Ireland and Iran ganging up on Israel?

I was reading the Sunday Times yesterday, and this is what caught my eye on the front page:

Ireland as bad as Iran, says top Sharon man

An advisor to Ariel Sharon, Israel's prime minister, compared Ireland's stance on Israel to that of the President of Iran, who said last year that Israel must be wiped off the map.

The comments were made in a Jewish newspaper in response to views expressed by an aide to the Taoiseach Bertie Ahearn, who had declined to officially support Zionist claims to the territory dating back thousands of years.

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.....the call was taken by an official in the taoiseach's office who recieved questions by email, including a request for Ireland to officially support the Zionist claim of historical rights dating back over 3,000 years.

John Kennedy, an official in the taoiseach's office was quoted as saying "support for israel isn't premised on Zionism...Zionism is essentially a religios issue - a faith issue. I don't think you're going to get the taoiseach to take a position on that. Zionism is not part of relevant policy here"

..............

Kennedy's refusal to take a stand provoked outrage from [Raanan] Gissin, who compared Ireland's position to that of Ahmadinejad.

"it is not enough," he told the Jewish Telegraph. "There is a culture of hatred that says the Jews have no right to live here as an entity. We are here as our birthright and not as a conqueror. If you don't support Zionism, ipso facto you are actually saying, in the logical progression, we don't support the right of the Jewish people to have a state of their own in their ancestral homeland."

"Ahmadinejad is trying to erase Israel off the map by not recognizing that Jews have a birthright. We are having to teach the same lessons to Ahmadinejad and Ireland"

So, "we don't have a position on Zionism" equates to "we hate all Jews and want to wipe them off the map", in this guy's logical progression. This is Republican-style debating tactics: exaggerate the opponent's statements and then scream blue bloody murder. This is the same logic that turns a Democrat's "we think the government is taking the wrong approach in iraq" to "You're unpatriotic and probably supporting the terrorists yourself!".

Let's look at that main argument again actually. "If you don't support Zionism, [you] don't support the right of the Jewish people to have a state of their own in their ancestral homeland." So how about aethiests? Using this guy's own type of logic, aethists aren't zionists and so don't have this automatic right to stay in Israel, so it's OK to get rid of them. Also, when he says "We are here as our birthright and not as a conqueror.", you can argue that point as well. OK, they've been there 3,000 years which is a good enough time to grab squatter's rights, but they weren't the first ppl there. Jewish history generally starts about 1800BC, when God gave the land of Caanan to Abraham. Thing is, there were already people in Canaan at the time, so the eary tribe if Israel pretty much did have to conquer it to get it (I saw this on the discovery channel one time so it has to be true). So, if you use the argument "we've been there 3,000 years" then be careful of people who take a slightly longer view, lik "well, we were there 3,100 years ago, so hah!". I'm not saying that I agree with this argument, but if you're going to engage in historical biggerdickism, then be careful of people who take a longer-term view than you.

This guy has also obviously done his homework too, as the article subtly goes on to point out.

"We never gave up our claim and our right, as the Irish would never give up the claim of what was historically Irish territory even though it's under the control of Great Britain"

Ireland renounced the constitutional claim over the six counties of Northern Ireland in 1998 as part of the peace process.

Anyway, let's assue that Mr. Gissin is right, Ireland is as bad as Iran. Let's go through some reasons why the Israelis can sleep safely in their beds over this one.

• Iran is trying to build nuclear weapons in secret (and getting in a bit of trouble for it). The Irish government can't even get a light rail system for dublin built on time, on budget, and without needing to rip up 1/3 of it to repair afterwards.
  
• Iran has a huge standing army. Ireland has enough troops to stage a St Patrick's day parade and do a bit of Peacekeeping for the UN (and even then the UN normally have to loan us a few vehicles to get around in).
  
• Iran has a religious fundamentalist leadership who are dedicated in their beliefs and convictions. The irish government's only dedication is to getting re-elected, apart from that they are all things to all men (and often all at the same time).
  
• the only risk Israel ever has of an Irish invasion is if we get drawn in the same group in the World Cup qualifiers again, and even then the worst-case scenario is a severe shortage of alcohol in the country the week after the match.
  

About the biggest thing Ireland and Iran have in common here is that they come just before Israel in an alphabetical listing of the world's countries. Then again, maybe this is an anti-Zionist plot too. I think tho that the Israeli government can safely concentrate on what they're going to do about Hamas getting into power in Palestine without looking over their shoulder for ravening hordes of bloodthirsty hurley-wielding celtic warriors ravaging Haifa and Tel Aviv from the sea in their tricolour-draped longboats....

The original Jewish Telegraph article is given here, and some other comments on it are here