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| Photo: Trócaire, internet. |
The saga of the Occupied Territories Bill (OTB) has been dragging on for years now. It was first put forward by Senator Frances Black in 2018 and was approved by both houses of the Oireachtas (parliament) but never enacted. The Irish capitalist class that is resolutely on the side of the Israelis, despite the illusions of many and the odd PR stunt, dragged its heels on the issue, even boasting that it had effectively blocked it. Simon Coveney who was the Minister for Foreign Affairs at the time said during a visit to the Zionist state in 2019 that:
We don’t believe that it is legally sound because trade issues are EU competence as opposed to national competence in Ireland. And because we don’t believe it’s legally sound we have effectively blocked the legislation from moving through parliament as it normally would . . .It’s essentially frozen in the process and it isn’t making progress. And I don’t expect that it will make progress, either, unless the government supports it, and the government won’t be supporting it.[1]
This came as no surprise to anyone paying attention. Ireland is not an independent capitalist state; it is what Marxists term a neo-colony with 88% of all corporate tax paid by foreign companies and just three companies accounting for 38% of all corporate tax. Foreign corporate tax in turn represents 29% of the total tax take in the country.[2] It is entirely dependent on the US and also the British state. Many months prior to Coveney’s boast, the then Taoiseach (prime minister), Leo Varadkar had written a grovelling letter to Joe Biden to apologise for the behaviour of Irish politicians who had voted for the bill. In it he stated:
The Government has consistently and strongly opposed the Bill on both political and legal grounds and will continue to do so… Can I take the opportunity to reiterate my deep appreciation for the strong bonds of friendship between Ireland and the US, including our growing and mutually economic ties.[3]
There is no world in which the Irish state will stand up to the US. It won’t stop US planes shipping arms to Israel through Shannon Airport, just like it allowed the US to use the airport during the Iraq war. Putting the OTB to parliament was not a bad idea, believing that is how we would achieve something concrete was.
They are now attempting to water it down further and exclude services from its remit, limiting it to only goods. IBEC (the Irish Business and Economic Confederation) came out with a statement that it would harm the Irish economy to enact the bill, whilst paradoxically accepting that trade in goods with Israeli “settlements” in the West Bank only amounted to €240,000.[4] On the radio the government reminded us that we are a trading nation, as if any of us thought that everything we buy in the country was made here and we exported nothing. The reason they can make these statements of course, is because of the limited scope of the bill itself and the intentions of those pushing for its enactment. The Irish government was at great pains to say that it would only apply to the territories occupied in 1967 and not to Israel itself i.e. not to the territories occupied in 1948 during the Nakba and the foundation of the Zionist state.
If you accept the legitimacy of the state of Israel or if you are one of those liberals still prattling on about a Two State Solution then all of this makes sense. It could have even been argued when it was first proposed that it was a stepping stone to a wider boycott of Israel, not that any of them said that.
Events have overtaken our liberal friends and they shudder at the consequences. There is no longer any case to be made for a bill that limits business dealings with modern Zionist invasions of the West Bank. Francesca Albanese in her recent report made it abundantly clear that many companies doing business with Israel are profiting from or contributing to the genocide.[5] Now is not the time for half measures. Israel, just like the Nazis is carrying out a genocide. Asking for a boycott of goods from the Warsaw Ghetto, rather than Nazi Germany would have seemed stupid at the time and actual calls for a boycott of the Nazis were portrayed as anti-German. Some Jewish organisations opposed the boycott and the US government response to violence against German Jews was that the:
U.S. Secretary of State Cordell Hull issued a mild statement to the American ambassador to Berlin complaining that “unfortunate incidents have indeed occurred and the whole world joins in regretting them.” He expressed his personal belief, however, that the reports of anti-Jewish violence were probably exaggerated.[6]
We know how this ended. The Nazis in the face of the timorous and timid response from the US and other western powers would eventually enclose Jews in ghettos, then camps and then push six million of them through the ovens. Now is not the time to repeat history but to be bold and decisive. Now it is equally ridiculous to meekly petition, those who grovelled to Genocide Joe in 2019, to restrict goods from the West Bank.
In the midst of a genocide there is only one option on the table: a complete and total severance of all trade, military and diplomatic ties with Israel. There are no “settlements” without the Nazis in Tel Aviv, without the Israeli military, without the companies that keep Israel going. Total isolation of the entire regime is needed. Not an orange, not a single electronic component, not a kilobyte of software. Such isolation should continue not just till the acts of genocide have ceased. They will cease when the repugnant reality that Israel has run out of Palestinians to murder comes to pass. Israel should be isolated until all those involved have been tried, had all their assets confiscated, given lengthy prison sentences or hung until dead, depending on the actual degree of participation. This is not an outrageous proposal, it is what was theoretically done at Nuremberg, though many of the businessmen were given back their assets after a number of years and only a handful of Nazis got the actual death penalty and most never saw the inside of a jail. No such leniency should be shown to the Zionists.
Those campaigning on the OTB will never make such a call. They will continue to petition the government. They do have another weapon to hand in fighting the Nazis in Tel Aviv, but they won’t call for that either. The Irish Council of Trade Unions denounced the government’s handling of the OTB and called on the Oireachtas to reject the “business lobby scaremongering” and to pass the OTB.[7] Of course, the unions don’t need to persuade the Zionists who dominate the coalition parties, they could just have told their members in 2018 to refuse to handle all products coming from the Occupied Territories, or indeed the entire Zionist state and that would have settled it. They would have to organise that and back all their members who engaged in such boycotts. But under no circumstances will the fat cat bureaucrats ever confront the government over this issue. If they are not prepared to fight for decent wages, a proper health system, public housing etc. all of which directly affect their members, less still will they fight for Palestinians. They are traitors to their class and also betrayers of the Palestinian people, despite all their lofty statements.
The OTB was a nice propaganda measure whose time has passed. It is, in the midst of a genocide, no longer fit for purpose, neither is a solidarity movement which limits itself to half measures. We need to be bolder.
References
[1] The Times of Israel (03/12/2019) Visiting Israel, Irish FM says he’s open for ‘new thinking’ on peace process. Raphael Ahren.
[1] The Times of Israel (03/12/2019) Visiting Israel, Irish FM says he’s open for ‘new thinking’ on peace process. Raphael Ahren.
[3] The Irish Times (22/03/2019) Economics should not trump ethics when it comes to Occupied Territories Bill. Suzanne Mulligan.
[4] The Irish Times (17/07/2025) ‘No real evidence’ Occupied Territories Bill would cost Ireland dearly, Amnesty Chief says. Colm Keena & Mark Henessy.
[5] UN (2025) From economy of occupation to economy of genocide: Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967. Francesca Albanese.
[6] Feldberg, M. (n/d) U.S. Policy During World War II: The Anti-Nazi Boycott. Jewish Virtual Library.
[7] ICTU (17/07/2025) Oireachtas must reject business lobby scaremongering and pass the Occupied Territories Bill.
⏩ Gearóid Ó Loingsigh is a political and human rights activist with extensive experience in Latin America.
The OT Bill puts the 26 County Government on the horns of a dilemma insofar as it could have grave economic and employment consequences throughout the State. The outworkings of which could impact the political trajectory for many years if not decades.
ReplyDeleteA more nuanced view from someone implacably opposed to Israeli atrocity than we tend to hear from others.
DeleteNevertheless, I read recently that Amnesty International said the costs would be be minimal.
Raymond Deane had a good letter in the Irish Times a few days ago in which he pointed out a serious tension within the Irish government's approach - how is it possible to boycott the West Bank settlers but not the government responsible for the West Bank settlers?
Ireland is a state and society that sees itself as a beneficiary of the Western economic and political system. It is unlikely that it will abandon the goose that lays the golden egg for the sake of non Westerners experiencing genocide. A clash between realpolitik and ethics.
We are all tainted by being citizens of the West. Yet we take a stance distancing ourselves from our governments while welcoming every nudge in the right direction, knowing that progress will be incremental and slow. We should deposit every gain, maximise every small achievement and bear in mind your own often well made point that perfection is the bane of the good. We can only improve, never perfect.