It’s not quite second thoughts yet. But there is a growing outbreak of the heebie-jeebies in Government about the Occupied Territories Bill, which would ban trade with Israeli firms operating in the occupied Palestinian territories. This will present the new administration with a very difficult choice and will almost certainly turn into an early and bitter row once it takes office.
Potted history: the Bill was first proposed by Independent Senator Frances Black in 2018, but was blocked by the government because as trade is an EU competence, it conflicted with EU law. Last year, however, with the international context changed by the war in Gaza, and a new opinion from the International Court of Justice on the status of the occupied territories, the Government decided — on foot of new advice from the Attorney General — that it could proceed with an amended version of the Bill.
But according to multiple sources, including several Ministers, senior civil servants, advisers and TDs who spoke privately on the subject, there is a growing sense of trepidation about the potential costs in economic, political and diplomatic terms — and a belief in decision-making circles that those costs will have to be properly assessed before the Bill proceeds.
Any delay, however, or even anything less than a full-throated commitment to early passage of the Bill by the new government will provoke a storm of protest from Opposition parties and non-governmental organisations who believe, with some evidence, that they have strong backing from the public. For an Opposition itching to paint the new coalition as “right wing”, delaying the Bill would provide an irresistible opening. They will hold the government’s feet to the fire on it, you can be sure of that.
At a deeper level, the Bill presents a political dilemma because it is a clash between two fundamentally different ways of looking at the world. One of these was ably articulated by my colleague Una Mullally in The Irish Times last Monday, where she exhorted that Ireland’s “new year resolution” should be “to be a force for good in the world”. This, she wrote, means “upholding international law, championing human rights, freedoms and civil liberties. It means protecting the flame of peace throughout the darkness of war.”
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I think there’s a lot of support for this approach.
The other way of looking at the world is one that perhaps pays more attention to the way the world is, rather than as we would like it to be. It’s a more hard-headed, more overtly self-interested, maybe less appealing outlook but one whose proponents would say is more realistic. It also takes account of the potential consequences of actions and weighs them up before acting.
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Questioning the wisdom of the Bill, retired diplomat Dan Mulhall wrote on Twitter last week that the Government should “weigh our moves carefully to ensure that they do not unnecessarily damage our interests and our ability to wield influence in favour of a two-state solution for Israel-Palestine”.
Does anyone know what, if anything, we import from the OTs? In what way will this Bill benefit Palestinians? I trust that government has weighed up the pros & cons of moving ahead with this. https://t.co/fMYD0twpKR
— Daniel Mulhall (@DanMulhall) January 5, 2025
The Government is formally committed to the Mullally principles but almost everyone I have spoken to privately tends toward the Mulhall doctrine. “It will be in the programme for government,” says one politician involved in the process. “But let’s see the extent of the amendments and the pace at which it goes. I’ll tell you what, it won’t be done before the 17th of March anyway” — a reference to the next taoiseach’s White House visit for St Patrick’s Day.
“Everyone is committed to this,” says another senior political figure. “But we have no idea what it means in practice, or what the consequences will be.”
My statement on the proposed “Occupied Territories” bill. pic.twitter.com/czhtIFlkXK
— Dana Erlich 🇮🇱 (@DanaErlich) October 23, 2024
This is a worry echoed by several senior officials. “Nobody has any idea what the cost is,” says one mandarin.
This is not, it should be stressed, in any way to downplay the pretty universal disapproval of Israel’s conduct in Gaza. Rather it is a concern about Ireland’s national interest.
“Brussels will not understand this at all,” says another official. “They may take infringement proceedings against us. There will certainly be pressure from some member states for that.”
But it’s the stance of the incoming US administration that most worries people in Dublin. Sources report from Washington that the view in political and diplomatic circles is that the costs for Ireland will be “extremely severe”, with the cancellation of the St Patrick’s Day invite entirely possible.
“People are strongly suggesting Government needs to pull back now and take the political hit as it will probably have to repeal the act anyway at a far greater political cost once the costs become explicit,” says my man in DC.
And there is a realisation that Israel will seek to rally US support against the Bill, and Israel is very good at that. Outgoing Israeli ambassador Dana Erlich told me it was a “discriminatory attempt to take a punitive measure against Israel, the only nation state of the Jewish people” and warned of consequences for US multinationals based in Ireland.
Israel and its supporters see the Bill as an important battleground in combating the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement and so do those backing the Bill. One of the Bill’s supporters, Conor O’Neill of the charity Christian Aid, says Ireland would be “crossing the Rubicon” with this, foreseeing a legal challenge that ends up with the European Court of Justice and, hopefully from his point of view, a ruling that would set a precedent on settlement trade not just for Ireland, but for the entire EU.
So the battle lines are being drawn. The Government will almost certainly try to find a middle way, promising to enact the Bill but kicking it into a process to draw up amendments and consider the possible costs. My guess is that will satisfy precisely nobody.
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