I would actually go further: I would contend that the adoption of the Palestinian cause as being core to Irish identity has been the most culturally, diplomatically, and reputationally catastrophic move for our country in the last decade. Culturally speaking the dominance of Palestine in the arts has eroded the focus on our own stories and talent, in addition to cultivating an atmosphere of exclusion and bigotry. My own grandmother spent her entire professional career in the Irish theatre and film industry. I often think about what she would feel if she were alive to see the (both state funded) Abbey Theatre and National Concert Hall refuse to host a play about October 7th. What a tragic state of affairs for Irish theatre this egregious censorship is. Diplomatically, we have embarrassed ourselves on a world stage with our self-righteous posturing as all-knowing moral arbiters on this issue. At this point every sane politician knows it, which is why most members of Fianna Fáil and Fine Gael have been uncharacteristically silent on Israel/Palestine as of late. I have friends in Brussels who tell me that Irish MEPs are a known laughing stock with their deranged tirades. Reputationally, I think we are aware by now what it has caused us. Irish people can throw a conspiratorial hissy fit and claim it is a ‘smear campaign’ all they like. The reputation has been solidified. How could it not when a major Irish music band scream ‘up Hamas, up Hezbollah’ on stage and our media class continues to platform and laud them? How could it not when an Irish television presenter on our state broadcaster brings up Palestine when talking about an attack on British Jews? How could it not when a former Taoiseach (Prime Minister) refers to a young Irish child saved from Hamas captivity as being ‘lost and found’? It goes on and on and on. Irish people have every right to feel deeply about the Palestinian cause and advocate strongly in support of it. What should never have been done, however, is the imposed adoption of the Palestinian cause as being core to Irish identity by our political, media, NGO, and academic class. It has resulted in Irish people downplaying, excusing, and in some cases celebrating great evils being done in this cause’s name; because it was positioned as our own. It is not. It has never been and it will never be.