A recent visit to the college by Israeli Ambassador Zion Evrony was kept secret from students at the request of the Israeli embassy, it emerged last week.
A recent visit to the college by Israeli Ambassador Zion Evrony was kept secret from students at the request of the Israeli embassy, it emerged last week.
The visit took place at 3pm on Thursday the 29th of January, in the form of an address given to a Junior Freshman class in the Department of Political Science. The visit had been organised by staff in the department, according to the college communications office. “It was agreed by Prof Kenneth Benoit, Head of the Department of Political Science and arranged by the lecturer responsible for the ‘Introduction to Politics’ course, Dr. Jacqueline Hayden,” a spokesperson said.
Professor Benoit confirmed that the visit had not been announced at the insistence of the Israeli embassy. “We were asked by the ambassador, indeed this was a condition of his visit, not to announce it beforehand. If we had announced it beforehand, the embassy would have wanted security checks in place at the entrance to the Burke and we did not feel this was either desirable or even feasible.”
During the course of his address, Mr Evrony asked students to “forget about what you have read and listen to another point of view,” citing “a lot of misinformation in the Irish media and biased coverage”. He further reiterated his previously expressed opinions that Israel’s recent operation in the Gaza strip was a “war of self defence” and that “Hamas has cynically used the civilian population as human shields”.
Andrew Booth, SS Philosophy and Political Science, was one of the attendees. He had learned of the visit at Dr Hayden’s SS lecture minutes beforehand, and described the content of the Ambassador’s address as “a one-sided account of the Arab-Israeli conflict, from the foundation of the Israeli state to the modern flare-ups in Gaza”.
Booth estimated that there were more than two hundred students in attendance. He also provided details of the security at the event, reporting there there to be approximately eleven members of the Israeli embassy security staff present, in addition to at least one member of the Garda Síochana and members of college security.
Booth also claimed the Israeli security staff had used a device to scan the lecture theatre for security risks. Chief Steward Pat Morey declined to comment on the visit, though the communications office confirmed the presence of Israeli security staff. Mr Evrony made his entrance and departed through the access door at the rear of the Arts Building lower concourse.
The Israeli embassy was unreachable for comment at the time of writing.
