Willie F analyses anti-semitism in Irish history

[Blue Angel]

Yes, Heil Hitler. I, too, say that because he is truly a great man." --David Lloyd George, Prime Minister, UK

It is not the Germany of the first decade that followed the war- broken, dejected and bowed down with a sense of apprehension and impotence. It is now full of hope and confidence, and of a renewed sense of determination to lead its own life without interference from any influence outside its own frontiers. One man has accomplished this miracle. He is a born leader of men. A magnetic and dynamic personality with a single-minded purpose, a resolute will and a dauntless heart."
--David Lloyd George, Prime Minister, UK The Daily Express 9-17-36

"I have always said that if Great Britain were defeated in war I hoped we should find a Hitler to lead us back to our rightful position among the nations." (Winston Churchill in The London Times, Monday, November 7, 1938)


Now does this set of quotes prove Lloyd George and Churchill were anti-semitic? No all it proves is that they reacted to the events at the time they happend and did not have foreknowledge of what was to come yet.

[Wasp]

What? Where did you read this? Everything I've ever read says that the Germans carried out the raid after carrying out their own aerial recon.
Do you have any links, newsreports or anything I can have a read off. Just interested.

In Belfast, IRA volunteers were ordered to help the Luftwaffe to bomb their own city at the cost of nearly 2,000 dead and thousands made homeless.”

www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article411647.ece

[Wasp]

Setanta you asked Blueman about some man you googled but got nothing. Is this the correct spelling Andrija Artukovic?

He was a Nazi Minister of the Interior in Croatia and the man responsible for the deaths of over 1,000,000 men, women and children in concentration camps. His time here is shrouded in mystery, as the Department of Foreign Affairs still refuses to release the file on this man.

Celestine Laine, leader of the Bezen Perrot, a Waffen SS unit responsible for the torture and murder of civilians in occupied Brittany, and Pieter Menten, responsible for the deaths of hundreds of Jews in Poland.

Why was the Irish state prepared to harbour men such as Artukovic and Laine, while Jewish refugees were refused asylum?

Taken BTW from the programme on rte Ireland's nazis.

[Blue Angel]

From the same article:-

Trained in sabotage techniques near Berlin, Russell’s mission was to foster a coup in the Irish Republic and to attack British military installations in Northern Ireland. The only thing that stopped him was his death from a perforated ulcer 100 miles off the coast of Co Galway, on August 14, 1940.


The first claim in that paragraph is frankly speaking hilarious, the biggest coup the IRA of this period had was nicking most of the Irish Army's reserve ammunition stores at one point. The chances of them carrying of a succesful national coup were vanishingly small as Sean Russell was to guerilla warfare what Wile E Coyote is to succesful captures of roadrunners. Also the conditions for a coup were just not there, the IRA's heyday of twenty years ago had long passed.

As to the second claim yes he probably would have attacked British military installations, with how much sucess is debatable considering his previously stated inefficiency as a commander in chief.

[Blue Angel]

WASP should we ask Britain and the US why after the war over two thirds of all officials in Germany, including many complicit in the Nazi regime, were still serving in their posts?

[Blue Angel]

A good article from a well known Jewish paper that illustrates some of the range of opinions on subjects to do with the Jews and Irish history generally is given a link below. It's worth noting there have been those like Sir Otta Jaffe who was Jewish and strongly unionist and those on the other side who were Jewish and strongly republican such as Michael Collin's solicitor Michael Noyes who while forgotten today was instrumental in keeping the republican movement in Dublin going by ensuring premises were organised and funds moved around to avoid detection. Or Estella Solomons, the Jewish painter who was a committed republican and involved in the Easter Rising. The matter is not black and white. There was anti-semitism at various govt. levels and that was shameful and people like Gerald Goldberg and Robert Briscoe ran into it in their time. However there are also more hopeful moments such as when Gerald Goldberg stood to address a student's meeting when a young man and a particularly unpleasant idiot said he should not be speaking as he was not Irish, that is until members of Terence Mac Swiney's family who were in attendance told the idiot to shut up and let a fellow Irishman finish. For every idiotic and foolish anti-semitic utterance there are counterbalances like that. Anti-semitism as I said before is a poison that has been transmitted through all European culture and we are still not free of it yet sadly.

www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/762933.html

[Wasp]

blueangel said:

WASP should we ask Britain and the US why after the war over two thirds of all officials in Germany, including many complicit in the Nazi regime, were still serving in their posts?

Why shouldn't we ask for these answers? Any country who gave any help to nazis after they found out exactly what the nazis did beside invade countries should be ashamed of themselves and give a full apology and some kind of explanation.

Blueangel why did you feel the need to ask me that? Is it because I am keeping with the thread title but mentioning Ireland too much or what?

[Jim]

Because your attacking the country blindly and forgetting or not accepting how your own country acted to the nazis before the war and after the war. You only want to see the positives of the British and the negatives of the Irish and are only pointing out those facts and nothing else.

[An Fear Dubh]

By now Setanta you should realize that Wasp has no interest in being fair or balanced. He is as Blue Angel and Jim have both pointed out in different threads recently only interested in painting a black picture of one side while ignoring the other side.

[Wasp]

setanta said:

I must be slow because I never realise anything like that.
WASP and the blues brothers now have multiple links from impartial and reliable sources that contradict and conclusivly disprove their earlier assertions that Ireland is an anti-semetic state and that Ireland and her people aided the Nazis in any way.
I'm glad we had a chance to dispell another myth.

Setanta you said 'In Belfast, IRA volunteers were ordered to help the Luftwaffe to bomb their own city at the cost of nearly 2,000 dead and thousands made homeless.” was nowhere in that article and claimed it was only on Calton. So I can dispel a myth try the end of the 8th or 9th paragraph.

[Wasp]

Because your attacking the country blindly and forgetting or not accepting how your own country acted to the nazis before the war and after the war.

Thanks blueangel for answering me. ;D ;D ;D ;D No seriously I find it laughable that republicans can say what they want about the British, Unionists the security forces etc YET when something is said abbout old Ireland dearest then Unionists such as myself get accused of 'attacking' Ireland blindly blah blah. If you cant take criticism don't dish it out.

You only want to see the positives of the British and the negatives of the Irish and are only pointing out those facts and nothing else.

Oh ok if that is what you think. So basically Unionist like me need to be told by republicans what is and what isn't acceptable for Unionists to talk about or mention while at the sametime republicans can make all sorts of accusations and blame the British for everything. No offence but no republican is going to dictate what I can or cannot post. Better still do you think I should say same everytime a republican says anything about the British. We can't have double standards now can we.

[Jim]

No, you mean that your statements are challenged more often with real facts, but when we bring up what the british did as a comparison its dismissed.

You started going on about Irish nazis, in the face of evidence against every line of your posts, and you still dont accept it. Its nowt to do with us being big bad republicans, as far as I know republic has made a few posts here too (i cant actually remember he might not have but am too tired to check) and he's certainly not a republican.

You can post what you want 'til you go blue in the face, but dont think its not going to be challenged, thats the point of this forum, your free to challenge everything and anything I write. Maybe its just overwhelming with the lack of consistant unionist and loyalist voices on this forum.

[Wasp]

No, you mean that your statements are challenged more often with real facts, but when we bring up what the british did as a comparison its dismissed.

So none of what I said was true. My statements are false then according to you?

You started going on about Irish nazis, in the face of evidence against every line of your posts, and you still dont accept it.

Again as above.

Its nowt to do with us being big bad republicans, as far as I know republic has made a few posts here too (i cant actually remember he might not have but am too tired to check) and he's certainly not a republican.

I know republic is not a republican and he is proof that it would be wrong for anyone to suggest that Ireland is filled with republicans only and nazi sympathizers.

You can post what you want 'til you go blue in the face, but dont think its not going to be challenged, thats the point of this forum, your free to challenge everything and anything I write. Maybe its just overwhelming with the lack of consistant unionist and loyalist voices on this forum.

I will post what I want and I expect it to be challenged with those who disagree in the sameway I challenge those whom I disagree with. So it maybe because of the overwhelming lack of consistant unionist and loyalist voices on this forum?? Well because you or any republican disagrees with a Unionist/loyalist viewpoint this doesn't make you right and them wrong. Perhaps the rules should be cjanged to the republicans are right on everything to Unionists can only be right on what republicans say they are right on.

[Jim]

I will post what I want and I expect it to be challenged with those who disagree in the sameway I challenge those whom I disagree with. So it maybe because of the overwhelming lack of consistant unionist and loyalist voices on this forum?? Well because you or any republican disagrees with a Unionist/loyalist viewpoint this doesn't make you right and them wrong. Perhaps the rules should be cjanged to the republicans are right on everything to Unionists can only be right on what republicans say they are right on.

If your saying that republicans have this mindset that unionists are always wrong then I can just as easily say that unionists have this mindset that they are always in the right, that this state is "their" wee country and that republicans are an unwelcome reality, ive found that attitude in many people even today.

[Wasp]

WASP, cool the jets, you're more than entitled to post anything. However if people disagree with your analysis and back their contradictions with evidence, from reliable and impartial sources, then you have to at least contemplate the possibility that you, mainly because of a lack of accurate informaiton, MAY be incorrect in your initial assertions, as we all do!

I have stood corrected many times before so I have no problem being corrected, no problem at all.

I'd just like to know the following please,

I will give you my honest opinion.

1) Do you believe the IRA aided the Luftwaffe in their bombing of Belfast and if so what are you basing this on

Nothing would surprize me concerning the ira. I am going to try and read up a bit more so as it stands I am not sure but again nothing would surprize me.

2)Do you believe that the Irish Free State, as it was at the time, aided Nazi Germany in any way? If so based on what?

Well they did allow nazis to hide there in safe havens as did other countries. Justice Minister Michael McDowell apologized for a policy that was inspired by “a culture of muted antisemitism in Ireland,”. Conor Cruise O'Brien said that Ireland's 4,000 Jews would have been handed over to the Nazis had Germany won the war etc etc. So in part there seems to have been those who were willing to help the nazis either directly or indirectly IMO. But I would need to read up more about it.

3)Do you beleive that the Irish Free State deliberatly allowed the IRA to aid the Abhwer in an way? If so based on what?

4)

Not sure.

Do you beleive that the IRA contacted the Abhwer to form an alliance because of a belief in Nazi idiology? If so based on what?

I don't know about the idiology of the nazis part but I do know that the ira in modern times acted like nazis/facists.

5)Do you believe the Irish Free State was blatently more anti-semetic than any other European Democracy?

I don't know the answer to that and TBH I don't really care who was worse. The fact is that there were those that were blatantly ant-semetic.