David Cronin
The Electronic Intifada / September 3, 2026
Not long ago, Israel was incensed with Ireland.
The fury peaked in December 2024. That was the month when Israel announced the closure of its Dublin embassy.
Despite that closure, the Irish government seems to have maintained an open door policy towards Israel’s lobbying network.
An internal paper which I obtained via a freedom of information request betrays a willingness to press the right buttons as far as that network is concerned.
It consists of briefing notes which Irish officials prepared for Thomas Byrne, the country’s Europe minister, when he met lobbyists representing the World Jewish Congress (WJC) in April.
Advice contained in the document – see below – busts the myth that Ireland is hostile to Israel and its advocates.
The officials who compiled the document suggested that Byrne may “wish to note Ireland’s support for the work of the World Jewish Congress.”
Let us consider the significance of that advice.
The World Jewish Congress is a markedly pro-Israel organization.
On key matters, its positions are the extreme opposite of those taken by the Irish government.
Ireland has explicitly acknowledged that Israel is perpetrating a genocide in Gaza.
The WJC, on the other hand, has sought to dismiss the mountains of evidence that Israel deliberately kills children. Drawing attention to such evidence is a “blood libel” against Jews, in the WJC’s
view.
At times, the WJC has been highly critical of Ireland.
In 2012, Eamon Gilmore, then Ireland’s foreign minister, signalled that he would back an EU-wide ban on imports from Israel’s settlements in the occupied West Bank.
Voicing “dismay” at Gilmore’s stance, the WJC’s Ron Lauder contended that “West Bank territories are legally disputed and not illegally occupied.”
On paper – rather than through effective action – Ireland’s stance has strengthened since Lauder made that absurd claim.
Five years ago, Ireland formally acknowledged that Israel’s colonization activities in the West Bank involved de facto annexation. As the Dublin government subsequently observed, that view was echoed by the International Court of Justice in July 2024, when it ruled that Israel is illegally occupying the West Bank and Gaza.
Given that Ireland’s stated policies on Palestine are markedly different to the WJC’s, why are Irish officials noting “support” for that organization’s work?
‘Hit back twice as hard’
Byrne’s discussion with the WJC took place while Ireland was preparing to assume the EU’s rotating presidency.
About six weeks after the discussion took place, Ron Lauder – still the WJC’s boss – recommended that Israel should use Mossad, the spying and assassination agency, and other “excellent intelligence services” to “hit back twice as hard” whenever the state was confronted with “lies.”
Lauder cited an example of such “lies” – photographs showing children starving in Gaza. The photographs, appearing in mainstream newspapers last year, were very real and left no doubt that Israel had inflicted a famine on Palestinians.
The “hit back twice as hard” recommendation was not an anomaly by the standards of Lauder’s work. He and the WJC have consistently defended Israel’s acts of aggression.
If the Irish officials who drafted the briefing document for Thomas Byrne had been paying attention to WJC’s work, they would not have been surprised by Lauder’s recommendation. That raises further questions about why they highlighted – in an internal paper – Ireland’s support for the WJC’s work a mere six weeks earlier.
Ireland’s foreign ministry has both redacted parts of the briefing paper prepared for Thomas Byrne and refused to release other internal documents concerning his discussion with the WJC.
When replying to my freedom of information request, the ministry stated that the documents contained details about Ireland’s EU presidency and ongoing negotiations with other EU governments and institutions.
This indicates that Ireland is prepared to give the pro-Israel lobby information which the public cannot access.
From the limited details I have managed to obtain, it appears that the topics Byrne discussed with the WJC included its calls for greater censorship of commentary that Israel does not like.
The briefing document for Byrne says that his discussion with the WJC provided an opportunity for affirming Ireland’s “commitment to combating anti-Semitism, particularly amid rising anti-Semitic sentiment and events across Europe as a result of the conflict in the Middle East.”
Ireland addresses the fight against anti-Semitism under a national plan against racism. It is “accepted” nonetheless that anti-Semitism has “particular nuances and complexities,” the document adds.
The document refers to an EU strategy against racism published earlier this year.
According to that strategy, the EU is committed to “tackling all forms of anti-Semitism and denounces each form equally.”
The WJC and other lobby groups maintain that there is a “form” known as “Israel anti-Semitism.” That “form” has clearly been invented to blur the fundamental distinction between criticisms of Israel as a state and bigotry against Jews based on their religion or ethnicity.
The briefing document for Thomas Byrne mentions, too, his “engagement” with the Jewish Representative Council of Ireland (JRCI) and “the broader Jewish community.”
The JRCI is undoubtedly pro-Israel. In June, it signed a formal partnership deal with the American Jewish Committee, a key player in the pro-Israel network.
A report published this week by The Ditch – a Dublin-based news website – examines an application which the JRCI had made to become a “trusted flagger” for identifying online content that it regards as anti-Semitic.
The JRCI’s application – submitted to Ireland’s media regulator – proved successful. Under EU law, big technology companies are required to prioritize the removal of material which offends the JRCI and other “trusted flaggers.”
According to The Ditch, “examples” of “anti-Semitism” cited by the JRCI in its application include comparisons between Israel and the Nazis.
Articles and social media posts which contend that Israel is committing a holocaust in Gaza would more than likely be censored under the approach favored by groups such as the JRCI.
The claim that Byrne has been engaging with the “broader Jewish community” should be viewed sceptically.
A considerable proportion of Ireland’s Jews has spoken out against Israel’s crimes and Zionism, the ideology underpinning those crimes.
The group Jews for Palestine-Ireland regularly protests against the Gaza genocide. David Landy from Jews for Palestine-Ireland confirmed to me that the organization has not been contacted by Byrne or officials working for him.
The briefing document prepared for Byrne – or at least the redacted version of it – says nothing about Irish Jews who criticize Israel. Instead, it gives the false impression that Ireland’s Jews are homogenous.
Despite referring to “nuances and complexities,” the approach of the Irish government is not really nuanced. Ireland is prepared to assure the pro-Israel lobby of its support even as that lobby denies a genocide.
David Cronin is an associate editor of The Electronic Intifada; his books include Balfour’s Shadow: A Century of British Support for Zionism and Israel and Europe’s Alliance with Israel: Aiding the Occupation
