Tadhg 'Tehran' Hickey - The Antisemitic Hate Speech Ireland Allows To Blossom In Open Sight

The weirder-than-life tale of how an Irish “comedian” came to endorse Israel’s obliteration, be feted by the ayatollahs, and endorse forced ‘de-Zionisation’ to refine Judaism for Jews

Table of Contents

• Meet Tadhg Hickey: The “Comedian” Who Doesn’t Hate Jews…
• From “Comedy” to Endorsing Terror
• The Anti-Zionist’s Guide to Antisemitism
• A Symptom of a Wider Problem: Ireland’s Tolerance for Antisemitic Hate Speech
• Bonus: Questions For Tadhg

Meet Tadhg Hickey: The “Comedian” Who Doesn’t Hate Jews…

‘Tehran Tadhg?’ There can’t be too many of them knocking about. Fortunately, like Khomeini, there only seems to be one of them in circulation.

Tadhg Hickey is an Irish “comedian” who has increasingly adopted fringe extremist anti-Israel rhetoric that has often (and increasingly) crossed the line into naked antisemitism.

Among Hickey’s best posts: that time when he decided that the best way to fend off growing recognition of his antisemitism was to release an angry video in which he “explained” (to a Jewish audience? I’m not sure who the target was here) why Jews - I mean Israelis - had incurred his never-ending wrath.

In an opening line that must have been plucked straight from the pages of How To Win Friends And Influence People, Hickey hit us with this bombshell:

“I don’t hate you [Israelis] because you’re Jewish”, he assured us, before adding forcefully (for just Israelis!?) “you ignorant duplicitous genocidal scumbags.”

As a one-time aspiring speechwriter, I recall reading a time-honored principle: you warm the audience up and then make your argument. You’re not going to assure Jews that you’re not a virulent anti-Semite (and you are!) by calling the bad Jews “scumbags” in the same breath.

But why invest this much effort in highlighting Tadhg’s hate speech, you may wonder? He’s far from the only Irishman on X espousing a heartfelt desire to rid the planet of Jews. But Tadhg is unique for a few factors, one of which is that (to his credit) he’s not hiding behind a screen name. He’s in the open.

You could say, too, that it’s personal:

I’ve spent most of the past week sheltering from the rockets that Tadhg hopes will kill me and my compatriots so that he can jubilate in the destruction of the world’s only Jewish State (at which point we can only assume his perma-anger will vanish like a bomb shelter after Pikud HaOref give the all-clear).

I’ve gathered these screenshots because extremist hatred that calls for the obliteration of any state and endorses the indiscriminate bombing of its civilians should not be tolerated.

This is not an attempt to stifle free speech or ask Tadhg to learn the words to hava nagila and see if a bottle of Tubi 60 can get him over his Jew hatred syndrome (JHS).

It’s rather an attempt to ask some earnest questions about why Ireland refuses, despite commitments and promises to the contrary, to do anything about the kind of rhetoric that’s rapidly solidified its reputation as just as menacing and unwelcoming a destination for Jews as … Tadhg’s favorite haunts in downtown Tehran.

The fact that Ireland allows this to go down speaks volumes with few words - and offers some clues, perhaps, as to why the EU is threatening to sue Ireland over its failure to enforce hate speech laws.

To quote coverage from another Irish institution not famed for loving Israel (the Irish Examiner):

“But it [the EU] said Ireland had still failed to implement provisions relating to “criminalising the public incitement to violence or hatred” or the “condoning, denial or gross trivialisation of international crimes and the Holocaust”.

Read that again: the EU is literally having to drag Ireland by its testicles to do slightly less than absolutely zero about letting jihadi zealots like Tadhg run the roost without consequence.

I didn’t spend a rather unenjoyable couple of hours gathering these screenshots because I’m (like Tadhg) originally from Cork, Ireland.

I did it because Tadhg has a unique quality that makes him particularly worthy of a detailed response from a Zionist perspective:

Which is that although the Jewish people have been facing down bigots and haters like Tadhg for millenia now, they don’t often go to such egregious lengths to lecture us about our own religion or try to gaslight us into believing that it makes any kind of sense to claim you don’t oppose Jews but demand the immediate and forever dismantling of Zionism.

Although I can only imagine the mental anguish that the mere mention of a Jewish word would cause somebody like Tadhg, it’s chutzpah taken to an almost unprecedented level.

But it’s also more significant - and troubling - than that. For me, Hickey (who espouses Irish nationalism alongside his visceral dislike of Jews) represents the normalisation of jihadi militancy into the norm in Ireland (and, to a lesser extent, Europe).

From “Comedy” to Endorsing Terror

There are two ways to look at the bizarre spectacle of Tadhg Hickey (who has begun styling himself “Tehran Tadhg” in an act of solidarity with the Iranian ayatollahs threatening Israel with extinction (and raining missiles upon their civilians).

While “How are ya Mr Tehran?” doesn’t have a great ring to it, the name change is a fitting act of honesty for a man who has spent much of his second career trying to convince .. it’s not clear who .. that his beef is solely with “Zionists” (heard that one before?).

We’ll get to Hickey’s bizarre and repeated acts of insistence that he has nothing against Jews soon. But to set the context, here’s the fascinating point of evolution that Tadhg has reached in his journey from garden variety Israel hater to Iranian regime puppet:

In case you did a double take or thought that was AI generated, it’s not. That’s Tadhg posing in a Shahed 285 bearing the emblem of the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) - designated as a proscribed terrorist organisation by the US, Israel, and the EU, among others, and flanked by some air to ground weapons. The setting: Iran, likely Mehrabad International Airport.

It’s so weird it needed some serious annotations:

In language that could have been copy-and-pasted from Iran - actually, that’s almost everything he says - Hickey frequently rails about how the US and Israel are the head of an evil Western system of colonialism that is subjugating Muslims and other oppressed people globally.

So beyond the endlessly hatred of America and the frequent derogatory references to Americans as ‘yanks’, were Hickey ever to decide that Las Vegas might be a fun place to visit, his assiduous efforts to document his own merry interactions with terrorists might cause a spot of bother should he ever be asked to fill out a TSA form that asks:

“Have you ever or do you intend to provide financial assistance or other support to terrorists or terrorist organizations?”

I know that these are far less appealling destinations for Tadhg than Semnan and Arak but .. just thought I’d save a wasted trip to the airport.

The Anti-Zionist’s Guide to Antisemitism

Besides describing every possible ill to Israel but galvanizing most of his rhetoric around the idea that Israel is the world’s greatest Israel and needs to be eliminated, Tadhg’s favorite online pursuits include explaining to Jews how Zionism is actually totally different to Judaism and therefore denying self-determination to (only) Jews is therefore totally okay.

It’s not clear whether Tadhg knows that the vast majority of world Jewry endorses Zionism, and it’s almost certain that the man has never actually set foot in Israel despite preaching endlessly about how terrible it is.

Given that he believed that Iran has the world’s largest Jewish population, it’s also a safe assumption that Tadhg knows no Jews outside those carefully collected into his circle of hate and endorsed enthusiastically, remotely, as “the best of us” (just don’t support those nasty Zionists because then you’d revert instantly to the dreadful status of “genocidal scumbag!”).

For the benefit of posterity here are some additional tidbits about Tadhg:

Fact 1: His Comedic Repetoire Is Essentially Limited To Skits Which Are Actually Propaganda And Hate Speech

Hickey’s hatred is as malign as it is vitriolic. And it even comes packaged in the unusual format of … political satire. The dissonance makes it all the more jarring: it’s like turning over a cereal box and on the other side of Tony The Tiger is an ode to the Ayatollah.

Even if you found the steady stream of race-bating and one-sided takes illuminating, I’m not sure how they’re supposed to be humorousin the way that you’d get a good laugh out of them after an exhausting day as an Israel-hating keyboard warrior.

But speaking of chutzpah: Tadhg - whose main contribution to comedy will probably be remembered as how to weaponise it - finds time to critique the poor comedic skills of … you guessed it … Israelis:

During a regular anti-Israel media trawl (conducted once every three minutes), Tadhg encountered a video imitating an Israeli airstrike on an Iranian broadcaster and uses the clip as evidence of how (all) Israelis suffer from “mass psychosis” and (thus) can’t understand why they are so reviled:

For what its worth: The Israeli kids’ videos aren’t my cup of tea either, but the critique is still a bit rich coming from a guy whose idea of comedy is comparing the butchering of Israeli civilians on October 7th to being … wait for it … “stung by a bee.”

And you know … the “all Israelis” thing is a bit grating, Tadhg.

A reaction to Ireland’s prodigious efforts to isolate and criticise Israel is that, here in Israel, the image of Ireland has shifted from “idyllic place with friendly people” to “does travel insurance cover injury from a gang wielding pitchforks if they find out I’m from Israel!?”

An unfortunate extension of that - which I don’t condone - is reactionary anti-Irish racism. I’ve seen plenty of responses along the lines of “well, the Irish are just a bunch of Jew haters.” I don’t make those comments because I know it’s not true: some may be, but not the totality. When you call all Israelis “psychotic”, “vermin”, and “genocidal scum” … you’re doing just that.

But that video (and commentary) ranks up there in absurdity with Tadhg’s other fascinating post October 7th insight: that Israeli civilians were killed by Israel because they were caught in crossfire between the “resistance” (Hamas) and the IDF. I mean, it’s not like Hamas openly documented themselves engaging in premeditated and well-planned slaughter, right!? It’s almost a … psychotic thing to believe.

“Some people have been saying it’s disproportionate,” says Hickey’s shrill personification of an Israeli (who bears the subtitle “still the victim” - that Jews are perpetually “playing the victim card”, a favorite allegation of antisemites, is a staple in Hickey’s repertoire).

He then explains Israel’s response in Gaza as “burning a house down with the occupants inside.”

It must have evaded Hickey’s bigoted attention yet again that Hamas actually did precisely that.

Fact 2: While Hickey Claims To Just Hate Zionism He Also Peddles In Just About Every Antisemitism Trope Out There

Before coming to the attention of the Jewish world as the pin-up Western radical leftist anti-Semite in anti-Zionist clothing, Hickey appears to have made a living sharing these comedic videos which - long before this controversy - focused disproportionately on Israel and Jews.

In one particularly repugnant piece - entitled Hitler’s Arse - Hickey’s crass Jewish caricature explains that he has made a documentary on the niche topic of Hitler’s arse (backside):

Falling back on yet another lazy antisemitic trope (that Jews abuse the memory of the Holocaust to play a perpetual ‘victim’ card, a staple theme throughout his ‘work’ and video-making), Hickey explains that the documentary, while niche, is just another addition to the already bulging repertoire of documentaries about Hitler available on television. You know … because we talk too much about the Holocaust.

The crass American imitation embodies what Hickey imagines Americans to be long before he wrote it out a hundred times over: imperial colonists working at the behest of some malignant global Jewish cabal which - one only imagine - Hickey suspects is to blame for this perma-anger.

Fact 3: Though Easily Dismissed As Just Another Crazy, He’s Amassed A Sizeable Online Following

But Hickey’s penchant for radicalism and encouraging the extermination of Israel shouldn’t be dismissed too quickly.

Although Hickey lacks the commitment to hop on a failed flotilla, preferring to do his hate-mongering from dry land, he still has as reach of 164K followers (on X alone). Like most rabid antisemites, Hickey is periodically deplatformed which has led him to open a sideline of … soliciting donations.

So although he may lack the familarity of, say, Greta, Hickey’s vitriol still reaches far and wide. While a sizeable amount of his following seem to be scattered throughout the Muslim world, his adherents can also be found, in number, right at home. The staples of his commentary include a toxic blend of ranting about the dangers of the mainstream media (Zionist controlled!), spreading misinformation about Israel, and, lately, cheerleading terror from the sidelines.

Besides offering a warped version of world events, Hickey also platforms a motley and ever-rotating crew of fringe haters whom he eagerly platforms. These include conspiracy theorists, a carefully curated cast of Jews who just all happen to share precisely his view that Israel is committing a genocide, and … the odd Iranian who also happens to adulate the Iranian Guards (Dissident Iranians, for what it’s worth, are usually dismissed out of hand as paid Zionist shills, part of the global cabal.)

The group would be diverse if they weren’t all united by one obvious commonality and thus, like public opinion about Israel in Ireand, actually blandly monolithic: a shared hatred of Israel and Jews. Space for dissent here is precisely zero.

Subtlety is not Hickey’s brand, either. So this reshare emblazoning the star of David on the American flag - an antisemitic motif unquestionably alleging Jewish dominance over the country - was just slightly more revealing than his previous output but still telling:

But How Does A Cork “Comic” Become An Iranian Propagandist, Anyway?

Hickey’s meteoric rise through the ranks of professional Israel haters, however, is quite the perplexing phenomenon.

Daragh, an Irishman living in Tel Aviv, summed it up aptly on X:

It’s hard to offer an explanation that doesn’t sound a bit like something pulled from a low budget spy movie or one of those Netflix docuseries that inexplicaby gets dragged out into four parts as you’re left wondering whether this is a really fringe case or society is just much weirder than you realised (“The Leeman And The Ayatollah” anyone?). But it’s also kind of strange that people in Iran are trying to exterminate us right now.

Growing up in Cork, before Hickey began plying his trade, anti-Israelism was visible and - if you scratched beneath the surface - there was plenty of evidence that much of it was more sinister than you’d expect in a small Irish town.

A flyer on a lamp-post invites the public to a public forum decrying Israel’s latest perceived wrongdoing. Google the participants and you might find that the panel hosts a Palestinian who has served time for aiding actual terror attacks that killed or maimed Israeli civilians.

I can recall being taken aback by the overt antisemitism in Irish online spaces discussing Israel when … laptops still came with CD trays and having broadband internet was like gaining access to another universe.

But there was still a sense that this was a small time cottage industry that the world was just ignoring and which the Irish Jewish community was happy to pretend didn’t exist. Merely mentioning the word Israel aloud was like screaming that you support child paedophilia from the top of your lungs. So my Zionist experience consisted of keeping quiet about it and plotting my eventual exit to Israel.

Which is why when a Corkman broke through to the next level and began being feted by the head honchos in Iran, I took notice. And also asked: what!?

Truthfully, it’s not so puzzling.

Before he decided to pin his lot in with the ayatollahs of Iran, Hickey certainly had the basic prerequisites to make him an appealing instrument of propaganda in service of the Islamic Republic: for one, he has the requisite seething hatred of Israel and Jews. But he’s far from alone. So what was the X factor that landed Tadhg a lucrative selfie and the opportunity to meet with the dude who kept Nasrallah safe (for sane people, this must be like meeting your favorite movie star or something)?

My inkling is that even the Iranians may have been astounded at the naivete with which Hickey swallowed Soviet style state propaganda hook, line, and sinker. Even George Galloway seemed a little taken aback by Hickey’s fervor in their interview. It takes a rather serious level of commitment - or stupidity - to be willing to argue both that October 7th was a mostly peaceful act of resistance and defy all scientific evidence suggesting Iran’s determination to obtain a nuclear weapon.

But whatever the cause, it’s a fitting explanation.

Iran really is attempting Israel’s elimination - now through direct military action. Its foot soldiers and propagandists need to follow a pretty high bar of hatred to be worthy of carrying the regime’s imprimatur. To be a foot soldier in that apparatus, you can’t really be just another moderately oppositional rank-and-file Israel-hater.

Tadhg delivers a superlative level of conspiracy theory pushing and animosity that isn’t easy to find among Western anti-Israel leftists. His cocktail of rable-rousing conspiracy theory endorsement and classic but highly reliable Israel villification offers a ready made formula to offset reason and stimulate anti-Isreal ire.

Is Hickey On The Iranian Payroll Or Does He Just Have A Lot Of Time For This?

Whether Hickey has received monetary recompense for his tireless efforts on behalf of the Iranian regime is impossible to know although that doesn’t stop it from being the subject of lively speculation and debate among both people like me (freaked out Irish Jews) and sane Iranians who take a curious interest in Westerners like Tadhg who are certain they know more about Iran than they do (here Iranian dissidents and I find common ground). Ultinmately, it matters little.

But in exchange for what’s certainly known to have been proferred (a nice jolly to Tehran and back and the privilege of mixing with some arch-terrorists in person which, for someone like Tadhg, must be like a grown-up version of Disneyland), Hickey has proven reliably willing to parrot the kind of stuff that usually only gets airtime on Press TV and not on what one might have thought to be civilised parts of the West.

Like this kind of thing:

For the Iranian regime (I am careful to use that word and not ‘Iran’ or ‘the Iranians’) that kind of forward propaganda must be highly attractive. And Ireland - as a country that seems to have chosen to turn a blind eye to all hate speech so long as it targets Israel - is a great place to test the limits of what will be admissible in an increasingly hostile continent to Israel.

So as a propaganda asset, Hickey likely represents an outsized return on whatever investment he receives beyond the privilege getting to take photos with some of heavyweights of the world of terrorism: he’s a prodigious poster of pro-Iranian propaganda and there’s no obvious explanation for his radicalisation that might be a soft spot for critics to poke at.

Hickey Routinely Goes Where Other Antisemites Are Too Smart To Venture

Maybe Hickey reached an inflection point at which he realised “f**k it, there’s no going back” and just kind of rolling with his rising infamy as one of the trailblazers of a new wave of Western leftists who have finally revealed themselves to be open supporters of Israel’s destruction (a dynamic which, again, is highly significant).

Those on the other side of that go/no-go divide hold back a little. But Tadhg happily documents himself doing fun Iranian regime past-times like engaging in the ritual defacing of the national flags of the two world evils: Israel and the US.

Beyond curiosity in the weirdness of his journey borne partially out of our shared roots in Cork, I’ve also come to regard Tadhg as a kind of bellweather for the broader phenomenon of what I and many in the pro-Israel camp have come to call the phenomenon of “unmasking” - by which individuals whose animus of Israel was motivated by anti-Semitism (and I underscore - I do not suggest that that is all or even most of that group) eventually reveals itself to be frank antisemitism.

This has import far beyond the narrow context of Hickey and Ireland and is a matter of major interest to the Jewish world at large.

I maintain that folks like Tadhg and the more … moderate … fringe of the pro-Palestinian movement are not massively challenging to distinguish.

I may disagree with somebody who thinks that this is a great time for a two state solution. But so long as they don’t actively promote the extermination of my country, I don’t perceive them to be a mortal enemy.

When folks who viscerally hate Israel also just happen to espouse the full playbook of anti-Semitic thought, however, … that’s another red flag. Hickey flashes red on both counts so I would categorise him as plain to read.

The only question is the extent to which they will feel compelled by societal pressure to hide the motivation for their animus.

The pendulum, there, has been in a rapid state of flux since October 7th. And it has begun swinging furiously again since the outbreak of open hostilities with Iran. These rounds of conflict reshape much more than just the brittle geopolitics of the Middle East. And as the sands of geopolitical alliances shift at dizzying pace, these questions matter much to what kind of world we will be navigating.

But the rule of thumb is about this:

When “just-anti-Zionists” sense that the zeitgeist is against them, they double down on deception. As Jew hatred becomes normalised and tolerated - an incremental process - they begin coming out of the shadows. Just like our dear Tadhg.

Hence, riding on the waves of the anti-Israel hysteria sweeping Ireland since October 7th, where no pro-Israel view is tolerable, an emboldened Hickey is pretty transparent: he now admits that he wants to see Israel eliminated/destroyed and delights in the targeting of random cities by Iranian rockets (he even goes the extra yard and scrambles for tenuous reasons why they weren’t actually civilian-aimed!)

Hickey has never doubted for a split second that the Iranian nuclear project is peaceful and that attacks on it are, therefore, Zionist “aggression,” if plan A fails and Israel isn’t obliterated, his plan B scenario involves Israel (and only Israel) being forcibly disarmed:

Hickey Presents A Fascinating Case Study Of The “New Antisemitism”

But people like Hickey weren’t always this transparent. It’s taken an evolution to get here. And if we extrapolate the plot, we wind up in some decidedly worrying places.

Exhibit B: Hickey’s recent string of jubilatory tweets celebrating the Iranian missile salvos (although much to his chagrin, I’m sure, they seem to be diminishing in volume; Hickey’s rage at seeing Israel’s defend itself, however, is still firing on all cylinders):

Hickey Openly Celebrates When Iran Fires Indiscriminate Ballistic Missiles At Israel And Goads The Regime To Hurry Up And Send More!

When Iran isn’t trying to destroy Israel, Hickey gets impatient and goads the Iranians to hurry up and resume the attempted massacre of the Jewish state:

So Hickey Prompts One To Ask … How Far Can You ‘Go’ Hating Israel and Jews In The ‘Free Speech’ West?

Fortunately, Tadhg Has Documented His Own Radicalisation And Extremism In A Long Breadcrumb Trail Of Hate

At the time of writing, Hickey has authored 44,000 tweets, countless of which have gone to denouncing US “imperialism”, the West, Israel, and Jews.

In the process, Hickey has generated an impressive compendium of hate speech aimed almost exclusively at Jews and Israel (when all cylinders are firing, it’s difficult to identify when he might have time to eat).

The unmasking of anti-Zionism that I mention is a fast process but it’s also not so fast that you can perceive the trends day to day.

Between odd bouts of horror like this one, months go by between when I remember that Hickey exists and decide to check out his feed. Each time, there’s a definite shift in tone and a gradual muting of reasoned opposition. The vitriol grows slowly more open and more poisonous as the months of Israel’s slow campaign in Gaza eke by.

There are still points of inflection and milestones, however.

He Also Enjoys VIP Access to Terror Networks

After chanting “death to Israel” and mingling with some other folks who hate Jews (wholesome fun for the family), Hickey jetted off on another fun getaway.

But it wasn’t Lanzarote pulling at Tadhg’s heartstrings. It was Beirut. Where he was in town to spend time with some other terrorist supporters. The highpoint of his visit: being there to attend the funeral of Sayyed Nasrallah:

Besides, of course, being more than a little odd, it was also a hallmark of Tadhg’s ongoing ingratiation into the radical Islanmic fold.

Reeling from the humiliation and success of Mossad’s beepergate, Hizbullah would have been fearing Israeli sabotage from any possible direction (in the end, Israel communicated a kind of message through an IAF flyover).

Attending the event as a Western “guest of honor” would almost certainly have entailed some degree of cooperation and approval from Hizbullah as an organisation.

You know how Ireland is trying to change the definition of genocide to charge Israel with it? That was one of Tadhg’s main learnings from the dig-in with the Hizbullah lads.

Besides the wonderful unity displayed by the throngs of Hizbullah suporters gathered on that day, what made an impression on Tadhg was the: “absolute mobs of people handing me water … and cake.”

Note to Israeli enmbassies: make less infographics; bake more cakes.

Some People Have Being Paying Attention, At Least

So is anybody taking notice as a guy from Ireland slowly morphs into an open exponent of “Israel must be exterminated and never allowed to exist?” and wondering whether he’s a one off phenomenon of indicative of a broader Iranian effort to use Ireland as a soft target to stoke anti-Israel radicalism throughout Europe? Both theories are plausible.

Although I assumed that few were paying attention, I was surprised to find that my interest wasn’t purely hamish.

According to one cat on the street here in Jerusalem, Hickey’s prodigious slew of anti-Israel output has been noted by at least one national intelligence service.

But that’s also unsurprising: you don’t need to be an expert sleuth to identify Hickey as an interesting case.

Where To From Here, Comrade Hickey?

Hickey’s trajectory at this point is fairly binary, at least by my reckoning:

After maxing out his anti-Israel creds, he can either continue with the remote agitation thing or dispatch himself to whoever will take him in as an actual combatant (his options in that respect are fast narrowing).

The former would likely nudge him onto a formal “watch list.” The latter is a murkier area.

Hate speech can be prosecuted out in the open, however. So it will be more interesting to see whether Ireland ever decides to draw a red line there or whether it will continue to essentially prove that its concept of hate speech excludes that targeting Jews and that the laws it crafts to combat it are, effectively, useless. This is another bellweather which might have ramifications for how this debate is handled across Europe.

There may be another reason why even the most ardent of anti-Israel agitators often stop one or two steps short of openly cheering on missile attacks in Israel or posing for photos in IGRC replicas: espousing extremism can come at a real cost.

Hickey May Love The Arab World Because It’s The Only Place, Besides Ireland, Where He Can Get A Platform Which … Kinda Says More About Ireland Than Tadhg

Given his consistent support for US-designated terrorist organisations - and associating with them - Hickey is likely inadmissible to the US (to say nothing of his ongoing commentary belittling the US as the great evil and Israel as its demonic spawn). It is doubtful, too, whether geographies which take a dimmer view of hate speech - say, Germany - would tolerate his hate-mongering.

That limits his freedom of movement and the type of audience he needs to pander to just a little. As Europe takes a more hawkish position on extremism, Ireland may learn abruptly that its tacic “anything goes” approach to hate speech is vastly out of kilter with the rest of Western society. Even professional haters need a holiday now and then.

So beyond trodding the well worn Irish anti-Israel scene, which consists mostly of an endless chorus of urging the government to “do more” to counter the neverending malice of Israel, Hickey’s “globalise the intifada” wet dream will most likely have to be cosplayed from places like Moscow, North Korea, and other parts of the world that endorse his messaging.

Hickey Plans A Life Of Full-Time Anti-Israelism, Yet Apparently Hasn’t … You Know … Ever … Visited Israel

Hickey has gone on record as stating that he is happy to “dedicate” the rest of his life to doing whatever he can to “help bring down” the “stain on humanity” that he regards Israel to be (exhibit 1001 in the case that Tadhg advocates openly for Israel’s destruction):

But one thing is very curious:

Good-faith actors who decide that they want to dedicate all their energy to a moral crusade targeting a country thousands of miles away usually have the motivation to - at least - hop on a flight there and visit it.

Not our Tadhg.

While another famous Irish anti-Israel hater Richard Boyd Barrett at least put in a few months on a kibbuts (where he saw exactly what he wanted to see), Hickey, seemingly, hasn’t even bothered.

Nor - if we can indulge in a modicum of satisfaction - will he ever be able to. Tadhg missed a great window of opportunity to visit before he began calling for the State’s destruction (after doing so, he is legally inadmissible).

But the onus to figure out how to visit was really on, Tadhg.

To any Jews reading this, remember this: the noxious ideology of haters crumbles when exposed to daylight.

Do you want to take your advice about Judaism from a guy who thinks Iran houses the world’s largest Jewish population; or predicate your understanding of the conflict on the deranged musings of a guy who’s never actually stepped foot in the land he professes to be an expert about?

(While Israel has no business in allowing hostile foreign agents like Hickey into their territory it does have a double edged effect. Hickey is clearly unaware how bomb shelter doors work in Israel - the places Israelis have to run to when his friends send over missiles. Although I’m not sure that knowing that fact would have prevented him from spreading more fake news propaganda)

Hickey Is Convinced That Everybody Besides Evil Zionists Thinks Exactly Like Him

Behold the ugly end result of a fascinating combination of profound self-delusion (Zionism is not Jewish! It’s okay to demand the elimination of .. just Zionism!), a cosy echo chamber, and the kind of warped impression of the parameters of the Israel-Palestine debate that you’ll get if your sole sources of information are Irish news and Iranian state propaganda.

Enveloped in this strange mental space, Tadhg asks, he hopes rhetorically - how Israelis (if they survive, as he hopes they won’t) plan on living in a world where (to quote verbatim) “every decent person with a soul and a beating heart fucking despises you and everything you stand for?”:

Hickey Has Gone On Record Saying That Nasrallah’s Head Of Security Was A “Sweet” “Gentle” Man And It Apparently Wasn’t Part Of His Comedy Work

In recent days Tadhg lamented the assassination of the late Nasrallah’s personal bodyguard whom he met on his propaganda tour of Iran. Hickey described “Abu Ali” as a harmless human being who wouldn’t hurt a fly:

Of course, as the man who served as the head of security for Hassan Nasrallah - known for his brutal purges of dissent - there are countless people in Lebanon who would either burst out laughing at the claim that Abu Ali was a “gentle” father or demonstrate, to Tadhg, the methods Hizbullah employed which were not very gentle - like disappearing opposition into torture chambers. This is the same Hizbullah, it’s worth remembering, which killed an Irish soldier on duty with the UN in late 2022.

But much like Israelis who aren’t demonic and Iranians who aren’t mouthpieces of the regime, these inconvenient populations simply don’t exist in Hickey’s toybox version of the Middle East.

Which is why - as frightening as hate like this is to witness - the emboldening of the ayatollahs actually does the world a great favor, in this sense: we get to see the hatred for what it is and what it’s always been. It may be defy reason, but it’s there with correct labelling.

It also forces people to pick sides and own the consequences of their decision.

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Ireland isn’t just an EU outlier for the extent of its sheer animosity towards Israel. It’s also unusually determined to pretend that anti-Semitic hate speech simply can’t, or doesn’t, exist.

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Why Is Ireland Acting As A Safe Harbor For Radical Anti-Israelism & Anti-Jewish Hate Speech?

As interesting as the unusual meandering of Hickey’s career is why Ireland has proven steadfastly unwilling to do anything whatsoever to combat extremist anti-Israel rhetoric.

To the righteous fury of Hickey and his comrades, the UK is currently prosecuting an Irish band - Kneecap - under anti-terror legislation for displaying the Hizbullah flag.

But both in this case and others (like when a sitting member of parliament similarly called for the elimination of Israel and the globalising of the intifada) Dublin has proven resolutely mute.

There is now no shortage of material to work with.

In recent days alone, Hickey has declared Zionism to be the “greatest cancer” facing humanity (which must be excised, etc; the metaphor is a long time Iranian favorite):

He endorses the harassment of those being evacuated from Israel by boat and endorses the perverse idea that they should be subject to North Korean style “re-education” (‘de-Zionisation’) upon arrival at their country of destination for the crime of not subscribing to his hate-filled ideology:

He openly jubilates as ballistic missile impacts targeting scientific research facilities in Israel:

He reshares naked assassination threats against Israel’s Prime Minister:

And the just-anti-Zionist comedian also likes 911 style conspiracy theories (Hickey never met a conspiracy theory or Jew-hater that he didn’t instantly love, especially when they come in one package):

And (another nothing-against-Jews slip moment) decides that the most fitting way to rub salt into the wounds of rocket attacks on Israeli civilians is to butcher a Jewish expression of mutual solidarity (Am Yisrael Chai) rebranding it “Am Israel Cry”.

Speaking of the IHRA definition, Hickey compares Israel to Nazi Germany almost every day of the week:

The pattern of ignoring this extremism is not new either.

Even after denying that rapes took place on October 7th (and endorsing a conspiracy theory claiming that Israeli deaths were due to ‘friendly fire’) he was platformed at an Irish arts center and his work on overcoming alcoholism “Gatman” is listed as having received funding from the Irish Arts Council:

The Irish Arts Council, in turn, is by its own description:

…the national government agency for funding, developing and promoting the arts in Ireland.

So there you have it: being a rabid Jew-hater isn’t an impediment to receiving state commissions for theatrical productions in today’s Ireland. Strangem, a bit.

The tolerance of anti-Jewish bigotry in Ireland permeates other arenas of public life - including politics and, of course, the media.

The Irish Times is Ireland’s newspaper of record. Mary Leland reviewed Hickey’s performance for the paper last August.

The last lines of Leland’s review contains this observation - the most polite kind of saying this possible that - you know - if you’re going to throw adorn yourself in the hallowed flag of Palestine … you might want to throw in there that there’s a wee bit of political grandstanding here (or disclose that you’re not actually a comedian but rather a professional Jew hater).

Leland writes:

It must be added that the itinerary omits any notable reference to Palestine, yet during the closure’s inevitable standing ovation there it is: the flag unfurled against Hickey’s chest like an emblem, but of what? Have we been thinking of Palestine throughout this performance? The thought itself unfurls like an accusation, casting the play in an altogether different debate.

Like most online personalities who devote themselves to propagating hate speech, Hickey plays a game of cat and mouse with tech platforms, which he invariably decries as being (somehow) in cahoots with the evil Zionist overlords who saturate his worldview. In this sense, Hickey is to be congratulated for the audacity but ingenuity of this self-fulfilling prophecy: if you create anti-Semitic hate speech, you will be deplatformed by platforms which object to hate speech.

You can then weaponise that as further evidence of the Zionist cabal and leverage that to lap up an unending supply of more crazies:

Note that it has apparently never occurred to Tadhg to form relationships with the accursed Israelis (the ones he spends day and night berating). Doing so would have disabused Tadhg of his fantasy but also required him to report facts and not share hysteria.

But facts are not something that have ever interested Tadhg.

Patent Pending: The Invisibility Cloak Called ‘Just Anti Zionist’

Jews cannot help but observe the dynamics of anti-Semitism - even if only with a sense of grim curiosity.

Correlations and “flavors” of Jew hatred eventually just become kind of obvious. If the antisemitism of the radical Irish left could have a name it would probably be:

“We’re just anti-Zionist! We have absolutely nothing against Jews! Call me anti-Semitic? There you go ahead - playing the anti-Semitism card. Typical Jew! Oh shit! I meant typical Israeli. Or is it Zionist? Whatever we’re going with, I don’t like you. But it has absolutely nothing whatsover to do with you being Jewish!”

(Okay, that was more than a flavor)

The self-assuredness of those who don the anti-Zionism invisibility cloak is also quite something to witness.

As a Jew, few things are stranger than somebody who isn’t Jewish and who appears to know rather little about your faith try to lecture you on your religion.

The fact that Tadhg recently tweeted his earnest belief that the world’s largest Jewish diaspora population lives in - wait for it - Iran should tell you all you need to know about his credibility as an expert on Judaism:

But that doesn’t stop him from preaching to his motley crew of co-haters the false gospel called Zionism Isn’t Judaism.

In a desperate grasp to grab whatever Jews he can find for ideological cover and to deflect against accurate charges of anti-Semitism, Tadhg latches onto … True Torah Jews, Neturei Karta, and whoever else he can dredge up on the internet.

Unlike Tadhg I suspect, I’ve read some of their literature. It’s nothing even close to the hatefulness of Tadhg’s perma-anger. Arguing that Judaism does not support Zionism does not automatically mean endorsing the view that other Jews who think otherwise should be annihilated by missile-fire.

The other staple of Tadhg’s sinister master plan - the one he’s sure has fooled us all - is his careful gambit of highlighting the “good Jews” who share his ideology.

Tadhg’s local environment is not exactly heaving with Jews - most of them having had the sense to not live in Ireland. So bereft of knowing real life Jews, Tadhg conjures them up like a magician from the far corners of the internet. I mean if the guy’s second name is Blumenthal … he’s Jewish … so I can share whatever he says and there’s no way that can be antisemitic? It ain’t so.

So much as Press TV pumps out a 24/7 stream of fake news, disinformation and lies, Tadhg deludes his equally misinformed followers into believing in a fictional version of the Jewish world that suits their desire to not be anti-Semitic but which, sadly, doesn’t actually exist.

Even that still leaves lacunas in Tadhg’s worldview. To illustrate the extent of the mental gymnastics anti-Semites demand that “good Jews” pass through to avoid being hated or worse, it’s worth pausing for a moment to think them through:

So you’re okay with Jews so long as they repudiate Zionism. But you still hate Jews for “Jewish supremacy?” So do they need to go another hurdle to gain your hallowed stamp of acceptability?

The “good Jews” in Tadhg’s world tend to be marginal forces at best. Contrast that with how Tadhg relates to mainstream Jewish bodies like the Board of Deputies of British Jews (the leading representative body of Jews in the UK):

The act wears thinner by the tweet.

When Anti-Zionists Espouse Every Anti-Jewish Trope That Has Ever Existed, They’re Just Old-Fashioned Jew-Haters

Tadhg is also, of course, a fervent proponent of the idea that Jews are to blame for their own hatred:

He also relishes in making fun of the appearance of Jews he dislikes (all besides those who disavow Zionism) accusing them of being inbred. Accusing Jews of being “demonic” is another favorite part of Tadhg’s rhetoric, too.

So while the motley crew of fringe extremists Hickey gets behind span the breadth from Holocaust deniers to Middle Eastern imams, equally, they are bound by that one unfortunate commonality: they all really dislike Jews.

It’s a trite response, in a sense, but equally, it merits repetition as it’s another good yardstick by which the authenticity of anti-Israelism can be assessed: while Tadhg wants to devote his life to railing against Israel, there is no evidence that he has taken even a vague interest in any other geopolitical conflict currently taking place in the world.

The Soundtrack To Tadhg’s Wedding Will Be: Boom, Boom, Tel Aviv

Call me naive, but I still have a hard time wrapping my head around how profoundly hate-filled a single person can be that they wish to open their wedding with a soundtrack about a missile attack on a city more than one thousand miles away.

Much like Hamasniks foist AK-47s into the hands of toddlers on public stages in Gaza, Tadhg’s wedding, apparently, will get started with an orgy. Not of that kind, maybe, but of hate:

If you don’t feel like watching the video, I can give you the quick summary. To a backdrop of footage of Iranian ballistic missiles atacking Tel Aviv, the lyrics are:

“Boom Boom Tel Aviv / This is what you get for all your evil deeds / You brought this upon yourself it’s your time to bleed”

I don’t know. Maybe that tweet was in jest. Is that the comedy I’ve been missing all this time? I’m in stitches!

Full Tolerance For Hate Speech And Zero Commitment To IHRA

What Tadhg Hickey also represents - beyond the vulgarity of irrational hatred - is the complete and utter failure of the Republic of Ireland to take any meaningful action to ensure that the country doesn’t become a hotbed of persecution for its tiny Jewish population.

The Irish approach can be best described as an extreme case of selective laissez-faire. While legislation exists that would arguably make Hickey’s posts criminal offences, and while Ireland has even recently discussed revising its outdated hate speech laws, the idea that anybody might be prosecuted for wishing the death of millions of Israeli citizens has apparently never permeated the public consciousness.

It takes a shocking degree of self delusion to argue - as Ireland has done - that its hate speech legislation requires reform while simultaneously not batting an eyelid as mock Hamas rockets are paraded openly through the streets of Dublin.

This kind of mania creates a sort of lifelong mental crisis for those like me who were born into the world’s most ill-fitting identity: that of an Irish Jew. Our collective therapy bill has to be humongous.

I know that Tadhg Hickey is not representative of the mainstream and that there are valiant voices who stand up to his bigotry; and that many Irish people are upstanding and decent; and that many more oppose Israeli policies for reasons that actually do have nothing to do with Judaism. But I still can’t accept that the correct response to the extremism that is clearly a virulent part of the pro-Palestinian movement is to just look the other way. That has never worked out well.

Official Ireland has long told its small Jewish population that they are a “treasured” minority (note: I was born in Dublin and lived in Ireland until moving to Israel at 25).

I have never aspired in my life to be “treasured” (like most active or recovering writers, I’m a cantankerous bastard) - and while it’s heartening in an abstract sort of way to know that Ireland once elected a Jewish lord mayor, Jewish communities who live in the diaspora generally set their sights simply on peaceful coexistence rather than in being museum exhibits or held up as evidence of a makebelieve coexistence dictated on somebody else’s terms.

The climate Ireland is fomenting for export is precisely this: the fascinating and utterly mistaken byproduct of the kind of thinking I’ve tried to describe in this post.

You cannot graft your own idea of national identity on any people. Accepting Jews only when they conform to a fringe stream of anti-Zionism Judaism is not vastly differently than just deeming Jews and Judaism unpalatable in your society altogether. Making up the falsehood that Zionism is some kind of mutant variant of Judaism doesn’t actually make it true.

Within the laughably small microcosm of Irish-born Jews (who could probably all pack into a generously sized pub at a push) my voice may be a hawkish one. But I’m aware that others - especially those living in Ireland - pursue a more conciliatory tone and seek, endlessly, to find some sort of “better path.”

As much as I think that they are well-intentioned but hopelessly misguided, I recognise that there are other opinions besides my own. But in pursuing some kind of reconciliation, I hope that they can protect collective interests:

When it comes to anti-semitism, judge Ireland not by what it says, or what it says it will do, but what it actually does.

Alarmed at the rise in anti-Semitism carrying on the back of the country’s longstanding and fierce opposition to Israel, Irish ministers, earlier this year, held two rounds of dialogue with Jewish leaders both in Ireland and in the US (the latter preceding a traditional annual audience with the US president).

Foreseeing that the second Trump administration could blow a chilly breeze over Ireland’s economy - massively dependent upon multinational corporations, many of whom are based in the US - Ireland engaged in a brief round of what might be called deceptive pacification.

Importantly, the IHRA definition was finally endorsed. But the very first Holocaust Remembrance event after its adoption was marred by the presence of a virulently anti-Israel president who, like Hickey, peddles in conspiracy theories, and who used the platform to criticise Israel’s conduct in Gaza.

So perhaps this is the resolution to the dissonance I perceive between the Ireland I once knew and what I witness from afar today: the rot emanates from the top.

Of course for folks like Mr. Tehran, doing the whole casual Israel-Nazi comparison thing is like brushing your teeth in the morning.

This setback was followed by other blows to the prospect of reconciliation that I do not believe there is any way back from: Israel’s decision to shutter its embassy in Dublin which was followed by the Irish Government’s miraculous abandoment of its long-term opposition to a bill which will criminalise trade with Israeli businesses over the green line.

Like discovering that yes, Tadhg Hickey actually wants all of us Israelis to die in a ballistic missile strike, however, it’s probably for the better that things map out this way.

Compared to the hazy world that Hickey inhabits, when true colors are finally shown, the reality we’ve been navigating becomes only more vivid.

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Bonus: Questions For Tadhg

Combatting bigotry is a team sport. You don’t need to be Jewish to take part. If you’re not, know that your support will be appreciated.

Here are a few ready-to-go interview questions:

1: Why Israel, Man?

You’ve written that you would like to dedicate the rest of your life to seeing Israel eradicated and seem to devote most of your waking hours to defaming the country.

You say that you do so out of a sense of monumental justice.

There are many humans rights issues in the world, but you seem to have shown no interest in them, ever.

Why is that?

2: How Do You Deal With Facts?

The majority of Jews are Zionists. Normative Judaism places the connection to our ancestral homeland - for which Zion is a metaphor - at the center of our faith.

You insist, however, that Zionism has nothing to do with Judaism.

As a non-Jew, you are effectively telling the majority of the world’s Jews that they are defining their identity incorrectly.

If I told you that as an Irishman you are bound to love Israel, you would tell me that it’s not my place to define your Irishness.

So why do you deny that right selectively to Jews?

3: Why do you engage in antisemitism tropes?

If you only have a problem with “Zionists,” why do you tweet about things like “Jewish supremacy?” Why is all your commentary about Zionists - and Israel - laced with classic antisemitism?

4: How do you plan to destroy Israel if words aren’t enough?

So you’ve mentioned that you want defeating Israel to be your lifelong battle.

But tweeting from Cork doesn’t seem to be making much of a dent in our success.

Do you have a plan B? Does it involve joining a military movement? If so, have you given thought to which and where you might undergo combat training?

5: What kind of Hamas fighter would you be if October 7th Happened Again?

You love ‘resistance’, right? And you were happy to see Iran throwing ballistic missiles at Israel. So presumably you’re fine with indisciminately killing Israels.

That being the case, let’s indulge in some roleplay.

October 7th happens again but this time you’re on the ground.

It’s your moment to liberate Palestine, Tadhg, and you’ve got your dear friends for company!

A fellow resistance member hands you a gun, some matches, and a torch. He screams “Jews - over there!” and points to a family of terrified Israelis (which you call ‘settlers’) cowering for safety.

What’s your next move?