Shatter urges those behind anti-Semitic posters to ‘come clean’

Those responsible for anti-Semitic posters in Limerick should come clean with the electorate and identify themselves, according to Minister for Justice Alan Shatter.

A number of offensive anti-semitic posters were recently attached to the Sugar Hill bridge in west Limerick, near Barnagh, along with others attacking Taoiseach Enda Kenny and local Fine Gael TDs.

One of the posters specifically targeted Mr Shatter with the message: “Shatter has learned from his homeland how to crucify the little people.”

Another read: “Jewish influence in our dictatorship has brought Palestinian devastation to Ireland.”

Another poster under a picture of Mr Shatter said: “Ye will all be as poor as the Palestinians when we are finished and be glad to have €5 a day.”

Some of the most offensive posters were removed from the bridge after a local controversy developed over the anti semitic message.

One local election candidate, Christy Kelly, who is campaigning on behalf of a group called Citizens Against Austerity told the Limerick Leader newspaper that he knew who had put up the posters and has asked him to remove them.

“I am not putting up the stuff. It is there. Of course it isn’t appropriate but I can’t account for what anybody else does,” he said.

Mr Kelly said he had sympathy with the views expressed on some of the other posters on the bridge about the way the country was being run.

Mr Shatter told the Irish Times that the posters clearly illustrated an undercurrent of anti-Semitism. “These posters make covert anti-Semitism overt,” he added.

The Minister said he was aware that one local election candidate had said he knew who had put up the posters.

“It is important that people who put up such posters should come clean with the electorate.”

The Minister said he had no doubt that some of the individuals who feigned concern with the Palestinian cause were motivated by anti-Semitism.

“I am not accusing individuals who have a critique of the current position in the Middle East but there are some, and I emphasise some, who use the Palestinian cause as a flag of convenience for anti-Semitism,” he said.

Mr Shatter is today attending a meeting in the Lithuanian capital Vilnius on the issue of hate crime in the EU.

He said the posters in Limerick illustrated the problem and he pointed out that incitement to hatred was a criminal offence.

He said that the message on the posers was not simply offensive to him but to all Jewish people living in the country.

Apart from the anti-Semitic posters others which are still on display attack “corrupt” politicians, the main political parties, the property tax and the budget.

A number of them are particularly hostile to Taoiseach Enda Kenny and the local Fine Gael TDs, Dan Neville and Patrick O’Donovan.