President Michael D. Higgins accuses Israel of leaking his Iran letter

Michael D. Higgins’s letter was first published by London-based publication The Jewish Chronicle and drew criticism from Fine Gael TDs at the time. Asked about the letter, Mr Higgins urged reporters to "ask where it came from".

Asked by the Irish Daily Mail why he didn’t tell reporters present, as he clearly knew who had leaked it, he said: "I do indeed, it was circulated from the Israeli embassy."

However, senior Israeli figures said they were baffled by the accusation, adding: "This has gone beyond absurd. We learned about it from the media and only then did we comment."

Asked how they had obtained it, Mr Higgins said: "I have no idea. It’s very simple, one of your journalists got it from the Israeli embassy and then someone rang me and asked if I was concerned and I wasn’t concerned for a second."

However, Israel has pushed back on claims they leaked Mr Higgins’s letter, calling the claim "baseless".

One Israeli source said: "We thought that all of the correspondence of the President was in the public domain."

Speaking at the UN in New York, Mr Higgins said people should ask how the letter was "circulated" and "by whom and for what purpose".

He came under fire last month for writing a letter to Masoud Pezeshkian following his appointment as President of the Islamic Republic of Iran.

Mr Pezeshkian became the new president of Iran after Ebrahim Raisi died in a helicopter crash in May.

Mr Higgins said: "I wrote to him as the newly-elected head of State, as I’ve often done before with other elected heads of states, my letter has been acknowledged by the president.

"My letter was standard, that I have written to many heads of state, and what I stressed in it was the importance of peace in the region and the importance as well as diplomacy returning in relation to the resolution of disputes and so forth."

The diplomatic spat comes as Mr Higgins also openly criticized the Government over its housing and immigration record.

Mr Higgins also said he was not able to engage with the Israeli ambassador on the letter issue as she is no longer in Ireland.

The Israeli government recalled its ambassador to Ireland in May after Ireland formally recognized the state of Palestine.

Mr Higgins said: "I’m afraid she [ambassador Dana Erlich] is not in residence at the moment."

Late on Sunday night, in response to questions on the leak, a spokesman for Mr Higgins said: "The exchange of letters upon the coming to office of a new head of state is standard diplomatic practice for countries which share diplomatic relations.

"In response to questions, the President indicated his view that this standard diplomatic letter had been circulated over the summer and presented as being something out of the ordinary.

"The President made no accusations of a leak, he solely referred to the letter being circulated."

Mr Higgins has been a strong voice on the plight of the Palestinians since the outbreak of the war in the Gaza Strip last year.

Speaking back in March, he said: "The situation we are now witnessing in Gaza is one from which the global public must not be distracted or avert its gaze.

"It is a matter of life and death. The blockading of food and aid must immediately be stopped."

And in April, he said he was in "no doubt whatsoever" that there are "clear" breaches of international law occurring in Palestine.

In a statement, the embassy said: "Unfortunately in Ireland, since the October 7 invasion by Hamas and massacre in Israel, which triggered this awful war, Israel has been subjected to a high level of malicious statements and accusations that have often manifested as incitement to hatred. This baseless accusation is highly inflammatory and potentially slanderous and the embassy rejects it completely.

"The fact remains that the letter was written and therefore it is the burden of the author to defend its content, which did not mention the threat Iran poses in the region, that it calls for Israel’s destruction, that it arms and funds terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, not to mention the violations of human rights against its own citizens."

Taoiseach (Irish parliamentary leader) Simon Harris distanced himself from the President’s letter at the time, saying it was not the position of the Irish Government.

Taoiseach Simon Harris.

He added that the Government tends not to comment on the views of the President. Mr Higgins wrote that he hoped Iran and Ireland would continue to maintain "ever-deeper dialogue and co-operation", pointing to recent political consultations between the countries’ foreign ministries.

Asked if Mr Higgins was writing in a personal or presidential capacity, the Taoiseach said at the time: ‘He’s speaking as the President of Ireland.

"But suffice to say that Ireland does have diplomatic relations with many countries with which we have fundamental differences. And it’s very, very clear that we have, obviously, fundamental differences with Iran. We continue to call out and I will always call out their human rights abuses."

In the early days of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Mr Higgins published a letter that said that a neutral Ukraine could discuss "what might be agreed in terms of defense rather than aggression" with other neutral EU member states.

Mr Higgins said the debate on providing arms to Ukraine had "excluded some crucial opportunities" for seeking to advance peace. He suggested Ukraine could become a neutral country.

* This article was originally published on Extra.ie.