Ban trade with illegal settlements, prominent Israelis tell Irish committee
A former attorney general, several ex ambassadors, and various cultural prize winners have written to an Irish parliamentary committee to voice their support for the Bill.
Advertisement
After being pressured for years to enact the Occupied Territories Bill, which was first tabled in 2018 and would ban trade with all illegally occupied territories, fresh legislation to enact a ban was introduced this year.
The Israeli Settlements (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2025 is going through parliamentary scrutiny and is before the foreign affairs committee.
Last week, Blinne Ni Ghralaigh, a member of the South African legal team accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), told the committee the Bill was 'a minimum required for compliance by Ireland with its international obligations'.
The Irish Government said there is a narrow legal basis, based on an advisory opinion from the UN's top court, to ban the trade with illegal Israeli settlements.
Advertisement
The ICJ said last July that countries should 'take steps to prevent trade or investment relations' that maintain illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.
The Government is to ban the trade of goods but has indicated services are more legally complex.
In a letter to the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs committee, 12 prominent Israeli figures urged Ireland to enact the ban on trade – of both goods and services – and for other European nations to follow suit.
'As citizens of Israel who believe that the end of the illegal Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is the key to achieving peace between our two peoples, we welcome Ireland's advancement of the Bill banning imports from Israeli settlements,' it said.
Advertisement
Among the signatories are former Israeli attorney general Michael Ben-Yair; former director general of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Dr Alon Liel; former ambassadors and ex members of the Knesset and Israel Prize recipients.
'Successive Israeli governments' outright defiance of international law has been enabled by the international community's failure to move from rhetoric to action,' they said.
'The Irish Government is to be commended for taking a stand to halt Israeli settlements from benefiting from the fruit of the poisonous tree.
'The ICJ was clear: all states are obligated 'not to render aid or assistance' that helps maintain the Israeli presence in the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territory).
Advertisement
'Accordingly, it is essential that Ireland comply with the ICJ advisory opinion by banning trade with the illegal settlements not only in goods but also in services.
'We expect the parliamentary committee to fulfil its responsibility to uphold the rules-based order by moving the Bill forward toward its enactment in a timely manner.
'We stand with Ireland as it moves ahead and urge other European states to follow suit.'
On Tuesday afternoon, several representatives of Palestinian and Israeli groups are due before the committee, including former justice minister Alan Shatter, who is a board member of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations.
Advertisement
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
North Wales Chronicle
9 minutes ago
- North Wales Chronicle
UN says malnutrition in Gaza has doubled as Israeli strikes kill more than 90
It comes as new Israeli strikes killed more than 90 Palestinians, including dozens of women and children, according to health officials. Hunger has been rising among Gaza's more than two million Palestinians since Israel broke a ceasefire in March to resume the war and banned all food and other supplies from entering Gaza, saying it aimed to pressure Hamas to release hostages. It slightly eased the blockade in late May, allowing in a trickle of aid. UNRWA, the main UN agency caring for Palestinians in Gaza, said it had screened nearly 16,000 children under age five at its clinics in June and found 10.2% of them were acutely malnourished. By comparison, in March, 5.5% of the nearly 15,000 children it screened were malnourished. – New airstrikes kill several families One strike in the northern Shati refugee camp killed a 68-year-old Hamas member of the Palestinian legislature, as well as a man and a woman and their six children who were sheltering in the same building, according to officials from the heavily damaged Shifa Hospital, where the casualties were taken. One of the deadliest strikes hit a house in Gaza City's Tel al-Hawa district on Monday evening and killed 19 members of the family living inside, according to Shifa Hospital. The dead included eight women and six children. A strike on a tent housing displaced people in the same district killed a man and a woman and their two children. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military on the strikes. Gaza's Health Ministry said in a daily report on Tuesday afternoon that the bodies of 93 people killed by Israeli strikes had been brought to hospitals in Gaza over the past 24 hours, along with 278 wounded. It did not specify the total number of women and children among the dead. The Hamas politician killed in a strike early on Tuesday, Mohammed Faraj al-Ghoul, was a member of the bloc of representatives from the group that won seats in the Palestinian Legislative Council in the last national elections, held in 2006. The Israeli military says it only targets militants and tries to avoid harming civilians. It blames civilian deaths on Hamas because the militants operate in densely populated areas. But daily, it hits homes and shelters where people are living without warning or explanation of the target. – Malnutrition grows Unicef, which screens children separately from Unrwa, has also reported a marked increase in malnutrition cases. It said this week its clinics had documented 5,870 cases of malnutrition among children in June, the fourth straight month of increases and more than double the around 2,000 cases it documented in February. Experts have warned of famine since Israel tightened its long-running blockade in March. Israel has allowed an average of 69 trucks a day carrying supplies, including food, since it eased the blockade in May, according to the latest figures from Cogat, the Israeli military agency in charge of co-ordinating aid. That is far below the hundreds of trucks a day the UN says are needed to sustain Gaza's population. On Tuesday, Cogat blamed the UN for failing to distribute aid, saying in a post on X that thousands of pallets of supplies were inside Gaza waiting to be picked up by UN trucks. The UN says it has struggled to pick up and distribute aid because of Israeli military restrictions on its movements and the breakdown in law and order. Israel has also let in food for distribution by an American contractor, the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. GHF says it has distributed food boxes with the equivalent of more than 70 million meals since late May at the four centres it runs in the Rafah area of southern Gaza and in central Gaza. More than 840 Palestinians have been killed and more than 5,600 others wounded in shootings as they walk for hours trying to reach the GHF centres, according to the Health Ministry. Witnesses say Israeli forces open fire with barrages of live ammunition to control crowds on the roads to the GHF centres, which are located in military-controlled zones. The military says it has fired warning shots at people it says have approached its forces in a suspicious manner. GHF says no shootings have taken place in or immediately around its distribution sites. – No breakthrough in ceasefire efforts The latest attacks came after US President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu held two days of talks last week that ended with no sign of a breakthrough in negotiations over a ceasefire and hostage release. Israel has killed more than 58,400 Palestinians and wounded more than 139,000 others in its retaliation campaign since Hamas' October 7 2023, attack, according to Gaza's Health Ministry. Just over half the dead are women and children, according to the ministry, which does not distinguish between civilians and militants in its tally. Israel has vowed to destroy Hamas after its attack 21 months ago, in which militants stormed into southern Israel and killed some 1,200 people, mostly civilians. They abducted 251 others, and the militants are still holding 50 hostages, less than half of them believed to be alive.
The Guardian
21 minutes ago
- The Guardian
Trump says Indonesia to pay 19% tariffs, buy 50 Boeing jets under trade deal
US President Donald Trump says he has struck a trade pact with Indonesia resulting in significant purchase commitments from the south-east Asian country, after negotiations to avoid steeper tariffs. Indonesian goods entering the United States would face a 19% tariff, Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. This is significantly below the 32% level the president earlier threatened. 'As part of the Agreement, Indonesia has committed to purchasing $15 Billion Dollars in US Energy, $4.5 Billion Dollars in American Agricultural Products, and 50 Boeing Jets, many of them 777's,' Trump wrote. Boeing shares closed down 0.2% after the announcement. 'They are going to pay 19% and we are going to pay nothing … we will have full access into Indonesia, and we have a couple of those deals that are going to be announced,' Trump said outside the Oval Office earlier. Indonesia's total trade with the US – totalling just under $40bn in 2024 – does not rank in the top 15, but it has been growing. US exports to Indonesia rose 3.7% last year, while imports from there were up 4.8%, leaving the US with a goods trade deficit of nearly $18bn. The Trump administration has been under pressure to wrap up trade pacts after promising a flurry of deals recently, as countries sought talks with Washington to avoid the US president's tariff plans. But Trump has so far only unveiled other deals with Britain and Vietnam, alongside an agreement to temporarily lower tit-for-tat levies with China. Last week, Trump renewed his threat of a 32% levy on Indonesian goods, saying in a letter to the country's leadership that this would take effect 1 August. It remains unclear when the lower tariff level announced on Tuesday will take effect for Indonesia. The period over which its various purchases will take place was also not specified. Trump said on social media that under the deal, which was finalised after he spoke with Indonesian president Prabowo Subianto, goods that have been transshipped to avoid higher duties would face steeper levies. He separately told reporters that other deals were in the works, including with India, while talks with the European Union are continuing. Indonesia's former vice minister for foreign affairs, Dino Patti Djalal, told a Foreign Policy event Tuesday that government insiders had indicated they were happy with the new deal. Trump in April imposed a 10% tariff on almost all trading partners, while announcing plans to eventually hike this level for dozens of economies, including the EU and Indonesia. But days before the steeper duties, customised to each economy, were due to take effect, he pushed the deadline back from 9 July to 1 August. This marked his second postponement of the elevated levies. Instead, since early last week, Trump has been sending letters to partners, setting out the tariff levels they would face come August. So far, he has sent more than 20 such letters including to the EU, Japan, South Korea and Malaysia. Trump has unveiled blanket tariffs on trading partners in part to address what his administration deems as unfair practices that hurt US businesses. Agence France-Presse and Reuters contributed to this report
BBC News
36 minutes ago
- BBC News
Trump launches probe into Brazil's 'unfair' trade practices
The Trump administration says it has launched an investigation into Brazil's "unfair" trading will include the Brazilian government's policies "related to digital trade and electronic payment services; unfair, preferential tariffs; anti-corruption interference", a statement from the US Trade Representative investigation seek to determine whether they are "unreasonable or discriminatory and burden or restrict US commerce."Last week, US President Donald Trump urged Brazilian authorities to end their prosecution of the country's former President Jair Bolsonaro, accusing them of carrying out a "WITCH HUNT". Trade Ambassador Jamieson Greer said that the probe was being launched at Trump's direction "into Brazil's attacks on American social media companies as well as other unfair trading practices that harm American companies, workers, farmers, and technology innovators". This breaking news story is being updated and more details will be published shortly. Please refresh the page for the fullest can receive Breaking News on a smartphone or tablet via the BBC News App. You can also follow @BBCBreaking on X to get the latest alerts.
