Irish Examiner view: Holocaust Memorial Day offers the chance of a reset

President Michael D Higgins and his wife Sabina arriving for the Holocaust Memorial Day event at the Mansion House in Dublin. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA 

There’s a brief moment in the 1960 Otto Preminger film Exodus which shows how, in an alternative universe, matters could have been different in the Middle East.

In a courtyard within a military jail in Acre, members of the Haganah, the Zionist paramilitary organisation, are exercising with prisoners from the Irgun, its terrorist offshoot.

Alongside them, fedayeen are responding to the Adhan, the Islamic call to prayer.

Three groups unified by a common enemy, the British, exercising their responsibilities under a mandate given to them by the League of Nations after the collapse of the Turkish empire at the end of the First World War.

There are manifest dangers in drawing historical lessons from popular culture, in this case an enormous bestseller from the author Leon Uris purporting to retell the story of Holocaust survivors relocated to Israel. It’s a work credited with shaping the sympathetic views of millions of Americans, and about which that country’s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion, is said to have remarked: “As a piece of propaganda, it’s the greatest thing ever written about Israel.”

Today, which is Holocaust Memorial Day and the 80th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau — the worst of the Nazi death camps — we should pause to reflect on the condition of our country’s current relationship with the state of Israel and Jewish people living in and visiting our shores.

Yesterday, the throwing down of the gates of Auschwitz by Russian troops was marked by an event at the Mansion House, Dublin, where our President Michael D Higgins gave the keynote address. Our President, like so many who have criticised the Israeli response to the tragic events of October 7, is considered a divisive figure by Ireland’s Jewish community and by Israelis further afield.

It was therefore not surprising, though still dispiriting, to see that protesters were removed from the Holocaust commemoration event during his speech, where the President said the “grief inflicted on families by the horrific acts of October 7, and the response to it, is unimaginable”.

The President has already been criticised for referring to the ongoing war in the Middle East. One woman who walked out of the speech told this newspaper: “He chose to make it again about Israel and Gaza, not even mentioning other conflicts around the world.”

Ireland’s relationship with Israel today is largely broken.

Israel’s outgoing ambassador to Ireland, Dana Erlich, had urged President Higgins to withdraw from speaking at yesterday’s event. Israel has closed its embassy here, and Ms Erlich has openly accused former taoiseach Simon Harris of being an antisemite. Our Government is now in a bind over the Occupied Territories Bill — which we have had to withdraw, for now, because of legal frailties in its wording.

Our relationship with the US, weaker since the abdication of Joe Biden and with our taxation policies on American companies likely to be stress-tested by Donald Trump, will not be assisted by adopting a punitive approach towards Israel.

We have allied with Spain and South Africa in joining the International Court of Justice’s case on genocide against Israel. Widespread criticism of Israel’s actions in Gaza and the West Bank, in particular, pervades. Marches here, which have shamefully included the flying of Hamas flags, continue to attract widespread support.

The beleaguered people of Gaza and the refugee camps need leaders who will bring them civil liberties, education, medicine, land reforms, and equality. Hamas’s despicable actions on that day, almost 16 months ago, have not helped bring the people of Palestine peace, and should revile all those who would criticise Israel too.

We are at the beginning of what, based on the behaviour of Hamas terrorists at the outset of hostage handover and the ongoing killing by Israel — including reports of a two-year-old shot in the head in the West Bank yesterday — could be a very fragile peace.

Last night, the man who credits himself with that fragile peace risked inflaming tensions further. US president Donald Trump called on Egypt and Jordan to house 1.5m Palestinians while “we just clean out the whole thing”, referring to the Gaza Strip, adding the move could be “temporary or long-term”. Today, leaders must choose their words more carefully than ever. It is incumbent on us all to think of how, on this most important of solemn occasions, we do more to rebut any suggestion that Ireland is hostile to Jewish people because of the actions of Mr Netanyahu and Israel’s defence forces. The horrors of the Holocaust must continue to be taught, must continue to be discussed and remembered, and Jewish people must continue to find peace in our homes, our schools, our communities.

“L’chaim” is the famous Hebrew salutation. “To life.” It is a message to which we can all subscribe.

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There will be many who can measure the progress of their lives by what tune by Boyzone, or its breakout solo star Ronan Keating, was on the radio at the time.

Ronan, Stephen, Keith, Shane, And Mikey at a Valentine's Day-linked publicity photocall at Dublin's Point Depot (now the 3Arena) in 1999. Picture: Mark McCall

And while there will be nostalgia, there is also ample scope for contemplating the impact of contemporary celebrity when a three-part documentary about the Dublin boyband, who delivered nine Irish and six British No 1 singles and sold more than 25m records, starts to stream next Sunday.

The group, created by manager Louis Walsh in 1993, carried all before it until it split in 2000, not long after one of its members, Stephen Gately, came out as gay under pressure from The Sun newspaper.

Keating is the central character in the programme, Boyzone: No Matter What, which is being shown by Sky and Now from February 2, and the fact that he is now a grandfather comes with a certain sense of shock for the passing of time.

“We were five young lads thrown to the wolves,” he told interviewers, describing an often “toxic” rivalry and resentment that helped produce a parting of the ways.

The show also features fellow band members Keith Duffy, Shane Lynch, and Michael ‘Mikey’ Graham. 

And, of course, Mayo’s Louis Walsh, the grey eminence behind their success who also put together the career of successors Westlife.

Walsh also managed Ronan Keating’s solo career, but now there’s no great love lost between them. But, as both of them might say, that’s business.