{"id":68356,"date":"2025-09-16T21:26:08","date_gmt":"2025-09-16T21:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/68356\/"},"modified":"2025-09-16T21:26:08","modified_gmt":"2025-09-16T21:26:08","slug":"president-says-israeli-counterpart-misled-him-on-irish-aid-being-delivered-to-gaza-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/68356\/","title":{"rendered":"President says Israeli counterpart misled him on Irish aid being delivered to Gaza \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

President Michael D Higgins<\/a> has suggested his counterpart in Israel, Yitzhak Herzog<\/a>, misled him in stating that a consignment of Irish food would be delivered to Gaza<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Speaking at the National Ploughing Championships<\/a>, Mr Higgins said he sat beside Mr Herzog at the inauguration of Pope Leo XIV in St Peter\u2019s Square on May 18th. <\/p>\n

\u201cI said to him there were two consignments of Irish food. He told me they would be delivered within the day,\u201d Mr Higgins said.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur embassy was contacted. They [the food shipments] are today in Amman, Jordan, because words mean nothing.\u201d<\/p>\n

President Higgins asked that the Irish aid, which consisted of non-perishable goods and items, be allowed into the Gaza strip. President Herzog allegedly responded by stating that the Irish embassy should contact the Israeli officials to allow the aid shipment in.<\/p>\n

\"IsraeliIsraeli president Yitzhak Herzog in Prague in 2022. Photograph: Milan Kammermaye\/AFP via Getty <\/p>\n

Mr Herzog is the grandson of the former chief rabbi to Ireland, Yitzhak HaLevi Herzog, after whom he is named and the son of Chaim Herzog who was president of Israel between 1983 and 1993.<\/p>\n

Mr Higgins believes Israel and the countries that support it with armaments should be excluded from the United Nations<\/a> (UN).<\/p>\n

\u201cThere should be no hesitation any longer in ending trade with people who are inflicting this on our fellow human beings.\u201d<\/p>\n

He added the European Union cannot call itself a union if it does not take action against Israel, and he accused some of the EU\u2019s larger members of staying silent in the face of a \u201cman-made famine\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Higgins, and his wife Sabina, on Tuesday attended the National Ploughing Championships at Screggan, Co Offaly, for his last time as president. <\/p>\n

A UN commission of inquiry has concluded Israel has committed genocide in Gaza and that top Israeli officials including prime minister Binyamin Netanyahu had incited these acts.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0UN inquiry finds Israel has committed genocide in GazaOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

The commission cited examples of the scale of the killings, aid blockages, forced displacement and the destruction of a fertility clinic to back up its genocide finding, adding its voice to rights groups and others that have reached the same conclusion.<\/p>\n

Mr Higgins repeated comments he made many times before that it was not anti-Semitic to criticise Israel.<\/p>\n

He said there was no moral equivalence between the \u201cextreme right and those who are arguing for equality and ecological responsibility\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cThe idea that the richest people in the world that can tell people who they can elect, it should be taken head on. Ignorance and hate and misinterpretation of language should be called for what it is. <\/p>\n

\u201cIt has done immense damage on the discourse of how we speak to each other. There is a necessary respect and you can\u2019t have that respect unless you regard the people you are dealing with as an equal.\u201d <\/p>\n

The Israeli embassy has been contacted for comment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"President Michael D Higgins has suggested his counterpart in Israel, Yitzhak Herzog, misled him in stating that a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":68357,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[39988,9,10,13,14,3761,6,71,3857,11,12,15,16,1874,5,72,7,8,2863,65,66,67,47651],"class_list":{"0":"post-68356","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-national-ploughing-championships","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-gaza-strip","14":"tag-headlines","15":"tag-israel","16":"tag-israel-hamas-conflict","17":"tag-latest-news","18":"tag-latestnews","19":"tag-main-news","20":"tag-mainnews","21":"tag-michael-d-higgins","22":"tag-news","23":"tag-palestine","24":"tag-top-stories","25":"tag-topstories","26":"tag-united-nations-un","27":"tag-world","28":"tag-world-news","29":"tag-worldnews","30":"tag-yitzhak-herzog"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68356","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=68356"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/68356\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/68357"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=68356"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=68356"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=68356"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}