Diarmuid Breatnach

(Reading time: 5 mins.)

Leaders of two main neo-colonial Irish political parties are reported vehemently opposing a proposal by Dublin City Council to rename one of the city’s parks. That’s almost enough to make most decent people want to support the proposed name change.

The current name is Herzog Park, situated in Rathgar and the controversy is around a proposed removal of ‘Herzog Park’ and change to ‘Hind Rajab Park’.

Of course, the far-Right ‘patriots’ who are so much against the Irish Government won’t be supporting the name-changing or supporting local democracy – not to mention humanitarianism or international solidarity (except in the case of solidarity with US or British-based fascists).

The Herzog in question was Chaim Herzog, 6^th President of the State of ‘Israel’¹, raised in Ireland after his father, Yitzhak Halevi Herzog, moved from his birthplace in the Russian Empire to England and then to Dublin, where he was Chief Rabbi of the Jewish faith in Ireland (1921-1936).

Both Herzogs, father and son, were part of the founding of the Israeli State in 1948 of which Yitzham Halevi’s great-grandson, Isaac Herzog is President currently.²

Chaim Herzog (like his father and son) was a Zionist, which is to say he was part of a European movement that believed those of the Jewish faith should have a state of their own for which they were entitled to occupy a land, despite any indigenous people, upon which to establish that state.³

He was also a member of the Haganah, the Zionist murder gang that carried out the ethnic cleansing of the Nakba before going on to form the IOF; and he was later military Governor of the West Bank.

Hind Rajab was a Palestinian girl of five years who was killed by the armed forces of the Zionist State of Israel while fleeing Gaza on 29 January 2024. She appears to have been the last survivor of a gradual killing of her uncle, aunt and four cousins including 15-year old Layal Hamadeh.

The distress call came first from Hind’s cousin Layal, begging for help and explaining that they had been targeted by the Israeli Occupation Forces and that the adults were dead but the call terminated amid screams. Gazan emergency services phoned them and Hind told them Layal was dead.

The sequence suggests that the IOF were monitoring movement in the car or perhaps even the calls, as after they had shelled the other occupants, they shot Layal and finally Hind. Not content with that, they also killed the heroic Palestinian ambulance crew⁴ who lost their lives in rescue attempt.

The Park got its current baptism in 1995 which is hard to excuse. Of course the Zionazis were not as reviled 30 years ago as they are now but the facts of their general racism, apartheid and repression of Palestinians were clear – we were no long the Israelophiles we had been formerly.⁵

BUT WHO ARE TODAY’S REAL NAZIS?

Foremost unofficial ambassador for Zionism in Ireland Alan Shatter, former Fine Gael’s Minister for Justice & Equality and Minister of Defence from 2011 to 2014, of course entered the fray and, commenting on the proposed name-changing, accused Dublin City Council of nazism.⁶

Shatter’s statement and his sporadic public interventions in support of the genocidal state would provide good ammunition for anyone campaigning against the principle of free speech. How does the Israeli State he defends itself compare to Nazism, his hurled attack on Dublin City Council?

• The Nazis carried out ethnic cleansing and genocide against Jews and Roma and mass murders of Communists, Socialists, Gays and Lesbians, Jehovah’s Witnesses and physically and mentally Disabled people.

The State of ‘Israel’ is carrying out daily ethnic cleansing and genocide against Palestinians.

• The Nazis attacked and invaded other countries, starting with those near their State in Germany.

The State of ‘Israel’ has attacked 12 countries, starting with those near its base in Palestine, including its 1956 bombing of Egypt in the French-British war against the nationalisation of the Suez Canal.

• The Nazis carried out collective punishment against civilians in areas where Nazi forces were attacked.

The IOF for years demolished the family home of anyone who took armed action against them, even after they had killed the alleged individual. Worse, they have collectively punished the whole population of Gaza, allegedly due to the 7^th October Resistance operation.⁷

The State of ‘Israel’ is carrying out collective punishment against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank by bombing and shelling, house and infrastructure demolition, also against Palestinians and other people by similar bombings in Lebanon, Syria, Yemen and Iran.

There are four main differences between the crimes of the Nazis and the State of ‘Israel’:

1. The Nazi extermination campaign was more ordered and faster, included trains to extermination camps with ovens for disposing of the bodies of the victims.
2. The Zionazis, after the mass expulsions of 1948, carried out a more gradual process of appropriation and genocide until the last two years in Gaza and they don’t have ovens to burn the corpses of their victims, leaving most of them to rot under bombed-out rubble.
3. The other huge difference between the two is that eventually the rest of the Western powers united against the Nazis, while today they are all united in actively supporting the Zionist genocide.
4. And of course, although the Nazis kept their actual genocide secret from the vast majority of the German and Austrian populations, for fear they would not support it, the leaders of ‘Israel’ boast of their actions and intentions and opinion polls show the majority of ‘Israelis’ agree with them.

PURPOSE OF PROPOSED CHANGE OF PARK’S NAME

It is hard to imagine decent people being opposed to dropping the Herzog dedication in the park’s name, as that Zionist’s connection with Ireland, though a historical fact, is not one in which we should take pride.

If we wanted to honour a representative of Irish Jewry (rather than of Irish Zionism) there were a number of worthwhile candidates, such as antifascist and anti-Zionist Irish Jews Max⁸ and Maurice Levitas⁹ or Irish Republican Jews Estella Solomon (Cumann na mBan) and her brother Bethel.¹⁰

More than one proposal has been put forward to replace Herzog’s name on the park, the other being Terence Wheelock’s.¹¹

I support the Wheelock family’s campaign for Gardai to be held accountable for the fatal injury to Terence Wheelock in Garda custody in 2005. I have attended protests and covered some of the campaign in articles on the Rebel Breeze blog and I would support a memorial park in his name.

At 24-hours’ notice a rally in support of the Hind Rajab name change was called for Dublin City Hall at 6pm Monday 1 December 2025. Speaking after a number of elected councillors, Abubakker Abed pointed out that whatever about the replacement, a Zionist should not be honoured here.

Abed is a prominent Gaza journalist for the Electronic Intifada media and recent Palestinian refugee studying in Ireland. A number of Jewish people spoke also, David Landy pointing out that the Jewish community in Ireland is split between supporters of Israel and anti-Zionists.

A speaker from the Bronx, New York, also a Jew, recalled how Chaim Herzog had bragged about the demolition of a row of Palestinian houses in the West Bank, calling them ‘toilets’ and remarked how likening people to dirt or animals reminded him of the Nazis’ portrayal of the Jews.

However, in the Hind Rajab naming proposal there is not only the removal of a dedication to a Zionist but also in a sense its replacement by its opposite, the remembrance of a murdered child, with her family victims of Zionism and, in a sense of all Palestinian victims of ongoing genocide.

If you support the proposal for both those purposes, as I do, you may want to sign the petition: https://c.org/kBvN64BhWv.

End.

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FOOTNOTES:

1See SOURCES for biography

2Much in the news at the moment because of the controversial application by Benjamin Netanyahu, for a pardon – without admitting guilt – to charges of corruption and bribery.

3Nor was Palestine the only land being considered by the Zionists for colonisation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proposals_for_a_Jewish_state

4Yusuf al-Zeino and Ahmed al-Madhoun

5https://villagemagazine.ie/opinion-ireland-and-palestine-a-late-love-affair/

6See SOURCES

7I use the word ‘allegedly’ since many Zionists appear to welcome the apparent excuse to have the IOF do what they always wanted.

8https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Max_Levitas

9https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maurice_Levitas

10I learned of the Solomon siblings only yesterday, through a post by Dave Gibney on Facebook. https://www.facebook.com/dgibney100 A number of others were listed by David Landy, speaking outside City Hall during the rally on Monday night.

11https://www.thejournal.ie/proposal-to-name-park-after-terence-wheelock-also-withdrawn-6890258-Dec2025/

SOURCES:

Mícheál Martin opposed: https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/micheal-martin-says-divisive-proposal-to-rename-herzog-park-must-be-withdrawn-1836333.html

Simon Harris opposed: https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/harris-completely-opposed-to-plan-to-rename-herzog-park-1836275.html

Allan Shatter comment: https://www.breakingnews.ie/ireland/alan-shatter-accuses-dublin-city-council-of-going-full-on-nazi-over-proposal-to-change-name-of-herzog-park-1836249.html

DCC backtracking? https://www.rte.ie/news/politics/2025/1130/1546574-herzog-park/

Chaim Herzog 6^th President of Israel: https://www.britannica.com/biography/Chaim-Herzog

The murders of Hind Rajah, family and rescue service crew: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Killing_of_Hind_Rajab

Forensic Architecture analaysis report (353 gunfire holes at short range): https://forensic-architecture.org/investigation/the-killing-of-hind-rajab