Back in 1970s Ireland, Irish Catholic overseas development charity Trócaire was widely perceived to be a wholesome and benign charity doing good work around the world, and its collection boxes were featured on almost every Irish kitchen table. At Christmas and Easter, we were encouraged to deposit our pocket money into the boxes to help the poor and underprivileged overseas, and we did so gladly.
More recently, increasing numbers of Irish people regard Trócaire as a political advocacy organization, funding highly politicized and problematic NGOs active in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In May 2021, following over 4,500 Hamas rockets fired at Israeli families and homes, a Trócaire campaign referenced Israeli forces carrying out attacks on Gaza as if they occurred in a vacuum.
Last September, Trócaire participated in a campaign called ‘Don’t Buy into Occupation Coalition.’ The coalition subsequently published a report calling for European governments to endorse Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) activities. This is in direct opposition to the Irish government’s stance on trade sanctions or boycotts against Israel, which it deems to be “counter-productive.”
Trócaire also advocates for the ill-conceived and illegal “Occupied Territories” bill that seeks to criminalize Irish citizens doing business with Israelis beyond the Green Line with fines of up to €250,000 and/or a 5-year prison term. The language of the bill leaves no doubt about its broader agenda, which is to wage political warfare through economic sanctions against Israel.
The Ireland Israel Alliance has called out Trócaire’s political campaigning on a number of occasions, including publishing a report in December 2019 detailing where funding from Ireland’s official international development aid program ‘Irish Aid’ goes with respect to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and where it subsequently ends up. Amongst other issues, our report revealed that out of €292,000 given by Trócaire to anti-Israel groups during 2016-2018, an unknown amount was given to a group called Medical Aid for Palestinians (MAP), founded by Dr. Swee Ang, who promoted an antisemitic video by the extreme-right American activist David Duke.
For too long, Trócaire was allowed to act with impunity regarding its anti-Israel political advocacy. That is until someone within the organization thought it would be a good idea to post Palestinian flags to Irish households as part of its Christmas 2021 campaign. It turned out to be a step too far.
On Sunday, June 5th, the Irish edition of the Sunday Times revealed that Trócaire had finally fallen foul of the Irish charities regulator. The article stated that Trócaire had received a ‘reminder’ about its political activity. The letter from the regulator was prompted by two formal complaints about Trócaire’s recent campaigns, relating to the treatment of Palestinians in Gaza.
One of the complainants said he had received an unsolicited mailshot from Trócaire containing a Palestinian flag, along with a request to “display the flag overleaf inside your home to show solidarity with the children, women and men of Gaza and Palestine.” The complainant went on to say that “it is particularly reprehensible this is done at Christmas, the season of goodwill, when the same flag is flown over Gaza by Hamas, a violent Islamist, misogynistic, anti-Jewish cult pledged to wipe the world’s only Jewish state off the map.”
Trócaire means “compassion” in the Irish language, but as the overseas development agency of the Irish Catholic Church, its words and actions are nothing but a clanging cymbal if its compassion is not also seen to extend to the people of Israel. In a conflict as deep-seated and volatile as the Israeli-Palestinian one is, words and actions matter, and government-funded institutions like Trócaire have a responsibility not to add fuel to the fire.
In 2020, Trócaire received €21.4 million from Irish Aid, and while no one can deny that Trócaire does a lot of good across the world, it needs to decide whether it is a charity or a political lobby group with a strong anti-Israel bias. It cannot be both. The slap on the wrist from the charities regulator was long overdue.
Jackie Goodall is the founder and executive director of the Ireland Israel Alliance (IIA), a Dublin-based NGO formed in 2018.
This op-ed is published in partnership with a coalition of organizations that fight antisemitism across the world. Read the previous article by Patricia Teitelbaum.