McEntee said last week she hoped to pass the law in tandem with Belgium, the Netherlands and possibly Slovenia, which have also committed to introducing bans. [Getty]
Ireland aims to pass a law curbing goods trade with illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank by mid-July, Foreign Minister Helen McEntee said on Tuesday.
Ireland’s government, one of the most outspoken critics of Israel’s genocidal war on Gaza, first promised to sanction Israeli settlements in October 2024. The legislation has since been held up by pressure from opposition politicians who sought to extend the ban to the services trade as well, on one side, and international company lobbyists seeking to scrap the bill, on the other.
Sources told Reuters last October that the bill was set to be limited to goods. Prime Minister Micheal Martin confirmed last week that widening the scope to services was neither “implementable” nor “viable.” Limiting the bill to goods only will impact just a handful of products imported from Israeli-occupied territories, such as fruit, which are worth just 200,000 euros ($234,660) a year, Ireland’s Central Statistics Office said.
Business groups warned that the wider category of services could pull foreign multinational companies into unworkable sanctions.
“We have consistently advocated for a peaceful solution… but it’s very clear from the actions taken most recently by the Israeli government, but in particular the continued increase in settler violence, the escalation in settler violence in the West Bank, the continued violence in Lebanon, that they have no desire to take this particular road,” McEntee told reporters.
Israel’s far-right fundamentalist coalition has enabled a rapid expansion of illegal settlements, with some ministers openly advocating for the annexation of the occupied West Bank.
Israeli settler violence against Palestinians in the occupied West Bank has surged over the years.
McEntee said last week she hoped to pass the law in tandem with Belgium, the Netherlands and possibly Slovenia, which have also committed to introducing bans. Spain has already introduced similar curbs, the only European Union member to do so so far.
