Dublin City Council members accused Israel of wielding its lobbying power to interfere in Irish politics during a heated debate over postponing a vote to strip an Irish-born Israeli president’s name from a city park.

The Monday night meeting concluded with a 35-to-25 vote to send the renaming proposal back to a planning committee after the council’s chief executive noted a procedural error in the renaming process. Footage from the preceding hour-long discussion, however, is sparking outrage among Ireland’s Jewish community.

“Deranged conspiracy theories were rife at the Dublin City Council meeting last night,” a native Dubliner and doctoral student at Trinity College Dublin, Rachel Moiselle, remarked on X. Ms. Moiselle, an Irish writer of Jewish heritage who has been outspoken in defending Ireland’s Jewish population, has helped lead the effort against renaming Herzog Park. 

“The hatred is visceral and frightening,” she continued in a separate post. “There is a real evil here and the people who embody it have positions of political power. We will need international support to fight it.”

Clips from the live-streamed session show council members suggesting that pushback against the proposal reflected a coordinated campaign by “Zionist” or “Israeli” influences.

“This was a full-court press by the Zionist lobby and they think they will win it,” stated councillor Ciarán Ó Meachair. “They will not win this.” Earlier in the session Mr. Meachair accused Herzog of having “raped, murdered and pillaged innocent civilians.” He vowed to continue to push for a renaming, offering instead a British Jewish communist politician, Max Levitas. 

Another council member, Pat Dunne, of the United Left party, went even further, claiming that the Israel Defense Forces were somehow involved in the effort. “I’m further convinced that whatever phone calls were made to our CEO and to other officials probably emanated from Israeli intelligence attached to the Israeli Defence Forces because they’re active in every issue in relation to Palestine,” Mr. Dunne said. “Trace it all the way back, Richard, and you’ll find that’s the source.”

The vote was delayed on the recommendation of the council’s chief executive, Richard Shakespeare, who stated that questions about the proposal’s legality had arisen. He said administrative oversights had caused the council to effectively walk “ourselves into a legal problem.” The renaming is set to be discussed at the next meeting of the Commemorating and Naming Committee on December 15.

The park was named in 1955 after Chaim Herzog, the son of Ireland’s first chief rabbi, who later immigrated to Israel and was elected president in 1983. His son, Isaac Herzog, currently serves as Israel’s 11th president. The park’s name was thrown into the balance last July when the council’s Commemorations and Naming Committee recommended its removal.

Members of Dublin’s City Council have pushed to rename the park amid Israel’s war in Gaza, citing Herzog’s Zionist ideology and support for Israel as justification.

Jewish and pro-Israel Dubliners, however, fought against the effort. Ireland’s Chief Rabbi Yoni Wieder said that removing Herzog’s name would be “a shameful erasure of a central part of Irish Jewish history.” Ms. Moiselle helped raise awareness of the issue by creating and popularizing the hashtag #HandsOffHerzogPark.

As the conflict attracted global attention, Jewish leaders from around the world voiced their concern, including Israel’s current president, Chaim Herzog’s son, who said the proposal would be “shameful and disgraceful” if carried out. Israel’s foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, referenced the proposal as evidence that “Dublin has become the capital of antisemitism in the world,” he said on Saturday. “The Irish antisemitic and anti-Israeli obsession is sickening,” he added. 

Ireland was one of the last Western countries to formally recognize Israel as a state, though it was among the first European countries to accept Palestine as a sovereign nation. Ireland has historically been one of the European Union’s sharpest critics of Israel, and relations between the two countries have strained over the years. Last year, Israel announced it would close its Dublin embassy over Ireland’s “extreme anti-Israel policies.”

Ireland’s government, however, opposed the measure. Ireland’s deputy prime minister, Simon Harris, expressed his opposition to the renaming, stating that “we are an inclusive republic” and “this proposal is offensive to that principle.”