{"id":173373,"date":"2025-12-03T19:20:08","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T19:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/173373\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T19:20:08","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T19:20:08","slug":"israeli-minister-clashes-with-irelands-envoy-to-tel-aviv-over-herzog-park-name-row-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/173373\/","title":{"rendered":"Israeli minister clashes with Ireland\u2019s envoy to Tel Aviv over Herzog Park name row \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Israel<\/a>\u2018s foreign minister has claimed Miche\u00e1l Martin<\/a>\u2019s administration and Irish institutions have an \u201canti-Semitic nature\u201d in fractious exchanges over the Herzog Park row with Ireland\u2019s ambassador to Tel Aviv.<\/p>\n

Gideon Saar published video footage online in which he clashed with ambassador Sonya McGuinness over the now-suspended proposal<\/a> to remove the name of former Israeli president Chaim Herzog from a park in Rathgar, Dublin.<\/p>\n

The footage appears to show Ms McGuinness telling Mr Saar he is \u201cill-informed\u201d about the issue.<\/p>\n

T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris<\/a> spoke in defence of Ms McGuinness on Wednesday, saying she was a formidable public servant who was serving Ireland with distinction.<\/p>\n

However, he said the row over the park\u2019s name had caused international reputational damage to Ireland and said the measures before Dublin City Council<\/a> (DCC) were \u201cinsensitive and ill-conceived\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cQuite frankly, I think our local authorities should get back to building houses and minding the parks and not interfering in the naming of the parks,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt caused a huge amount of hurt to our Jewish community.\u201d<\/p>\n

The city council suspended the denaming measures for legal reasons on Sunday, on the eve of a scheduled vote of councillors, after the plan was criticised in blunt terms by the Taoiseach<\/a> and the T\u00e1naiste. <\/p>\n

\"AA commemorative plaque at Herzog Park in Rathgar, Dublin. Photograph: Nick Bradshaw <\/p>\n

Addressing Ms McGuinness at a public event, Mr Saar said: \u201cThere is nothing in your system right now that can defend you from that virus of anti-Semitism, except of external pressure and exposing the anti-Semitic nature of this Government of Ireland and other institutions.\u201d <\/p>\n

The ambassador had said the \u201cscourge of anti-Semitism\u201d should be \u201ccarefully managed and not used for political gain\u201d.<\/p>\n

There was no Department of Foreign Affairs<\/a> comment on the exchange or its publication online. <\/p>\n

The Israeli minister said Irish leaders were tardy in their response to news of the denaming measures over the park and said they moved only after Israeli leaders intervened. <\/p>\n

\u201cTell me, please, why it was published on Friday this anti-Semitic proposed decision of the city council of Dublin and nothing happened until Saturday, when I attacked that and the president of Israel attacked that?\u201d Mr Saar said. <\/p>\n

\u201cAnd only then your foreign minister and your prime minister and everyone woke up? Why? Why? Because you\u2019re only responding.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ms McGuinness replied: \u201cI\u2019m afraid you\u2019re ill-informed.\u201d <\/p>\n

The minister pressed on, saying: \u201cWe will continue to do that and we will continue to expose you until you will understand that you cannot deceive the world.\u201d <\/p>\n

Ms McGuinness again said: \u201cYou are ill-informed, minister.\u201d<\/p>\n

Afterwards the former Irish ambassador to the United States, Dan Mulhall, a former Department of Foreign Affairs colleague of Ms McGuinness, backed her in a post on social media website X, praising \u201cher courage in defending Ireland in this way\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not easy to publicly challenge a foreign minister in a room where most people probably shared his view, but it needed to be done,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cConflating the position of a subcommittee of DCC with that of Ireland as a whole is wrong and needed to be contested.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Rathgar park was named in 1995 in honour of Belfast-born Chaim Herzog, Israel\u2019s president from 1983 to 1993. He grew up in Dublin. His son, Yitzhak Herzog, is Israel\u2019s current president. <\/p>\n

Citing the Gaza<\/a> war and \u201csolidarity with the Palestinian people\u201d, supporters of denaming have questioned Chaim Herzog\u2019s actions in politics and as a member of Israel\u2019s military.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s diplomatic relations with Tel Aviv have soured over Israel\u2019s war in Gaza, set off by the Hamas<\/a> attack on Israel of October 2023. <\/p>\n

Israel ordered the closure of its embassy in Dublin in December last year, accusing Ireland of \u201cextreme\u201d anti-Israel policies, a claim the Government rejects.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Israel\u2018s foreign minister has claimed Miche\u00e1l Martin\u2019s administration and Irish institutions have an \u201canti-Semitic nature\u201d in fractious exchanges…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173374,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[1844,13288,3409,4502,61,60,3410,1843,43,32860,70],"class_list":["post-173373","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-department-of-foreign-affairs","tag-dublin-city-council","tag-gaza-strip","tag-hamas","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-israel","tag-micheal-martin","tag-news","tag-rathgar","tag-simon-harris"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173373","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173373"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173373\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173374"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173373"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173373"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173373"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}