Meeting with Jewish leaders in US in jeopardy after Taoiseach accused of antisemitism
A meeting between Micheál Martin and Jewish leaders in the US is now in jeopardy after the Taoiseach was accused of antisemitism.The Taoiseach said he hopes the meeting will still go ahead despite the fact that a number of groups have now cancelled.Israel's ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter has supported the move from Jewish representatives stating that “if any Jewish leader cancelled the meeting, they should be commended”. “It would show leadership. The battle for antisemitism starts with shunning antisemites,” Mr Leiter told the Jewish Insider publication.Asked about this, Mr Martin hit out at "any deliberate distortions of Ireland's position", particularly in relation to allegations of antisemitism.He confirmed that some of the organisations have now indicated they will not attend the meeting, but stressed the Jewish groups in the US had initially reached out to arrange the discussion."We're very open to meeting with as broad a range of representative organisations in the Jewish community in America, again, to engage with them in a respectful way, in respect of our perspective on the Middle East and the conflict and so on and the war in Gaza."We've been very, very consistent in terms of condemning the horrific attack by Hamas on October 7. We called for the unconditional release of hostages from the very, very beginning, an end to the war and a surge of humanitarian aid into Gaza. And indeed, after October 7, I visited kibbutz Be'eri in solidarity with what happened there."So again, we're open, and hopefully the meetings will go ahead."He added: "We were approached, and we responded in the right way. I've had good communications with the Jewish community in Ireland, and I've had meetings and engagement with representatives there."I intend to continue that, to make sure that there's not a misrepresentation of Ireland's position on this, or any deliberate distortions of Ireland's position, particularly in relation to allegations of antisemitism and so forth."So we would be very robust in rejecting any false assertions to the contrary," Mr Martin said.
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