Thurles Information

“Those who cannot remember the past are condemned to repeat it.” — Attributed to philosopher George Santayana.

Antisemitism, or prejudice and discrimination against Jewish people, has existed for centuries but has sadly seen renewed global concern in recent years due to rising hate crimes, extremist rhetoric, and worst of all, online misinformation.

An example of this is the rise in anti-Semitism and growing tensions around the Ireland v Israel soccer match, causing deep concern across Irish communities. While people have strong views on the middle east conflict, there is an urgent need for restraint, calm language, and respect for public safety. Calls for protests by poorly informed individuals around the match have increased in recent weeks, but many believe demonstrations should be halted to avoid further division, intimidation, or violence, and to ensure the focus remains on peace, dialogue, and the protection of all communities from hate crime.

“Those that fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it.“ — Quote attributed to Sir Winston Churchill.

On May 6th, 1943, one of the most controversial figures in Middle Eastern history, Muslim leader Amin al-Husseini, (1897-1974), sent a letter to the Bulgarian government objecting to a proposal that would have allowed thousands of Jewish children to escape Europe and immigrate to British Mandate Palestine.
This letter remains one of the clearest documented examples of the Mufti’s▲ active collaboration with Nazi Germany and his opposition to Jewish rescue efforts during the Holocaust.

▲ Mufti: An Islamic legal scholar qualified to issue fatwas (religious decrees).

During World War II, the former Grand Mufti of Jerusalem became closely aligned with the Axis powers. After fleeing the Middle East, following anti-British unrest in Iraq, Husseini settled in Berlin, where he was welcomed by senior Nazi officials and supported by the German government.

While in Germany, he broadcast pro-Nazi and antisemitic propaganda in Arabic; encouraged resistance against Britain and the Allies; opposed all Jewish immigration to Palestine, and recruited Muslims into Waffen-SS units operating in the Balkans.
In November 1941, Husseini met directly with Adolf Hitler in Berlin. Records of the meeting show that both men discussed opposition to Jews and British influence in the Middle East.

The Bulgarian Rescue Proposal.
By 1943, reports of the mass murder of European Jews had begun spreading internationally. At the same time, efforts were underway to rescue Jewish children trapped in Nazi-controlled territory.
One proposal involved allowing approximately 4,000 Jewish children and several hundred accompanying adults to leave Bulgaria for British Mandate Palestine. Husseini strongly opposed the plan. According to historical records cited by the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and multiple historians, he contacted German and allied officials to block the transfer.
In correspondence connected to these rescue efforts, Husseini argued that Jews should not be allowed to emigrate to Palestine and suggested they instead be sent to places where they would remain under tighter control, including Poland.

What “Poland” Meant in 1943.
By May 1943, Nazi-occupied Poland had become the centre of the Holocaust. Extermination camps including Auschwitz-Birkenau, Treblinka, Sobibor, and Majdanek were operating there, and hundreds of thousands of Jews had already been murdered. The Warsaw Ghetto Uprising had just been crushed weeks earlier.
Children sent to Auschwitz-Birkenau,Treblinka,Sobibor,and Majdanek were primarily targeted for immediate extermination, with the vast majority murdered in gas chambers upon arrival. Jewish children were deemed “unfit for labour,” leading to instant separation from parents and death. In Auschwitz-Birkenau, over 200,000 children were killed immediately upon arrival, together with over 700 babies born there, murdered prior to late 1944.
Treblinka and Sobibor in fact were pure death camps (Operation Reinhard). Children, alongside adults, were usually sent immediately to the gas chambers upon arrival. Majdanek Functioned as both a concentration and extermination camp, where children were either immediately murdered or faced death through starvation, disease, and, in some cases, older children were kept for forced labour.

Some children were kept in “family camps” (often to be murdered later) or used for sadistic medical experiments. Only about 700 children were alive upon liberation in January 1945.

Historians generally agree that senior Nazi collaborators, such as Husseini, were aware that deportations to Poland placed Jews in grave danger, though scholars continue debating precisely how much he knew about the mechanics of the extermination process itself.

Collaboration Beyond Propaganda
Husseini’s wartime role extended beyond speeches and diplomacy. Historical documentation confirms that he worked closely with senior Nazi figures including Heinrich Himmler and Joachim von Ribbentrop. He also helped recruit Muslim volunteers for Nazi military formations in Bosnia and the Balkans.
Photographs and wartime records additionally place him visiting Nazi facilities and meeting SS leadership during the war years.
At the same time, many historians caution against exaggerating his role. Institutions such as Yad Vashem▲, note that while Husseini was unquestionably a Nazi collaborator and antisemite, there is no evidence he was one of the architects of the Holocaust itself.

▲ Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Centre.

The Core Message of Husseini Letter.
The May 1943 correspondence remains historically significant because it demonstrates that Husseini was not merely sympathetic to Nazi Germany in abstract political terms. He actively intervened against efforts to rescue Jewish refugees.
The central theme of the Mufti’s correspondence was unmistakable; Jewish refugees must not be allowed to reach Palestine. Historical records show that Husseini urged Axis-aligned governments to prevent Jewish emigration to the Middle East and instead redirected Jews to territories where they would remain under Nazi authority and surveillance. One of the most chilling lines associated with these communications was his recommendation that Jews be sent to countries “where they would find themselves under active control, for example, in Poland.”

For many historians and commentators, this episode illustrates how antisemitism, wartime Arab nationalism, and Nazi ideology intersected during World War II. Others caution against using Husseini’s actions to generalize about all Palestinians or all Arab political movements, noting that political views across the Arab world were never uniform.

What is beyond serious historical dispute, however, is that the Grand Mufti aligned himself with Nazi Germany, spread antisemitic propaganda, and opposed attempts to allow Jewish refugees to escape to Palestine during the Holocaust.

That aside, there is a strong current argument that sport should continue independently of politics. Supporters of that view see international sport as one of the few arenas where countries and peoples still meet under shared rules, even during periods of political conflict.
They further argue that former Ireland manager and women’s captain Brian Kerr and Louise Quinn; together with Shamrock Rovers captain Roberto Lopes; musician Christy Moore; bands Fontaines DC and Kneecap, are not elected government ministers, and that ordinary supporters should not automatically be treated as representatives of Irish State policy.
Anger tends to be most effective when it is channelled into a coherent ethical stance rather than confrontation for its own sake.
Targeting Jewish people, Israeli civilians, or individual athletes with abuse, undermines the moral credibility protesters may want/wish to project.

Bodies like UEFA and FIFA generally resist team exclusions unless there is overwhelming international consensus or direct breaches of competition rules. The FAI has publicly argued that refusing to fulfil fixtures could damage Irish football competitively and institutionally.