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Ireland ‘intends’ to pass trade ban on Israeli settlements despite US pressure
Ireland will continue to advance legislation banning the import of goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, Foreign Affairs and Trade Minister Simon Harris has said.
More than a dozen members of the US Congress had called on Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to add Ireland to a list of countries boycotting Israel if the Occupied Territories Bill is passed by Dublin.
But Harris said Ireland’s government remains undeterred and “isn’t alone” in carrying out the measures.
“This week we also saw Slovenia take action in relation to trade from the occupied territories, I expect Belgium are likely to do the same and we intend to advance with our legislation,” Harris told reporters on Friday.
“People in Ireland, people in Europe and people right across the world feel extraordinarily strongly about the genocidal activity that we’re seeing in Gaza, about the starving children and we will use all tools at our disposal,” he added.
Meanwhile continuing to trade with Israel as the 2nd largest importer of Israeli goods....
https://www.irishtimes.com/business/economy/2025/06/08/despite-the-politics-ireland-is-israels-second-biggest-export-market-for-goods/
Ireland imports very little from illegal settlements.A proposed Irish bill focuses on banning imports from occupied Palestinian territories, with trade currently limited to goods like dates, oranges, and olives.In the four years from 2020 to 2024, this trade amounted to just €685,000 (£575,000).This figure represents a small fraction of Ireland's overall trade, which in 2023 saw €196 billion in exports and €140 billion in imports.
It's more than Slovenia at least (about 35,000 Euros worth of trade) but nothing to deter Netanyahu.
‘Without sanctions, Israeli actions in Gaza will face no meaningful opposition’
Xavier Abu Eid, a political scientist and former adviser to the Palestine Liberation Organization, said that despite widespread criticism against the Israeli government’s plan to seize Gaza City, there will not be any meaningful change as long as countries do not impose sanctions on Israel.
“As long as we don’t hear the word sanctions from main Western powers, things are not going to change,” Abu Eid told Al Jazeera.
“The Israeli government has been announcing every single step of this genocide, starting with their announcement that there are no innocent civilians in Gaza. They said they will cut water. They cut water. They said they will cut food. They cut food. They said they were going to bomb, and they bombed. Now they are saying that they are going to ethnically cleanse Gaza City,” he said.
According to Abu Eid, Netanyahu’s plan is not about defeating Hamas but to ethnically cleanse the enclave’s northern city because the prime minister “thinks that he’s in a position whereby he can dictate not just the future of Israel, but the future of the whole region”.
