Does president Michael D Higgins read his press coverage? Fortunately, he loves attention and can’t get enough of it. And he appears never to think he might be wrong.
Published: 30 January 2025
For a long time, he’s been a cheerleader for Palestinians which has helped Ireland to become increasing anti-Israeli.
In 2018 leftists and Shinners introduced the ‘occupied territories’ bill and demanded a boycott of Israeli goods. There were few protests when in 2021 Ireland allied with Spain and South Africa in joining the International Court of Justice’s case on genocide against Israel.
The United Nations defines genocide as “any of the following acts committed with intent to destroy, in whole or in part, a national, ethnical, racial or religious group,” so that covers Hamas’s war. It does not cover Israel’s defensive response against the armed terrorists of Hamas.
Appallingly, like many others who hate Israel, Higgins appears to have forgotten the hideous atrocities of October 7, 2023, but he rants on about the wickedness of Israel in Gaza.
Last April, explaining that – post-Brexit – Anglo-Irish relations were back on an even keel and relations with King Charles were warm, he explained that however “the persistence of injustice, such as unequal land rights and the difficulties faced by immigrants” gave him no choice but to speak out.
“I have to take sides. I don’t think it creates discomfort for anyone but it certainly isn’t going to dissuade me from saying anything that I feel is necessary.”
Since then he has been turning up the volume on his criticisms of Israel, and has managed to create plenty of discomfort to people, Jewish and gentile.
Most Irish politicians have followed suit, followed by an ever-noisier mob of Palestinian groupies chanting for the destruction of Israel: “From the river to the sea”.
Higgins seemed unbothered that government and public hostility caused the closure of the Embassy.
It all came to a head last week when Higgins ignored requests to say nothing about Gaza in his speech for Holocaust Memorial Day.
King Charles recalled the “six million Jews, old and young, who were systematically murdered, together with Sinti, Ruma, disabled people, members of the LGBT community, political prisoners, and so many others upon whom the Nazis inflicted their violence and hatred.”
Higgins politicised it.
“Those in Israel who mourn their loved ones, those who have been waiting for the release of hostages, or the thousands searching for relatives in the rubble in Gaza will welcome the long-overdue ceasefire for which there has been such a heavy price paid.”
Arab newspapers loved it: “Irish president praised for highlighting. Gaza in national holocaust memorial day address”
Outside Ireland, the press was largely hostile. The London Times headline was “The posturing of Ireland’s president tarnished the memory of the Auschwitz dead”.
The Jewish Chronicle asked if Ireland was “the most anti-semitic country in the West?”
The first ministers of Northern Ireland have fallen out sharply about it.
Higgins seems unworried. But as the Irish Examiner put it, “Our relationship with the US, weaker since the abdication of Joe Biden and with our taxation policies on American companies likely to be stress-tested by Donald Trump, will not be assisted by adopting a punitive approach towards Israel.”
Unfortunately the damage has been done.
