Brendan O’Neill Brendan O’Neill

Happy St Patrick’s Day – but not for Ireland’s Jews

A man holds an Irish Flag during a St. Patricks Day parade (Getty images)

‘Céad míle fáilte’, the Irish love to say. It means ‘a hundred thousand welcomes’. It’s emblazoned in the arrivals hall at Dublin airport. You’ll see it written in the Celtic font on the walls of Ireland’s cosy pubs. It has led to Ireland being christened ‘the land of a thousand welcomes’, where all visitors, no matter their heritage, will be greeted with a hearty hug.

The tragic truth is that Ireland is awash with Israelophobia

Well, not all. There’s one group of people to whom Ireland’s famed friendliness seems not to extend. ‘Zionists are not welcome in Ireland’, barks an Irish leftie at an Israeli gentleman in a chilling video clip that is going viral. ‘F**k you and f**k Israel’, she says and then spits on him. Ireland’s national slogan needs a reboot: we’re the land of a thousand welcomes except for You Know Who.

It’s a horrible video. It shows two young women, both ‘pro-Palestine’ activists, accosting Israeli businessman Tamir Ohayon in a hotel bar in Dún Laoghaire in County Dublin last week.

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