Football event promoting Herzog Park renaming disrupted by pro-Israel campaigners
Pro-Palestine and pro-Israel campaigners met on a sports pitch in Dublin on Sunday, not in friendly competition but amid disagreement over a proposal to rename Herzog Park in Rathgar.Irish Sport for Palestine (ISP), which had organised its sixth “community football match” at the public park’s all-weather pitch, criticised pro-Israel campaigners for staging a demonstration against the event as it was about to kick off.Former minister for justice Alan Shatter led dozens of protesters, including other members of Dublin’s Jewish community, in a walk around the pitch delaying the start of matches. Some carried Israeli flags, and others carried placards, accusing political opponents of anti-Semitism.In a statement, Shatter claimed the ISP was promoting “their occupation of the park as a roll on, roll off community football match ... It’s not about community, nor of any relevance to Palestine.”READ MOREA family’s Roaccutane story: ‘I never thought something like this could happen’Meet the Dublin couple who left their law and engineering careers for a camper van lifeMeet Trump’s Maga disciples tearing up the diplomatic rule book across Europe ‘Your husband is having an affair with my wife’: how the perfect life of an heiress explodedShatter said there were about 500 parks of varied sizes across Dublin city and county, 300 within the city boundaries, at which “any community football event” could be held.Alan Shatter leads protesters against an Irish Sport for Palestine event in Herzog Park, Rathgar, Dublin, on Sunday. Photograph: Patrick Humphreys He claimed the ISP “is intent on targeting and intimidating our small Jewish community in one of Dublin’s smallest parks at the heart of the community adjacent to the State’s only Jewish school”.Criticising what she called “false accusations”, ISP spokeswoman Rebecca O’Keeffe said the event was a community family day to create awareness for Palestine and part of “our campaign to rename the park which we have been working on for the past two years through Dublin City Council (DCC) through motions and proposals”.The pro-Israel protesters were “causing a bit of an obstruction to the matches and they are accusing us of anti-Semitism and that is absolutely not the case”, she said.“This is a public park and we have held this so many times ... We have so much public support for this. We feel that the naming of the park is not representative of a history we should be commemorating because of the history of the name.”Herzog Park was named in 1995 after Chaim Herzog, the sixth president of Israel between 1983 and 1993, who was born in Belfast and raised in Dublin.Controversy erupted last year when a proposal to rename the park was published on Dublin City Council’s monthly meeting agenda after an agreement by members of the council’s commemorations and naming committee in July. The proposal was later withdrawn due to what the council described as procedural errors.O’Keeffe said: “In December last year, there was a lot of political interference based on a technicality with the council. As it stands now, the council is addressing that technicality but we have resubmitted a proposal based on compliance with the DCC guidelines. We said we have to rename it but it’s open to public consultation. Public debate will rename it and that’s perfectly fine by us.” Gardaí were present on Sunday and remained at the scene until the pro-Israel protesters left the sports field as their demonstration ended.
