Senior ministers concerned about effects of Occupied Territories Bill.

walshb

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123024037#Comment_123024037

What “level of care” do you expect people 1000s a miles away from Gaza to have? This bill doesn’t mean anyone “actually” cares. It’s a self-serving virtue signaling exercise that people (in this case, politicians), come up with.. similar to the folks with their Palestine flags on their social media accounts. Gimmickry and attention seeking insincerity.

Hungry Burger

All this woke, “right on” stuff needs to go away and never come back. At this stage seems to be a deliberate tactic by western governments to keep us distracted from the real issues.

Who cares about Palestine? Like seriously this obsession on fringe social issues that seems to pervade every aspect of Irish politics is a scourge. Who cares about a hate speech bill that will likely not affect 99.9% of us?

Can we get back to focusing on things that really matter like our crumbling health service, housing crisis, cost of living, homelessness crisis etc etc the list could be as long as me arm. You know, like the things that actually matter to the Irish citizens who elected you to look after their interests, not the rest of the world’s.

I’m sure all the fine people getting up in the morning to do a days work in an American MNC will be thrilled when they lose their jobs. I hope good sentiments and virtue signalling will keep them warm when they can’t put the **** heating on.

Hungry Burger

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123023866#Comment_123023866

They’ll be grand as always so who cares if some plebs lose their jobs 🤷‍♂️

Kermit.de.frog

The government was already warned by the outgoing US ambassador last year of the consequences of this on the state, the ability of American companies to even trade in Ireland due to US laws about unsupported boycotts, and that was a Democrat.

I can only imagine the bluntness of the conversations with the incoming ambassador.

In short you don't need to worry OP because it won't be happening.

ceadaoin.

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123023865#Comment_123023865

Aside from the large amount of irish families struggling , there's always going to be wars going on somewhere and people dying around the world. So...Irish people can't dare to be comfortable or enjoy their lives until there is world peace and no one ever dies? Preaching at and shaming people for just living their lives thousands of miles away from and having nothing to do with any conflict isn't really going to do anything is it? Besides feeding certain people's sense of superiority that is.

j62

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123024290#Comment_123024290

It’s worse than that, the religion and culture of those people is completely and violently opposed to our way of life and cultural notions like equality for women, free and fair elections, freedom of religion and being anti slavery

Feck that

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123023866#Comment_123023866

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123024037#Comment_123024037

Stop the preaching, you say? 🪞

I’d nearly understand this crazed rush to sacrifice the Irish economy for Gaza if there was any practical consequence that could actually come out of this but there isn’t. It’s sheer performative virtue signalling.

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123023865#Comment_123023865

goes against what the majority of Irish people stood for in the past

Mmm. Some worthy principles alright, such as sending young men off to stand with Franco’s fascists against the elected Spanish government.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123024037#Comment_123024037

Well, if we pass the OTB, a hell of a lot more Irish people will be really struggling, or living elsewhere. Is that what you want?

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123024290#Comment_123024290

Maybe read the thread. People don't care about thousands of people dying as they can only think of themselves. The same people would step on an Irish person on the street, they're the modern people who took the soup. As I said, greed and selfishness in abundance.

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123024540#Comment_123024540

Maybe we should joined up with Churchill's thinking and starved millions of people to death because they were lesser than him.

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123024722#Comment_123024722

That was always the policy of FFG, Irish people emigrating was a good thing for them and they depended on it to form their budgets. You're a supporter of FFG so don't pretend you have any concern for ordinary Irish people.

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123024905#Comment_123024905

Nice little whataboutery there, well done you.

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123024989#Comment_123024989

Just responding in kind except my whataboutery was actually accurate unlike yours.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123024919#Comment_123024919

You misunderstand a lot. Firstly, I am not a supporter of FFG, I voted Green in the election.

Those concerned about the OTB are misguided at best, and at worst, like SF and the PBP, just want to bring down the system here and have no real concern for Palestinians or anyone else.

We haven't had net emigration for decades, and it is those who support an OTB who are determined to bring it back.

Stephen_Maturin

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123024895#Comment_123024895

What would you have these people do?

The vast majority of people in this country absolutely denounce the actions of Israel and feel sympathy for the plight of the Palestinians but beyond that I don’t really know what you expect people to do in practical terms - it’s a conflict thousands of miles away that has nothing to do with us.

Moralistic grandstanding from you isn’t gonna save any lives either

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123024905#Comment_123024905

Stop pretending that you have any concern for the people of Palestine or indeed the Middle East.

Israel isn't the greatest threat to ordinary people in the Middle East. The regimes in Afghanistan and the one in Iran with its puppets in Hamas and others are the ones who are the greatest danger. Where are your protests against the Taliban imposing a requirement for no windows in kitchens to hide the women away or their ban on women training as midwives, which will only lead to a huge increase in deaths in childbirth?

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123025022#Comment_123025022

No whataboutery from me: off-topic if you like, but I was only responding to someone else’s (that’d be yours IIRC) off-topic performative grandstanding about Ireland’s lost nobility of soul.

Kermit.de.frog

Screwing ourselves isn't going to help a single Palestinian.

volchitsa

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123025170#Comment_123025170

But there’s such a nice warm glow from all the virtue-signalling!

Kermit.de.frog

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123025234#Comment_123025234

It's embarrassing. Israel closing it's embassy was embarrassing. They closed their embassy because we don't matter - we are not important. Now we have no one here to talk to regarding Israel.

A propaganda victory for Israel because our political class is so insufferable.

No country closes an embassy in a serious country like that even when they vehemently disagree. That's when it's most important to have an embassy.

With Ireland they just couldn't be bothered.

Now they want to take the virtue signalling to a whole different level of damage for the Irish people.

blanch152

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123025234#Comment_123025234

The warm glow won't keep the lights on or the people in jobs.

walshb

Kinda’ refreshing to see on this thread the vast majority seeing this bill and our OTT “fake concern” for Palestine as nothing but virtue-signalling. I was beginning to think I was alone. And btw, I think the killing and bombing and hatred is awful.

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123025105#Comment_123025105

Read the thread. There's not much sympathy here. It goes from not caring to hatred of the Palestinians from a good few posters and that's reflected in real life.

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123025108#Comment_123025108

You quoted a post about Churchill and then went on a mad rant that had nothing to do with what I said. Obviously another fan of Churchill, you approved of his mass starvation of Indians?

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123025118#Comment_123025118

It was whataboutery, you didn't like it right back at you when the evils of your hero Churchill gets pointed out.

Irish Aris

Mod warning:

@Musicrules please stop with the references to Churchill. They are irrelevant to the topic and derail the thread.

Thank you.

Musicrules

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123025262#Comment_123025262

They should have kicked the Israeli ambassador out ages ago. It was shameful that they were allowed to stay as they insulted us.

tayto lover

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/123027085#Comment_123027085

I certainly won't miss that lying ambassador. She was given more air time to lie through her teeth than she deserved and always got an easy ride from Pat Kenny and his ilk.

shoegirl

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/2058386409/senior-ministers-concerned-about-effects-of-occupied-territories-bill

That's not how boycott bans work. Companies registered in the US are required to not comply with boycott requests - for example, if I want to buy 1000 laptops, but insist that there are no parts included that are manufactured in Israel, that counts as a boycott request. Its different to a scenario where the OTB is supposed to apply - which is supposed to be where a good is labelled as "made in Israel", but in fact is made by an Israeli owned company operating in an Israeli owned settlement in what 1995 Oslo Accord refers to as "Area C", which is the West Bank, and often referred to by pro-settlers as "Judea and Samaria". That's the objective of the Occupied Territories Bill as someone might assume it to mean.

The issue is that the bill itself does not declare its concern with Area C per se, it defines an "occupied territory" as:

"Occupied territory3. (1) In this Act, “relevant occupied territory” means a territory which is occupied within the meaning of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and which has been—(a) confirmed as such in a decision or advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice,(b) confirmed as such in a decision of the International Criminal Court,(c) confirmed as such in a decision of an international tribunal, or(d) designated as such for the purposes of this Act in a regulation made by the Minister pursuant to section 4.(2) The Minister shall publish on the internet and maintain a list of all territories for the time being constituting a relevant occupied territory under this section."

So the bill could apply to regions other than Area C, and it seems designed deliberately to leave the interpretation of what constitutes an occupied territory open in order to maximise what the authors of the bill consider to be an occupied territory.

Furthermore the US anti boycott compliance attempts to prevent US citizens or companies from partaking in boycotts that run contrary to US foreign policy. See here -

https://www.bis.doc.gov/index.php/enforcement/oac#Jurisdiction

This may be why previous AGs have described the bill as unenforceable. Also, the leaving open the question of what an occupied territory is to such a range of interpretations allows some opposition parties to imply it to mean Israel in its entirety, and not just the part of the West Bank commonly understood as Area C.