Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar called Ireland’s President Michael Higgins an “antisemitic liar” on Tuesday, not long after Israel announced the shuttering of its embassy in Dublin, citing “anti-Israel” policy.
Sa’ar’s comments came after Higgins accused Israel of breaching Lebanon’s and Syria’s sovereignty and charged, without evidence, that Jerusalem was seeking to establish settlements in Egypt.
The foreign minister has defended his Sunday decision to close Israel’s embassy in Ireland, saying that Dublin “encouraged” antisemitism under a prime minister he accused of hating Jews.
Responding on Tuesday, Higgins said that he saw it as a “very serious business to actually brand a people because in fact they disagree with Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu, who is in breach of so many bits of international law, and who has beached the sovereignty of three of his neighbors, in relation to Lebanon, Syria, and would like in fact actually to have a settlement into Egypt.”
Speaking during a ceremony at which Palestinian Authority envoy Jilan Abdalmajid presented her letter of credence, Higgins added, “I think to suggest that because one criticized Prime Minister Netanyahu that one is antisemitic is such a gross defamation and slander.”
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.
Higgins also charged on Tuesday that Israel’s diplomatic moves were “part of a pattern to damage Ireland,” without elaborating.
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 nonbinding motion declaring that “genocide is being perpetrated before our eyes by Israel in Gaza.”
And last week, 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.
In a new English-language statement, Sa’ar responded: “Once an antisemitic liar — always an antisemitic liar,” going on to defend Israel’s actions on all three fronts.
“From Lebanese territory, Israel’s sovereignty was breached for over a year,” he stated. “For no reason and unprovoked, Hezbollah joined Hamas on October 8th [2023] and since then fired tens of thousands of missiles, rockets and drones at Israeli citizens and communities. Israel did what any country would — it defended itself against a brutal aggressor.”
Israel stepped up its fight against the terror group in September after almost a year of cross-border attacks, sending ground forces across the border into southern Lebanon to dismantle Hezbollah positions and waging an aggressive air campaign that killed much of the terror group’s top leadership, including long-time chief Hassan Nasrallah.
The offensive was aimed at driving Hezbollah away from the border and making it safe for tens of thousands of Israelis who had been evacuated from their homes in northern Israel to return.
A fragile ceasefire between the two sides came into effect at the end of November.
On Syria, where rebels felled the Bashar al-Assad regime this month in a lightning offensive, Sa’ar said that “armed groups entered the buffer zone and attacked UNDOF forces,” violating the 1974 Disengagement Agreement.
He said that Israel entered the United Nations-patrolled buffer zone in the Golan Heights after rebel groups in Syria took Damascus on December 8 “to prevent the threat of radical Islamists against its citizens and communities.”
“Israel will not wait for another [onslaught resembling what Hamas did on] October 7th [2023] on any of its borders,” he declared.
Israel had said that the seizure of the buffer zone was a temporary defensive move that would last only until security could be guaranteed along the frontier, and that it has no desire to get involved in the conflict in Syria.
And regarding the Irish president’s Egypt settlement claim, the foreign minister responded: “Higgins invented the claim that Israel seeks to form settlements there. In the context of our peace agreement with Egypt, Israel withdrew from a huge area — all of the Sinai Desert and uprooted all of its communities there. This peace agreement has been maintained since 1979.”
Concluding his statement, Sa’ar mentioned Ireland’s failure to join the Allies in fighting Nazi Germany in World War II.
“Let us not forget that Ireland was at best neutral during World War II. At that time, the free world was fighting Hitler’s axis while Ireland sat on the side and did nothing.”
Ireland has said since that the two countries would maintain diplomatic relations and that there were no plans to close Dublin’s embassy in Israel.
Lazar Berman contributed to this report.