‘You cannot deceive the world’: Sa’ar, Irish ambassador spar at Foreign Ministry event
Irish envoy takes issue with Israeli FM’s version of row over now-shelved plans to strip Herzog name from Dublin park; Sa’ar says he will keep up pressure against ‘antisemitic’ Dublin
Lazar Berman is The Times of Israel's diplomatic reporter
Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar and Irish Ambassador Sonya McGuinness on Tuesday engaged in a public argument at a Foreign Ministry event over the Dublin City Council’s now-shelved campaign to rename a city park named for Israel’s sixth president, Irish-born Chaim Herzog.
In a question to Sa’ar at an event for honorary consuls-general, McGuinness said that the fight against antisemitism must be “carefully managed and not used for political gain.”
“Don’t you think facts are important?” she asked, apparently taking issue with Sa’ar’s characterization of the fight over the park’s name. The foreign minister on Saturday cast the plans as a result of Ireland’s “antisemitic and anti-Israeli obsession.”
Sa’ar responded by saying that Dublin only acted once they had been publicly accused of antisemitism and trying to erase the country’s Jewish history.
“Tell me, please, why it was published on Friday, this antisemitic proposed decision of the City Council of Dublin, and nothing happened until Saturday, when I attacked that, and the president of the State of Israel attacked it?” he responded, referring to Chaim Herzog’s son, President Isaac Herzog. “And only then your foreign minister and your prime minister woke up.”
“There is nothing in your system right now that can defend you from that virus of antisemitism,” he continued, “except external pressure and exposing the antisemitic nature of this government.”
“We will continue to expose you until you understand that you cannot deceive the world,” Sa’ar concluded.
מלוכדים News: אירלנד חולה בוירוס האנטישמי. כך ענה שר החוץ גדעון סער לשגרירה האירית. צפו >> pic.twitter.com/775YHvx9oS
— ישראלי News (@Israeli1News) December 2, 2025
“You are ill-informed, minister,” McGuinness shot back.
Sa’ar’s office sent the clip out to Israeli journalists.
Ireland, home to about 3,000 Jewish people, has been among the most outspoken critics of Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, and the move to rename “Herzog Park” followed a campaign by anti-Israel, pro-Palestinian activists, but official council documents did not disclose a reason for the proposal.
Herzog, who died in 1997, was born in Belfast in Northern Ireland and grew up in Dublin before serving as Israeli president between 1983 and 1993. His father was the first Chief Rabbi of Ireland after it gained independence from Britain in 1922, while his son, Isaac Herzog, is the current Israeli president.
On Sunday, Dublin City Council members said they halted plans to rename the park, which had drawn criticism from the Irish and Israeli governments, as well as its small Jewish community.
Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin had argued in a statement on X that the proposal “should be withdrawn in its entirety.” McGuinness’s embassy shared that statement on social media.
“The proposal is a denial of our history and will without any doubt be seen as antisemitic,” Martin said, calling it “overtly divisive and wrong.”
Ireland’s current Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder said removing the name would “erase a central piece of Irish-Jewish history.”
Maurice Cohen, who leads the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland (JRCI), said the proposal was “already perceived by our community as a gross act of antisemitism.”
The south Dublin park, which houses a tennis club and 10 tennis courts, was named in Herzog’s honor in a 1995 ceremony marking the tri-millennium of Jerusalem, according to the Dublin City Council website. It was previously called Orwell Quarry Park, according to the website.
At least one online petition, created in April 2024 by the Irish Sport for Palestine organization, community soccer team 1915 FC and Irish nationalist group 1916 Societies, called for the park to be renamed after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl who was reportedly killed by Israel in Gaza City in January 2024 along with five of her family members and two medics who had gone to save them. The petition has attracted more than 3,400 signatures.
Agencies and Times of Israel staff contributed to this report.
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