Israel-Condemning Irish

In few other places are there such fervent humanitarians intent on a mission of freeing hapless Palestinians in Gaza from the 'brutal occupation' of Israeli Defence Forces. Ireland's celebrated entertainers will not perform in Israel as a sign of their solidarity with the Palestinians. Irish unionists clamour for blacklisting and boycotting Israeli production goods.

Condemnation of Israel takes the form of blacklisting Israeli academics, sending righteous humanitarians on sea-faring missions to break the blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, and to implement economic, union and trade sanctions against the State of Israel in a demonstration of sanctimonious contempt for the policies of a state desperately attempting to protects itself from violent attacks.

Hamas and Ireland's belligerents make for a good combination. Compatriots in a world of victimhood and grievance, acting complementarily in support of each other. It was, after all, members of the IRA that took it upon themselves to train PLO commandos in the art of guerrilla warfare.

And it was Ireland, during the Second World War, that found more in common with Nazi Germany than it did with Great Britain, their bitter enemy and 'occupier'. It was in parts of Ireland that lights were kept on at night in defiance of the need to present a dark target for German bombers. Lights on in war-'neutral' Dublin helpfully guided the German bombers to their targets in London and Belfast.

In a centuries-old tradition of contempt and hatred for Great Britain the Irish in Northern Ireland have long viewed Britain as their mortal enemy, refusing to be under its thumb. History tells why, when Great Britain was utterly indifferent to the starving Irish during the miserable years of the 'potato famine'. But the South remained loyal to Britain, while the North preferred to be separate. And in its separateness it erupted into a fiery maelstrom of sectarian violence.

Irish Nationalists have finally made peace with Great Britain and with themselves. Yet recently holdouts, disaffected members of the Provisional Irish Republican Army, the Real IRA and other militant groups have been found to be plotting to bomb British security forces stationed near Belfast. A 600-pound homemade roadside bomb was discovered not far from Belfast in the past year, so complete peace remains yet elusive long after the 1998 Good Friday agreement.

Time does not necessarily heal all wounds, and relations between Protestants and Roman Catholics in Northern Ireland remain incandescently hot. 12-metre-high stone walls running over 10 kilometres separate Belfast's Catholics from its Protestants. Gates shutting off the Catholic neighbourhoods are nightly closed to prevent further 'troubles'; guaranteed to erupt should those walls ever be pulled down. A mere 20% of the city is integrated.

And this is the country and the people thereof who express unmitigated contempt for the protective wall that Israel was forced to erect to keep Palestinian suicide bombers from constant successfully bloody forays within Israel from the West Bank and Gaza.