FIFG

I expect you’re familiar with the Occupied Territories Bill. No? Maybe that’s because it doesn’t exist, or at least doesn’t exist in law.Even a quick look at its history is instructive.

It was tabled in the Oireachtas in 2018 by Senator Frances Black (yes, Virginia, one of the singing Blacks) and it would have banned  and criminalised “trade with and economic support for illegal settlements”. Hooray, you say. Even before the Hamas attack on October 7, 2023, at  least one Irish politician had the guts to do more than mouth platitudes about Israel’s treatment of Palestinians.

A word or two about these Israeli settlements. On the West Bank there are 500,000 of them. According to The UN Security Council, the UN General Assembly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Court of Justice among others,  these settlements are war crimes.  What else would they be? They flourish in number by brute force: the IDF appears, supports armed Israelis who tell Palestinians living in the West Bank to leave their homes and…Go where? That’s their problem. If Palestinians resist being evicted from their home and land, they are shot.  So the idea of boycotting any trade between these people and the south of Ireland seems a no-brainer. But Frances Black, heroic though her efforts have been to date, is on a losing ticket.

Back in 2018, her bill was backed by Fianna Fail, Sinn Féin, the Labour Party, Solidarity-People Before Profit, the Green. Party, Social Democrats and independents. Fine Gael opposed it. Former TD Alan Shatter wrote a piece in the Jerusalem Post claiming that even if the bill was passed, the foreign ministry could block it. And sure enough, in 2019, Simon Coveney  reassured Israel that the bill had been blocked.

In 2024 fresh efforts were made to bring the Bill from the tomb.  The Israeli Ambassador to Ireland, Dana Erlich, condemned the bill as “anti-Israel”. You betcha, Dana. But then in 2025, Micheál Martin took frit and said the Bill was a non-starter and he’d arrange a new one.Simon Harris said OK, the Bill could affect goods but not services. In March of this year, the American Jewish Society said Micheál had told them that the Bill was “no longer on the legislative calendar. Various American officials informed Simon Coveney the passage of the bill could adversely affect commercial relations between the south of Ireland and the US. There were claims that it clashed with EU legislation and the south of Ireland would be fined.

I’ll stop now. You get the drift. Palestinians on the West Bank are getting stuffed by Israeli war criminals, the Dail’s efforts have been half-hearted and ambiguous.  Palestinians in their hundreds are evicted from their homes and land, Palestinian children by the thousand are blown to bits,  food and water and medicine are blocked from a starving people.

This is genocide, happening before our eyes. Southern politicians lack the courage to do the right thing. And Kneecap are condemned for saying Fuck Israel, Free Gaza.  Well let me add my feeble voice to that:Fuck Israel. Free Gaza.

Let’s make a cap with FIFG on it. It appears it’s all we’re capable of doing.