reland took a break from its usual pastime of Israel-bashing to recoil in horror at the near-beheading by a Sudanese “asylum seeker” of a man in Belfast. Naturally, nobody in the Republic remarked that this had been a one-man imitation of what happened to Israel on October 7, 2023, though now the victim has survived, unlike the 1,300 Jews and non-Jews who were slaughtered on that terrible day. Nor did anyone in the media or politics ask this simple question: How did the assailant manage to fly from Paris, which is not apparently governed by totalitarian Islamophobes, and pass through security at Dublin Airport without a visa before being granted asylum?
Perhaps via the same system that had admitted Algerian Riad Bouchaker, who in 2023 ran amok in the centre of Dublin stabbing a group of little girls, leaving one paralysed, non-verbal, and permanently brain-damaged. Bouchaker’s trial was beginning when the attack in Belfast occurred. He does not deny responsibility but claims he was not of right mind, having been denied social welfare benefits that he thought were his right.
That attack and its bizarre excuse should have caused alarm amongst Ireland’s political classes. Instead, they have been obsessing about events in Gaza, about which they can do nothing, while ignoring the consequences of what has become an almost uncontrolled immigration into a country that they purport to govern. In part, this is because of the extraordinary power of the many non-governmental organisations that, despite their name, are government-subsidised instruments for influencing public opinion. Such NGOs—usually called QUANGOs, from the addition of “quasi-autonomous”—have historically had a profound effect on popular perceptions, especially within media outlets. These have effectively quashed open discussion on issues such as immigration, housing shortages, the health system, homelessness and race.
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