{"id":173417,"date":"2025-12-03T19:56:07","date_gmt":"2025-12-03T19:56:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/173417\/"},"modified":"2025-12-03T19:56:07","modified_gmt":"2025-12-03T19:56:07","slug":"tanaiste-praises-ambassador-to-israel-for-rejecting-suggestions-ireland-is-antisemitic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/173417\/","title":{"rendered":"T\u00e1naiste praises ambassador to Israel for rejecting suggestions Ireland is antisemitic"},"content":{"rendered":"

The T\u00e1naiste has praised Ireland\u2019s ambassador to Israel, after she flatly rejected suggestions by Israel’s foreign minister that the Irish State was antisemitic.<\/p>\n

Gideon Saar had accused the Government of being antisemitic following a Dublin City Council motion to rename Herzog Park in Rathgar.\u00a0<\/p>\n

The plan was dropped, however, after council officials said the regulations were not in place to allow renaming of parks<\/a>, after legal advice was sought.<\/p>\n

He described the motion itself as being antisemitic, with Ireland\u2019s ambassador to Israel Sonya McGuinness, rejecting the assertions.<\/p>\n

Ms McGuinness said Mr Saar was \u201cill-informed\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMinister, I\u2019m glad to hear you mention the scourge of antisemitism,\u201d McGuinness said.<\/p>\n

\u201cBut I would\u2019ve thought that it must be carefully managed and not used for political gain.<\/p>\n

\u201cAntisemitism is a scourge and must be countered, and therefore don\u2019t you think facts are important?\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

In response, Mr Saar questioned why the motion was published on Friday, but only received attention from the Irish Government on Saturday after it was criticised by him and the Israeli president.<\/p>\n

\"AA plaque on a stone reads ‘Herzog Park’ commemorating Chaim Herzog, Israel’s sixth president, who was born in Belfast, as Dublin City Council prepared a motion to rename ‘Herzog Park’ to ‘Hind Rajab Park’ after Hind Rajab from Gaza. Picture: Clodagh Kilcoyne\/Reuters<\/p>\n

Ms McGuinness again rejected the assertions, describing Mr Saar as ill-informed.<\/p>\n

Mr Harris praised Ms McGuinness, saying she \u201cserves this country with distinction\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe speaks up for our values and she does a really good job and I\u2019m extremely proud of the job Ambassador McGuinnes does,\u201d Mr Harris added.<\/p>\n

He said the Israeli government would not be able to \u201cbully Ambassador McGuiness\u201d, adding she is a \u201cformidable public servant\u201d.<\/p>\n

The T\u00e1naiste said Ireland\u2019s values as a country \u201cabsolutely abhor antisemitism\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s on the rise. It\u2019s on the rise in Ireland, it\u2019s on the rise in Europe, it\u2019s on the rise around the world.<\/p>\n

\u201cAntisemitism is disgusting and should always be condemned.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mr Harris said it is \u201cvery different\u201d to condemn the actions of the Israeli Government, which has breached international law and carried out genocide in Gaza.<\/p>\n

However, the T\u00e1naiste said he believed the proposal to rename Herzog Park should not have arisen, adding it is \u201cinsensitive\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cI think it was ill conceived. It now turns out it wasn\u2019t even legal in terms of their own structures and it caused a huge amount of hurt to our Jewish community.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The T\u00e1naiste has praised Ireland\u2019s ambassador to Israel, after she flatly rejected suggestions by Israel’s foreign minister that…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":173418,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[4712,61,60,43,15151,70],"class_list":{"0":"post-173417","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-israel-palestine","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-news","12":"tag-racism","13":"tag-simon-harris"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173417","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=173417"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173417\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/173418"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173417"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173417"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173417"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}