An tOrd Gnó - Order of Business Seanad Éireann — 2025-12-09 ============================================================ Chris Andrews (SF), Labour Panel There is increasing antisemitic sentiment in Ireland, which is completely unacceptable. It is a cancer in society. There are so many members of the Irish Jewish community who have made such a positive impact on society and they should be celebrated. Chaim Herzog was not one of these. Israel's crimes did not start on 7 October 2023. Israel's crimes started decades before then. People can argue the merits of renaming Herzog Park, but to hear our Government Ministers refer to a man who perpetrated ethnic cleansing of 200,000 Palestinians and mass displacement of Palestinians from their homes as a good man who achieved great things is an insult to human decency. Almost all the reporting offered a distorted version of Chaim Herzog's legacy. A full and honest account must include both the positive and deeply troubling elements of his life. Recently, Israel's foreign minister said that the Irish Government was antisemitic and the Irish ambassador to Israel, ambassador McGuinness, was ill-informed, to which the ambassador replied: I'm glad to hear you mention the scourge of antisemitism but I would've thought that it must be carefully managed and not used for political gain. Antisemitism is a scourge and must be countered and therefore, don't you think facts are important? Ambassador McGuinness's comments could equally have been presented to the Irish media and Government Ministers. What also was deeply alarming was that Government Ministers jumped at the opportunity to accuse people of antisemitism instead of challenging the assertion that Ireland is antisemitic. Despite some increase in antisemitism, we are clearly not antisemitic as a country but the media and political leaders leant into this narrative to score political points. Being anti-Zionist and anti-colonialist is not antisemitic. The Government knows this and should challenge this, but it fuelled the narrative for political gain. These sort of false claims shuts down discussions rather than allowing us to critically analyse the facts. The media participated with Government Ministers in shutting down the debate. This is a dangerous precedent. It should be the people of Ireland who should decide on the naming of parks, not political interference from Government Ministers and abroad. It is important to have the Minister in here to debate the issues around antisemitism and what is acceptable and what sort of interference by the Government is acceptable. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/seanad/2025-12-09/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-14T04:54:26+00:00 Sitting date: 2025-12-09