Award-Winning Irish Journalist Tweets Antisemitic Conspiracy Theory
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by Simon Plosker
Pro-Palestinian protesters near the Irish Parliament in Dublin at a rally against Israeli air strikes in Gaza in 2009. Photo: William Murphy / Flickr.
Gemma O’Doherty is an award-winning Irish investigative journalist. She spent 16 years at the Irish Independent, and according to her website, she has contributed to The Sunday Times, Daily Mail, and Village magazine. She even made a recent failed attempt to run for the Irish presidency.
On December 7, 2018 she tweeted this:
Wondering what’s behind the globalists’ plan to fill Europe with migrants? It’s nothing to do with compassion for their plight #MigrationPact #GlobalCompact #UN https://t.co/HlN7RCZjP4
— Gemma O’Doherty (@gemmaod1) December 7, 2018
The reference to “globalists” is often a dog whistle that means Jews. An accompanying image, which includes a prominent Star of David, should dispel any doubts that this is precisely who O’Doherty is alluding to.
The article and the image she promotes are published on an alt-right European white nationalist website called Red Ice, which was launched in 2002 in Sweden.
According to a profile in Harper’s Magazine, Red Ice:
disseminated conspiracy theories about U.F.O.’s, Freemasons, the Illuminati, and 9/11. Then, around 2012, the outlet shifted its attention to conspiracies about race — the idea that liberals were perpetrating a white genocide, for instance. It also began to question the Holocaust.
Indeed, the article that O’Doherty retweeted promotes antisemitic conspiracies involving Jewish bankers and Jewish control of European populations. The article, which was published in 2017, doesn’t even have a proper byline. Needless to say, we aren’t going to waste our time debunking this nonsense. We will, however, ask how anyone who considers themselves to be a mainstream journalist can peddle filth of this nature.
Having campaigned to be on the ballot for the recent Irish presidential election, Gemma O’Doherty clearly has a national profile in Ireland. While she may not be currently employed, any media outlet considering publishing her in future should know what she stands for.
Editor’s note: Following publication of this article, O’Doherty removed the offensive tweet.
Simon Plosker is managing editor of HonestReporting, a leading organization monitoring anti-Israel media bias. A version of this article was originally published at HonestReporting.
