‘Zionists not welcome in Ireland’ – Israeli man spat on in Dublin

Pro-Palestinian activists in a restaurant told Tal Ohayon, “Zionists are not welcome in Ireland.”

By Batya Jerenberg, World Israel News

An Israeli man who was harassed and spat upon during a visit to Dublin recently, in an incident that he says is being ignored by local police.

Israeli businessman Tal Ohayon took to social media Friday to share video footage from a confrontation with local anti-Israel activists in a restaurant who spat on him, made obscene gestures towards him, and said “Zionists” were unwelcome in Ireland.

Dublin police largely ignored the incident, Ohayon lamented, despite the fact that the activists had apparently gathered information on him, including determining where he was staying in Dublin.

Ohayon posted his story to Instagram with a video he filmed of two women saying that “Zionists are not welcome in Ireland,” showing him the middle finger, and one of them spitting on him after he says, “I love you too.”

He wrote that prior to the confrontation, “One of the girls approached me with camera to my face saying my name and basically all the intel she had about my stay in Dublin (the hotels I moved, the reason I came).”

The clip showed that no one in the eatery paid any attention to the confrontation, and the staff ignoring his request to call the police.

The authorities only came to his hotel room “two hours after the incident and didn’t seem to care at all about the matter,” he wrote, even though he had the evidence on his phone of the assault.

He added that after the altercation, which he called “an act of pure terrorism” in the face of which “everyone was silent,” he “couldn’t sleep the whole night and locked myself in my hotel room until I moved to another hotel the following day.”

Ohayon vowed to “never step foot in Ireland again,” and ended with “Am Israel Chai,” The People of Israel Lives.

A local paper identified the pair as pro-Palestinian activists Zeina Ismail and Lena Seale.

Seale told The Journal that “No IOF [Israeli Occupying Forces – a term used by many Palestinian supporters for the IDF] soldier or agent of Zionism is welcome in Ireland and actionists have a duty to expose and confront them if an opportunity arises.”

Ohayon later posted that a picture of him in his IDF uniform had been spread on Instagram with the caption, “A Zionist and scumbag IDF soldier is currently in Dublin and can be seen in ‘Pantiber’. He has the audacity to come to Ireland.”

Comments on his social media ranged from sympathy for his ordeal to threatening messaging with statements such as, “You are in danger.”

The Dublin police have confirmed that they are investigating the incident.

Ireland is one of the most anti-Israel countries in Europe, with the government regularly bashing Israel, joining South Africa’s genocide case in the International Criminal Court against the Jewish state’s actions during the war against Hamas, and recognizing the “State of Palestine.”

Its citizens have held hundreds of pro-Hamas street demonstrations since the terror group’s  invasion of Israel and slaughter of 1,200 people on October 7, 2023.