Dublin City Councillor Conor Reddy has criticised attempts by Government figures and others to portray the proposed renaming of Herzog Park in Rathgar as an anti-Semitic act, calling the claim “an insult to Jewish people, to Palestinians, and to the basic principles of historical truth.”
Cllr Reddy is part of a group of councillors who have supported renaming the park on the grounds that Chaim Herzog is not an appropriate figure to honour in our city.
“Herzog was not just an Israeli President; he was centrally involved in the original ethnic cleansing of Palestine,” Councillor Reddy said. “He joined the Haganah, a Zionist paramilitary force in the British Mandate period, and was later directly involved in military campaigns that forcibly emptied Palestinian towns and villages, including Latrun, where over 10,000 inhabitants were expelled and its villages razed. This was part of the wider Nakba, the catastrophic expulsions of 1948, when 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their homes. These facts aren’t controversial; they are well-documented history.”
Cllr Reddy added that Israel’s foundation “was built on the displacement of Palestinian people from their land, a process that continues to this day, and which has taken its most horrific modern form in the Gaza Genocide.”
Cllr Reddy warned that attempts to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Jewish hatred “serve nobody except the Israeli state and those who want to shut down discussion of its crimes.”
“There are Jewish anti-Zionists, Jewish socialists, Jewish anti-racists, Jewish peace activists and there always have been. To suggest that opposing the political project of Zionism is somehow an attack on Jewish people is itself a form of anti-Semitism, because it collapses a diverse global Jewish community into a single political ideology.”
He added:
“People are deploying the charge of anti-Semitism in bad faith here. They are doing it to silence solidarity with Palestinians. It’s cynical, and most crucially it undermines efforts to tackle genuine anti-semitism, which has sadly risen along with the rise of the Far Right.”
Herzog Park was only named in 1995, and Reddy argues it should never have carried that name.
“We have an opportunity now to name this park in a way that reflects Dublin’s commitment to human rights, anti-racism and international solidarity. Irish Sport for Palestine have proposed the park be named Hind Rajab Park, Gaza Park or Palestine Park, and while the rules on naming the park after Hind Rajab isn’t possible yet, we are open to other alternatives.”
One suggestion that has emerged from residents and activists lately is Max Levitas Park.
“Max Levitas was a Jewish Dubliner, an anti-fascist who stood at Cable Street in London in 1936, a lifelong anti-racist, a trade unionist and a socialist,” Reddy said. “He symbolises the very best of Jewish radical tradition, standing against fascism, against racism and for human freedom. Max is exactly the kind of person Dublin should honour.”
Reddy concluded:
“Renaming Herzog Park is not about erasing heritage, it is about refusing to honour a key figure in a violent colonial project. Dublin should not be commemorating individuals linked to ethnic cleansing or colonialism”