Embassy closure has more to do with political ambitions than Irish-Israeli diplomatic relations
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The war of words continues between Irish and Israeli government ministers following the announcement by Israel of the planned closure of the Israeli embassy in Dublin.
The Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar ratcheted up the diplomatic spat when he criticised Ireland’s refusal to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism.
“Ireland did not bother to promote measures to fight antisemitism within the country, on the contrary,” he argued, “they only encouraged it.”
Seemingly, particularly incensed by Irish accusations that Israel was starving Palestinian children in Gaza, Sa’ar invoked Ireland’s stance during the second world war. “When Jewish children died of starvation in the Holocaust, Ireland was at best neutral in the war against Nazi Germany.”
While many in Ireland may guffaw at those words, there is a perception in Israel that Ireland as a European country is uniquely, and at times peculiar, in its hostility to Israel. Since the beginning of the war, the Israeli media has not been shy of reporting stories of alleged Irish anti-Israeli bias and perceived antisemitism.
Whether it was the widely-ridiculed words of then-Taoiseach Leo Varadkar in describing the release of nine-year-old Emily Hand, held hostage by Hamas for seven weeks, as “an innocent child who was lost has now been found”, or when President Higgins in a dismissal of accusations of antisemitism in Ireland strangely invoked the apparent fact that the first president of Ireland Douglas Hyde — born 164 years ago — spoke Hebrew.
There has been a decidedly mixed reaction in Israeli media and diplomatic circles to the proposed closure of the embassy. This decision was dismissed as a “win for gimmicks over diplomacy” in the left-leaning Israeli newspaper .
The leader of the opposition Yair Lapid also criticized the decision, stating it was a “victory for antisemitism and anti-Israel organizations". "The way to deal with criticism is not to run away but to stay and fight," he said.
The reached out to a number of former and currently serving diplomatic Israeli personnel for comment on the seemingly deepening diplomatic fracas.
Mark Sofer, the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland between 1999 and 2002, criticised the decision, saying “closing the Embassy is a terrible mistake". He added: "What is needed is enhanced discourse, not its cessation."
Sofer, a harsh critic of Netanyahu and his far-right government, nevertheless argued that Ireland's public stance on Israel has repeatedly gone beyond valid criticism of the actions of the Israeli government.
“The overwhelmingly one-sided anti-Israel narrative in Ireland, unique in Europe and like-minded countries beyond it, has only too often transcended into bigotry and has gone too far even for those of us who have no faith whatsoever in our dreadful government," he said.
Nurit Tinari, who served as Deputy Ambassador to Ireland from 2010 to 2015, and who continues to work at the Foreign Ministry, felt “deep sadness over the closure — not because legitimate criticism of the Irish government’s misguided policies toward Israel isn’t valid, but because it feels like a farewell to the extraordinary people who stood by Israel through thick and thin, often at great personal cost."
There is a widespread view in Israel, however, that the decision of Gideon Sa'ar to close the embassy is less connected to — admittedly deteriorating — Irish-Israeli diplomatic relations and is in fact more coupled with his own personal political ambition. Sa'ar who was very recently appointed to the post of Foreign Minister has been accused of playing to the right-wing audience in Israel.
More colourful off-the-record diplomatic voices here accused him of “idiotic” behavior in “trying to justify the unjustifiable". They said he was "talking to his political base, knowing that anti-Irish sentiment in Israel is now huge”.
Sa'ar is leader of a small political right-wing party which, if opinion polls are correct, will likely vanish at the next election. The public attention to this increasingly bitter war of words in the last few days is likely to serve him well with right-wing voters.
Arguably, the real losers in this whole sorry saga is the burgeoning Israeli community in Ireland who are now likely to lose access to Israeli consular services in Dublin.
- Paul Kearns is a freelance journalist from Dublin who lives in Tel Aviv