Geoffrey V. Gray writes:
My wife and I were walking down the street in Galway, Ireland, and passed a white-haired human rights worker standing behind a table. Above him were banners calling for the boycotting of Israeli products by the EU. A pamphlet listed stores in Galway that sold Israeli goods and how to spot them. A banner above his table read "Israel kills 300 children in Gaza." A crowd was gathering and my wife and I stood watching.
A woman started screaming that the man behind the table had harassed her and had called her a murderer. Another man, who said that he was a Jewish theology professor from France, was also screaming that the posters were lies. The man behind the table had a video camera pointing at the screamers. He said only, Stop harassing me.
The woman (who I later learned was married to an Israeli) went off and got a garda (cop). He spoke to the man behind the table and said he had to leave or he would be arrested for disturbing the peace. The man said he wouldn’t leave.
I went up to the cop and told him what I had seen: two individuals verbally abusing the human rights worker. A short time later a handful of gardae took the man away in a paddy wagon.
What had happened: the pro-Israel screamers successfully used emotional blackmail—presenting the intensity of their rage as evidence of horrible mistreatment–to elicit protection from the police. Does this MO sound familiar?
