How Éamon de Valera came to be honoured with a forest in Israel — and why it’s now forgotten

A neglected woodland in northern Israel offers a window into Éamon de Valera’s legacy and a lost moment of Irish-Israeli goodwill

Éamon de Valera Grove in Beit Keshet Forest near the Palestinian town of Kafr Kana in northern Israel.

“Although we often spoke about the de Valera Forest, we weren’t actually able to get in here for many years because of overgrowth. Trees had fallen, bushes had taken over, and the entrance had collapsed,” says Malcolm Gafson, the head of the Israel-Ireland Friendship League.

We are standing in a small open area in Beit Keshet Forest accessible via an unmarked dirt track off a highway near the Palestinian town of Kafr Kana in northern Israel.