Ban trade with illegal settlements, prominent Israelis tell Irish committee

Ireland should move to ban trade with illegal settlements on Palestinian land in a “timely manner”, several prominent Israeli figures have said.

A former attorney general, several ex ambassadors, and various cultural prize winners have written to an Irish parliamentary committee to voice their support for the Bill.

After being pressured for years to enact the Occupied Territories Bill, which was first tabled in 2018 and would ban trade with all illegally occupied territories, fresh legislation to enact a ban was introduced this year.

The Israeli Settlements (Prohibition of Importation of Goods) Bill 2025 is going through parliamentary scrutiny and is before the foreign affairs committee.

Last week, Blinne Ni Ghralaigh, a member of the South African legal team accusing Israel of genocide at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), told the committee the Bill was “a minimum required for compliance by Ireland with its international obligations”.

The Irish Government said there is a narrow legal basis, based on an advisory opinion from the UN’s top court, to ban the trade with illegal Israeli settlements.

The ICJ said last July that countries should “take steps to prevent trade or investment relations” that maintain illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.

The Government is to ban the trade of goods but has indicated services are more legally complex.

In a letter to the Oireachtas Foreign Affairs committee, 12 prominent Israeli figures urged Ireland to enact the ban on trade – of both goods and services – and for other European nations to follow suit.

“As citizens of Israel who believe that the end of the illegal Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories is the key to achieving peace between our two peoples, we welcome Ireland’s advancement of the Bill banning imports from Israeli settlements,” it said.

Among the signatories are former Israeli attorney general Michael Ben-Yair; former director general of the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs Dr Alon Liel; former ambassadors and ex members of the Knesset and Israel Prize recipients.

“Successive Israeli governments’ outright defiance of international law has been enabled by the international community’s failure to move from rhetoric to action,” they said.

“The Irish Government is to be commended for taking a stand to halt Israeli settlements from benefiting from the fruit of the poisonous tree.

“The ICJ was clear: all states are obligated ‘not to render aid or assistance’ that helps maintain the Israeli presence in the OPT (Occupied Palestinian Territory).

“Accordingly, it is essential that Ireland comply with the ICJ advisory opinion by banning trade with the illegal settlements not only in goods but also in services.

“We expect the parliamentary committee to fulfil its responsibility to uphold the rules-based order by moving the Bill forward toward its enactment in a timely manner.

“We stand with Ireland as it moves ahead and urge other European states to follow suit.”

On Tuesday afternoon, several representatives of Palestinian and Israeli groups are due before the committee, including former justice minister Alan Shatter, who is a board member of the Israel Council on Foreign Relations.