The Ireland Israel Alliance (IIA) has been garnering some international attention of late. Only four weeks ago, our website was hacked in what was almost certainly a cyberattack by Iranian elements. However, more recently, with the decision by Fine Gael, Fianna Fáil, and the Green Party to agree that Senator Frances Black’s Occupied Territories Bill should be excluded from their program for government, the attention has been rather more positive.
Writing last Friday in Israel Hayom (the most widely read Israeli newspaper), the journalist Eldad Beck wrote of the significant diplomatic achievement by the IIA and its founder, Jackie Goodall, for all friends of Israel in Ireland in getting the bill removed from the new government’s program. The article goes on to describe how the defeat of the bill is a big blow against the antisemitic BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanction) movement – even though its backers are likely to try to reintroduce the bill during the next session of parliament.
The link to the article (which is in Hebrew) is here but Google Translate does a very good job of converting it to English. All in all, it’s very good to see Ireland get a positive billing in the Israeli media.
by Ciarán Ó Raghallaigh
