Ireland’s dangerous, shocking, antisemitic, anti-Israel boycott bill, entitled “Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018,” would impose huge criminal penalties against a large array of persons and entities who sell, import, assist, etc., numerous Israeli Jewish products and services, if the bill becomes law. NOTE: Although Ireland’s legislatures voted for the Bill, there are still several additional steps in the Irish legislative process before the Bill can become law.
The Irish Bill is based on the Big Lies (1) that Israel illegally occupies her own land, and (2) that Jews living in the Jewish homelands of Judea/Samaria and eastern Jerusalem (including the Old City, which contains Judaism’s holiest sites) are “illegal settlers” whose simple presence violates the Fourth Geneva Convention. The horrific Irish BDS Bill underscores that the best – and perhaps only real way to combat anti-Israel antisemitic BDS – is to combat these Big Lies.
Under international law, Jews have the unquestionable legal right to live in all of Jerusalem and Judea/Samaria (renamed the “West Bank” by Jordan to attempt to de-Judaize it). Yet Jewish communities comprise less than 2% of Judea/Samaria. 99% of Palestinian-Arabs live in Gaza which Israel completely evacuated, and in the 40% of the West Bank in which Israel ceded control to the Palestinian Authority (the PA).
In the PA, Palestinian-Arabs control every aspect of their own lives, except Israel has a security role (a role that would be unnecessary if Palestinian-Arab terrorists ever stopped murdering Israeli civilians). In the PA, the Palestinian Arabs run their own government, police, media, schools, businesses and mosques, etc. Further, the PA rejected repeated offers of statehood because the PA refuses to give up its goal of destroying all of Israel, by signing a clause accepting Israel and agreeing not to make further claims on Israel. Nor did the Palestinian-Arabs establish a state when Arabs (Jordan) seized and controlled the eastern portion of Jerusalem and Judea/Samaria for nineteen years (1948-1967).
Ireland’s “Occupied Territories” Bill was introduced by anti-Israel private members of the Irish opposition party (Fianna Fáil), and has now passed both houses (the Seanad and the Dáil) of the Irish Parliament (the Oireachtas). Fortunately, the Bill has not yet become law.
Worrisomely, however, the Irish government appears to agree with the Bill’s false premise that Israel is an “illegal occupier” of portions of her own land. ZOA strongly urges the Irish government to oppose the fundamentally false basis of the Bill, as well as the Bill’s deleterious practical effects. Addressing the false basis of BDS is ultimately the best way to defeat BDS.
ZOA further strongly urges the Irish government to discontinue its involvement in efforts to enact anti-Israel steps via the European Union.
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