Disgrace In Dublin: Insulting an Irish Son -- Ireland Debases Itself

Jeff Robbins on Dec 2, 2025

Belfast-born, Dublin-raised Chaim Herzog was a son of Ireland, through and through. Educated at Irish colleges, fluent in Irish and with an Irish brogue he carried with him through life, Herzog was a rugby star and a boxing champion. His father was the Chief Rabbi of Ireland, dubbed the "Sinn Fein Rabbi" for his support of Irish nationalism.

With Ireland unwilling to oppose Hitler, Herzog joined the British Army to fight the Nazis. He was a war hero, landing at Normandy, fighting in Belgium, the Netherlands and in Germany itself and helping to liberate the Nazi death camp at Bergen-Belsen.

After the war, Herzog immigrated to Palestine. In 1948, after the United Nations established a two-state solution, creating a Jewish state and an Arab one, five Arab states invaded Israel to annihilate it. Palestinians call the results of that unsuccessful invasion "the Nakba" -- the catastrophe -- much the same way their advocates call the results of Hamas' invasion of Israel on Oct 7 "the genocide." Herzog fought in the 1948 war as well, the second time in three years he found himself fighting against regimes whose raison d'etre was the killing of Jews.

He went on to become a successful lawyer, an author, Israel's Ambassador to the UN and then, in the ultimate reflection of near-universal admiration for him from Israel's fractious citizenry, he was elected Israel's President. Brogue and all.

In 1995, the City of Dublin named a park after Herzog, a suitable sign of respect for a famous son of Ireland, a man of decency and integrity. This summer, however, in the latest manifestation of the fevered, ugly anti-Semitism that has been on particularly sickening display in Ireland since Hamas sent 5,000 killers into southern Israel on Oct. 7, the Dublin City Council voted almost unanimously to remove the name "Herzog" from Herzog Park.

"Modern Ireland is a beautiful country," observed Senator Lindsey Graham recently, "but unfortunately it has become a cesspool of anti-Semitism." There's plenty to disagree with Senator Graham about, but not about that, with one wrinkle. Ireland has been rife with anti-Semitism forever. In 1904, the religious leadership of Limerick led a two-year economic boycott of the City's Jewish businesses, led by Father John Creagh. Here was Creagh on Jan. 11, 1904: Jews had come "to fasten themselves on us like leeches and to draw our blood." Unless something dramatic was done, Creagh sermonized, "we and our children (will become) the helpless victims of (their) rapacity."

Certain now that the Israel-Palestine conflict is about "refugees" from the war started by the Arab invasion of Israel in 1948, Ireland refused to permit entry to Jewish refugees fleeing Hitler's gas chambers in the 1930s and 1940s. And when Adolf Hitler died, Ireland's president sent a condolence message to Germany's representatives.

Ireland may only have fewer than 3000 Jews, but it more than makes up for it in vicious anti-Semitism: attacks, harassment and online hatred spewed at its Jewish neighbors. The educational watchdog IMPACT-se reports "profound distortions" of Judaism, Jewish history and the Holocaust in Ireland's textbooks. Here was one Dublin City Councilor on the first anniversary of the Oct. 7 slaughter of over 1200 Israelis by genocidal jihadists determined to murder as many Jews as possible: "The entire U.S. economy is ruled by Jews, by Israel."

Small irony: It was Chaim Herzog who, as Israel's Ambassador to the UN in 1975, rose to confront the Israel-haters represented in the General Assembly that had passed a resolution proclaiming "Zionism is racism." It is, of course, just the opposite: it's denying Jews the same right to a national homeland that everyone else has and which the Palestinians rejected, that is racist. Herzog called the resolution "based on hatred, falsehood and arrogance." The U.S. Ambassador, Irish-American statesman Daniel Patrick Moynihan, called it an "obscenity," even worse because "the furtiveness with which this obscenity first appeared has been replaced with shameless openness."

Under pressure, the Dublin City Council's removal of Herzog's name from Herzog Park has been placed on temporary hold, for "administrative" reasons. But Ireland will not be able to remove this obscenity's stain anytime soon.

Jeff Robbins' latest book, "Notes From the Brink: A Collection of Columns about Policy at Home and Abroad," is available now on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Apple Books and Google Play. Robbins, a former assistant United States attorney and United States delegate to the United Nations Human Rights Council in Geneva, was chief counsel for the minority of the United States Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations. An attorney specializing in the First Amendment and a longtime columnist, he writes on politics, national security, human rights and the Middle East.