IRELAND’S OCCUPIED TERRITORIES Bill, which would ban trade with Israeli settlements in Palestine, has been misrepresented by some pro-Israel groups and social media users. 

The bill aims to unilaterally ban the trade of goods and services that are imported from colonies in illegally occupied territories anywhere in the world. 

Supporters of Israel have been fiercely critical of the bill, and some have sought to characterise it as a total ban on all trade with the state of Israel.

Evaluation

The Occupied Territories Bill would not ban trade with the state of Israel. It would apply to goods, services and resources originating in illegal settlements anywhere in the world, which would include the occupied territories in Palestine.

The proposed legislation does not explicitly name Israel or Palestine.

The facts

The Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories Bill) was first introduced by Independent Senator Francis Black in 2018.

It would, according to the text of the proposed legislation, make it an offence “for a person to import or sell goods or services originating in an occupied territory or to extract resources from an occupied territory in certain circumstances”.

Under Article 8 of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, it is illegal for a country to transfer its own citizens to the land of another territory that it occupies.

This has been happening in the Occupied Palestinian Territories—particularly in the West Bank—for decades.

Israel has occupied Palestine, which includes the West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, since 1967.

Around 700,000 Israeli settlers live in hundreds of settlements and outposts that have been established in the West Bank and East Jerusalem since then.

The settlements comprise residential developments, businesses and agricultural areas and are built on land that has often been forcibly taken from Palestinian communities. 

Settlements typically begin as small outposts on stolen Palestinian land, which are not at first legally recognised by Israel. Eventually, however, outposts can be made official settlements retroactively by the state.

The Israeli Government has ramped up the establishment of settlements significantly in recent years.

The motivation for drafting the Occupied Territories Bill was to introduce a ban on trade with Israeli settlements in occupied Palestine, which are considered illegal under international law and have been declared as such by the United Nations.

However, there are no direct references to Israel or Palestine in the text of the bill, and the legislation could apply to settlers in other occupied territories.

For example, it could include goods exported by Russia from Crimea, a Ukrainian territory that has been under Russian occupation since 2014.

Furthermore, it would only apply to goods produced in the settlements themselves, rather than the territory produced by the occupying power.

The bill would not lead to a wider ban on the importation of goods produced in the state of Israel.

Alternatively, to use the example of Crimea, it would not criminalise the importation of goods produced within Russia’s internationally recognised borders.

The provisions contained in the bill would apply to Irish companies, citizens and people who are ordinarily resident in Ireland. 

It outlines a number of offences, which would be punishable by a fine of up to €250,000 or a prison sentence of up to five years if they were to be committed.

Those offences include importing or attempting to import settlement goods and assisting in the importation of settlement goods. The same offence would apply to selling or attempting to sell settlement goods.

Providing or attempting to provide a service from a settlement, or assisting someone in doing so, would also be an offence.

Dealing in goods and services from occupied territories in and of itself would not be an offence, as long as the trade is not with members of the occupying group.

Palestinian-produced olives, for example, could still be legally bought by Irish people or companies.

The bill has passed through the legislative process in both houses of the Oireachtas and at committee level, but it has still not been enacted.

The last Fine Gael-led Government cited legal advice that said to do so would break EU trade law (though some legal experts have refuted the validity of this position).

However, after an International Court of Justice opinion declared all Israeli settlements in Palestine illegal in July 2024, Ireland’s Attorney General briefed the government on the contextual impact of the ruling, and the Irish Government’s position has reportedly changed.

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