Irish Jews stood in protest on Sunday as the country’s president used his speech at an International Holocaust Memorial Day ceremony to rail against Israel’s war with Hamas, decrying the “horrific loss of life” in Gaza
At least one demonstrator was forcibly removed for turning her back on Irish President Michael D. Higgins and others walked out. Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar condemned Higgins’s “despicable provocation.”
Higgins, who had been asked by the Irish Jewish community not to politicize the event that marks the murder of six million Jews by Nazi Germany, said that the ceasefire and hostage release deal that came into effect last week has been welcomed by “those in Israel who mourn their loved ones, those who have been waiting for the release of the hostages,” as well as the “thousands searching for relatives in the rubble” of Gaza.
Appearing to draw a line between the murder of Jews during the Holocaust and the war in Gaza, which was sparked by Hamas’s October 7, 2023, terror assault in southern Israel, Higgins said: “When wars and conflicts become accepted or presented as seemingly unending, humanity is a loser.”
“War is not the natural condition of humanity. Cooperation is.”
He added that world leaders should be made “acutely aware” of the “complicit actions of silence or the averted gaze of those who, by their indifference, allowed the Holocaust to be planned, prepared and to occur.”
Ireland notably maintained an official policy of neutrality throughout the Second World War.
Sa’ar slammed Higgins’s speech, writing on X the Irish president had “failed to rise above himself and resorted to cheap and despicable provocation.”
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar attends a hearing of the Knesset Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, on January 21, 2025. Yonatan Sindel/Flash90)
“What a despicable person,” said the foreign minister. “What a twisted policy.”
He noted that the “largest murderous attack on Jews since the Holocaust came from the jihadist Gaza Strip.”
Nevertheless, said Sa’ar, Higgins “chose to echo Hamas’s false antisemitic propaganda, leading Jews, descendants of Holocaust survivors, to walk out of the event.”
The foul President of Ireland dragging criticism of Israel into his speech at a Holocaust memorial event. While Jewish ppl protest and are removed. If he wanted to connect the murder of 6 million Jews with Israel he could have talked about the survivors who built a country from… pic.twitter.com/Xq675w4Plb
— Heidi Bachram ????️ (@HeidiBachram) January 26, 2025
Ireland’s RTE news outlet reported that some audience members left the room in protest of Higgins’s participation, and others stood with their back to him during his speech.
Several people, including an Israeli-Irish woman, were forcibly removed from the room as well, the Irish Times reported.
Videos posted to social media from the ceremony showed at least one protester being dragged out of the event by security staff.
The President of Ireland—as expected—used his address at a Holocaust Remembeance Day ceremony to attack Israel, in a shocking instance of Holocaust inversion.
Jewish protesters were violently removed from the ceremony.
What is going on in Ireland? pic.twitter.com/SbkXUJz2bE
— Hen Mazzig (@HenMazzig) January 26, 2025
When the plans for Higgins to speak at the ceremony were announced last month, some of Ireland’s Jewish leaders said that he was an “inappropriate” pick for the event, due to his “grave insensitivity to Irish Jews.”
Ireland’s chief rabbi Yoni Wieder noted that in May, Higgins had dismissed Israeli concerns of rising antisemitism in Ireland as “a PR exercise,” alienating many of the country’s Jews.
In December, Israel announced that it would be shutting its embassy in Ireland, citing the “extreme anti-Israel policy of the Irish government.”
Ireland has been one of Israel’s most outspoken critics throughout the war in Gaza, which broke out on October 7, 2023, with Hamas’s unprecedented attack in which 3,000 terrorists murdered some 1,200 people and took 251 hostages, mostly civilians.
Israel recalled its ambassador in May after Ireland became one of three EU countries that said they would unilaterally recognize a Palestinian state. Ireland has not recalled its envoy to Israel. In November, the Irish parliament passed a non-binding motion declaring that “genocide is being perpetrated before our eyes by Israel in Gaza.”
And in December, Ireland’s cabinet voted to join the case accusing Israel of perpetrating “genocide” during its war with Hamas in Gaza, brought by South Africa at the International Criminal Court in The Hague last year.
Aside from the Irish government’s views and actions regarding the war, a report published in November by education monitoring group IMPACT-se exposed profound distortions of the Holocaust, Israel, Judaism and Jewish history in textbooks used in Irish public schools.
Meanwhile in Dublin over the weekend, pro-Palestinian protesters waved flags of the Hezbollah and Hamas terror organizations, along with the Palestinian national flag, at a Saturday rally.
Hezbollah and Hamas flags proudly flying in Dublin. The country is turning itself inside out pic.twitter.com/LM4bgop8U3
— Jake Wallis Simons (@JakeWSimons) January 26, 2025
Signs accusing the Palestinian Authority of collaborating with Israel could also be seen in photos from the rally.
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