Disclaimer: the views expressed here are solely those of the author, weekly Judean Rose columnist Varda Meyers Epstein.
Bambie Thug represented Ireland at Eurovision, one might
even say admirably so. The singer’s hatred for the Jewish people and their
state indeed typify the Jew-hating sensibilities of Irish society. Ireland only
yesterday in fact, announced that it would recognize a terrorist state run by Jew-hating
rapists and baby killers on sovereign Israeli soil. So one can’t really blame
Thug, who prefers the pronouns “they” and “them,” if they cried when Israel qualified
for the Eurovision finals.
“I cried with my team,” they said.
@newstalkfm “I cried with my team" - Ireland 🇮🇪 Eurovision finalist, Bambie Thug's reaction to Israel qualifying for the Eurovision Grand Final #eurovision2024 #eurovision #eurovisionsongcontest #bambiethug #ireland #israel ♬ original sound - Newstalk
How exactly did Bambie Thug use the Eurovision song contest to express their hatred of Jews?
The non-binary singer took an aggressive anti-Israel stance, including calls to remove Israel from the competition, wearing a keffiyeh, smuggling a watermelon-shaped plushie to the grand final, and attempting to go on stage with the word "ceasefire" written on their face.
Bambie Thug would be feeling better still when three countries, including Ireland, announced they were to recognize Palestine as a state, only two days later. “Recognition is an act of powerful political and symbolic value,” said Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris at a special news conference in Dublin.
Israel understands that symbolism quite well. Ireland is
rewarding Gaza for the October 7 massacre by gifting it with Israeli territory.
Or put another way, symbolically stealing Israeli territory for Hamas, archenemy
of the Jews. Think of it as an Irish, Spanish, and Norwegian love note to the terrorists
who gang rape and torture Jews and burn Jewish babies alive.
Back in March, Irish Prime Minister Leo Varadkar paid a visit to the U.S. At his first stop, in Boston, he spoke at the JFK Library, and used the occasion to accuse Israel of imposing “collective punishment” on Palestinians, and reacting in a manner that he claimed was out of all proportion to the October 7 massacre. These events prompted a short piece in Mosaic Magazine on Why Ireland Hates Israel:
[Retired Jewish Irish politician Alan] Shatter cited the close relationship between the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) and the IRA, which dispatched its operatives to the Middle East for military training in Palestinian camps, as a key factor. “Their strong bond, which still exists, was reflected in these huge murals in nationalist areas expressing solidarity with the Palestinians,” he said. . . . Central to this position was the refusal of the IRA and Sinn Fein, its political wing, to recognize that Jews are indigenous to the land of Israel. . .
. . . Anti-Semitism in Ireland has become “blatant and obvious,” Shatter said. There is little sympathy for the right of the Jews to national self-determination, despite the fact that “Sinn Fein fights for exactly this for the Irish,” he noted. Although he is a storied writer who has published several books, Shatter’s latest manuscript—provocatively titled So You Have a Problem with Jews?—remains unpublished, with one imprint informing him that he was being turned down because “there’s no interest” in Ireland on the topic of anti-Semitism.
Perhaps the greatest irony in Irish antisemitism is that there are also almost no Jews in Ireland. According to the Institute for National Security (INSS), “Ireland has a small Jewish community, numbering about 2,700 (of which close to 500 are Israelis who have moved there in recent years) and totaling about 0.05% of the country’s total population.”
Such a tiny community to be the target of so much Irish hate. No wonder Ireland has to look farther afield at Israel to get its Jew-hating jollies. Bambie Thug, for example, had to travel all the way to Malmö, Sweden. But Thug could have just as well stayed home, permeated as Ireland is with hate for Jews and Israel.What drives all this Irish hate, and how does it manifest? David Collier wrote an investigative report on antisemitism in Ireland. The report begins with an executive summary of Collier’s conclusions:
➢ In Ireland, anti-Jewish racism spreads within the corridors of power and unlike in the UK or US, appears to be as much driven from the top down as the reverse.
➢ Some Irish politicians are obsessed about attacking Israel and Zionism, treating it in a manner different from the way they treat all other international issues.
➢ Irish politicians share material that is clearly fake and that comes from social media accounts that are blatantly antisemitic.
➢ One TD even liked a post that seems to suggest Hitler ‘may not have been too far wrong’.
➢ The argument that allegations of antisemitism are about stifling ‘criticism of Israel’ is used to shield some of the most horrific anti-Jewish racism imaginable.
➢ The problem stretches across politics and NGOs and spills onto the street. There is little political will and few voices to counter it. This has led to a proliferation throughout the Irish mainstream.
➢ In almost every town analysed, many of the key ‘activists’ have a history of sharing antisemitic content or giving voice to antisemitic ideology. There is even little or no reaction to activists sharing Holocaust Denial.
➢ Antisemitism is a key motivator in anti-Zionist activity. The people who share antisemitic ideology are often those handing out leaflets, organising the protest and starting groups in their local areas.
➢ These anti-Zionists view Zionists as ‘global manipulators’, ‘thieves’, ‘bloodsuckers’ and as people ‘intent on destroying the world to fulfil their own evil agenda’. It is undeniably antisemitism.
➢ Traditional Christian antisemitism plays a significant role in compounding the problem in Ireland and Christian NGOs facilitate the spread of antisemitism there. ➢ In anti-Zionism, far-right and far-left merge. The report confirms the findings of previous research. It establishes beyond doubt the indivisibility of anti-Zionist protest and antisemitism. Antisemitism in all its guises must be called out. It has no place in public discourse
I asked Collier what he thought about Ireland’s recognition of Palestine as a state, and of Bambie Thug’s tantrum. “For years Ireland has been the most visibly antisemitic nation in Europe, and it comes as no surprise they would be leading the charge to recognise Palestine as a state – even after the Hamas atrocities of October 7. Ireland is now a country whose two most recognisable exports are antisemitism and Bambie Thug – and this says far more about them than it does about Israel."
There is a hugely ironic backstory to Bambie Thug’s obsessive Jew-hate, and it comes by way of “their” name. Some believe that the storybook, “Bambi: a life in the woods,” first published in 1922, by Felix Salten, is meant to be read as an allegory for Jewish persecution.
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| Screenshot from Instagram |
Jack Zipes, a professor of German and comparative literature wrote a new edition of Bambi for its centennial birthday, “The Original Bambi: The Story of a Life in the Forest.” He stresses that Salten’s story was not meant to be the children’s classic we know from the silver screen. It was not even meant to be read by children:
Zipes explains that the original story was “’a book about survival in your own home.’ Disney's adaptation washed out much of the original meaning, he said.”
“All the animals have been persecuted. And I think what shakes the reader is that there are also some animals who are traitors, who help the hunters kill.”
In the book, Bambi does not suffer the same fate as in the Disney film. He ends up completely alone. In reality, it is a tragic story of the loneliness of Jews and other minority groups in early 20th century Europe.
Salten, the son of a rabbi who worked as a journalist in Vienna, changed his birth name from Siegmund Salzmann in his teens to obscure his Jewish identity.
"I think he foresaw the Holocaust," Zipes said.
Felix Salten at a young age
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| A later portrait of Felix Salten |
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| The first edition of Bambi |
The antisemitism he endured growing up and its growing menace during that era drew him to the writings of Theodore Herzl, particularly his pamphlet Der Judenstaat (The Jewish State). He viewed Herzl as a symbol of resistance and began contributing articles about Jews and anti-Semitism for Die Zeit as well as Herzl’s own weekly, Die Welt. He eventually traveled to Palestine to investigate how Jews were managing to realize the Zionist dream.
His professional success brought him wealth, and he summered with his family near Austrian forests, intensifying his lifelong affection for animals. He later owned a hunting preserve, but as his daughter, Anna, wrote, “Only very rarely did he fire a shot—and then only when the principles of game keeping demanded it.” His stories and novels about animals emphasized their powerlessness, a theme he continued for the rest of his life.
But his own assimilation was no help once the Nazis occupied Austria in 1938. The following year, Salten and his wife fled to Zurich, after the Swiss extracted a promise from him to stop writing about cultural politics. This limited him to writing far less marketable animal stories.
Salten had already realized that the assimilation he embraced would not protect him from rising antisemitism. He reveals this through the character of Gobo, a childhood pal of Bambi but much weaker physically and emotionally. Long assumed to have been killed, Gobo shocks the forest population by returning, very much alive, and bragging about having been rescued by “Him,” whom Gobo insists is not the evil threat everyone else imagines. Gobo wears a braided ring around his neck, placed by Him, which the deer believes is a special mark that will immunize him from any further danger.
After Bambi and the others scoff at his claims, he tells another friend, “He (Bambi) still can’t deal with the fact that I’ve become someone different. . . There’s no danger for me on the meadow! . . . What does he mean by danger? He means well enough and cares for me, but danger is something for him and the likes of him, not for me.” His confidence that his assimilation will protect him will soon prove as tragically naïve as that of Jews throughout the generations who made similar bargains.
Zipes writes that based on the author’s life experiences with antisemitism, “Bambi is indeed Salten, and Salten is Bambi. . . Just as Bambi becomes an intrepid roebuck, Salten rose to fame and then was belittled and alienated from Austrian and German culture. He was treated just like all the other European Jews in the 1930s and 1940s.”
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| Felix Salten with his children |
Salten's books were banned by Nazi Germany in 1936. But his allegory for Jewish persecution lives on, not least of all in the form of Bambie Thug.
A thug whose lifeblood is "their" hate for the Jewish people.
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