBER FOLKS, IRELAND DOES NOT HAVE AN ANTISEMITISM PROBLEM.

[Tommy @tjmcgibnxy]

Great letter in today’s IT from David Woods of the Dept. of Classics in UCC, skewering the flotilla hysterics 👇

Sir, – Micheál Martin’s hysterical over-reaction to the Israeli detention of Irish citizens participating in the Sumud flotilla embarrasses Ireland on the international stage yet again. These people were not innocent holidaymakers suddenly snatched at sea, but political provocateurs who desperately sought arrest and detention by Israeli forces. This event should be treated as the publicity stunt that it was.
The real injured parties here are the ordinary Israeli and Irish taxpayers who have to pay for the arrest and repatriation of these middle-class narcissists. The best way for this Government to stop the genuinely shocking humiliation and mistreatment of Irish citizens would be to focus on the homelessness crisis in Ireland, or the ever-growing hospital waiting list, and ignore the self-indulgent gimmicks of the anti-Israeli lobby. – Yours, etc,
DR DAVID WOODS,
Dept of Classics,
University College Cork.

[Dan 🇮🇪 ✡️ @danielthemate]

UCD has a massive building literally owned and run by the Chinese CCP.

But collaborating with middle eastern Jews on creating zero emission fuels using seawater rather than freshwater, increasing water security and negating the need for desalination is worthy of the President's condemnation.

What are we even doing here? You can have a CCP-funded monument to autocracy, but apparently, saving the planet with Irish-Jewish innovations has horrified Connolly to the point of derangement.

[Declan Bourke @declanj67]

@Rainmaker1973 Beautiful

[Massimo @Rainmaker1973]

Before continuing his shift, a police officer took a moment to pray with his loyal four-legged companion.

The simple yet powerful scene has touched the hearts of thousands on social media.

[Rachel Moiselle @RachelMoiselle]

I was not worried about this meeting.

Despite my serious objections to some of his decisions in recent years, Micheál is undoubtedly a highly tactful and skilled politician. He always performs well in such circumstances.

He’s done us proud again, just as he did last year.

[Dani @AngryLevantine]

On my father's side, I am Irish with roots in Kerry, Kilkenny, and Mayo.

On my mother's side, I am Jewish. With roots in Judea.

I am a Zionist and anyone who thinks this makes me less Irish or not Irish at all can piss off to the moon.

Erin Go Bragh
Am Yisra'el Chai

[Mark Humphrys @markhumphrys]

As an Irishman, 🇮🇪 I find it racist to compare Irish people, and my suffering Irish ancestors, to modern Islamic jihadi rapists.
Travel back to the Famine and tell those Irish people you identify with Mohammadan holy warriors. They would think you had a mental illness.

[Israel ישראל @Israel]

January 27 is International Holocaust Remembrance Day.
We remember the six million Jews murdered and reaffirm our commitment to confront all kinds of antisemitism everywhere.
Never forget.

[Bar C Mendez McConnon @BrandyCMendez]

Ireland. What are we doing.
This country has been consistently impressive at one thing lately:
reading reality completely backwards.
Week after week, headline after headline, protest after protest
Ireland keeps choosing the side that feels morally trendy…
instead of the side that’s actually morally right.
And the problem isn’t just the government.
It’s not just the Gardaí.
It’s not just the “authorities” who somehow always manage to show up with energy for the wrong crowd.
It’s the pattern.
Because we’ve seen this movie already.
On October 7th, people were quiet.
Then confused.
Then loud — but on the wrong side.
And that mistake didn’t just live online.
It shaped culture. It shaped pressure. It shaped policy.
So I’m going to say this with zero politeness:
Right now, the people of Iran need you.
Not your “hot take.”
Not your performative morality.
Not your cute reposts when it’s safe.
They need you to stop what you’re doing and show up.
Go to the streets. Speak up. Be loud. Be clear.
Because what’s happening in Iran is not an “internal issue.”
It’s not “complicated.”
It’s not a distant problem.
It’s the engine behind half the chaos in this region.
The Iranian regime has backed:
Hezbollah.
Hamas.
Militias in Iraq.
Terror networks in Yemen.
And every destabilising force that keeps the Middle East stuck in endless war.
And let’s be honest — if you’re screaming about “imperialism”…
there is one imperialist power expanding through proxies right now.
And it’s Iran’s regime.
If that regime falls, everything changes.
A new Middle East becomes possible.
Less fear. Less terror. Less proxy war.
More freedom for Iranians.
More stability for the region.
More hope for millions of people who’ve been living under violent ideology.
So Ireland — if you want to stand for human rights, prove it.
If you want to be “for the people,” be for the people who are actually oppressed.
If you want to be on the right side of history for once:
Be the voice of the Iranian people.
Get loud. Get visible. Get uncomfortable.
Because silence isn’t neutral.
Silence is support for whoever holds power.
And right now, power is killing them.
Share this. Tag people. Start conversations. Go outside.
Support the people of Iran. Push for the regime to fall.
#FreeIran #Iran #WomanLifeFreedom #IRGC #MiddleEast #HumanRights

[Bishop Robert Barron @BishopBarron]

I want to celebrate the bravery of thousands of people who are engaging in protest against the oppressive regime in Iran. I remember vividly when the Ayatollah Khomeini was swept to power some forty-six years ago, and I have witnessed the steady and vicious attacks on human dignity perpetrated by the corrupt theocracy he established. Moreover, I’ve watched as the Iranian kleptocracy has systematically de-stabilized the Middle East by fostering Hamas, Hezbollah and other terrorist organizations. Please God that this dishonorable government, which has been a source of so much mischief and suffering these past several decades, will find its way to the trash-heap of history.

[𝔼𝕝𝕝𝕚𝕠𝕥 𝕄𝕒𝕝𝕚𝕟 @ElliotMalin]

Ireland has a deep problem that it must address. Rachel has been one of the best Irish activists in having empathy for everyone.

She’s a victim here, as is her family.

That people are making them feel under threat because she stood up for Jews is a black mark on Irish society.

[Rachel Moiselle @RachelMoiselle]

This Christmas it is timely to recall the fact that Jesus was a Jew from Judea, and that the Land was only renamed by the Romans to Syria Palaestina over a century after Jesus’s crucifixion.

The Romans specifically chose a Greek term for coastal Philistines to de-Judaize the territory after a Jewish revolt.