DUBLIN, Dec 1 (Reuters) – Dublin City Council has delayed a decision on whether to remove the name of a former Israeli president from a park amid a heated debate on whether the change would be justified or would represent an attack on the area’s Jewish community.
Supporters of the move say the name of Chaim Herzog, who was raised in Dublin and served as president of Israel from 1983 to 1993, should be removed as an act of solidarity with Palestinians, citing Herzog’s time in Israeli military intelligence and as military governor of the West Bank.
Herzog’s son and Israel’s current president Isaac Herzog said renaming the park would be “a shameful and disgraceful move”, while Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar said Ireland had become the world’s “capital of antisemitism”.
The head of Dublin City Council on Sunday announced that Monday’s vote would be withdrawn as new regulations around renaming city sites were not yet in place and the issue should be returned to the relevant committee.
Ireland’s government has been one of the European Union’s most outspoken critics of Israel’s assault in Gaza. It officially recognised a Palestinian state last year and is seeking to restrict trade with Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories.
The council decision was made after the prime minister and several senior ministers called for the proposal to be scrapped. Deputy prime minister Simon Harris said the name change would be “divisive and offensive to our Jewish community and our Irish Jewish heritage.”
Just over 2,000 people identified as Jewish in Ireland’s 2022 census, down from over 5,000 a century earlier.
(Writing by Conor HumphriesEditing by Ros Russell)
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