Ireland is most anti-Israel country in Europe with echoes of 1930s Germany, former justice minister claims

A former Irish justice minister has told the JC he thinks Ireland has seen an explosion in antisemitism after October 7 and is the most anti-Israel country “in Europe”.

In the wide-ranging, exclusive interview, Alan Shatter, who is Jewish and also served as the country’s defence minister, was also scathing about the adoption of “the Hamas narrative” by sections of Irish society – but said that Israel had made a major error in closing its embassy in Dublin.

The 74-year-old was also critical of the Irish media which, he claimed, “failed in its reporting on the Israeli Gaza conflict.

“The mainstream press primarily adopts the Hamas narratives; any explanation of events that come from the Israeli side is treated as dishonest or treated with cynicism.

Alan Shatter (centre) in a 2013 meeting of European defence ministers (Image: Getty).Getty Images

“The main portrayal of the conflict in Ireland is that an ‘event’ occurred on October 7 … and some journalists regard what happened on October 7 as an atrocity, but ‘perhaps understandable’, and then the perception is that since October 7 Israel has simply been exacting revenge by arbitrarily bombing and murdering Palestinians.”

Shatter lamented what he saw as the lack of criticism of “Hamas using Palestinian civilians as human shields.

“There's no reportage or appreciation in Ireland of the reality that Hamas is still intent on destroying Israel, that it wants to resume its total rule of Gaza.”

Shatter said that while he was a regular contributor to various Irish publications prior to October 7, he has since been “cancelled” due to his more nuanced views on the conflict.

The former justice minister was excoriating on Northern Irish group Kneecap, describing them as “attention seeking, looking for notoriety by presenting as rebellious and deliberately engaging in commentary that attracts media attention”. He added: “It’s very name is a cynical use of a name in the context of appalling atrocities perpetrated by the IRA in Northern Ireland.”

Since the interview with Shatter, the band has denied that they supported Hezbollah and Hamas – despite recordings apparently showing them chanting in their support of the groups and standing on stage with the flag of the Lebanese terror army.

Shatter was unconvinced by their apparent apology. He wrote on social media: “Still too stupid to utter a single word of condolences to the loved ones & relatives of those bereaved that day [speaking about the victims of the Nova festival] or of condemnation of that atrocity. Regardless of their ideological brainwashing & lack of sincerity, just as PR at the very least that might have convinced some of their good intentions. Their whining, disingenuous statement of victimhood seeking some sort of martyrdom deserves no credibility & shouldn’t derail any current investigation”.

Shatter is not surprised at their emergence in an Irish nationalist space where, he said, there has been an embrace of far left and Islamist talking points when it comes to the Middle East.

This, he said, has real-world consequences: people “proudly marching in Dublin with Hamas and Hezbollah and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine flags, all chanting ‘from the river to the sea’ and calling for global Intifada”.

The former minister painted a bleak picture of the situation for Jews and supporters of Israel in Ireland.

“We have a real problem in this in this country. I think Ireland is not merely the most anti-Israel country in the European Union, or possibly in Europe. Unfortunately, the hostility to Israel has resulted in narratives being used on a regular basis that replicate the narratives in Nazi Germany in the 1930s,” Shatter said.

“The only difference is the word Israel is substituted for Jew, or the word Zionist, is substituted for Jew.

“A Zionist in Ireland is regarded as a pejorative term, and Kneecap are sailing along on that. And part of the reason why the Irish journals –  most of the Irish media – are uncritical of Kneecap is because Kneecap are simply saying stuff that most of them agree with.

"It never ever occurred to me that Jewish people would be man-handled and thrown out of a Holocaust remembrance, or a memorial event in Dublin City in 2025”, he said in reference to a speech by President Higgins where protesters who turned their back to him were dragged out of a Holocaust memorial event, which Shatter believes he should never have been invited to address.

"I know if I'd been a speaker at that event and watched some of the audience – for simply engaging in a dignified silent protest – being wrestled to the ground and thrown out, I would have stopped my speech and asked people not to so conduct themselves and to respect their protest.”

Shatter added: “He [Higgins] – as someone who was a regular protester during his life, as a member of the Irish parliament on a variety of issues – I cannot personally fathom how he continued to speak and watched Jewish members of that audience thrown out.”

Asked if he thought Ireland was the most antisemitic country in Europe, Shatter said that: “There's been an escalating problem of antisemitism, it already existed pre-October 7, 2023, it has escalated since then, and it is a continuing problem and concern.

“It has been contributed to by the incendiary commentary and speeches of members of all parties in the Irish parliament and by our Taoiseach [prime minister] and our foreign minister, who never miss an opportunity to be critical of Israel, and who use language that's unnecessarily unbalanced.

“On occasion, there's a gesture towards the existence of hostages, but the main narrative, essentially, is that the only reason the conflict continues is it's Israel's fault.”

He was “deeply concerned as to what's happening in this country” both “what's happening currently” and “where this country is heading to”.

However, he thought that fear of being on the wrong side of US president Donald Trump has “to a limited extent” tempered some of the language from the Irish government when it comes to Israel.

Despite being former parliamentarian for Fine Gael, one of the parties that form Ireland’s governing coalition, he left it in 2018 “because I thought it had entirely lost its moral compass, and instead of being a party that on a whole range of different economic and social issues”.

He thought the party “had become a party that responds to the next headline was obsessed with the following days, newspapers had become too dedicated to tweeting on every issue under the sun without working out any coherent approach”.

And although he was “completely disappointed by the conduct of my former party”, he was not surprised, apart from one key issue: seemingly closer ties between Iran and Ireland.

Ireland re-opened its embassy in Iran in October 2024 – having closed it in 2012.

Shatter blasted the tough rhetoric against Israel on the one hand and closer ties with Iran on the other. “At no stage have they ever criticised Iran for its endemic – at government level – antisemitic pronouncements and its commitment to Israel's destruction” as well as funding for terrorist groups Hamas Hezbollah and the Houthis.

Despite this, he staunchly disagreed with Israel’s decision to withdraw their ambassador and lose their embassy last year, which he says was “widely welcomed by Israel’s adversaries in Ireland”.

Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Saar, said at the time that: "The actions and antisemitic rhetoric used by Ireland against Israel are rooted in the de-legitimisation and demonisation of the Jewish state”.

Shatter, however, said: “The decision of the Israeli government to so act was a massive diplomatic own goal of no benefit to Israel, and I suspect secretly welcomed by the Irish government.”

But, according to the former Irish government minister, the scale of the demonisation of Israel in Ireland means it is nearly impossible to have a rational discussion about it.

“I’m frequently, and the past have been and still remain, a critic of some of the conduct of the Israeli government. But in Ireland, there's no differentiation. It's Israel is basically vilified”, he said.

He added that there is an unwillingness amongst Ireland’s media and “body politic” to try and “understand both the impact on Israel of October 7 and the continuing fears and reality of those who live in Israel that if Hamas is allowed to resume its rule of Gaza, there will be repetitions of October”.