Ireland’s Dublin City Council is preparing to vote on the proposed renaming of Herzog Park, as the city’s Lord Mayor has reportedly sought legal advice amid growing criticism of the park’s links to Israel and wider calls to boycott the country over its actions in Gaza.
The park, named after Belfast-born Chaim Herzog, who served as Israel’s sixth president from 1983 to 1993, has prompted Lord Mayor Ray McAdam to consult the council’s law agent and the Chief Executive regarding the renaming proposal, according to a report by RTE on Sunday.
Dublin City Council is also scheduled to debate on Monday whether to remove the park’s current name and launch a public consultation to decide on a replacement.
A motion was introduced in June 2024 by Sinn Fein councillor Kourtney Kenny to rename Herzog Park after Hind Rajab, a six-year-old Palestinian girl killed in Gaza when Israeli forces attacked the car she was travelling in with five family members.
According to the Irish Independent, the South East Area Committee approved the motion last December, with only one objection.
The proposal has since sparked both support and backlash, with Israeli and US officials sharply criticising the move.
The office of Israeli President Isaac Herzog - Chaim Herzog’s son - said on Sunday that dropping the name would be a "shameful and disgraceful move", while Michael Herzog, also a former Israeli ambassador to the US, accused Ireland of "blurring the line" between criticising Israeli policy and antisemitism by turning Jewish historical figures "from being a source of pride to Dublin to being a source of denial".
US senator and staunch pro-Israel advocate Lindsey Graham also condemned the proposal, claiming that "modern Ireland is a beautiful country with great scenery, but unfortunately it has become a cesspool of anti-Semitism".
In Ireland, Taoiseach Micheal Martin urged that the proposal be “withdrawn in its entirety and not proceeded with”.
He argued that the move "would erase the distinctive and rich contribution to Irish life of the Jewish communities over many decades, including actual participation in the Irish War of Independence and the emerging State".
However, other Irish politicians have defended the initiative, arguing that naming the park after Herzog politicised the space in the first place.
Local Green Party councillor Carolyn Moore described the proposal as "generally sensible", stating that public parks should be "politically neutral spaces", while stressing that any renaming process must involve consultation and include the Jewish community.
In addition, independent councillor Cieran Perry told RTE he strongly supported the proposal, calling it "an opportunity for a small action on behalf of the councillors and those we represent to highlight the ongoing genocide in Gaza."
Perry said the renaming was appropriate given Herzog’s reported involvement in the Haganah, the pre-state Jewish paramilitary organisation, as well as his later military career.
UK researcher and campaigner Gary Spedding, another vocal supporter, said the proposal had "absolutely nothing to do with ‘erasing Irish Jewish history’".
In a post on X, he wrote that although "figures such as Chaim Herzog hold an important place in the history of Ireland’s Jewish community", there were "legitimate concerns surrounding the appropriateness of naming a park after him."
He added that the original decision to name the park after Herzog in the mid-1990s was connected to celebrations of the "tri-millennium of Jerusalem", an initiative declared by the Israeli government in 1996 to reinforce its claim over the city.
Spedding further argued: "There is no reason that Dublin City Council should continue to ‘honour’ a man who actively participated in the destruction & ethnic cleansing of Palestine in the 1947–48 Nakba, oversaw the occupation of the West Bank & East Jerusalem in 1967 and worked for [Israeli military] intelligence."