“Recognition is an act of powerful political and symbolic value,” the Taoiseach said as he declared Ireland would recognise Palestine as a state. “From our history, we know what it means.”
With these potent words, Simon Harris was evoking a sense of kinship with the Palestinians that is rooted deep in Irish society and its history of British colonial rule. It has made Ireland one of Europe’s most outspoken critics of Israel’s war in Gaza and one of the most pro-Palestinian countries in the world.
It’s not hard to identify how this kinship arose. In January 1919, Irish politicians declared independence from the United Kingdom, set up a government in Dublin and claimed the recognition of “every free nation in the world”. A war followed but, three years later, the UK recognised the Irish Free State in a major step towards the future republic. Mr Harris said that declaration was “a plea for international recognition of our independence, emphasising our distinct national identity, our historical struggle, and our right to self-determination and justice”.
“Today we use the same language to support the recognition of Palestine as a state,” he said in Dublin. Wednesday’s coordinated announcement with Norway and Spain drew a furious response from Israel, which recalled their Irish ambassador.
To Dublin’s annoyance, the media in Jerusalem were allowed to film ambassador Sonya McGuinness when, having been summoned to the Israeli foreign affairs ministry for an official reprimand, she was shown videos of female hostages being taken during Hamas’s October 7 terror attack. The move was described as “totally unacceptable” by Micheál Martin, the Irish deputy premier.
On Friday, Dana Erlich, Israel’s ambassador to Ireland, accused the Irish of having a “disproportionate obsession with Israel that we don’t see with any other country”.
“It has gone beyond the normal criticism, it is a vilification of a whole society,” she told the Irish Times. She warned her government would “review” Ireland’s diplomatic, economic and humanitarian activities in Palestine.
Still, Harris, who became Taoiseach last month after replacing Leo Varadkar as leader of the centre-Right Fine Gael, was unrepentant. As the diplomatic row continued, he rejected Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s accusation that recognition was a “reward for terrorism”.
“We have been clear and unequivocal that we condemn Hamas, that we condemn the most horrific, barbaric massacre that Israel experienced on [October 7],” he said, before drawing on the historic parallels between Ireland and Palestine once again. “The IRA was never the people of Ireland and Hamas is not the people of Palestine,” he told CNN.
Ahead of two divisive elections set to be fought on housing and immigration, Palestine is a rare unifier among Ireland’s warring political parties from the centre-Right to Sinn Féin, the former political wing of the Provisional IRA.
Recognition is certainly a popular move ahead of European elections next month – a bellwether vote before a general election that must be held by March. For Fine Gael and its coalition partners the conservative Fianna Fáil and the Greens, it is a vote-winner, which stops it being outflanked by the stridently pro-Palestinian and Left-wing Sinn Fein, which has led the polls for the last two years.
It’s sobering to see why: in February, an Ireland Thinks poll found that 79 per cent of Irish people believe that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The previous November, less than a month after October 7, a similar poll found that 84 per cent called for an “immediate ceasefire” in Gaza. In comparison, a separate YouGov poll in December found that 59 per cent of British people supported immediate ceasefire.