When Ireland recognised the state of Palestine back in May – along with Spain and Norway – we joined the three-quarters of UN states who had already done so and provoked a predictably angry response from Israel. Ireland’s ambassador to Israel was dragged in to the foreign ministry for what Tel Aviv called “a severe reprimand conversation” and was forced to sit through a film depicting the kidnap of Israelis by Hamas.
No-one expected that flagrant breach of diplomatic protocol to be the end of the matter: Israel has now retaliated by revoking the diplomatic status of eight Norwegian diplomats from its representative office to the Palestinian Authority. Ireland can expect no less in the near future.
“This is an extreme act that primarily affects our ability to help the Palestinian population,” Norway’s foreign minister Espen Barth Eide said. The EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs Josep Borrell said it “contradicted the spirit of Oslo Accords”, the peace agreement in which Norway played a crucial part.
Israel’s hectoring megaphone diplomacy, directed largely at placating extremists within its domestic audience, will do little to endear it to states with which it supposedly endeavours to maintain diplomatic relations. And, like Norway, Ireland’s diplomats in Ramallah, soon to be elevated to embassy status, are predominantly concerned with aid to the beleaguered Palestinian community.
Crude attempts to caricature Ireland or Norway as rewarding Hamas are wrong. Ireland can only echo Eide’s words: “Norway is and will always be a friend of Israel and the Israeli people. At the same time, Norway has been clear in its criticism of the occupation, the way in which the war in Gaza has been conducted and the suffering this has caused the Palestinian civilian population.”
Taoiseach Simon Harris underlined this approach at the weekend, calling in the wake of the latest Israeli attack on Gaza for the EU-Israel trade agreement to be reviewed. President Michael D Higgins was also strongly critical of the Israeli actions. Yet for now at least calls for a ceasefire continue to be ignored.