Ban on services must be included in Occupied Territories Bill, report says

The Government should include restrictions on the trade of services within the Occupied Territories Bill, according to a report by scores of human rights groups.

The coalition committed to passing a ban on goods from illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territories in its programme for government completed in January.

The Trading with Illegal Settlements report, published on Monday, said the Government should also include services in that legislation.

It follows a similar recommendation from a cross-party Oireachtas committee in July as well as repeated calls from activists and opposition parties.

Monday’s report expands on that recommendation and calls for an EU-wide end of trade with goods and services originating from the settlements.

It says such trade directly contributes to the dispossession and impoverishment of Palestinians in the region.

The report is signed by more than 80 humanitarian and faith-based organisations, including Christian Aid, Oxfam and Trocaire.

The publication comes days before the return sitting of the Dail following the summer recess.

Senator Frances Black, who tabled the original Occupied Territories Bill which included services, said: “We have been debating this legislation for seven long years, and in that time the situation in Palestine has rapidly deteriorated.

“We’re now facing into the devastating reality of a live-streamed genocide in Gaza. The time for talk is over. EU states, including Ireland, must finally act.”

Tanaiste Simon Harris, who is also Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, has previously said he is “open” to including services and that he expects a decision on the matter early in the Dail term.

Last year saw an increase in settlement expansion and settler violence, according to a report from the UN High Commissioner for Human rights.

Other studies from the UN have calculated that restrictions on Palestinians in the occupied territories cost the Palestinian economy billions of dollars per year.

Jim Clarken, chief executive of Oxfam Ireland, said: “This report lays bare the brutality of life under Israel’s illegal occupation since 1967: settler violence, the theft of over 2,000 sq km of land, control of water, and the suffocation of the Palestinian economy.

“The relentless expansion of settlements erodes the very possibility of the Palestinian state recognised by Ireland last year.

“The EU must find the unity this moment demands and fully suspend its trade agreement with Israel. The Irish people refuse to be complicit in illegal occupation. If ever there was a time for human life and survival to outweigh short-term economic considerations, it is now.”

Conor O’Neill, head of policy and advocacy at Christian Aid Ireland and spokesman for the Campaign to Pass the Occupied Territories Bill, said: “We have a crucial opportunity to get this right and ensure that an emerging new EU standard is effective.”

In June, Ireland and eight other EU member states formally wrote to the European Commission about the “urgent need” for proposals at EU level to “effectively discontinue trade with Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory”.

In August, Slovenia became the first EU member state to implement a ban on trade of goods with the illegal settlements.

Spain has also announced a ban on trade from illegal Israeli settlements, while legislation has been tabled in the Belgian parliament covering both goods and services.

The report states the EU is Israel’s largest trading partner – accounting for 32% of overall trade and amounting to 42 billion euro per year.

It calculates that European market may continue to import as much as 350 million euro worth of products from settlement-based Israeli corporations per year.

The report also recommends the suspension of the EU-Israel Association Agreement until Israel fully complies with the human rights obligations of the deal.