Dan Mulhall is fluent in the language of diplomacy. After all, he has been speaking it for more than 40 years. 

A career diplomat, he was Ireland’s ambassador to Malaysia 20 years ago when the Indian Ocean tsunami devastated the region. He relocated for a month to the Thai city of Phuket to help find and repatriate Irish people caught up in the disaster.

As Irish ambassador to Germany during the financial crisis, he toured the country, explaining that far from being a spendthrift, profligate people, Ireland would repay its debts and restore its international standing. He was in London when our nearest neighbour voted to leave the European Union, a decision that triggered a sad deterioration in relations between the two countries, and, in his final posting, he landed in Washington during Donald Trump’s tumultuous first term in office.

In Mulhall’s language of diplomacy, words carry a great meaning. So, too, do actions. 

The way he sees it, the decision by Israel to shut its embassy in Dublin was a “bad day for diplomacy”. 

It is impossible to disagree. 

Citing Ireland’s decision to support a petition at the International Court of Justice accusing Israel of genocide, Israeli foreign minister, Gideon Sa’ar, said it was prompted by the Irish government’s “extreme anti-Israeli policies”. 

He went further, accusing Taoiseach Simon Harris of anti-Semitism. “There is a difference between criticism and anti-Semitism based on the delegitimisation and dehumanisation of Israel and double standards towards Israel,” the minister said in a statement.

In an interview on Monday with Israeli public broadcaster Kan, the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland Dana Erlich said there had been “a systematic hate campaign specifically against me, as the person who represents the state of Israel in Ireland”.

Erlich, lest we forget, was recalled to Israel in May after Ireland joined Spain and Norway in recognising the Palestinian state. In the interview, she added: “Ultimately, the delegitimisation that Israel has been undergoing, the fact that Zionist has become a dirty word in Ireland – we know that that is the modernisation of anti-Semitism. It is the current incarnation of ancient anti-Semitism. So, to our regret, yes, we see the Irish Government advancing anti-Semitic measures.”

Her view was not shared by the Irish government, with Simon Harris saying Israel had used the decision to close its embassy as “the diplomacy of distraction”.

“You know what I think is reprehensible? Killing children, I think that’s reprehensible. You know what I think is reprehensible? Seeing the scale of civilian deaths that we’ve seen in Gaza. You know what I think is reprehensible? People being left to starve and humanitarian aid not flowing,” he told reporters in Dublin last week.

Tánaiste and Minister for Foreign Affairs Micheál Martin said the Irish position towards Israel has not been motivated by anything other than respect for international humanitarian law and human rights, while President Michael D Higgins said it was a “deep slander” and “a very serious business” to describe the Irish people as anti-Semitic because they disagree with the actions of the Israeli prime minister.

Amid the verbal claims and counter-claims, it is worth reflecting on Ireland’s stated position with regard to Israel and Palestine, which was articulately laid out by Senator Michael McDowell in his column in The Irish Times on Wednesday: 

“Ireland has always insisted on the right of Israel to exist and to defend itself in accordance with the internationally recognised boundaries as provided for in UN Resolution 242. We have never accepted the validity of any formal or informal expansion of Israel into lands in the West Bank or the Gaza Strip. We have been consistently of that position for the last half-century; that is the international consensus accepted by the UN. Likewise, Ireland upholds international law in relation to the duties and rights of the civilian population of occupied territories.”

The view in government circles is that Israel’s move is part of a campaign to undermine the UN court and play down the significance of its July ruling that Israel’s occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, is unlawful.

But the move is a retrograde step, and, as Mulhall, a 40-year veteran of diplomacy, put it when I spoke with him last week, an overreaction.

According to Mulhall, closing an embassy in the capital of another democratic country “with which you’re not involved in a conflict is pretty unusual” and that it was “an overreaction on Israel’s part”. 

“Israel is quite within its rights to be critical of Ireland, to say ‘You got it wrong, you’re not seeing the full picture’. But the way to do that is to have their ambassador talk to people in Dublin, talk to the Irish people through the Irish media, engage with people and try to create more understanding for the Israeli position in Ireland,” Mulhall says.

“Now, admittedly, we are among the European Union countries most sympathetically disposed towards the Palestinians, but we’re also a country that recognises fully Israel’s right to exist. We have had close relations with Israel over a long, long time, and I think it’s unfortunate that it’s reached this point. My advice now to everyone, including to the Irish government, would be to try to de-escalate this situation, to try to calm things.”

He pointed to Russia, highlighting the fact all European Union countries retained embassies in Moscow despite the ideological and political divisions between Moscow and the EU. 

“We are as far removed from Russia diplomatically as we could possibly be, and yet, our embassy in Moscow is still open, and their embassy in Dublin is still open, too. So a decision like this to close an embassy is very unusual,” he says.

Mulhall explained that there “are a number of steps you take when you’re unhappy with another country, diplomatically”. 

You can issue a statement, which both sides have done. You can bring your ambassador home for consultations, which Ireland has occasionally done in different parts of the world, and which which Israel recently did on this occasion. You can go further and bring your ambassador home, something Israel has also done here. 

After closing an embassy, the next step up is expelling the ambassador of the other country and cutting off diplomatic relations. Mulhall does not expect the last two options to happen. 

“I hope and expect that Israel will allow our ambassador in Tel Aviv to continue to operate there,” he said, adding: “So this is not the sort of end of Irish-Israeli diplomatic relations, but it’s a serious situation which I hope we can get beyond and go back to something more like normal diplomatic relations between two democratic countries.”

Elsewhere last week…

Entrepreneurial by nature, corporate law firm Flynn O’Driscoll has forged growth through shoe-leather networking and strategic alliances. Managing partner James Duggan discussed the latest merger with Vincent & Beatty and the future of the practice in an interview with Francesca last week.

The claim that young Irish people are being “forced” to emigrate is a nonsense, according to Dan O’Brien, who mapped the near-miraculous growth in employment in Ireland in his column. “If it were true, there would hardly be large-scale immigration, with foreigners coming in their tens of thousands to fill jobs and, however hard it might be, put roofs over their heads,” he wrote.

Richard Behar interviewed Bernie Madoff three times in prison and exchanged voluminous emails and phone calls with him. Over the course of his research, he uncovered links between the late fraudster and Anglo Irish Bank, via a private bank in Switzerland. Behar spoke with Tom.

Brian Norton founded lending start-ups Future Finance and Supply Finance in Ireland. The latter has now been wound down after being bought up by Swedish fintech group Multitude. Jonathan had the story.

Ryan McCarthy will replace Seamus Hand as managing partner of KPMG next May. He told me why he went for the role, outlined areas of growth for the firm, and talked about the changing accountancy landscape. McCarthy believes there were “significant opportunities across the board” for the firm’s clients and that “almost every sector of the economy was doing well”. “Falling interest rates for example are clearly helpful,” he said, adding that he was, however, mindful of the “potential impact on Irish-based business, for example, of geopolitical issues”.