Ireland: The newly appointed Ireland’s Taoiseach is set to meet with Spain’s PM to discuss their shared plan to recognise Palestine as a nation-state. They will also talk about their efforts to compel the European Union to consider Israel’s human rights obligations as a prerequisite for their trade agreement with the bloc.
Pedro Sánchez, the Spanish PM, will be arriving in Dublin, and it will be the first time Simon Harris, the Taoiseach, will meet with a foreign premier in his new position. Since the Hamas attacks in October and Israel’s offensive in Gaza, Spain and Ireland became the EU’s most pro-Palestinian member states.
In Brussels, Harris emphasised Ireland’s stance on the importance of an immediate ceasefire during his meeting with Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president. He also reiterated Ireland’s formal request, made in partnership with Spain two months earlier, to review the Israel-EU partnership contract.
The young Irish PM stated that, “I believe the European Union must use all of the levers at its disposal to protect the Palestinian people.” Harris’s remarks came as he faced sharp criticism from Israel for not mentioning the hostages held by Hamas in Gaza during his debut speech to the Irish parliament as Taoiseach.
In his oath of office, Harris referred to ‘the unforgivable terrorist actions carried out by Hamas in October,’ as well as ‘the disproportionate response of the Israeli government.’ Israel’s foreign ministry, however, rebuked him for failing to cite Hamas hostages still held captive.
It said that Ireland was also ‘planning to award additional prizes to terrorism’ by interfering in the issue taken by South Africa at the International Court of Justice in which it blamed Israel of executing genocide in Gaza, and by ‘the possible recognition of a Palestinian state in the future.’
Referring to the Hamas attacks on southern Israel that killed 1200 people mostly civilians the statement noted that, “After the worst massacre of Jews since the Holocaust, there are those in Ireland who persist on being on the wrong side of history.”
Israel’s military offensive in Gaza massacred over 33,000 people, mostly civilians, and formed a humanitarian crisis. Ireland and Spain wrote to the European Commission chief for an ‘urgent review’ of Israel’s adherence to its human rights commitments. No responses were received yet.
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