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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Notes -
It honestly feels like the ceasefire in Gaza has only incensed widespread Irish antisemitism* even further. Two stories from this week:
For the Americans, the Eurovision Song Contest is a musical competition held every year, hosted by the European Broadcasting Union, in which musical acts representing various nations get up and perform gloriously garish and tacky pop songs. Despite the name and the majority of the competitors being European, countries from outside of Europe are eligible to compete, and Australia and Azerbaijan have taken part at various points over the years. Israel's participation has always been controversial, but it kicked into overdrive since the start of the war in Gaza two years ago. Israel placed second in this year's popular vote, an announcement which was immediately met by accusations of vote-rigging (not sure how that's supposed to work but whatever). Ireland has now joined Spain and the Netherlands in boycotting next year's contest in protest over Israel being allowed to participate.
As I mentioned many months ago, there's a small park in Dublin named after Chaim Herzog, who was born in Belfast, grew up in Dublin and went on to serve as Israel's sixth president. Some time ago there was a social media campaign to rename the park after Hind Rajab. After much discussion, this motion has been officially vetoed by Dublin City Council.
I no longer find it credible that these campaigns and demands are motivated solely by sympathy with the people of Palestine and horror at the war in Gaza. The level of ambient hostility towards anything with the most tangential connection to Israel just seems wholly disproportionate to me. As Eamonn Mac Donnchadha notes in the second article linked above, no other nationality is subjected to this treatment: Pakistanis and Chinese people in Ireland are not habitually called upon to denounce the behaviour of the governments of their home countries. The ongoing Uyghur genocide did not prevent Dublin City Council from observing Chinese New Year.
It's starting to make me really uncomfortable. We should have left these attitudes in the 1940s, and yet eighty years later we're still falling back on the same familiar tropes of cunning, conniving
JudenZionists manipulating public opinion from behind the curtain. My own mother (generally a very sensible woman) recently saw a movie about the Israeli hostage situation in 1972 and immediately jumped to the conclusion that those monstrousJewsZionists had financed the movie's production in order to curry favour for their genocide in Gaza. A cursory Google quickly showed that the movie went into production months prior to the October 7th attacks – but then, I suppose those were staged by Shin Bet and Mossad as a false flag, weren't they? It never bottoms out.More than anything I'm just struck by how petty all of this is. "Israel is singing in the contest, so we're not going to sing in the contest" is just embarrassing, fucking Mean Girls "you can't sit with us" energy.
*I'd have been hesitant to label this behaviour as such two years ago, but honestly, at this point it's become so deranged that no other word seems appropriate.
Has she seen Munich?
Not that I'm aware of. I've been meaning to watch it for a long time. Have you seen it? Is it any good?
I enjoyed it. I'd definitely recommend it to someone who's already got an interest in the conflict more generally.
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