Ireland's 'lack of Jewish influence' helps support for Palestine - former envoy

Ireland’s support for the Palestinian people has been helped by the lack of Jewish populations and influence in Ireland, former representative to the Palestinian Authority Niall Holohan claimed in an interview with the Guardian published earlier this week.

“It has given us a freer hand to take what we consider a more principled position,” Holohan said.

After serving as a representative to the Palestinian Authority from 2002 until 2006, Holohan later became an Ambassador to Saudi Arabia but retired in 2014.

Holohan explained that Ireland has a Jewish population of only 2500, approximately 0.05% of the total population which the Guardian claimed “contrasts with sizeable and influential Jewish communities in Britain and France.”

Despite the Guardian’s claims that Jews have a “sizeable and influential” presence, the European Jewish Congress claimed Britain has a Jewish population of only 300,000, with Britain’s total population totaling over 67 million in 2021, according to the World Bank. 

In the interview, Holohan also claimed that Ireland’s colonial suffering had helped the country foster sympathies with Palestinians. “We feel we have been victimized over the centuries. It’s part of our psyche – underneath it all we side with the underdog,” he said.

Explaining the lack of condemnations of the Hamas movement by the Irish general public, Holohan explained that “They simply don’t know enough about it.”

Holohan’s vocal stances since October 7

In an opinion piece published by the Irish Times on October 25, Holohan condemned the “murderous Hamas incursion” on October 7. However, in spite of his condemnations of Hamas, the former diplomat said that Hamas had achieved its ultimate goal of provoking Israel into “a totally disproportionate reaction.”

In the article, Holohan accused the IDF of disregarding “the rules of war and in particular for international humanitarian law…” which “undermined whatever portion of the moral high ground that had been claimed – if only momentarily – by Israel in the wake of the attack on its own citizens.”

Condemning Israel’s land operation in Gaza, Holohan claimed that the United States should have considered cutting off all financial support to Israel to halt military actions. 

“For more than 30 years now the two-state solution which emerged from the Oslo Accords has been seen as the answer to this long-running conflict; it could well have been successful if it had been implemented fully and honestly. Regrettably, for all intents and purposes, this concept of two states no longer seems to be feasible,” Holohan wrote.

He went on to claim that “ it can be argued that Israel never really wanted to implement the full terms of the Oslo agreement” because of the settlements constructed throughout the West Bank.

He concluded that, in light of a two-state solution no longer being feasible, “Perhaps what both sides may now have to consider is the viability of a single democratic state in all the territory of historic Palestine, with equal rights for all its citizens and cast-iron guarantees for the two dominant communities.”