Senior ministers concerned about effects of Occupied Territories Bill.

OTB, West Bank - they're connected.

Yes, they are, obviously. Nobody has suggested otherwise. What's your point?

In the following Jerusalem Post article (27 June 2025), Alan Shatter wrote . . .

I wonder if he published this in the Jerusalem post in the hope that it would escape critical scrutiny?

It's the case right now that anybody importing goods has to demonstrate their provenance (because the customs duty, if any, depends on their provenance). This isn't a special rule for goods labelled "made in Israel". It isn't a rule that the OTB will change.

This only becomes an issue for goods labelled "made in Israel" if producers of goods in the Occupied Territories are labelling them as made in Israel, and the Israeli authorities are turning a blind eye to this. Is that the case? Because if so —

• it is an obvious breach of Irish and EU law to import falsely-labelled goods; I don't see why Shatter (or anyone else) would complain about enforcement measures;
• it is also a violation of the EU/Israel trade deal;
• it's something the Israeli authorities can easily avoid themselves, by ensuring that goods produced in the Occupied Territories are accurately labelled.

Shatter's "just asking questions" style of insinuating that Jews will be targetted, that synagogues will be raided, etc, is pathetic, absurd and offensive. Shatter, a former government minister, knows perfectly well what steps are taken to enforce trade sanctions in Ireland; he is relying on his Jerusalem Post readership having no clue about this, and having been conditioned to accept this unmitigated shîte by a stream of claims that Ireland as a rabidly antisemitic country.

Seriously, PA, you should have thought twice before posting this. When the arguments marshalled against the OTB are obvious rubbish, drawing attention to them does not strengthen the case against the Bill. It weakens it, by giving the impression that there are no good arguments against the Bill. That is probably not the impression you hope to create.

If the ICJ judgement on the settlements placed the obligation on countries that you say it places on them, then most EU member states other than Ireland would have versions of the OTB - but they don't. I don't envisage Germany or Austria or Italy having versions of the OTB - and I don't envisage them voting for sanctions against Israel either.

Rather than trying to infer what the judgement says from the stance adopted by states you have selected because their stance suits your preconceptions, why not just read the judgment which, through the wonderful magic that is Google, is readily accessible to all? Para 278:

Taking note of the resolutions of the Security Council and General Assembly, the Court is of the view that Member States are under an obligation not to recognize any changes in the physical character or demographic composition, institutional structure or status of the territory occupied by Israel on 5 June 1967, including East Jerusalem, except as agreed by the parties through negotiations and to distinguish in their dealings with Israel between the territory of the State of Israel and the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967. The Court considers that the duty of distinguishing dealings with Israel between its own territory and the Occupied Palestinian Territory encompasses, inter alia, the obligation to abstain from treaty relations with Israel in all cases in which it purports to act on behalf of the Occupied Palestinian Territory or a part thereof on matters concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory or a part of its territory; to abstain from entering into economic or trade dealings with Israel concerning the Occupied Palestinian Territory or parts thereof which may entrench its unlawful presence in the territory; to abstain, in the establishment and maintenance of diplomatic missions in Israel, from any recognition of its illegal presence in the Occupied Palestinian Territory; and to take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory.

Well, let me put it this way. The import of goods from occupied Northern Cyprus is already heavily restricted by law. Do you think the import of goods from the occupied Palestinian Territories should be subject to at least a similar level of legal restriction? If not, why not?

The point is that the issue of Palestinian statehood is relevant to discussion of the OTB.

But what, exactly, is the relevance? How is a decision about whether to ban imports of settlement goods affected by whether we recognise the State of Palestine or not?

There's a lot of difference between the ICJ and the highest court of a sovereign state.

There is, yes. But there are also similarities.

Obviously, when the Irish supreme court declares legislation unconstitutional, the Oireachtas will eventually appeal that legislation but, presumably, the legislation is still unactionable in the period between the judgement and the repeal. That's a world away from a supposed obligation on UN member states to stop trading with Israeli settlements.

Actually, the Oireachtas generally doesn't repeal an Act which has been declared unconstitutional. They don't need to — the Act is a legal nullity; it has no effect. Strictly speaking, there is nothing to repeal and purporting to repeal it won't change anything. From memory, on the first couple of occasions when the Supreme Court invalidated an Act on constitutional grounds the judgment would include comments explaining this, and indicating how the state and ita agencies should behave with regard to an Act declared to be unconstitutional, but nowadays judgments generally don't mention this, because it's well understood.

There is no "supposed obligation on UN member states to stop trading with Israeli settlements"; the obligation, as already stated, is "to take steps to prevent trade or investment relations that assist in the maintenance of the illegal situation created by Israel in the Occupied Palestinian Territory". An OTB-type ban is one step that might be taken, but not necessarily the only step, or the most appropriate step for every state.

It's not like the ICJ has the power to hold a head of government in contempt of court.

The ICJ doesn't make orders against (or for) individuals. It only deals with states. And it doesn't find states to be in contempt — it has no contempt jurisdiction — but to be in "violation of international obligations".

Since when has the US government ever taken an ICJ judgement seriously?

Oh, lots of times. In the US Diplomatic Staff in Tehran case (1980), for example. Or the Rights of US Nationals in Morocco case (1952). The US has brought claims to the ICJ itself on more than one occasion — something it would hardly do if it thought ICJ judgments were not to be taken seriously. Even if we just look at Advisory Opinions, the US supported the Interpretation of Peace Treaties opinion (1950) and it appeals to the Legality of Nuclear Weapons opinion (1996) in support of its own nuclear strategy.

Quite recently the US didn't either explicitly accept or explicitly reject the Chagos Islands opinion, but it implicitly recognised the force of that opinion when it pressed the UK (which had rejected the opinion) to make a deal with Mauritius to give up the UK claim to sovereignty — it recognised that the UK's claim was no longer tenable and it needed a firmer foundation for its own rights as lessee of the islands than a dodgy lease from the UK.

So you support the OTB, then? Or you want to see it tweaked in some way, but support it in principal?

As for bringing ICJ level cases against Turkey, we don't need to. The illegality of the occupation is already internationally recognised, and sanctions are already in place. So what would you be bringing an ICJ case for, exactly? The ICJ case against Israel arose mainly because other avenues were ruled out by the US's security council veto. That wasn't the case for Turkey.

Every occupation situation is different, as already pointed out in this thread, and a simplistic "you are applying double standards if you don't treat every case of occupation in exactly the same way" argument is not very compelling. To be honest, it looks like an attempt at distraction — let's talk about Turkey or China instead of about Israel, because I'd rather not talk about Israel, thanks all the same. Why, one cannot but wonder, would supporters of Israel not wish to talk about Israel?

It is a fair question to ask why the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories attracts so much attention, and the answer is probably multi-factorial. One is the very aggressively colonial nature of the occupation, involving expropriation of land and resources, construction of settlements, importation of a settler population, dispossession and exile of the indigenous population, and an apartheid-type legal regime in the occupied territories in which Israeli citizens are privileged over the local population. There are not many occupations conducted in a similar fashion. Another is the fact that the occupation is regionally destabilising — the unresolved Israeli-Palestinian conflict has a major impact in the region, and signficant adverse effects on other states in the region. Hence it's a much bigger issue for the international community than, say, the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara. A third factor is simply the scale of the occupation — the population of the Palestinian Territories is 5.5 million, and another 7.6 million Palestinians live in some degree of dispossession or exile. This makes it a much more signficant occupation than Western Sahara (600,000), Northern Cyprus (about 475,000) or even Tibet (3.4 million Tibetans in Tibet; about 150,000 in exile). Naturally, it's going to attract more attention.

And finally there's the obvious counter argument; how can you justify taking action against e.g. Turkey if you take no action agains the much more egregious occupation being conducted by Israel?

If you look at the major news outlets here, BBC and France 24 being the 2 that spring to mind first, they were always reporting from inside Israel much more often than they reported from Palestine before the war.

That might have something to do with the restrictions that Israel imposes — preventing or restricting the entry of foreign journalists into the occupied territories, detaining journalists, revoking press credentials and imposing intermittent communications blackouts. (And that was before the Gaza invasion — obviously, matters have got a lot worse since then.)

Your assumption is correct. But it's a well-known and well-documented phenomenon; I'm slightly surprised that you ask for sources, since I'd expect most people who take an interest in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to be aware of the issue.

https://theconversation.com/how-israel-continues-to-censor-journalists-covering-the-war-in-gaza-228241

https://www.jurist.org/news/2025/06/israel-imposes-sweeping-censorship-on-foreign-media/

https://rsf.org/en/pressure-intimidation-and-censorship-israeli-journalists-have-faced-growing-repression-past-year

https://euromedmonitor.org/en/article/4760/Punishing-Journalists%3A-Israel%27s-restrictions-on-freedom-of-movement-and-travel-against-Palestinian-journalists?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.article19.org/resources/israel-stop-attacks-on-journalists-media-freedom-west-bank/?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://rsf.org/en/west-bank-persecution-palestinian-journalists-ramps-while-world-spotlight-gaza?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.ynetnews.com/article/hyuwj0z4lx?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.refworld.org/reference/annualreport/freehou/2010/en/76192?utm_source=chatgpt.com

https://www.radionetherlandsarchives.org/press-freedom-in-israel-and-the-occupied-territories/?utm_source=chatgpt.com