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"Dublin has offered the strongest response to date to Israel’s latest massacre against unarmed Palestinian protesters in the occupied and besieged Gaza Strip. This is the most impressive win yet for the BDS movement in 2018."

82% of students in Dublin City University (DCU) have voted in favour of DCU Students’ Union (DCUSU) affiliating with the Boycott, Divest and Sanction (BDS) movement.

A bill which calls for banning the import of Israeli settlement products passed its first reading in the Irish Senate on Wednesday.

Update : Irish parliament passes bill to ban Israeli settlement goods (24/01/2019).

Ali Abunimah

 Irish senators on Wednesday passed a bill to ban the import of goods from Israeli. 

settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

Frances Black, the singer and independent politician who sponsored the bill, tweeted that the vote was “a first step, but an important one.”

“Today we state strongly: Ireland will always stand for international humanitarian law, justice and human rights,” Black added.

 The Occupied Territories Bill passed by 25-20 votes in the Seanad, the upper house of Oireachtas, Ireland’s parliament.

It will have to pass several more stages in the Seanad and the lower house, the Dáil, before it can take effect as law.

The bill’s passage had been expected after Fianna Fáil, Ireland’s main opposition party, announced earlier this month that it would back the bill.

The Green Party, the Labour Party, Irish nationalist party Sinn Féin, the Social Democrats and independent lawmakers are also supporting the legislation. The bill is opposed by the ruling Fine Gael party.

The Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign praised the work of all the activists, trade union and civil society groups that backed the bill, particularly Sadaka which helped draft it.

Irish people “can be proud”

Israeli foreign ministry spokesperson Emmanuel Nahshon claimed that the Irish senate had “given its support to a populist, dangerous and extremist anti-Israel boycott initiative that hurts the chances of dialogue between Israel and the Palestinians.”

Israel will fear that if Ireland imposes consequences for its unchecked violations of international law, other countries may follow.

 Israel summoned the Irish ambassador in Tel Aviv in protest.

“The Irish people can be proud that the Irish Seanad today took a brave step in leading the way in the fight against apartheid,” Shawan Jabarin, director of the Palestinian human rights group Al Haq stated.

Jabarin expressed confidence that the bill would become law and hope that other European countries would follow. “It is time to end the culture of impunity,” Jabarin added.

“Clear hypocrisy”

The morning of the vote, Black urged support for the bill in an article for The Irish Times.

“There is a clear hypocrisy here – how can we condemn the settlements as ‘unambiguously illegal,’ as theft of land and resources, but happily buy the proceeds of this crime?” the senator stated.

She also recounted how on her recent visit to Palestine she had seen the devastating impact of Israeli colonization on Palestinian freedom of movement, housing and healthcare.

“I witnessed the crushing indignity of a Palestinian community cut off from their water supply so that it could be diverted to an Israeli chicken farm,” Black wrote.

“Is the moral response to condemn the illegality, but then ask how much for the eggs?” Black asked.

Black contested objections that her bill could violate European Union trade laws.

“In many ways this legal back-and-forth reminds me of the brave Dunnes Stores workers in the 1980s, and concerns that banning produce from apartheid South Africa could upset [European] rules.”

Workers at the Dunne’s supermarket chain mounted an epic strike in support of a colleague, Mary Manning, suspended for refusing to handle goods from South Africa.

That battle helped galvanize support for the anti-apartheid movement in Ireland.

“Ultimately, Ireland was willing to show leadership on that issue – to make the case internationally and chart a path for others to follow,” Black wrote. “The same applies today: we have the legal capacity to pursue this, if the political will is there.”

Human Rights Watch has said that settlement businesses “unavoidably contribute to Israeli policies that dispossess and harshly discriminate against Palestinians, while profiting from Israel’s theft of Palestinian land and other resources.”

There is a growing consensus among international jurists that doing business with Israeli settlements is illegal, and Amnesty International has called on governments to impose a ban.

If the Occupied Territories Bill becomes law, Ireland would be the first European country to do so.

The night before Wednesday’s vote, Black welcomed to Ireland two Palestinian farmers, Mona and Fayez al-Taneeb who have been “fighting against the demolition of their farm and the confiscation of their land by a commercial Israeli settlement.”

At Black’s invitation, the couple were invited to the Irish parliament to watch the historic vote.

The Electronic Intifada - 11 July 2018

• Dutch foreign minister says BDS “protected by the freedom of expression”. 
• Irish foreign minister says BDS is a “legitimate political viewpoint” and that his department is monitoring Israel’s repression of BDS movement co-founder Omar Barghouti.
• 352 European bodies call on the EU to support right to boycott.
• 23,000 people appeal to UN on the #RightToBoycott.

The Dutch and Irish governments have publicly stated that calls for a boycott of Israel are legitimate, with the Dutch foreign minister saying that advocating and campaigning for Palestinian rights through the nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel are “protected by the freedom of expression”.

In a letter published today in the Irish Times newspaper, Minister of State Finian McGrath and fifty other Irish TDs and Senators have called for an arms embargo to be placed on Israel, and for “an end to the bi-lateral arms trade between Ireland and the apartheid state”.

Today, Wednesday 4th October 2017, the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign presented the Irish Government with over 23,000  signatures to a petition demanding an end to bilateral arms trade between Israel and Ireland.

Over five thousand Icelanders have in the last 24 horus signed a petition to demand that Iceland boycott the Eurovision Song Contest which will take place in Israel in 2019 by not taking part. 

Students have voted for Trinity College Dublin Students’ Union (TCDSU) to support a boycott, divest and sanction campaign against Israel, with 64.5 per cent of students voting in favour.

Nearly 40 European trade unions, water and human rights networks and environmental groups from a dozen countries have written a letter to the European Commission urging withdrawal of patronage from Watec, the Israeli water conference and exhibition to be held for the first time in Europe, September 21-23 in Venice, Italy. (See letter and signatories)

In a major victory for the Boycott HP campaign, the second largest British and Irish trade union, with 1.2 million members, Unite the Union, joined the campaign.

The Union of Students in Ireland (USI) voted today at its annual congress to support a boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign against Israel.

Student organisations have increasingly moved to support the campaign, even if not every students’ union in Ireland is mandated to support action against Israel.

The Bank of Ireland has intimated in a new letter that its closure of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s accounts was the result of outside pressure.

Sinn Féin politician Enda Fanning, to whom the letter was addressed, told The Electronic Intifada that he was “disgusted.”

Fanning, a Dublin county councillor, added that the response shows that the bank’s action was “a political decision.”