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A NUMBER OF Opposition TDs have said the Dáil should sit through the mid-term recess next week in order to pass the Occupied Territories Bill.
The Bill, which was brought forward by independent senator Frances Black in 2018, seeks to prevent Ireland from trading in goods and services imported from illegally occupied territories anywhere in the world, which would include the occupied territories in Palestine.
Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman said yesterday that the necessary changes to the bill are unlikely to be complete before the Dáil dissolves before the end of the year, and therefore will not be passed before the general election.
Supporters of Israel have been fiercely critical of the bill, and some have sought to incorrectly characterise it as a total ban on all trade with the state of Israel.
Others argue that enacting the bill is more important now than ever.
So today we’re asking: Should the Occupied Territories Bill be passed?
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Since the bill isn’t theirs, and it has been before them for four years, the FFG party is just talking but doing nothing. Words are not as powerful as actions. The FFG party will never pass it because it will sour relations with the United States instead of taking the Wright action and showing the world smaller countries can be great countries
So that means an end to trade with the north of Ireland
@he didnt take the 120k because he already got it s: who is occupying illegally?
@he didnt take the 120k because he already got it s: Whether we like it or not, there’s nothing illegal about the north being part of the UK.
@Tommy Roche: its called the occupied stolen six counties of Ireland.
@Mike: That’s the point. Who decides whether a territory is legally or illegally occupied? It can often be difficult to determine who has a sovereign right to land, especially when it’s disputed
@he didnt take the 120k because he already got it s: should they be committing genocide, imposing apartheid and displacing the indigenous people, that would be yes
Hamas clear stated determination and violent attacks are to exterminate all Jews and occupy their lands. It’s a WAR. The calls for Hamas to immediately withdraw it’s stated intention to repeatedly attack and kill Israelis civilians until Israel is exterminated need to be covered by media as well as everything else. Israelis are the besieged minority surrounded by 900 million Muslims. Ireland’s history is standing up for minorities.
@thomas molloy: Well said !! Too many populists running about with Palestinians flags trying to look cool..
@NotGreta: Saudi Arabia(Sunni Muslim) was on the brink of normalising relations with Israel so Hamas(Shia Muslim) launched 7 October war.
@thomas molloy: But Hamas agreed to a ceasefire and Netanyahu wouldn’t, he didn’t care about his hostages either, sounds to me like BN had a bigger plan
@thomas molloy: Those descendant from Irish who left here long ago are not entitled to take our country from us.
Neither are those that call themselves Israeli.
IT
IS
THAT
SIMPLE
@thomas molloy: None of which justifies israeli crimes against humanity.
Crimes the Israeli hae been committing since the begining.
Crimes which demand that Israel be excised from this Earth.
Just like Nazi Germany before it.
Anyway, Hamas are Palestinians.
If *you* want to bring religion into it, that includes Christians.
And the Muslim part of that population are Sunni, not Shia.
Why do you lot lie so much?
It’s all you have, I suppose.
@thomas molloy: Hamas has dropped its call for the destruction of Israel from its manifesto for the Palestinian parliamentary election in a fortnight, a move that brings the group closer to the mainstream Palestinian position of building a state within the boundaries of the occupied territories.
Clearly your post is wrong, and has been for past 18 years.
@thomas molloy: History not a subject of yours ,whos land are we talking about
@thomas molloy: but generally not ones who are committing war crimes?
@thomas molloy: Irelands history is standing with the oppressed. Palestine was partitioned and 700,000 indigenous displaced across the region by mostly white European and American settlers.
Palestinians lived under decades of severe oppression recorded and condemned by every international NGO on Earth. Israel is an ethnic nationalist state dedicated to the extermination of a people. Hamas is a resistance dedicated to ending the apartheid state of Israel ( see South Africa) and freedom for ALL citizens. It’s in their charter.
Millions of Jewish are anti Zionists across the world. Ffs
@thomas molloy: listened to Rory Stewart make that exact point. But what you left out was hamas attacked knowing Israel would respond by killing thousands of Muslims. How can Saudi, a Muslim country normalise relations with Israel now? Israel gave hamas what they wanted.
@Andy Dillon: Hamas/Iran gave Hamas/Iran what it wanted. War instead of Peace.
@Steven Mcglinchey: palestine was partitioned? Back to school with you.
@John Reilly: Jews are there going back for more than 5000 years.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: The only thing simple is your brain!
@Marie Agnew: The terms of Hamas are that Israel cease to exist…. terrorists cannot negotiate peace.
@Steven Mcglinchey: You mean the two state solution that is already in place Palestine Arabs got the far bigger portion Jordan and the Jewish Palestinians got the smaller portion Israel.
@NotGreta: Really – maybe the slaughter of 20,000 children, over a thousand of whom weren’t even a year old, sits well with your cold black heart. You might not mind being confronted with images of people in hospitals being burned alive, but the vast majority of people in this country do. If that was happening here and to your children, you’d probably be the first to shout, why has the world abandoned us.
@Alison S: Really? Our own recent history proves otherwise proving just how wrong you are.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: decendants of Irish immigrants would certainly be welcome to return and purchase land, like Jews did in Israel
@thomas molloy: and most of them converted to Christianity and Islam and became known as Palestinians. . The Palestinians are the original inhabitants. The DNA proves it . Israelis are barely even diaspora their genetic claim is rubbish which is why ancestry DNA tests are banned in Israel .
@Alison S: Israel is the terrorist.
@thomas molloy: Hamas have said already they will accept pre 67 boarders and Al Quds as the capital.
@thomas molloy: “Jews going back 5000 years”. Does changing religion make you not indigenous? If anything the Muslims and Christians in the region have more Jewish DNA. And why are they so special? Where is the Sikh, Druze and Zoroastrian ethnostate? Why are they so special. Many Ethno-religions have died out in this world. You can’t really convert, they are tribal. Other religions grow. It’s the way of the world.
@thomas molloy: educate yourself!!! This did not start on October 7th, it started in 1948 when the Israeli’s took the Palestinian people’s land and expelled them, killing thousands. Did the IRA not have similar things to get the British out? Why are you ok with the occupiers of a land doing whatever they want to the indigenous people but when the people being occupied, abused, made to wear identification to walk on their OWN land, houses taken off them so overweight Jewish Americans can take their homes and when they rebel they are at fault? If I was a Palestinian person, I would hate Jewish people occupying my land too. Educate yourself!!!!!! It is not a war, a war means both sides have an army. Israel receives billions in aid from the USA to continue their genocide of Middle Eastern people, Hamas is about 40,000 in number at maximum and you believe they are a threat. Please open a book, I beg of you. How to say you are islamophobic without actually saying it.
@helen mary fitzsimons: Lies, Helen. Please don’t tell lies. It’s boring watching ill informed bigots flaunt their wilful ignorance.
@HAC: It started with the Hebron massacre in 1929. The Grand mufti proclaimed that Jews were preparing to destroy Al Aqsa and rebuild the Temple. Many Arabs butchered their Jewish neighbours. Some Arabs rescued their Jewish neighbours. You can trace the legacy of this right through to today. Please open a book, etc.
@Ann Reddin: Hamas are fighting the bloodiest of war using the women and children of ordinary people as human shield sacrifice fodder for effect just like they hold the other kidnapped victims to shield them. If it works they will do it over and over again.
@thomas molloy: Well, let me catch up there on the facts. Between the years 2000 – 2023, (not including those children who have been murdered in the Gaza strip since Oct 7th last year) is )2437 – that’s just twenty three years. Between the years 2003 and 2013 aprx 7000 children were kidnapped and detained in IDF detention camps and tortured for throwing stones – well that’s the excuse they used.
You need to remember that Palestine is being occupied – not Israel. And one mans terrorist is another mans freedom fighter – ya know, like Connolly, Pearce, Clark and the rest of our heros. 1916 was considered an act of terrorism against the British state but to thanks to their actions we’re no long under British oppression. The stats I posted above are easily found.
I’m not clear how this will help anyone in Gaza – neither the Israeli hostages nor Gazan civilians will benefit. It won’t make Hamas surrender – odd that nobody seems concerned that they intend to fight on, and ive not heard anyone demanding they stop. It’s not going to stop Hezbollah from continuing to launch rockets – remember they jumped in when Hamas and friends invaded Israel.
It might make some people feel good, but aside from our politicians’ virtue signalling, it won’t change anything.
@honey badger: Israel’s illegal settlements are worth opposing simply because they entail the systematic subjugation, oppression and murder of Palestinians.
Any international pressure on Israel to end its genocide is worthwhile for its own sake, regardless of Israel’s stubborn insistence on persisting with the genocide, backed unconditionally by the US and other Western powers.
@Brendan O’Brien: what genocide, the Palestinian population has increased since 1948,say what you really mean and think, You just hate Jews having a country of their own.
@Brendan O’Brien: There is no genocide, thankfully. If the goal of Israel truly was the elimination of every Palestinian in Gaza, it would have happened long before now. It’s possible to be horrified by all deaths in any war. Nobody accused Assad/Russia of genocide in recent years – 400k+ dead. Nobody accused Russia of genocide in Afghanistan when they killed up to 2 million civilians. Nobody accused the US of genocide in Iraq – 200k + dead. There is a reason why not, which is conveniently ignored when it comes to Israel.
The shoehorning of this most hideous of crimes into the Palestinian narrative is par for the course for anti Israel proponents. It is a unique and singularly defined horror:
Darfur.
Rwanda.
Bosnia Herzegovina.
Cambodia.
The Holocaust.
Nanking.
The Holomodor.
Armenia.
@Colm Mcmahon: The Palestinian population certainly hasn’t increased in the past year. Never mind 1948: genocide is under way right now. You should be ashamed of yourself for supporting it.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)00135-1/fulltext
@Brendan O’Brien: Boohoo
@honey badger: Read my link (which is six months old), and quit the quibbling and whataboutery. One genocide is not justified by others. Stop defending the indefensible: the mass slaughter of civilians and systematic destruction of their country and culture.
https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(24)00135-1/fulltext
@honey badger: There are those who deny the Nazi genocides too.
Often called Holocaust deniers.
Vile people, all.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: Honey Badger to a woman who has just lost her entire family to Israeli bombardment: ‘Good news! This isn’t genocide!’
@Brendan O’Brien: “Quibbling and whataboutery” = actual documented genocides and wars with horrific casualties not categorised as genocides. I’ve read that ‘letter to the editor’ and all the ways it’s been debunked and refuted.
Hamas should surrender. Hamas should release the hostages.
This bill will do nothing to help stop the war, which is what we all want.
@Brendan O’Brien: That piece was widely debunked. It was an opinion letter, the Lancet disgraced themselves by publishing it. And even using Hamas’ own dodgy figures, the number of births, which the UN puts at over 5,000 per month, is greater than the deaths, the majority of which are active combatants. So no, not even remotely close to the actual meaning of genocide.
South Africa has even sought and been refused extra time to try to find (invent) evidence for its case. The same South Africa that ignored an ICC warrant to arrest Omar al-Bashir of Sudan where a genocide by Muslims is currently occurring.
Trade is an EU role not Ireland’s. I’ll happily take part in the plans to break it and force a case at ECJ to bring Harris, Martin et al into line.
@Richard Keogh: Please give links to the ‘debunking’, and provide evidence that ‘the majority of [deaths] are active combatants’.
There is plenty of well-referenced material here to support a designation of genocide:
@Brendan O’Brien: I think it’s time you took a break again.
@Colm Mcmahon: “you just hate Jews having a country of their own…” Are you 12?? lol. The Jews as a people and the Israeli apartheid state of Israel are two completely separate entities.
@Brendan O’Brien: spare us the waffle and take a holiday
@honey badger: why should they surrender or stop? You do know they’re occupied?
@Steven Mcglinchey: Do you think they should continue the war? I think they should surrender asap. It’s in everyone’s best interest that they do.
@Colm Mcmahon: they do not have the right to that country it is not THEIRS!!!!! You can’t hand someone else’s land to another group of people and not expect ramifications for it. This is nothing to do with Jewish or Muslim, it’s right or wrong. The only people with the right to that land, are the indigenous people. If the Jewish people had come and lived peacefully this might have been different but how can you support them displacing Palestinians from their homes for Jewish people to occupy? What is wrong with you? They did this in Germany during world war 2 and the British did it to us. Suppose you’re ok with that too? If you aren’t and those things bother you, then just be honest and tell everyone you are an Islamophobic.
@Brendan O’Brien: The figure that stands out is that 700000 Arabs were displaced from Israel around 1948 – and now there is 700000 children under 10 years old in Gaza.
That’s not counting all of them that fled to Jordan and other countries.
How is this genocide.
Many of the Arabs left voluntarily to allow the arab armies to wipe out the Jews (but this didnt work out too well).
There is 2 million Arabs in Israel that are defended from families that didn’t leave and they live a normal peaceful life here. Gaza Arabs could have chosen the path of peace in 2004 when the Israeli Jews withdrew from Gaza – but they didn’t.
Also, 700000 Jews were expelled from neighbouring Arab countries around 1948. It would seem logical to give their properties to the Gaza tunnel řäŧ s
@Steven Mcglinchey: Gaza hadn’t been occupied by Israel since 2004.
They could have chosen peace and prosperity, but they chose violence which has now come back on themselves.
50,000 people have signed the Petition, a group walked 350km from sout Kerry to the Dail to raise awareness and get signatures, multiple county councils have passed motions in support. This is the most people backed piece of legislation that has ever been…. yet Fianna Fail and Fine Gael keep blocking it. Alleged calls between pascal and his Israeli counterpart might have something to do with it?
@Ross: 50,000 out of 5 million. Most Irish don’t care either way but when they hear fines from the ECJ the majority will not support a very small but extremely vocal bunch of leftists, antisemitic conspiracy theorists and some populist politicians.
@Richard Keogh: very small bunch? This Bill passed both houses with a majority. Want to rethink your position now or are you not a big fan of democracy or majorities if it doesn’t fit your agenda?
@Richard Keogh: 50000is little more than half the Muslim population in Ireland
This is just distracting from real issues that need to be dealt with in Ireland at the moment. It’s been waved around as this thing that will send a message to Israel, but what about the effect of the banning of imports and exports to Ireland?? This mess was created by the uk and USA and neither country are dealing with this as they should. If anything this should be dealt with on a EU level, as the this would have a larger impact.
@Mary Kelly: Doing the right thing is never wrong.
@Stephen: I doubt you’ll have time for that: trolling here using 20 profiles must be demanding.
I noticed that comments were deleted yesterday: you’re pretty sensitive for a troll.
@Mary Kelly: Well said Mary !!!!!!!
@Brendan O’Brien: Who decides what is right and what is wrong?
Honey badger, I’m presuming you’ve read the bill? It would mean banning trade from Russian produced good in occupied ukraine too. It’s not specific to land that israel has stolen. You must be in quite the quandary wondering how you can be against it and yet continue your support of ukraine?
@James Groden: My support for Ukraine is just fine. This bill will do nothing to remove Russia from the Ukrainian land it occupies. I’m far happier seeing liquidated Russian assets being used to fund support for Ukraine as per the recent EU parliament vote. You must be gutted, lad.
One other point stop their Visa free travel around Europe, what makes them special.
The headline is misleading and the the article is omitting one very key point. This Bill has already been passed by majorities in both houses of the Oireachtas. This government are just refusing to enact it.
This bill should be passed and lessons should be learnt from our own experience with the UK
And is it not time that we started addressing the occupation within our own Island
Let’s have Referendum on this outstanding issue
No. Ireland trying to be relevant at the international level, it’s not.
Way more important policy to be legislated for than this nonsense. Nothing to do with Ireland
@Trump24:Judging by your username I hope I don’t need to remind you that Trump has nothing to do with Ireland either
@Mr Sparkle: You are the one mentioning Trump kid. Silly really
We need to mind our own business and the government needs to sort out problems in their own country, this is pure nonsense
@Jockey Jim: Absolutely, and the last thing we need is encouraging any (so-called) Palestinians to move to Ireland.
It’s sickening to see our politicians swanning around the world and proclaiming their solutions to other countries problems when many aspects of our own is in such a mess.
The comments are a great example of the noisy minority shouting loudest and giving the impression that there’s more of them than there actually is.
Anyone who has any regard for international law should agree.
Sadly its unlikely to pass in its current form since FG and Pascal are seemingly compromised by Israel.
Irish Government needs to do what it was elected to do . Deal with the problems of Irish people living in Ireland . That is their job . Nothing more , nothing less .
No the Occupied Territories Bill is an attack on the sovereignity of the nation of Israel and it should be rejected by any civilised nation or democracy.
Why block buying household goods, etc, when we in the west are arming them, all talking out both sides of there mouths
@N D K: We don’t arm those who commit these vile crimes against humanity.
We do, unwittingly, support their crimes by buying these goods
This is but another step towards Justice.
It took a long time to bring about the destruction of Apartheid South Africa.
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: that didn’t work out too well did it?
@ItWasLikeThatWhenIGotHere: You surely mean “the destruction of South Africa”
It should be passed by the 8th-9th November which fits in well with Irelands version of Kristallnacht. They can then at last heave a sigh of relief instead of pretending this is about Palestinians when in effect its naked anti semitism on a national scale.
@Thomas O’Donnell: Absolute rubbish. How has banning trade from illegal settlements around the world got anything to do with religion? It doesn’t. That’s just a slur that tries to deflect from the abhorrent illegality of those settlements
@Thomas O’Donnell:
Israel is a country, not a religion. It’s composed of Jews, Muslims, Christians, Buddists, Atheists. In any event most of the Jews in the world do not live in Israel, so it cannot claim to represent all Jews.
Antisemitism is hatred of Jews, not a country.
@Thomas O’Donnell: You’d call the sky antisemitic if it rained
Palestine was a political invention by the militant president Yasser Arafat, an Egyptian. Arafat was a follower of the Nazi collaborator and friend of Hitler, the mufti, Haj Amin Al-Hussein (1897-1974) whose plan it was to have the same kind of concentration camps in the middle East as Hitler in Europe. The grand mufti sought to eraze Jews from the middle East, and this is still the end game objective by terrorists groups such as Hamas and other Iranian proxies.
“The grand mufti – [admired by] Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas as a `hero` – gained most of his notoriety as a Nazi collaborator. During World War II, the cleric served as an Arab ally and propagandist for the Third Reich in Berlin, continuing the campaign of antisemitic incitement he started in Palestine.”
@Alison S: And far more Palestinians and most most Arabs fought the Nazis alonside the great Lawerence of Arabia after he helped them consolodate into one group, in return for British promises of freedom after the war, which of course they reneged on as usual.
If as you say ‘Palestine was a political invention’ then the so called entitlement to someone elses land because some deity called ‘God’ deemed it so, is absolutelty crazy.
The UN partioned Palestine in 1947 and politically ‘invented’ Israel.
@Michale Kane: Israel has been a state at least four times in the last four thousand years BC according to archaeological findings and has had a continous presence there throughout antiquity and at other times even during times of conquest by others such as Romans or Turks for example in the last two centuries. Gazans or Philistines have never been a nation state but were known as invaders along the coasts of Israel in ancient times. Israels claim to sovereignity goes back over four thousand years. Modern Israeli society is inclusive of all races and religions. But the ideologies of certain Islamic terrorists aims to destroy Israel and Jews.
@Alison S: .Modern society’s and democracy have removed Religion and Church from State whereas Israel has religious-nationalist government.
No modern society is modern and democratic when it has enacted laws like the 2018 Nation-State Law, which declares only Jews have a right to self-determination.
@Michale Kane: “‘The actualisation of the right of national self-determination in the state of Israel is unique to the Jewish people.’
That has been misread to mean only Jews have a right to self-determination in Israel. But ‘the Jewish people’ does not refer to Jews as individuals but to the Jewish nation — Am Yisrael — and says that other nations cannot realise their national ambitions inside Israel.
Israel is not the only country with such a provision. The Spanish Constitution for example, ‘is based on the indissoluble unity of the Spanish Nation, the common and indivisible homeland of all Spaniards’ and declares that ‘national sovereignty belongs to the Spanish people’.
@Michale Kane: The wording of Israel’s Basic Law, prevents a nation other than the Jewish nation making Israel its state… The Jewish State’. Serving as the national homeland of the Jewish people is the point of Israel. Arabs have 22 states; Jews have only one.”‘ (The Spectator).
Israel is inclusive of Arabs and other religions and gives equal rights to all races. Psalm 91: the apple of God’s eye is Israel in Judeo- Christian belief and it is also the home of many Muslims and other religions. But God forbid that murdering Hamas or other terrorists who behead and rape, mutilate, burn alive, and kidnap Jews, as well as kill and rape other Muslim Arabs at times should have any say. Long live Israel.
@Alison S: israle is a terrorist state run by right wing religious nut jobs. They have been murdering Palestinian for over 70 years they believe they are gods chosen people and their belief is ti kill amalac derogatory word for cattle= Palestinians how can any sane human beings support this Genocide. Israle is he’ll bent in causing a war with iran who want to grow their economy and actually want to align with the west. Israle fear iran as an economic power and see them as competition israle want to totally destroy Iran and turn it into a basket case like Iraq they are playing a dangerous game starting a war in the middle east it won’t bode well for the world economy
@Vincent Hickey: lovely Iran who has poisoned little girls for going to school, who imprisons and kills women who refuse headscarves, who finance murderers like Hamas who burned a baby in an oven on October 7th, and raped and decapitated young women attending a peace music festival.
@Vincent Hickey: The oppressed Iranian people are now begging Israel to rid them of Iranian political and religious leaders.
@Alison S: absolutely correct, and if we go back to Roman times after 70AD when they sacked Jerusalem the country name was changed to Syria Palestina. Before 1948 all Jews living in that land had Palestian passports, the Arabs at the time refused these. The Jews were the original Palestinian’s. People read your history books, go to an archive. Stop believing everything you read from online. What’s happening in Gaza is terrible, the loss of life in wartime is always terrible. But it wasn’t the Israelis who attacked Gaza on Oct 7. Israel is God’s chosen people, chosen to bring the oracles of God to the world. Because of this the Enemy of God hates them and has plotted their destruction from Pharaoh to Herod up to Hitler all these were before 1948. What crimes had the Jews commit then? None.
So it is completely false to identify Israeli Jews as occupiers when Israel is their indigenous homeland long before the religion of Islam was created, and prior to the rise of Naziism historically or in its current hideous form as seen in October 7th.
Arafat borrowed the word ‘Palestine’ which had already been a term the Romans in antiquity used to rename Israel. A term meant to belittle Israelis under Roman rule. Israeli coins once had stamped an Israeli emblem on one side and the word Palestine on the other – both names denoted Israel. Israelis (Jews) have been in their indigenous country for more than a few centuries. There has never been a Palestinian state for Palestine as it is merely a political invention by Nazi inspired ideologists such as the grand mufti and Arafat.
@Alison S: On so the Jewish religions God, trumps the Muslims religion God , in the Whos God gave what first debate ? in your logic lol.
@Michale Kane: Judaism predates Islam yes. Historically Jews are the indigenous people of Israel, and in modern Israel it is an inclusive society for all religions.
@Alison S: so if you change religion and mix with surrounding people’s you change race and lose your indigenous status? And people who left in the iron age and mixed with Europeans since then are indigenous?
There was always strong evidence for a significant indigenous Jewish population who remained in Israel at least as far back as the 3rd century BC and maybe to the fourth BC in Israel also known as Palestine in antiquity. During the Late Bronze Age (can.1400-1200 BC) this was the time roughly of the 12 tribes of Israel. Prior to that from around 2166 to 1976 BC was the time of the patriachs, Abraham, Issaacc, and Jacob, whose tombs are visited in Israel today. From 1000-931 BC was the Kingdom of Israel. 931 BC to 586 BC Israel and Judah or Syria ruled. From 167 BC to 63AD the Maccabes of Israel ruled. Under exile when Jews were forced to leave, enslaved, or fleeing war the dream of a return to the spiritual and historic homeland of Israel was kept alive. Israel were never occupiers.
@Alison S: Apologies but the Israelite Maccabees ruled from 167 to 63 BC rather.
@Alison S: great knowledge sister
@Alison S: are you an evangelical Christian?
@Alison S: modern Israel is a nakedly fascist society carrying out daily atrocities. They torture children, women and medical workers. They have butchered tens of thousands of children. They are a people without a conscience or a shred of humanity,
Only 80% in favour, thought it would be more.
This “Occupied Territories Bill” is nothing more than nonsensical moral posturing which rewards those who committed terror attacks against Israel. Israel is not “occupying” any land because the land is rightfully theirs. These settlements are simply Jewish people returning to the lands which they were ethnically cleansed from by the Jordanian army in 1948. Every single Jewish person who lived in Hebron, Bethlehem, Gush Etzion and Nablus were forced out by the Jordanian army. Thankfully, they are now able to return to the areas which they have the title deeds and proof of ownership for. This began after IDF defeated the invading Arab armies in 1967 and pushed Jordan out. This legislation is not even worth the paper it’s written on. The area is called Judea and Samaria, not the “West Bank.”
@Frank O’Hara: Hasbara bot and fake Hasbara stories. . The Palestinians didn’t want anybody stealing their land and were and are entitled under international law to fight against occupiers. Poles. Ukrainians Russians Moroccans. Etc are not indigenous to the area but ethnic Palestinians are. Why are ancestry DNA tests banned in Israel. It’s because Israelis can’t compare their DNA to indigenous DNA and make those ridiculous claims to Palestine . But the real issue is genocide . Israel has come full circle. Now you’re the exterminator. How does it feel to be the holocaust creators this time round?
@helen mary fitzsimons: It is a war not a genocide.
@Alison S: it’s a Genocide and now the Zionists are not even hiding it now dose this comment make me anti semitic. I’m sure Hitler would have justified his holocaust of 6 million Jews and it would have been dangerous to criticise him another raving psychopaths
@helen mary fitzsimons: Honey, do facts offend you? It sure seems like that. You can throw out all the left-wing activist buzzwords you like, but the fact is there is no such thing as a “Palestinian.” They are a made up ethnic group that was created by the Soviet Union to expand their hegemony in the Middle East. Funny how they didn’t fight back when Jordan controlled Judea and Samaria (West Bank) and Egypt controlled Gaza. It’s because they weren’t created as a people until 1964. You know there’s no genocide. The population of Gaza has been growing by 2% every year. There are over 10,400 bodies that are supposedly “dead” yet we have no ID or even any proof of their existence. At least 14,000 of the people killed were Hamas militants as well. You really do have porridge for brains.
How can it be enforced? You would have to trust the Israelis.
@Dan Murphy: a great many Jewish people don’t support these illegal settlements. They will tell us.
Dear Sir,
If they had the guts to call this much talked about bill what it really is, i.e. the Israel Bill, or the Anti-Israel Bill, or the West Bank Bill, I’d probably support it.
But no, with typical Irish mealy-mouthed obfuscation, it’s called “The Occupied Territories Bill”, we’re told that “it will apply to occupied territories around the world”. Yeah right. Has anyone ever named another territory it might apply to? I gather there’s token talk of Western Sahara or some such. Don’t make me laugh. What exactly does Ireland buy from there? Sand?
@Jipangu: It’s not just about Israel. Stop with this Hasbara nonsense that tries to equate basic morality with some kind of anti Jewish sentiment. It’s nothing of the sort. This Bill would ban trade with all illegal settlements worldwide. Why would anyone think it’s okay to steal land and then sell the produce from that land?
Waiting for the Israeli hasbara bots to flood the poll….
@A F: I hope the journal keeps a graph of responses over the time the poll is open
I am concerned with Ireland getting more.cosy with Iran. Iran is funding the likes of Hezbollah and Hamas yet Harris turns a blind eye.
Jumping off the neutrality fence is great sport. Why not include Tibet in this legislation too – fairly sure they are occupied ? Basque region maybe ? Let’s build a big list of goodies and baddies.
A total ban on all trade as well as a sporting and cultural ban on Israel should be put in place. It worked with the odious South African Apartheid regime. Israel’s government and people are drunk on power and are carrying out apalling atrocities on a daily basis. They are monstrous people, akin to Nazis.
Luckily with the vote so resounding for yes, the few disgusting voices on here, are either Zionists, or the Tommy Robinson, Gert Wilders brigade Israeli apologists and racists. The matter how much ya suck up to these guys your still only a paddy to em wake up.
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