The Israeli Embassy, Dublin last month (top) and Ambassador Boaz Modai
“In one of the rallies, which took place near the Israeli embassy a few weeks ago, some foolish people raised a sign saying “Free Gaza”. The last thing Hamas is interested in is freedom as Hamas like ISIS, oppresses Christians, persecutes homosexuals and violates women’s rights. Indeed, it is about time for Gaza to be free – free of Hamas.
….I must say that some of their slogans are familiar to Jews from this very continent only 70 or 80 years ago, while other placards demonstrate only ignorance, an unbalanced approach and a hatred for the only state for the Jews in the world. Others who so proudly call for my expulsion from this country show no respect for democracy, for dialogue and for the hospitality for which this country is so famous.
To those people, who represent a minority – a vocal and hostile group who nevertheless do not represent the people of Ireland – I have nothing to say. They are a shame and a disgrace to this country. These words of mine come from a person who is ready for dialogue at any time and with anyone, since that is what democracy is all about.
Unlike this minority, the majority of the people of Ireland support Israel and the thousands of e-mails, letters and telephone calls of support the embassy received are true evidence of the deep understanding and empathy, which many people in Ireland have towards Israel.”
Boaz Modai, Israeli Ambassador to Ireland to the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade yesterday.
Transcript via Oireachtas.ie
(Mark Stedman/Photocall Ireland and TCD)
…as predicted yesterday, Baz Modai’s statement has been recited endlessly here.
no respect for dialogue?! how about when he bans people from the embassy’s facebook page for not agreeing with everything on it?!
Yup! The slightest bit of criticism and you’re banned. It’s funny he mentions Hamas persecuting gays and Christians because Israel persecutes ALL Gazans, regardless of race, age, creed, sexual orientation, you name it.
That’s equality, I suppose.
Israel persecutes Christians as well. I was reading an article about some poor Christian farmer whose land they are after confiscating. Seemingly, Christians are not kosher, same as the Muzz.
Should get some popcorn in, this’ll be a fun thread, HEY ABM, YE THERE BRO?
I doubt he’s stupid enough to believe any of that himself.
Whatever about the rest of it, He’s absolutely right about Hamas.
Hamas and ISIS are not the same thing. It is totally disingenuous to make the comparison, and you know know it.
He doesn’t say they are the same thing. He compares them alright, with good reason as they really aren’t interested in any freedoms that are so dear to the people here.
Trying being gay in gaza and see what it gets you.
Of course that’s no excuse for the type of overkill and atrocities that Israel are engaged in but lets put away the rose tinted glasses.
I don’t have rose-tinted glasses. I’m very much aware of the realities of Hamas. But it is a common line for Israeli officials, including Netenyahu, to state that ISIS and Hamas are the same thing. Modai is toeing this very line here, regardless of how he worded it. The intention is to conflate Hamas with ISIS in order to influence public opinion.
I should add again that you know that this is the intention as I can tell, from your regular comments, that you’re an intelligent person with a grasp of the various issues concerning Palestine, i.e. you are well aware of the kind of spin employed by the Israeli government.
Of course they are using spin. Hamas also use Spin. Everyone involved in a conflict will spin things to their advantage.
Including things that are absolutely correct. When Hamas make sure that footage of a wrecked hospital or school gets shown to the outside world, you know exactly why that footage has been allowed to air.
When you initially said he’s not stupid enough to believe what he’s saying, i would disagree. He believes that first part because it is true and that’s why he led with that in the statement. Spin it might be, but it doesn’t change the fact its true.
Now you are pushing the same dishonest conflation! You even have the gall to acknowledge that it is spin and then go on to say that this same spin is the truth. Talk about contradicting yourself..
Here’s a little bit of reading on ISIS and their links to Israel the US and their regional allies: No conspiracy sites, I will provide articles from Haaretz (Tel Aviv based) The Independent and The Guardian (UK), The New Yorker and Huffington Post (US) and our own Independant.ie (rag).
– Haaretz article re US and Israel backing rebels in Syria: https://archive.today/qeRSZ
– Re Saudis backing and ISIS (really should understand how Saudi’s and US are interlinked to fully appreciate this one though, see Saudi Arabian Money Laundering Scheme as set out by John Perkins in his book ‘The Secret History of the United States’):
http://www.independent.co.uk/voices/comment/iraq-crisis-how-saudi-arabia-helped-isis-take-over-the-north-of-the-country-9602312.html
– http://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2014/06/isis-saudi-arabia-iraq-syria-bandar/373181/
– Pulitzer Prize Winner Seymour M Hersh (Jewish) article on ‘The Redirection’, i.e. the US policy decision to align with Sunni extremist elements in the region to counter Shia Iran, and the Saudi role in this too:
http://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2007/03/05/the-redirection
– McCain in 2013 calling for US support to Syrian Rebels and then warning when Congress blocked military action:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/05/05/mccain-syria-rebels-aid_n_3218839.html
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/02/john-mccain-obama-syria-strikes-congress
– Foley’s murder staged: http://www.independent.ie/world-news/middle-east/foley-murder-video-may-have-been-staged-30534070.html
– Yinon Plan (to fragment and balkanise MENA to allow Israel dominate region): http://www.gilad.co.uk/writings/the-jewish-plan-for-the-middle-east-and-beyond.html
@AreTheMyFeet…. cheers for the links… that’s part of my evening sorted :)
I think you probably need to define spin in that case.
My understanding of spin is that it’s a presentation of the facts to sway opinion one way or another, often in a disengenious manner.
It is a fact that Hamas are no human rights darlings. Presenting them as the sole agressors would be spin.
The israelis claiming that Hamas have spent years subjecting them to suicide bomb and rocket attacks would be a fact, leaving out the treatmeant of the people of gaza is spin.
You are correct in using those as examples of spin. However, it is also spin to conflate ISIS with Hamas. This is the spin that I am referring to.
+ 21 for the extra-judicial killings by Hamas of members of their own community, equality delivered by including women in the toll.
http://amnesty.ie/news/gaza-hamas-must-end-summary-executions-%E2%80%98informers%E2%80%99-face-firing-squad
So mosques are now places of summary executions. Makes a change from hiding missles there I suppose.
Hamas and Gaza are not the same FFS. Israel created Hamas just like the British created the IRA.
The IRA were never the democratically elected leaders of Northern Ireland.
Hamas make the rules and enforce them.
…the IRA didn’t stand for election very often, but when they did they were democratically elected – Bobby Sands was head of IRA in Long Kesh and was elected MP for Mid-Ulster, for instance.
The political wing of the IRA (Sinn Fein) persuaded the IRA to disarm and disband. They are now the democratically elected second biggest party in N Ireland; the largest party from the Island of Ireland in the EU and poised to become the second biggest party in the Dáil.
Hamas were democratically elected in Gaza.
Democracy can be a real bitch when it doesn’t suit you.
It’s almost like you didn’t read my post Bisted, but I wouldn’t expect anything else.
I SAID that Hamas were democratically elected thanks to the americans insistence on elections after the israeli withdrawl from gaza.
So that’s not exactly being a real bitch to me.
Thanks for the Fox News-esque primer on Northern Irish political history. I won’t bother to correct your obvious and disingenious spin (Yay! we’re all at it!) about Sinn Fein but I will point out that Sands wouldn’t have got near election if he hadn’t been on Hunger Strike and anyone had actually stood against him from his side of the spectrum.
Actually re-reading your comment Bisted, You didn’t actually attempt to refute anything I said. You just vomited out some stuff and then Double Snapped me with ‘Democracys a bitch eh?” for no apparent reason.
Stick to the die in’s.
…writing things in Caps doesn’t make them true…where have you acknowledged that Hamas were democratically elected?
All the things you say about the circumstances of Bobby Sands election are true…but then Charlie Flanagan wouldn’t have been elected except he inherited his Da’s seat in the time honoured Irish fashion of political dynasties….so you get a gibbering Israeli lackey atoning for the words and deeds of his rabid anti-semitic father….great little country alright.
Do they teach you nothing in the english module of the arts course these days?
Paolo said :
Hamas and Gaza are not the same FFS. Israel created Hamas just like the British created the IRA.
I replied:
The IRA were never the democratically elected leaders of Northern Ireland.
Hamas make the rules and enforce them.
Implying pretty strongly that hamas ARE the democratically elected leaders of Gaza.
Now. Feel free to spell out to me exactly what your point was in your initial reply to this exchange because I cannot for the life of me work out what it is.
…ok….you didn’t acknowledge Hamas were democratically elected but you were ‘Implying pretty strongly’.
I think I’m not the only person here to find that, implicit in your comments, are the rantings of yet another Israeli apologist but one who lacks the courage of their conviction.
Both founded by Mossad you mean?
Yes, he’s right about Hamas, but it would be more on point if opposition to Israel’s actions actually meant support for Hamas.
He may be correct that Hamas and ISIS partake in some similar activities. But the intention is to conflate Hamas with ISIS because of the despicable realities of ISIS, which are not common to Hamas.
Which is fine. I mean they’re mortal enemies, but of the same stripe. That’s just factionalism. It’s attributing support for them to the protestors that’s the problem, though I’m sure that’s what it looks like to him and the Israeli government, but that says more about where the Israeli government is right now than it does about the protestors.
Where exactly do Hamas and ISIS diverge in how they do business and their overall aims?
I believe ISIS do more online beheadings.
yea ISIS just behead adults while ISrael behead kids too
I think most people see the clickbait/outrage strategy here and couldn’t honestly be bothered. Now we need a post about a straight, male, white, native, catholic, working gaeilgoir to really rally the haters.
There’s that persecution complex again. It’s not always about you, Bluebeard, in fact most of the time it’s not.
lol
And yet you keep coming back…
Who is his dealer?
He’s got a point where it comes to protestors taking more extreme positions than the official Palestinian ones. For example, the Palestinian position on right of return is compensation for the ’48 refugees and return for the ’67 refugees. Protestors calling for about 7 million to return are echoing Hamas only.
They are echoing Article(2) of the Universal Declaration on Human Rights 1948. But don’t let the facts get in the way of your bullshit assertions.
The actual position papers prepared by Palestinians like Abed Rabbo are more germaine than generic – and largely unenforceable – legal statutes.
I didn’t say they were not. I said that they are echoing the UN. I was pointing out that you were attributing such a view to Hamas solely when it is in fact the view expressed in the Universal Declaration on Human Rights.
Furthermore, you are declaring what “the Palestinian position” is on right of return, failing to acknowledge that many Palestinians argue that right of return is an individual issue, not a collective one, and therefore cannot be limited by representations on behalf of the Palestinian people.
There are nuances within the Palestinian position that allow for the individual response, but there has to be some semblance of unity. And realism. Let’s not leave realism out of it. Your attitude is one of perpetual resistance which might suit you , but it’s not your skin in the fight.
I see no reason why treating the right of return issue on a case-by-case basis is not a reasonable solution. It suits your argument to lump all Palestinians into it and say that the population is too big now and it just is not plausible.
Israel’s Jewish population continues to grow and the government is happy with this. The reality is that Palestinians are not welcome because of who they are. If they were Jewish they would be welcome. This is a racist policy.
I’ve been searching for the protest in town for the execution of the “spies” by Hamas but I can’t find it anywhere. Can anyone let me know when that one is starting up?
So you think the deliberate murder of children by large scale ordinance is appropriate or not ‘worthy of protest’…
You, my friend, put the “ass” in assume. Where did I mention killing children? Where did I use the word deliberate? I don’t believe I did. You need to row your line in a bit and get some cop on. I don’t hear one shout from the masses “@sses” about street executions by Hamas of Palestinians. Where’s the outrage? Where’s the condemnation? Nowhere. You know why? It’s not cool and popular. I never once mentioned anything about Israelis but you, shallow minded jack@ss, made the killing of Palestinians by Hamas all about Israel, just like a good bandwagon patriot should.
Mossad do that to but you don’t hear about it because their mates control vast swathes of the media.
why not lead it yourself asshole?
You can’t even look sideways at an Israeli these days without them telling you how that reminds them of how things were in Germany in the 1930s.
+ 1 Whataboutery and anti-semite accusations flung at every protesting or dissenting voice!
The phrase ‘whataboutery’ is particularly annoying at this stage.
I could say ‘Why does noone demand the American ambassadors expulsion considering they have killed more innocents than Israel will ever dream of’ and I’ll be accused of ‘Whataboutery’ rather than recieve a good answer.
So you admit that Israel has killed innocents then – that’s a start.
Tell you what, Point me to one place where I have said that Israel are blameless or fcuk off back to the Student Union where things are nice and black and white?
http://cdn.hetiskoers.nl/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/melk.jpg
“the thousands of e-mails, letters and telephone calls of support the embassy received are true evidence of the deep understanding and empathy, which many people in Ireland have towards Israel.”
Thousands? I very, very, much doubt this..
I’m just phoning to say I totally love your ethnic cleansing, Keep up the great work!
Hey Odis
I have noticed you only ever post anti Israeli/Jewish posts
you are a narrow minded scumbag
don’t bother responding – i know what you will say – “go back to Tel Aviv you shill” or something of that ilk
idiot
Should be deported to the new 990 “Israeli acres”.
Abbas has just turned down an offer from Egypt for land in the Sinai 4 times larger than Gaza.
So?
So you support the recent theft of land on this basis?
The land is only slated for appropriation. It might not make it past the courts. And the Egyptian offer was for Gaza which everyone agrees is greatly overcrowded. I think Abbas turned the offer down because he doesn’t want Gaza treated as a separate entity , paranoid as he is about Hamas.
But you support the appropriation of the land?
Nice, a game of Pay it Forward…. only that nobody asked the Palestinians if they wanted to play by giving their land away.
Has anyone in Ireland actually said “Free Gaza, we hate Jews” ? When will the Israeli embassy cop that its their policies that the majority of thinking people have a problem with, not their religion.
+1
Support for Gaza is not support for Hamas or ISIS.
Being against the actions of Israel is not being against Jews.
‘free gaza’ is obviously an invitation to israel to grab as much of it as possible.
I’m no expert on the protocols and conventions of diplomacy. But I’m fairly sure that whatever they are, an ambassador describing citizens of his host country as a ‘disgrace’ to that country for legally expressing their views falls waaaay outside them. Is it my imagination, or does the current Israeli embassy ‘regime’ in Dublin have a certain rogue quality to it? Between this interview and their even more wildly aggressive and undiplomatic Twitter and FB presence, I’d have thought most countries would have recalled an ambassador by now for this kind of carry-on. I guess Israel as a nation-state doesn’t blush easily though, does it?
true for ya ms piggy, he no doubt thinks it’s a ‘disgrace’ to criticise mossad’s tactic of using irish passports for their nefarious operations as well.
Ha!! I’d actually forgotten about that comedy caper. Why don’t any interviewers raise that with the esteemed ambassador while he’s using his airtime to denigrate Irish citizens?
I’m surprised he even bothers to stoop this low to appease a gaggle of crusties. Weight Ireland has in the international stage (other than when it comes to tax exasion) = 0
Ireland doesn’t engage in tax evasion, Ireland simply has a lower rate of corporation tax. If you are referring to tax inversion then that is a loophole in the US tax code and NOTHING to do with Ireland.
+1
Couldn’t explain it any netter.
I wish to engage that man in dialogue. I’ll start by asking why over the past three days of ceasefire has Israel….
1. Annexed another 1,000 acres of the West Bank
2. Seized $55 million of Palestinian Authority tax revenue
3. Fired on fishermen and hence broke the cease fire
4. refused to open the border for goods, which again breaks the ceasefire conditions
5. Destroyed a dairy factory in Hebron
6. Destroyed Bedouin homes and a farm near jerusalem
7. Destroyed a family home in Silwan and thereby making 11 children homeless
8. Shot and injured a man in Qalqilya
ALL OF THE ABOVE STORIES CAN BE FOUND ONLINE
There were other stories circulating that included kidnappings in Jenin (17 people) and Nablus (7 people) but I cannot find a source for these.
Some ceasefire, a thousand acres eh, the LYING Israeli regime of scumbags… not fit to dirty my shoe.
“do not represent the people of Ireland”
Eh, they do. They certainly represent the majority. And why do Israelis keep referring to a Jewish state when they claim that it’s an open and inclusive modern democracy?
Can you imagine any other country claiming their state to be for one religion? Hang on, let me think. What other state at the moment is claiming to be for one religion only, hmmmm……
It certainly used to be an open and inclusive modern democracy although things are changing as the society becomes more radicalised and fundamental.
There is still 20% of the population that is arab with an accordant number of MPs elected to the Knesset.
But hey, don’t let that obstruct your view.
Based on that reasoning, it makes no sense to call critics of Israeli government policies anti-semites, does it? Still, they use that card when it suits.
Where did I call anyone an anti-semite?
I was refuting Mr T’s childish and simplistic view of the state of Israel.
However, while I don’t think criticising Israeli policy makes you an anti semite, there is certainly plenty of anti-semitism in evidence. I can see 2 examples on this thread alone.
I don’t think I suggested that you were calling anyone an anti-semite, if I did, it wasn’t my intention.
I just used your reference to the non-exclusively Jewish population to illustrate why the accusation of anti-semitism against political critics is BS.
But noone mentioned anti-semitism in this particular thread. Why bring it in ? Stick to arguing your corner without strawmanning in something else.
The Irish love (i) self-determination, (ii) underdogs and (iii) criticizing people in power- irrespective of the facts on the ground. That’s the Irish way.
Facts on the illegaly appropriated ground? Or facts on the ground where an appartment block full of kids has just been obliterated?
It’s the Ambassador’s well-placed (i.e. not throwaway) comment about ‘some of the same slogans….of 70 or 80 years ago from this very continent” that really gets me.
If I made a public comment trying to compare the ghettos of Gaza. tanks rumbling down their streets with Warsaw in the 1940s, I’d be rounded on and called an Anti-Semite, anti-Jew, racist, etc. by the Ambassador and others. If by his comment the Ambassador is trying to somehow imply that we’re Nazis, he needs to consult a history book.
He should also maybe look at the shameful posts from his own embassy Twitter account and their doom-laden messages of a burqa-clad Molly Malone……watch out Dublin, you’re next for the Fundamentaloids!
Nothing will be solved with rockets from Hamas or smart bombs from Israel. Except more dead civilians on both sides.
he should be kicked out while subjected to finest kosher treatment, in this case I approve of headshot for an eye
That he was sticking it to BS luvvie fave Norris is all the sweeter. You’ve met your match. Until we see Panti protesting under a Palestinian flag you’ve no cause.
tragic indeed
bahblahblah much?