Israeli FM: Irish Prime Minister is an antisemite

By Akiva Van Koningsfeld, JNS

Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar on Monday denounced Irish Prime Minister Simon Harris as an antisemite, speaking a day after Jerusalem announced the closure of its embassy due to Dublin’s hostile stances.

“Last night, the prime minister of Ireland, Simon Harris, the antisemite, said in an interview, ‘Ireland is not anti-Israel, but Ireland categorically opposes the starvation of children, and opposes categorically the killing of civilians,’” Sa’ar told reporters at a meeting of his New Hope Party.

“Israel starves children? When Jewish children died of hunger in the Holocaust, you were at best neutral in the war against Nazi Germany. Winston Churchill, during the war, in his speech on V-Day in Europe, noted how Ireland had carried on a love affair with Nazi Germany,” Jerusalem’s top diplomat said at the party faction meeting in the capital.

“And you call Israeli soldiers war criminals? You accuse the Jewish state, that was attacked on all fronts?” Sa’ar concluded while highlighting the Israel Defense Forces’ efforts to provide humanitarian aid to Gaza.

JNS reached out to the embassy of Ireland in Ramat Gan for comment.

On Sunday, Sa’ar ordered the closure of the embassy in Dublin. Israel’s envoy, Dana Erlich, had already been recalled to Jerusalem in May after Dublin became one of three European nations to recognize “Palestine.”

In announcing the embassy closing, Sa’ar cited Ireland’s “antisemitic actions and rhetoric,” charging that they were based on “delegitimization and demonization of the Jewish state and on double standards.”

Harris later condemned the “deeply regrettable” move in a post on X, saying he rejects the assertion that Dublin is anti-Israel. “Ireland is pro-peace, pro-human rights and pro-international law,” he claimed.

Ireland has for years criticized Israel and its policies in Judea, Samaria and Gaza, but the rhetoric has escalated since Jerusalem responded to the Hamas-led massacre on Oct. 7, 2023, that triggered a multi-front war.

The shuttering of the diplomatic mission was announced after the Irish government approved a proposal to intervene in South Africa’s genocide case against Israel at the International Court of Justice in The Hague.

Micheál Martin, Ireland’s deputy premier and minister for defense and foreign affairs, admitted that by seeking to intervene in the case, Dublin was essentially asking the top U.N. court to broaden its interpretation of “genocide” that falls within the framework of the Genocide Convention.

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On Oct. 29, Harris called on the European Union to “review its trade relations” with the Jewish state, following what the Irish leader called a “shameful” vote by the Knesset on a law banning the activities in the country of UNRWA, the United Nations aid agency for Palestinians.