November 2023
In light of the barbarity and bloodshed perpetrated by Hamas against Israel on October 7th, the Ireland Israel Alliance (IIA) calls on President Michael D Higgins to reckon with his own past history of defending Hamas and maligning the only democracy in the Middle East.
Founder and Executive Director of the IIA, Jackie Goodall, stated: “In 2007, then TD, Michael D Higgins sharply criticised the EU for proscribing Hamas-ISIS as a terrorist group and said that such a recognition of terrorism served to damage the ‘credibility of the European Union’. Going further, he further disgraced himself and the Dáil by defending the election of Hamas in Gaza as ‘free and fair.’ Repeatedly, he has called for the boycotting of Israel and in one petition went so far as to call for the removal of all Jews from Judea & Samaria. Upon the death of Yasser Arafat, Higgins absolved him of his terrorist past and sought to perversely lionise Arafat as some sort of representative of peace! His shameful record speaks for itself.”
“IIA immediately calls on the President to clarify (1) does he believe now that Hamas are a terrorist organisation; and (2) does he regret opposing their prescription as a terrorist group by the EU in 2007? The lives of 1,500+ butchered Israelis, the fate of the 240 hostages, and the horror of burnt and beheaded Jewish children, are a result of the evil of Hamas – does the President continue to defend and excuse Hamas, or has he seen sense?”
“President Higgins has repeatedly breached his presidential remit, be it with ill-informed, partisan attacks on the President of the European Commission or to push shameful moral equivalency between Israel and Hamas–ISIS terrorists. The President is already known as being anti-Israel by the people of Israel and Ireland, but he seems to find it very difficult to be anti-Hamas.”
By Editorial
