Ireland: Irish MP's expense claim leads to anti-Semitism

Via European Jewish Congress

Two millenia of racism rekindled
by a claim for €12 photographs

Anti-Semitic comments on social media and in the wider press have accompanied news that Jewish Irish MP and former justice minister Alan Shatter made an expense claim of 12 euros for passport photographs.

Reports have depicted Shatter as financially grasping and inferred that this was because he is Jewish.

Shatter has never claimed the daily allowance to which all ministers are entitled for overseas trips and is livid about the recent headlines.

He has been depicted, he says, “as a dishonest, money-grabbing politician” and has become “the object of vile anti-Semitic comment.”

“The story fitted neatly into centuries of anti-Semitic caricature,” Shatter stated on his Facebook page. “The allegation made was that, when minister for justice and defence, I made an expenses claim of €12 for photos I required for my personal passport. Of course, I did not. The true story is that in my role as minister for defence in November 2013 I undertook ministerial engagements in Lebanon, Jordan and Israel, which included visiting Irish troops engaged in a variety of UN missions and a refugee camp in Jordan accommodating many thousands.

“Arrangements for the visit required my obtaining inoculations and photos for a Lebanese visit. I was asked to furnish all relevant receipts to the Department of Defence and did so.”

Click here to read the full article in Irish Examiner