TAOISEACH SIMON HARRIS has hit out against comments made by the Israeli ambassador to Ireland in which she claimed Ireland’s unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state at this point would be viewed as rewarding terrorism.

On Thursday Erlich wrote in an Irish Times opinion piece that an extreme “anti-Israel” discourse has been allowed to emerge in Ireland, which in her view culminated in her invitation to the Fine Gael Ard Fheis being rescinded. 

She said that the solution to the conflict that Ireland and other countries have proposed – a two-state solution that would see a unilateral recognition of a Palestinian state – would be a “dangerous” signal to Hamas and its supporters, as it would be viewed as “rewarding terrorism”. 

CNN’s Christiane Amanpour put it to Harris this evening that Erlich suggested that Ireland will be on the wrong side of history for moving to recognise the state of Palestine. 

Harris said: 

“Well you’ll excuse me for finding it a little bit hard to hear the representative of the Netanyahu government talking about being on the wrong side.”

He went on to state that the actions of the Netanyahu government right now is allowing a humanitarian catastrophe to unfold in Gaza, which is impacting women and children, in particular.

"Ireland is extraordinarily clear in its condemnation of Hamas…[& for] the right of Israel…to live in safety & security. But we also believe that reason has now been replaced by revenge"

I spoke with @SimonHarrisTD, his first TV interview as Taoiseach. Watch our full interview pic.twitter.com/AohIoIiMT8

— Christiane Amanpour (@amanpour) April 16, 2024

“Ireland has been extraordinarily clear in its condemnation of Hamas, extraordinarily clear on the need for the release without condition immediately of all hostages, we are extraordinarily clear of the right of Israel to be able to live in safety and security.

“But we also believe that reason is to be replaced by revenge. We believe there needs to be an immediate cessation of violence and quite frankly I don’t have any time or truck for any distractions or diversion to be put forward by the Netanyahu government that take away from that.”

His comments come after Tánaiste Micheál Martin also took issue with the comments made by the Israeli ambassador, labelling them “absurd”. 

Harris will travel to Brussels tomorrow for his first EU Council meeting as Taoiseach, where the issue of Palestine, Israel and the escalating situation in the Middle East is high on the agenda. 

The Taoiseach stated in the CNN interview that he could say with “absolute certainty” that the only way you resolve the issues Middle East is to bring about a political process that results in a two-state solution.

“And what  I intend to do as the leader of a small European nation, but a nation that I think has always been seen as an honest voice on the world stage, a member of the EU, Ireland intends to continue to speak out in favour of peace, calling for the immediate cessation of violence, the release of all hostages, and ultimately get to a point where we can have that political process,” he added.