After 7 years of deliberately delaying the Occupied Territories Bill, the Fianna Fáil / Fine Gael government has published a draft bill titled the “Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill” which bans import of goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. This bill blocks only a tiny fraction of trade with Israel, while the FF/FG government uses it to grandstand as opposing the ongoing genocide of the Palestinian people.
Irish trade with Israel is staggeringly large. The 26 county state was the second biggest importer of Israeli goods in the world in 2024, importing €3.83 billion worth of goods from Israel according to the Central Statistics Office. A large amount of this comes from chip manufacturer, Intel, transferring goods from its Israeli plant to its Irish plant in Leixlip, however imports of other types of goods from Israel are worth hundreds of millions of euros every year.
This significant economic relationship with Israel demonstrates the complicity of the Irish capitalist class and state in Israel’s genocide. As the Israeli economy struggles under the burden of massive military expenditure, and occasional clashes with Iran, continued Irish economic relations play a part in allowing Israel to continue massacring Palestinians in Gaza.
Facing pressure from the Irish public over its support for Israel, the government has introduced this bill in an attempt to save face. The bill is similar to the Occupied Territories Bill, which was passed by the Dáil and Seanad in 2018 and then kept in limbo before ultimately being scrapped by the government. The new bill retains the ban on imports from the Israeli settlements which was in the original bill, however it scraps the ban on services. Services make up the vast majority of Irish trade with Israeli settlements, with websites like Airbnb allowing Irish customers to book their holidays on stolen Palestinian Land.
The trade that the new bill does ban – goods imports from Israeli settlements – is absolutely tiny, amounting to about €685,000 in 2024. This figure makes up about 0.013% of total trade between the 26 counties and Israel. The bill also does not affect exports to Israeli settlements in the West Bank and East Jerusalem (worth about €11.14 million in 2024) or trade with Israel proper, worth about €5.2 billion in imports and exports in 2024, including €96 million in dual use technologies exported from the 26 counties to Israel, which can be directly used for military purposes.
These measures have triggered outrage from Irish capitalists, who worry that the bill will harm their ability to do business with the US. The director general of IBEC, a representative organisation for Irish employers, described the bill as being ‘symbolism’ and as not ‘not actually helping in any material way’, a correct characterisation, albeit from the perspective of protecting profit rather than seeking genuine solidarity for the Palestinian people. He and other IBEC representatives have repeatedly come out against any action by the 26 county government in support of Palestine, stating that this would harm Irish business with the US. Micheál Martin has assuaged these concerns by stating that the bill is ‘largely symbolic’ and that “we don’t want companies that are based in Ireland, employing people, punished in any shape or form”, even if said companies are assisting in and profiting from the genocide of Palestinians.
US politicians have long threatened Ireland over the Occupied Territories Bill. In October of last year the US ambassador to Ireland emailed Simon Harris to warn him of ‘consequences’ if the bill was implemented and that it would lead to uncertainty for US companies operating in Ireland, a thinly veiled threat. The chair of the US Senate’s foreign relations committee described Ireland as being on a ‘hateful, antisemitic path that will only lead to self-inflicted economic suffering’.
Ultimately, the purpose of this bill is not to economically punish Israel for its horrific genocide of Palestinians, but to deflect criticism of the state over its support for Zionism. The bill zeroes in on settlements in the West Bank and East Jerasulem in an attempt to whitewash and normalise the State of Israel itself, with which the 26 county state conducts huge amounts of trade.
A genuine attempt to support the struggle of the Palestinian people against genocide and occupation would involve cutting all ties with Israel, including all trade, as well as ending the use of Shannon Airport as a pitstop for American warplanes on their way to Israel. However, doing so would harm the profits of the Irish and American capitalists whose interests the 26 county government represents, and so instead we get this purely symbolic bill which does nothing to change the South’s real position as Israel’s second most important trading partner. As it becomes more and more clear that the 26 county state is satisfied with issuing harsh words to Israel while at the same time helping to prop up its economy, the necessity of working class struggle against Ireland’s involvement in imperialist plans grows ever greater.