The Taoiseach has rejected criticism of the Occupied Territories Bill from the chairman of the United States Senate foreign relations committee, describing the accusation of anti-Semitism as appalling. Idaho Republican Jim Risch said Ireland was on “a hateful, anti-Semitic path” and that the US would have to reconsider the bilateral relationship if the legislation proceeded.
“I would reject any assertion that this is anti-Semitic. I’m appalled of that assertion and that’s something we’re going to correct,” Micheál Martin told The Irish Times.
Speaking in Osaka during a four-day visit to Japan, Mr Martin said the war in Gaza was causing pressure on politics throughout Europe. But he insisted the Government did not have to choose between defending Ireland’s economic interests and taking a tough position against Israel’s actions.
“We’ve been very responsible in terms of looking at everything through the prism of humanitarian rights. I don’t know how anyone can justify the blockade in Gaza. The reports we’re repeatedly getting from UN agencies in respect of starving children and the slaughter of children, that is absolutely unacceptable,” he said.
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“It’s not one or the other. We will work on our economic interests. We’ll work to explain our position to interlocutors in the US and to the US administration.”
The Taoiseach said he was encouraged by Donald Trump’s “absolute opposition to war” to hope that the US president could succeed in bringing an end to the killing in Gaza. Martin said that during his visit to Washington in March, it was clear Israel was galvanising opinion in the US against Ireland.
“We were getting feedback that there was a certain undermining of Ireland unjustifiably and endeavouring to position Ireland’s opposition into the conduct of the war and the breaching of international humanitarian law by Israel, and labelling that as anti-Semitic,” he said.
“Ireland is not anti-Semitic. We’ve been very strongly supportive of international and global efforts to oppose anti-Semitism. We’ve signed significant declarations in that respect, but also in terms of our own education system, we’ve been very strong in terms of teachings on the Holocaust and the horrors of all of that. We would reject that very strongly, and that’s a bit of a smear on Ireland.”
Much of the focus of the Taoiseach’s visit to Japan is on the bilateral economic relationship and Japanese investment in Ireland. Japan’s population is declining by more than 800,000 every year and Martin said that contrary to anti-immigration rhetoric, Ireland’s growing population is one of its attractions for foreign investors.
“I said it this week to a couple of Japanese companies, there is no issue with human capital in Ireland because we have access to the European labour market. It’s been a powerful incentive, whereas tax would have been an earlier incentive. In the modern world, it’s human capital,” he said.
“I acknowledge that our population has gone up by one-third in two decades. That’s what’s creating the pressure on services, creating huge demand on housing, but also on health services, education services. But there’s something to reflect on that we’re now, for the first time since the famine, over seven million people. To me, that’s an extraordinary achievement by modern Ireland. It should be seen as an achievement.”
