Report: Irish school textbooks trivialize Holocaust, display anti-Israel bias

Irish school textbooks perpetuate anti-Jewish stereotypes, including Holocaust trivialization and anti-Israel bias, according to a report published last Monday by the Institute for Monitoring Peace and Cultural Tolerance in School Education (IMPACT-se).

The IMPACT-se report further noted that one Irish history textbook described the Nazi death camp Auschwitz as a “prisoner of war camp,” which “minimized the unique and horrific nature of the Holocaust and the systematic extermination carried out there.”

The report also highlighted that the same Irish textbook referred to the Holocaust as “the systematic destruction of the Jewish race,” employing Nazi-era terminology that implies Jews constitute a separate “race.” IMPACT-se criticized this description as “reductive, inaccurate, and offensive” in the 21st century.

Another Irish textbook for younger children presented Jews as enemies of Christ and Christianity with the expression, “Some people did not like Jesus,” accompanied by images of Jewish people.

The IMPACT-se report argued that such a presentation of Jews aligns with antisemitic stereotypes that have blamed Jews collectively for the death of Jesus.”

The Irish textbooks also displayed hostility towards Judaism, with one textbook claiming that the Jewish faith “believes that violence and war are sometimes necessary to promote justice.”

By contrast, Islam was presented as a religion that “is in favor of peace and against violence.”

Turning to contemporary issues, many Irish textbooks exhibited clear anti-Israel bias in the ongoing Middle East conflict.

“The article depicts Israeli soldiers as aggressors,” IMPACT-se noted about one textbook. The Irish school material also distorted history by referring to the historical Land of Israel as “Palestine.”

“When Jesus was alive, [the land] was called Palestine,” one schoolbook, without mentioning that Jesus was Jewish and the term “Palestine” was the Roman imperial name for Judea.

“Misrepresentations of historical facts can perpetuate narratives that challenge Israel’s legitimacy and foster political agendas against the state of Israel,” IMPACT-se stated in its report.

The report assessed that hostility towards Jews in Ireland has increased dramatically since the Hamas Oct. 7 massacre last year. The Irish Chief Rabbi Yoni Wider noted that “strong anti-Israel bias of the Irish media and that of the government and opposition parties” has perpetuated the problem. While stressing that not all criticism of Israel constitutes antisemitism Wider nevertheless warned that the atmosphere in Irish society “proliferated a hatred towards Israel but also a hatred directed towards Jews.”

Antisemitic attitudes in Ireland are not a recent development.

In 2014, an Anti-Defamation League report stated that approximately 20% of the Irish population held antisemitic perceptions of Jews.

Ireland has been one of Israel’s most vocal critics in Europe for years.

In May, Ireland, Spain and Norway unilaterally recognized Palestine as a de facto state, despite objections from Israel that this constituted a reward for terrorism against Israel and the Oct. 7 massacre of 1,200 Israelis last year.

The Irish government and media have downplayed the unprecedented atrocities committed by Hamas terrorists against civilian Israelis.

However, there are friends of Israel in Ireland. In May, Christian supporters of Israel in Ireland rejected the Irish government’s “dangerous” recognition of Palestine as a reward for terrorism.

“Christian supporters of Israel in Ireland sense a deep shame regarding the actions of our government in recognizing a state of Palestine under the present circumstances,” said Paul Coulter, national director of ICEJ-Ireland, a part of the International Christian Embassy Jerusalem (ICEJ).