J’lem calls in Irish envoy to protest Dublin mayor’s anti-Israel campaign

The Foreign Ministry’s deputy director-general for Europe, expressed amazement and “deep disappointment” that the mayor chose to participate in a “blatantly anti-Israel” event.

By HERB KEINON
Updated: APRIL 12, 2018 23:37
(photo credit: FACEBOOK SCREENSHOT)
(photo credit: FACEBOOK SCREENSHOT)
Israel called in Ireland’s Ambassador Alison Kelly on Thursday to protest the participation of the Lord Mayor of Dublin Mícheál Mac Donncha at an anti-Israel rally in Ramallah the same day, and for recent anti-Israel resolutions passed by the Dublin City Council.
Rodica Radian-Gordon, the Foreign Ministry’s deputy director-general for Europe, expressed amazement and “deep disappointment” that Donncha chose to participate in a “blatantly anti-Israel” event.
She said that his participation in the event was particularly jarring since it comes during the week Israel is commemorating Holocaust Remembrance Day.
“The government of Israel expects a public and official Irish response to the conduct of the city council of the Irish capital, and of its head in particular, who are conducting a campaign of discrimination and hatred against the State of Israel,” Radian-Gordon said.
Donncha, of the left-wing Sinn Fein party, is a member of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign that spearheads boycott, sanctions and divestment efforts against Israel inside Ireland.
Donncha was able to enter Israel on Wednesday – despite an order from Interior Minister Arye Deri banning his entry due to his BDS activism – because the name given to the border control authorities at the airport to deny his entry was misspelled.
The Dublin City Council at its monthly meeting this week voted to support a boycott and economic sanctions resolution against Israel, and also to cut ties with Hewlett Packard because, it charged, the company’s technology was being used by Israel to “maintain its system of apartheid and settler colonialism over the Palestinian people.”
The Dublin City Council also passed a resolution urging the Irish government to expel Israel’s ambassador as a response to the killing of Palestinians rioting along the Gaza border over the last two weeks.


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