Rights and Accountability 17 December 2024
Micheál Martin, Ireland’s foreign minister, insists he is not hostile to Israel. (Sebastian Barros / NurPhoto via ZUMA Press)
Israel’s embassy in Dublin is accustomed to controversy.
Fourteen years have elapsed since “diplomats” stationed there forged passports used by a hit team with the spy agency Mossad so that it could travel to Dubai and assassinate Mahmoud al-Mabhouh, a Hamas representative.
The episode is among countless reasons why Ireland should have expelled Israel’s ambassador long ago. Yet the Dublin government has repeatedly refused to do so.
Israel has now taken matters into its own hands by deciding to close the embassy. While that is good news, both the Israeli announcement and Ireland’s response present a false picture.
The embassy is allegedly being closed because Ireland has been pursuing “extreme anti-Israel policies.” Unfortunately, that is inaccurate.
Ireland has apparently gone too far in Israel’s eyes by formally supporting South Africa’s case against the Gaza genocide in the International Court of Justice.
Backing South Africa does not erase how Micheál Martin, Ireland’s foreign minister, followed a decidedly pro-Israel policy in the early stage of the war against Gaza.
Like all European Union governments, Ireland signed up to a statement implicitly presenting the extermination of Palestinians as defensive in mid-October 2023. Martin directly expressed solidarity with Israel the following month when he went on a propaganda trip arranged by the Israeli foreign ministry.
Martin has held the posts of taoiseach (prime minister) and foreign minister since 2020. He and other senior figures in the Dublin government have blocked the Occupied Territories Bill – legislation that would ban goods from Israel’s illegal settlements – despite how it had been approved by both houses of the Oireachtas, Ireland’s parliament.Ahead of last month’s general election, the government moved toward lifting its veto on the bill.
Martin has nonetheless insisted that amendments to the bill are necessary, which appears to mean that he wants it watered down. The Ditch website has revealed that he made the claim about amendments soon after receiving a threat from Claire Cronin, the US ambassador in Dublin.
Cronin (no relation of mine) had effectively warned that investment in Ireland would be harmed as American corporations are prohibited from complying with an “unsanctioned foreign boycott.”
Without disputing the authenticity of Cronin’s threat, Martin tried to brush the issue aside when it was raised in a parliamentary committee. He chose to attack the messenger by branding The Ditch “as much a political organization as anything else.”
The Ditch is a bona fide news outlet, doing real journalism. It reports facts that the establishment would prefer to ignore – such as how weapons destined for Israel are often flown through Irish airspace.
Important work?
Micheál Martin has ruled out any reciprocation in response to the closure of Israel’s embassy in Dublin. Ireland’s embassy will remain in Tel Aviv, he has stated, arguing that it does “important work.”
Martin did not specify what “important work” he had in mind. But it is known that the embassy has been promoting trade with Israel – the precise opposite of what the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement demands.Large numbers of Irish people are certainly hostile to Israel and its racist state ideology Zionism.
The same cannot be said for leading businesspeople.
Patrick Collison, the Irishman who founded the payments firm Stripe, last month visited Tel Aviv, where he had confabs with various tech investors. The trip prompted the Israeli press to speculate about what opportunities Collison was exploring.
Understandably, Collison’s boast that he was enjoying himself in Tel Aviv provoked considerable outrage among defenders of Palestinian rights.
Many ties between Ireland and firms enabling genocide attract less attention.The state-owned Irish Strategic Investment Fund holds shares in Palantir, a US firm providing artificial intelligence technology that helps the Israeli military to select targets. As most victims in Gaza are women and children, Palantir is almost certainly enabling massacres.
Britain’s departure from the European Union had implications for Irish financial services. One implication is that it led Israel to choose Ireland to replace Britain as the host of the bonds which it sells throughout the EU.
As Israel’s bonds are a means of supporting the war against Gaza, Ireland is – as a host of those bonds – complicit in genocide.
Micheál Martin is telling just part of the truth when he says that the Irish state is not hostile to Israel. The more complete truth is that Ireland has maintained a friendly stance toward Israel as it slaughters and starves the people of Gaza.
The closure of an embassy doesn’t change that fact.
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