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PaperclipPerfector  5d ago (text post)   837 thread views

Transnational Thursday for July 24, 2025

Transnational Thursday is a thread for people to discuss international news, foreign policy or international relations history. Feel free as well to drop in with coverage of countries you’re interested in, talk about ongoing dynamics like the wars in Israel or Ukraine, or even just whatever you’re reading.

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About a year ago, in a discussion of Ireland's rabid support for the Palestinian cause, I argued that it's primarily caused by misguided post-colonial solidarity and that "I've never gotten the feeling that Ireland is an antisemitic country".

That's a position I'm now revisiting:

A Jewish man was hit by a stranger shouting antisemitic insults on a Dublin city bus on Friday [the 18th of July], according to a video circulating on social media. The assailant shouted “genocidal Jews” and other slurs at the man.

He also said he recognized that the man was a Jew “because of his face.” The Jewish man – who recorded the incident – can be heard saying, “I get used to it; they are all like this.”...

The assailant then slapped the Jewish man in the face and tried to take his phone.

Comments on social media said the driver called the police and that the man was arrested.

An officer told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday that it does not comment on material circulated online by third parties but confirmed that “shortly after 11 p.m. on Friday, 18 July 2025, [police officers] from Rathmines responded to reports of a disturbance on a bus in Rathgar, Dublin.”

For reference, Rathgar is a very posh suburb, with houses going for €1 million at the minimum.

A few weeks ago, my dad quoted some Israeli politician (whose name escapes me) at me who supposedly claimed that his proudest achievement was drawing an equivocation between anti-Zionism and antisemitism in the public consciousness. I accept that the two are not strictly equivalent, but I don't think anyone can dispute anymore (in Ireland or anywhere else) that the former can often serve as a cover for the latter. I am quite confident that the assailant made no effort to ascertain his victim's political affiliation (i.e. whether or not he was one of the "good Jews") before harassing and assaulting him.

As an aside, I can't help but marvel at how self-defeating this behaviour is. Whenever you assault someone because they look like they might be Jewish, you are precisely demonstrating Israel's entire raison d'être, the moral necessity of its existence.

For reference, Rathgar is a very posh suburb, with houses going for €1 million at the minimum.

Does a 1 million price flooe make something a 'very posh suburb' in Dublin? That sounds just like your regular middle-class suburb for a European capital.

Are house prices really that low in Dublin? I thought there was a tech driven housing crisis.

At a cursory inspection, 1 million was the cheapest I could find, but far from the average: many houses were a significant multiple of that. Rathgar is posh but admittedly not as posh as, say, Foxrock.

I thought there was a tech driven housing crisis.

There is, although I prefer the term "shortage" to "crisis".

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