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Ireland's political and cultural magazine
12 April-May 2025
April-May 2025 PB
The 2024 International Court of Justice
ruling requires States to cease all
financial, trade, investment and economic
relations with Israel’s illegal occupation
including trade in goods and services
NEWS
T
he resumption by Israel of its
genocidal bombing campaign on
civilians in Gaza has ensured that
pressure on the Government to
intensify its eorts on behalf of the
people of Palestine will contiue to mount over
the coming months.
The breach of the January ceasefire by the
Netanyahu administration, facilitated by the
US, is in no small part due to the political
fragility of the Israeli prime minister, but could
now lead to further destruction of the already
devastated region and the deaths of more than
50,000, mainly women and children. It will also
jeopardise eorts to release the remaining
Israeli hostages held in Gaza.
The revelation that Micheál Martin told
members of a Jewish organisation in
Washington that the Occupied Territories Bill
(OTB) was not on the legislative programme for
the current Dáil has raised concerns that it will
be dropped altogether.
Already the Government’s plan to amend the
Bill is likely to result in the dilution of key
elements of the proposed legislation including
its provisions to ban trade with Ireland of both
goods and services produced in illegal
settlements in Palestine.
Following the defeat of a Sinn Féin resolution
in early February which sought to pass the OTB
there are fears that the Government will now
present a watered down and ineective version
of the legislation.
First introduced by Senator Frances Black
and passed in the Oireachtas in 2018 but never
enacted, the OTB would ban trading between
Ireland and companies producing goods and
services in illegal settlements in Palestine and
other occupied territories. Senator Black has
thrown her hat into the ring for the presidential
election later this year which will ensure that
her Bill and Palestine will be a key focus of the
campaign.
The Taoiseach, Micheál Martin said in
January that that “virtually every section” of the
OTB would have to be amended, despite a pre-
election pledge by both Fianna Fáil and Fine
Gael to pass the legislation.
“Virtually every section of that bill will have
to be amended. So the issue is whether we
have a new bill. I think probably we will move
forward to a new bill in respect of imports into
Ireland from the occupied territories, because
I think it needs a full debate on the Dáil second
stage,” Martin said. He claimed that it had been
“acknowledged by all sides” that Ms Black’s
bill was “unconstitutional as drafted” and “in
other areas deficient”.
His comments represented a significant shift
from the commitment in the Programme for
Government which promised to “progress” the
Occupied Territories Bill as an early priority
although it only mentioned trade, and not
services, in the document.
This followed the ruling of the International
Court of Justice (ICJ) in July 2024 that Israel’s
occupation of Palestine is illegal and places an
obligation on all States to “abstain from
entering into economic or trade dealings with
Israel concerning the Occupied Palestinian
Territory or parts thereof which may entrench
its unlawful presence in the territory”.
The ICJ ruling requires States to cease all
financial, trade, investment and economic
relations with Israel’s illegal occupation
including trade in goods and services.
However, in the face of an apparent concerted
campaign by Israel and companies, including
US corporations, with commercial interests in
the occupied territories, the Government may
be preparing to significantly weaken the
provisions in the OTB.
In the Dail debate on 5th February, Sinn Fein
leader, Mary Lou McDonald described the
existing OTB as a legal response to Israel’s
brutal crimes that “chimes directly with the
values of the vast majority of the Irish people.
So the idea that the Government would now
move to replace the Bill with a watered-down
version, a counterfeit Bill that enfeebles
legislation would represent a stunning betrayal
of the Palestinian people.”
She said that the amendment to the Sinn Féin
motion “confirms that this government has
walked away from the Occupied Territories Bill.
It is a blatant U-turn, a monumental act of bad
faith, designed to delay the imposition of
sanctions against Israel’s apartheid regime. It
is cynical and so utterly shameful.”
Campaigners for the rights of Palestinians
are fearful that a new bill will, in particular, fail
to insist that the more than 700,000 illegal
settlers supported by the government of Israel
should desist from the continued theft of
essential natural resources, including water
across the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as
well as prevent the potential exploitation of oil,
gas and fishing resources off the Gaza
coastline.
Israel, through the illegal settlements has
long been in breach of UN resolutions in 2004,
supported by Ireland, which rearm “the
inalienable rights of Palestinian people over
their natural resources including land and
water.”
The expanding illegal settlements across the
occupied territories have resulted in the
expropriation of agricultural lands, the
exploitation of minerals in the Dead Sea as well
as illicit mining, construction, tourism,
telecommunications, cosmetics among other
economic activities.
New amendments planned by the
Government may also result in a Bill which
would not cover other illegally occupied
territories such as the Western Sahara, much
of which has been appropriated by Morocco.
By Frnk Connolly
Government
cving o
Isreli lobby
Occupied Territories Bill promised in Programme for
Government not even on legislative programme for current Dáil
