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TAOISEACH MICHEÁL MARTIN has said the government must tread carefully when considering the expansion of its proposed trade ban with Israeli settlements, stressing that including services could inadvertently harm Irish-based multinational companies due to US anti-boycott legislation.
His comments come after Tánaiste Simon Harris last week published a fresh outline of the Occupied Territories Bill, which seeks to prohibit the import of goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements.
The bill will affect imports from the West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza Strip and Golan Heights – territories occupied since 1967 and widely recognised under international law as illegally held.
While the current draft focuses on goods only, Harris has signalled that he wants to include services in a future version of the bill.
However, Martin expressed concern about the legal and economic risks of doing so.
“That’s an issue we have to factor in, because we don’t want any companies or multinationals in Ireland inadvertently being caught up in this,” he said, referring to US anti-boycott laws.
“We do have to factor in the presence of American legislation, the boycotting divestment legislation, which is already passed by numerous states in America, which would penalise any company that, from an American perspective, participates in boycotts.”
Martin said that several US states have passed anti-Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) laws, which penalise companies seen as boycotting Israel or Israeli-controlled areas.
More than 30 US states have passed so-called anti-BDS laws that penalise companies or entities seen to be boycotting Israel or Israeli-controlled territories.
These laws often apply regardless of whether the boycott targets Israel itself or the settlements specifically – something Martin said poses a risk of misinterpretation.
“Whilst we’re just involved in the Occupied Territories, not Israel as a country, there’s a concerted campaign in terms of misrepresenting the Irish position, so that’s an issue we have to factor in,” Martin said.
Martin also addressed criticism that the government is backing away from the moral argument in favour of protecting economic interests.
“It’s not commercial, like it’s putting bread and butter on people’s table,” he said, noting the presence of “hundreds of thousands” of jobs in Ireland linked to multinational employers.
“The object of the exercise here is to put pressure on Israel, not to disadvantage Ireland unduly and that’s a factor.”
The Taoiseach acknowledged the symbolic importance of the legislation, but said it was important to be “clear-eyed” about its potential impact.
“There’s no point in Ireland coming out worse if it has no impact on Israel. That’s the only point I’m making, we have to be clear-eyed in terms of the impact. People should know about the impact.”
He also raised practical concerns about how a ban on services would even be enforced.
“How do you actually detect, how do you punish the offence, the practicalities around all of that. Those are real and the bill is fundamentally symbolic, it’s important.”
The Occupied Territories Bill, first introduced in 2018, proposed banning the import and sale of goods and services originating in illegal settlements, as well as the extraction of resources from those areas.
The revised version of the bill, now known as the Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill, would criminalise only the importation of goods, under the Customs Act 2015.
Services are not currently covered, though Tánaiste Simon Harris has said he is seeking further legal advice and wants to bring services into scope where possible.
“There isn’t another country in the European Union that you can visit today and ask a government minister about their bill to ban trade and the detail of it, because they don’t have one,” Harris said last Wednesday.
“Ireland is leading – but we have to do this properly.”
The bill is expected to go before an Oireachtas committee for pre-legislative scrutiny later this year.
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