I'm not sure that you really believe this, SJF, it's simply your way of closing off an important issue - the morality of entering or staying out of a war.

>>I don’t subscribe to either belief about WWII – neither moral rightness nor unity against Fascism. WWII was just a carbon copy of virtually every war fought in Europe since the Romans – a struggle for dominance of the continent, strategic access to the Middle and Far East, and imperial control of the rest of the world.<<

I guess to you, the holocaust and its six million Jewish casualties were simply "collateral damage" in a struggle for dominance?

And objecting to a regime that held human life in such scant regard was simply a political statement, not a moral one?

>>The dangers of the IRA-Nazi collaboration have been greatly overblown by British tabloid journalists and Alistair McLean novels. It comprised little more than a few cloak and dagger meetings and one aborted submarine landing.<<

The fact that they were incompetent does not detract from their intent.

It also overlooks the innate anti-Semitism of the IRA, dating right back to Arthur Griffith, the founder of Sinn Féin, who published antisemitic articles in the "United Irishman" at the turn of the century.

Then there was the unedifying sight of Eoin O'Duffy ex IRA Chief of Staff who split with de Valera to form the Blueshirts.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Blueshirts

He was recorded as telling the Dail that "the Blackshirts have been victorious in Italy and Hitler's Brownshirts have been victorious in Germany, as assuredly the Blueshirts will be victorious in Ireland"

Against this background, it is not hard to see where their sympathies lay, is it? Their anti-Semitism survives today, as noted by the Wiesenthal Centre in 2003... "Ireland is the only World War II neutral to have never confronted its dealings with Nazi Germany"

Once again SJF, the theme here is moral imperatives, or motivations if you will, to join one side or the other in a conflict.

The accretion of power is a distant second in this race, I think.

"Ginx

'I will leave it to those who saw combat-FOR WHATEVER THE REASON-to decide on the relevance of [Anzac] day.'

That's as it should be, but the reality is otherwise. The day has become so hijacked by notions of national identity and military-mystique conditioning among the young, that all Australians must now have a stake in deciding its relevance."
Posted by SJF, Sunday, 11 May 2008 11:36:40 AM
_______________________________

I will leave it to those who saw combat-FOR WHATEVER THE REASON-to decide on the relevance of [Anzac] day.

Pericles

You talk of neutrality as if it is morally passive inaction, when it isn’t.

In a world dominated by dangerous political and military alliances, neutrality is a proactive stance and takes enormous moral courage. Ireland didn’t just ‘fall into’ neutrality in WWII. It had actively maintained its position of neutrality since 1922 despite sustained ‘moral’ pressure to align itself with the big powers, a pressure that continues to this day.

It was also a stance that was almost unanimous among the members of the Dail at the time. Even so, there is plenty of evidence that Ireland did help the WWII Allied effort by providing intelligence and other assistance.

---
Re Ireland and the Jews, I confess that I don’t know a great deal about the subject. However, from what I’ve read over the past couple of days, a few points …

1. The Allies did not go to war over the Holocaust, although they like to rewrite history to make it look as if they did.

2. The Wiesenthal Centre comment you provided was lifted from a Unionist hate site – as is most ‘Nazi Ireland’ and ‘anti-semitic Ireland’ material. Whether or not the comment is genuine, the context is much too hysterical to be taken seriously.

3. Ireland was no more or less anti-Semitic than any other Western society at the time. Anti-semitism was quite mainstream until the horrors of the Holocaust made the West confront the consequences of its anti-Semitic past. You can take a selection of quotes and incidents from any country pre-WWII and make a case to say that it was an anti-Semitic country.

4. There definitely were some crazed, pro-Nazi people in the IRA (as in the Loyalist paras and even the British aritstocracy), but it was not official IRA policy. The IRA was much more anti-British and anti-Protestant than anti-Semitic. The Jews were the least of their worries. Indeed, some IRA members actually worked with the Irish government in providing intelligence and other assistance to the Allies.

(to be contd.)

Pericles

(contd...)

5. De Valera was honoured by the Irish Jewish community in 1966, with a forest planted in his name at Kfar Kana near Nazereth ‘for his many years of devoted service in the cause of peace and freedom’ – something that could never have happened if Dev was as anti-semitic or pro-Nazi as his anti-neutrality detractors would have us believe.

6. There has been a Memorial Holocaust Day held in Ireland every year since 2003, when the Irish Justice Minister made an official apology for Ireland’s failure to accept Jewish refugees during the war. (Many other nations at the time had the same policy, including the US and Canada.) Even so, about 60 Jewish refugees were admitted to Ireland during the war.

7. As far as I know, Britain has never held any ‘Great Irish Famine Day’ or offered any official apology for the millions who died as a direct consequence of its occuapation. On the contrary, the British establishment acts as if Ireland should apologise to Britain over the Troubles. This is despite the UK being the only European nation ruled guilty by the European Court of Human Rights of practicing ‘cruel and degrading treatment’ on its own (Republican) citizens.

PS Much as I’ve been enjoying this debate, I’m really pushed for time at present to post much more on this. You’ll probably have the last word (which is fine by me).

PPS You might be interested to know that I first became a lifelong pacifist during Grade 11 Ancient History, when I learned about the tragedy of the island of Melos - horifically punished for trying to stay neutral during the Peloponnesian War. Indeed, the punishment was exacted by the Athenian Empire under the rule of your namesake. Might this have anything to do with your views on neutrality?

You think so, SJF?

>>You talk of neutrality as if it is morally passive inaction, when it isn’t.<<

I certainly do not consider neutrality as "morally passive", nor do I consider it in any way to connote inactivity.

Neutrality in WWII, in the case of both Ireland and Switzerland, was a deliberate, cynical and morally barren stance.

>>The Allies did not go to war over the Holocaust, although they like to rewrite history to make it look as if they did.<<

Oh, please. Hindsight is a given, but re-writing history? Who, please?

Your argument here would seem to be that simply because no-one was able to foresee the depths to which Nazi Germany would sink in its persecution of Jews, it was not possible to discern ahead of time that they were fundamentally evil.

Or perhaps you were saying that it was only the Irish and the Swiss who could not see anything abnormal in Kristallnacht?

Just a bit of craic, the bhoys havin' themselves some fun, eh?

I was pretty sure the Great Famine would appear in your argument at some point.

>>As far as I know, Britain has never held any ‘Great Irish Famine Day’ or offered any official apology for the millions who died as a direct consequence of its occuapation. On the contrary, the British establishment acts as if Ireland should apologise to Britain over the Troubles.<<

For your information, I believe that the British Government acted atrociously throughout the Great Hunger, and wouldn't even consider defending their actions. But that argument would lead me to believe, even more strongly, that Ireland's neutrality in WWII had more to do with its hatred of anything English, than "a proactive stance [taking] enormous moral courage".

Being a "lifelong pacifist" does not excuse you from assessing the pacifism of others on its own merits, rather than automatically attributing to it your own motives.

In other words, I am perfectly prepared to accept that your own pacifism is the product of a deep moral conviction; I simply don't see the same in the Swiss or the Irish in WWII.

Pericles

Damn!

I didn’t intend to post again to this thread, but I can’t let this quote pass:

‘But that argument would lead me to believe, even more strongly, that Ireland's neutrality in WWII had more to do with its hatred of anything English, than "a proactive stance [taking] enormous moral courage.’

If that’s the case, how then do you explain Ireland’s neutrality in every conflict before and since WWII? You are giving Britain far too much importance in Irish affairs. (That’s understandable – the British do it all the time, and not just with Ireland.)

Also, you conveniently ignore the fact that the Irish government DID involve itself considerably in the Allied war effort and officially allowed its citizens to enlist according to their conscience. That is not morally barren behaviour. The difference is that its participation in WWII was done on its own terms, not according to the agenda of more powerful nations.

… Or this quote:

‘Neutrality in WWII, in the case of both Ireland and Switzerland [and Spain and Portugal and Sweden??], was a deliberate, cynical and morally barren stance.’

What I call ‘deliberate, cynical and morally barren’ is Australia’s foreign policy, which dictates that Australia MUST enter ANY conflict undertaken by those with whom it is aligned by treaty – REGARDLESS of the morality or political context of that conflict. It would take at least ten more posts to cover all the immoral conflicts in which Australia has become – and is still – embroiled, because it cannot stand on its own two feet and say: 'NO, this is not our quarrel. They are not our enemy. This is not our war.'