Trump can’t ignore Ireland’s hostility to Israel

The most coveted international engagement in Irish politics derives from the  President of the United States annual invitation to Ireland’s Taoiseach, (Prime Minister), to a meeting in the White House to mark St Patrick’s Day. What in Ireland has become a St Patrick’s week of global travel for Irish government ministers, usually results in the Taoiseach having a series of engagements in Washington, including meeting the Friends of Ireland in Congress, much wining and dining and events in Boston or New York. Irish ministers are dispersed to other states to participate in the March St Patricks Day festivities and engage with America’s Irish diaspora.

The Irish government perceives St Patricks Day global celebrations as a unique opportunity to promote Irish business and exports, to deepen relationships with American multinational companies located in Ireland using Ireland as their EU base and to seduce others to do so to generate employment. Ireland’s Industrial Development Authority (IDA) annually participates in the trip to promote Ireland’s low corporate tax rate & other financial incentives available to American companies who establish businesses and/ or company headquarters in Ireland. In the political arena, it is viewed as an opportunity to celebrate long enduring Ireland/ US friendship and commonality of values and interests.

As 2025 commences the Irish government is greatly concerned about the possible impact on Irish exports should President Donald Trump’s threatened tariffs become a reality. Equal concern relates to the domestic employment implications of possible impediments or incentives the Trump administration may create to discourage US companies locating in or expanding their business’s in Ireland and also to them headquartering their global profits there, as Ireland’s annual public expenditure is significantly leveraged by and dependent on tax income derived from US multinational’s corporate profits.

The White House St Patricks Day meet with the President is a taken for granted done deal in Ireland as it is assumed it generates kudos for a President with America’s estimated thirty one million voters who claim Irish ancestry. For a President in his second term, not seeking re-election, that is a largely irrelevant consideration. Moreover, where the Irish government is adopting stances or policies detrimental to American values or interests or hostile to America’s closest allies, there is little or no political benefit in St Patricks Day political business as usual for the President or members of Congress.  

Nothing is a “ done deal” in the context of the second Trump presidency. Before any St Patricks Day invitation is issued to Micheal Martin, Ireland’s outgoing Foreign Minister soon to become Taoiseach following Ireland’s recent general election, President Trump and his incoming administration should carefully consider the extent to which recent conduct of the Irish government is both egregious and detrimental to US interests.

In the international arena this specifically relates to Irish President, Micheal D Higgin’s and the Irish government’s unrelenting hostility towards Israel since October 7, 2023, their repetitive public condemnation of all steps taken by Israel to defend itself against Hamas, Hezbollah and other Iranian proxies and Ireland’s peculiar deepening relationship with Iran over the past 15 months. Not to be ignored is Ireland’s recognition in May 2024 of the State of Palestine as a reward for terrorism, minimizing of Iran’s malign role in the Middle East, ignoring Iran’s dedication to Israel’s destruction and sponsorship of its terrorist proxies Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and other fanatical Islamic groups, Iran’s support for the now deposed tyrannical Assad regime in Syria, its gross violation of its own citizens human rights and Ireland bizarrely opening an embassy in Tehran in September 2024.

To this can be added Israel’s ambassador’s exclusion from attending all Spring 2024 party conferences held by Ireland’s various political parties, including government parties, while Iran’s ambassador was an honored guest. Also, at a time of escalating antisemitism in Ireland, the Irish government failing to actively engage in an EU sponsored program to counter antisemitism, declining to even facilitate a discussion in the Irish Parliament of the IHRA working definition of antisemitism, failing to address the inclusion within Irish school text books and in online educational material of antisemitic and false anti Israel content intended to indoctrinate children and ignoring the activities of the extremist anti Israel university campus student groups who intimidated Jewish students and public protesters advocating Israel’s eradication and the global murder of Jews, waiving Hamas, Hezbollah and PFLP flags.

No invited Irish government minister attending the small Irish Jewish communities remembrance ceremony in October 2024 for the 1,200 slaughtered in Israel on October 7, 2023, or the earlier inauguration of Ireland’s new Chief Rabbi was particularly egregious.  

Account should also be taken of the Irish governments obsessive efforts to undermine EU/ Israel trade relations, the likely detrimental impact on EU/ Israel relations of the Irish government’s malign demonizing rhetoric and policies upon it assuming the EU presidency in July 2025 and its repetitively announced promise, contrary to EU law, to enact boycott Israel legislation criminalizing US companies engaged in business with Israeli companies. The 2024 climax to all of this was the Dáil, Ireland’s main parliamentary chamber, immediately prior to Irelands 29th November general election unanimously accusing Israel of genocide, a despicable Holocaust inversion, and the Irish government formally joining in South Africa’s ICJ case advocating that the court broaden its interpretation and application of the international law concept of genocide to apply it to Israel’s conduct of its war with Hamas, ignoring the wars complexity and the responsibility of Hamas for its initiation, Palestinian civilian fatalities and injuries and its continuance.

One of the odder events of 2024 was incoming Taoiseach Micheal Martin’s promotional video posted on X in December in which he proudly boasted that as a reward for Ireland’s ICJ engagement Ireland, that is he, would be attending a G20 summit as a guest of South Africa during its 2025 presidency of the group, an event at which Ireland, as a small country, is normally represented by the EU. Clearly, Martin perceives his attendance as an opportunity to promote his stature as a global statesman. 

To all of this can be added the Irish government and all Irish opposition parties, in parliamentary debates, while regularly pillorying and demonizing Israel, studiously ignoring the many thousands of missiles fired at Israel by Hamas and Hezbollah since October 7, 2023, Hamas use of civilians as human shields, its extensive tunneling complex in Gaza adjacent to or under mosques, hospitals, schools, residences and UNRWA facilities, its firing of missiles adjacent to such facilities and hiding its combatants and captive hostages in hospitals and tunnels while denying non combatant Palestinians access to tunnels for shelter. 

Not to be overlooked, is the repetitive blood libel accusation of Ireland’s outgoing Prime Minister and soon to become Foreign Minister, Simon Harris, that the Israeli government is intentionally murdering Palestinian children, a narrative also popular with Ireland’s opposition parties, trade unions, academics, literati and the Irish anti Israel protesting street mob and university students Harris is intent on appeasing.

In relation to US domestic policy and Donald Trump’s concern to ensure US companies create the maximum possible jobs in the US and that US company profits are not tax washed abroad, there are clearly identifiable differences between Ireland and US interests. With regard to the Irish governments totally unbalanced hostility to and criticism of Israel, America’s closest ally, the gulf is unprecedented. 

The Irish government, in the past, required US intervention to help bring peace to and maintain peace in Northern Ireland. More recently it required help from the US to compel the UK government to realistically and practically address the economic and political consequences of Brexit on the island of Ireland and to ensure a hard border between Northern Ireland and the Irish Republic was not resurrected. Intent on appeasing Israel’s most extreme adversaries, Martin and Harris, whose party’s are jointly set to form a new Irish government later this month, have for too long ignored the fact that international political consequences, contrary to Ireland’s interests, may result from their political rhetoric, choices and actions. While Israel’s government and its actions may deservedly be subject to criticism as may individual Israeli ministers, it is the Irish governments obsessive, selective, unbalanced criticism which ignores all complexity and panders to the Palestinian terrorist and Iranian narrative that is most objectionable and corrosive of factual reality.

The Trump administration should not ignore that due to Irish government hostility and perceived antisemitism Israel recalled its ambassador from Ireland last May and announced the closure of its Dublin embassy in December. The St Patricks Day events for 2025 in the Trump White House and up on the Hill should not be simply perceived and arranged as business as usual.

ALAN SHATTER

5th January 2025

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Alan Shatter is a former Irish Minister for Justice, Equality & Defence. Former chairperson & long standing member of the Irish parliaments Foreign Affairs Committee. Former chairperson & member of EU Council of Justice & Home Affairs Ministers & Council of Defence Ministers. Chairperson of Magen David Adom, Ireland, author, lawyer, occasional lecturer and broadcaster. He was a member of the Dáil for 31 years.