Critiquing Ireland's "anti-Zionist" mindset
Famines, then and now: Ireland and Gaza
Famine Memorial / Customs House Quays, Dublin by Rowan Gillespie CC
Warlords, Words and a Pitiful People
Much like the dispassionate responses to reports of looming famine in current-day Gaza, many lacked compassion for Ireland’s starving millions in 1845.
The comparison is not exact — Ireland’s famine unfolded under colonial neglect and economic ideology, while Gaza’s crisis emerges from active military conflict. The causes differ, the actors differ, and conflating them too neatly risks doing justice to neither. Yet the moral core of the parallel holds: the spectacle of mass starvation met with bureaucratic indifference is not new, and Ireland knows that in its bones.
The U.S. President James Polk, Queen Victoria and the Sultan of Turkey all gave relatively paltry pledges. There were other more creative and generous-minded contributors.
The Choctaw Indians sent money and maize. Baron Lionel de Rothschild, a prominent London Jew, co-founded the British Association for the Relief of Distress in Ireland and the Highlands of Scotland in response to the famine. That association raised $600,000 in 1847 — about $20 million in today’s terms. Baron Rothschild also oversaw the opening of distribution centres to provide food aid across Ireland. (1)
That was then. This is now.
Between famine-era mass starvation deaths and forced emigration, Ireland’s population fell from 8.5 million in 1845 to 6.6 million by 1851. The Irish famines, from 1845 to 1852, got seared onto the soul of Irish consciousness. Many history books and documentaries mark the effect of that catastrophe on the national psyche. Sculpted famine memorials now stand around the country, and each year since 2008 there have been official commemorations. (2)
This national calamity was much on the mind of President Michael Higgins, as keynote speaker of the National Famine Commemoration.
In a typically loquacious speech, he said: “No other event in our history can be likened to the Great Famine, either for its immediate, tragic impact, or its legacy of involuntary emigration, cultural loss, increased decline of the Irish language, and demoralisation.”
Higgins drew pointed parallels with the extreme food, fuel and water shortage in today’s Gaza. “We are now also seeing starvation being used as an instrument of war,” he declared. (3)
All of the above backstory might help explain Ireland’s concern and robust response to the potential famine in Gaza.
How can concerned individuals respond?
The sheer scale of war-displaced, homeless and starving people in Gaza is overwhelming. Ubiquitous, enraged protesters make strident demands of Israel and the Irish government. Governments issue ineffectual edicts; newspaper editorials posit political solutions; NGOs and aid agencies paint a dystopian picture.
Perhaps the painful personal stories might change hearts and minds.
“Today we will mostly eat lentils, or pasta,” Riyadh al-Housari, a 25-year-old in Gaza City, said in a phone interview. “We eat one meal in the late afternoon. It is one meal and there is no other.” (4)
This sad picture neglects for reflect the nuance. There is a thriving hotel, restaurant and cafe culture in Gaza, even though war rages there. Despite the war, some cafés, restaurants, and a limited hospitality sector have continued to operate or reopen in parts of Gaza, demonstrating resilience and efforts to maintain normal life. (5)
In recent days, a dramatic claim stated that 14,000 babies in Gaza faced imminent death within a 48-hour window. The story spread quickly — online, through media outlets, in parliamentary debates, and on the international diplomatic stage.
BBC Verify later investigated, and the UN clarified that the mortality risk attached to those figures was spread over an entire year, not 48 hours. Precise, verifiable numbers matter; overclaiming undermines the credibility of legitimate advocacy. (6)
That said, the correction does not diminish the underlying reality. Tens of thousands of children remain acutely malnourished by any careful accounting. The problem with the statistic was its timeline, not its scale.
Both parties in this conflict bear scrutiny. Hamas warlords have repeatedly hijacked food aid lorries and looted UN warehouses — a betrayal of the very civilians they claim to represent. That cannot be minimised.
Equally, Israel’s sustained blockade policy has created conditions that independent humanitarian agencies describe as engineered scarcity. These are not equivalent acts, but they are both morally answerable ones. A serious reckoning with Gaza’s hunger cannot selectively assign conscience to one side while granting the other the comfort of complexity.
In a statement released last Friday, Hamas called on the international community “to take urgent action to prevent the militarisation of aid and its transformation into a tool for managing starvation.” (7)
The cynicism of that statement — from a leadership that has itself looted the aid it now claims to defend — should not go unremarked.
There are Knesset politicians who have dismissed outside criticism with apparent indifference — some openly hostile to humanitarian pressure, others seemingly calcified by the security logic of the past eighteen months.
It is worth noting that public hectoring rarely changes minds in any parliament; quiet, sustained diplomacy tends to move people further. But that is an observation about tactics, not an excuse. Intransigence in the face of mass civilian suffering is a moral failure regardless of the communication style used to challenge it.
The harsh blockade policy presents painful ethical questions for thoughtful Jews, families of hostages, and many evangelical pro-Israel Christian onlookers abroad. Many would say that Israel has lost its way — that its government has collectively discarded its moral compass.
Where is the empathetic equivalent of the Rothschild initiative? One hopes that effective visionaries are doing noble things quietly behind the scenes. Both sides’ propaganda makes it hard to know who or what to believe.
Justice in Jewish sacred scripture is not merely a legal or judicial concept. It encompasses a broader moral and ethical framework governing relationships within the community and with God. The Micah passage — to act justly, to love mercy, to walk humbly — is not decorative. It is a demand.
Directed, in this context, at everyone with the power to act: the Israeli government prolonging a blockade that starves civilians; Hamas leadership that loots the aid meant for its own people; Western governments issuing statements while withholding leverage; and those of us watching from a distance, deciding whether discomfort is reason enough to look away.
The prophetic tradition that produced this verse was not addressed to the powerful alone. It was addressed to everyone who knew what was happening and chose indifference.
‘He has shown you, O mortal, what is good. And what does the Lord require of you? To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God.’
(Micah 6:8)
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Sources:
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Jews and the Irish Potato Famine
https://aish.com/jews-and-the-irish-potato-famine/
- List of memorials to the Great Famine https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_memorials_to_the_Great_Famine
- President highlights ‘forced starvation’ in Gaza in speech during commemoration of the Famine https://www.thejournal.ie/president-highlights-gaza-michael-d-higgins-famine-ireland-6707700-May2025/
4. Israel Said It Eased Its Blockade, But Gazans Are Still Waiting for Food
https://www.nytimes.com/2025/05/21/world/middleeast/israel-gaza-blockade-aid.html
5. https://conven.org/israel/news/al-baqa-was-a-sanctuary-amid-the-genocide-now-it-lies-in-ruins/
6. UN admit misleading in ‘14,000 Gaza babies’ claim
https://www.israelhayom.com/2025/05/21/bbc-un-admit-misleading-in-14000-gaza-babies-claim/
7. US admits its new aid plan would initially only feed 60% of Gaza, as UN rejects proposal
https://edition.cnn.com/2025/05/09/middleeast/us-gaza-aid-plan-un-rejection-intl
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Addendum:
As the Israeli aid blockade enters its third month. BBC’s Irish-born special correspondent, Fergal Keane, reports on parents fearful about finding food and medication for their children (Warning: Contains distressing scenes from the start). https://www.bbc.com/news/videos/cwyn9291yv0o
The Agora Initiative represents aspirations for open debate and conversation…
Their mission is to mobilize the global community to seek viable solutions to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict …https://theagorainitiative.org/about/#