Interior minister investigating entry by anti-Israel Irish politician

Despite attempts to ban the entry of Dublin’s mayor due to his virulently anti-Israel activity and BDS involvement, the Irish politician claimed via Twitter to have already entered the Jewish state.

By: Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

After declaring that the mayor of Dublin, Mícheál Éamonn Mac Donncha, was not allowed to enter the country due to his anti-Israel activities, Israeli government ministries involved discovered that Donncha was already in Ramallah, preparing for a Palestinian solidarity conference.

Israel’s Ministry of Strategic Affairs, which is responsible for making recommendations to the ministry in charge of the Immigration Authority, had passed on Donncha’s name as an undesirable person. However, the Immigration Authority claimed that a mistake had been made in the spelling of his name and therefore no red light came on to warn officials to stop his entry. Interior Minister Aryeh Deri has ordered an investigation to get to the bottom of the affair.

Donncha works together with the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), which is one of the most extreme BDS groups working against the Jewish state today. It advocates boycotting almost all Israeli products, from diamonds to agricultural produce, and acts to get stores to remove them from their shelves. It calls for an arms embargo on Israel, and for boycotting Israeli businesses and international companies that operate in the Jewish state. It is, in fact, included on a government list of anti-Israel organizations whose senior members should not be allowed to enter the country.

Just this week, Donncha’s city council passed a harshly-worded resolution against Israel that gave full-throated support to the BDS movement. In declaring that the Irish capital would cut all ties to Hewlett-Packard, the resolution claimed that the multi-national computer giant “provides and operates much of the technology infrastructure that Israel uses to maintain its system of apartheid and settler colonialism over the Palestinian people.”

In a second resolution, proposed by Donncha himself, the council called on the Irish government to expel the Israeli ambassador due to Israel’s recent defense of the Gazan border.

Donncha is a long-time member of the Irish Republican Sinn Fein party, which is also known for its anti-Israel positions. He was elected as Lord Mayor of Dublin last June.

BDSIsrael-Ireland relations