Ireland will regret its planned Israeli settlements trade ban

Spectator

11 hours ago

If Ireland's foreign affairs minister expected plaudits from EU leaders for the republic's looming ban on Israeli settlement goods, he was sorely disappointed. Ireland, Simon Harris pontificated in Brussels, 'is the only country in the entire European Union that has published any legislation ever in relation to banning trade with the occupied Palestinian territories, but it's pretty lonely out there.' Frankly, this is hardly surprising when you take your country on a solo run into perilous economic and diplomatic territory.
The Israeli Settlements (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2025 (PIGS) will ban goods produced, or partly produced, in Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. It applies to every type of goods, from dates and avocados, manufactured goods, raw materials to natural resources. It is purely symbolic, representing €1.5 million (£1.29 billion) of the €4.36 billion (£3.88 billion) trade between Ireland and Israel. But the penalties are draconian, the likely diplomatic and economic fallout ignored, and no thought was given to the many Palestinians employed by Israeli settlement companies whose livelihoods may be jeopardised by this ban. Well, it is the symbolism that counts.
When enacted, Irish, UK and other citizens ordinarily resident in Ireland could face a five-year jail term, a €125,000 (£107,000) fine or both should they buy a string of beads or a bottle of holy water in the old city of East Jerusalem and turn up at Dublin airport with the offending items in their backpacks. Incredibly, the Bill has extraterritorial effect – although quite how this will be enforced is anyone's guess. Its astonishing implications have never been explored.
The PIGS Bill is the renamed Occupied Territories Bill published by independents in the Irish parliament in 2018. But since October 2023, multifarious radical groups have effectively hijacked the legislation and are using it as a trojan horse to dismantle the entire EU-Israel trade agreement worth €46 billion (£39.6 billion). On the streets, mainly peaceful protesters demanding an end to Israeli trade march in lockstep with extremists carrying Hezbollah flags chanting 'let's go bomb Tel Aviv' and 'burn the settlers to the ground'. And nobody bats an eyelid.
Since 2018, three attorneys general have warned the government that enacting this legislation would be at 'substantial risk to the state' because it violates EU law on international trade, free movement and customs rules by imposing a trade ban unilaterally. As one seasoned political correspondent put it, there's a reason this bill has been left hanging around since 2018: 'It stank'.
The PIGS Bill aims to get around infringing EU law by framing the legislation on the advisory opinion published by the International Court of Justice last July urging states not to trade or invest in the occupied territories. Although not legally binding, the opinion allowed the government enough wriggle room to push the bill forward. Irish Taoiseach Micheal Martin pressed pause momentarily when he got an earful from powerful Jewish organisations during his annual St Patrick's Day trip to Washington, but it's now full steam ahead in Ireland's war on dates and avocados.
There remains, however, extreme nervousness about the bill in government and the likely diplomatic and economic fallout. One government figure described it as 'economic treason'. Documents have now emerged showing that John McCarthy, chief economist in the department of finance, raised the prospect of conflict between the state's diplomatic and economic policies. The ban 'might pose problems for businesses based in Ireland, including multinationals, which do not usually operate different regimes between Ireland and other EU countries,' he warned.
Ireland acts as the gateway to Europe for US companies. They directly employ 211,000 people in the country and indirectly support a further 168,000 jobs. As things stand, 38 US states penalise businesses that boycott Israeli trade, which puts Ireland on a direct collision course with American multinationals based there.
So far, the bill only applies to goods but the clamour to include services is getting louder. If services are included, companies such as Airbnb – which has its European headquarters in Dublin – may have a problem. And what of security software reportedly developed by an Israeli software firm and used by Irish banks? That could prove interesting.
Ireland's head of police is none too happy either after spending €500,000 (£430,000) on the Israel-made technology 'Cellebrite', a vital tool for solving violent crime by extracting data from computers. Gardai commissioner Drew Harris said:
It's a tool that we need to properly investigate crime which has some form of cyber or digital element. When you look at the detections we are getting, the crimes we're preventing and the convictions that there are, we'd be very reluctant to step away from a very important tool.
All this is being put at risk for a legislative mess that will do nothing to help the Palestinian people. But symbolism matters. This will be the first piece of legislation in Europe since 1945 that will criminalise trade with Jewish businesses. Ireland will be the toast of Hamas yet again as its anti-Israel stance crosses another red line.
Other European states are not exactly clamouring to jump aboard this particular bandwagon, but Harris has made clear Ireland is happy to go it alone. 'In the absence of Europe moving together, we're going to go ahead with our own domestic legislation', he said. Of course he is. This is a man who reopened an Irish embassy in Teheran and disinvite the Israeli ambassador from his party conference, all the while feting the Iranian one.
Ireland is the most pro-Palestine state in the western world; this is the hill it is choosing to die on. But falling foul of EU law is the least of its problems. US President Donald Trump already has Ireland in his sights over its preferential 12.5 per cent corporation tax. Given the US President's unwavering support for Israel, is the Irish government prepared for the cold winds that will come from Washington if it panders to demands from keffiyeh-covered stormtroopers to cut trade ties with Israel? We will soon find out.