Tag Archives: boycott

Anyone?

Meanwhile…

FIGHT!

A motion put forward by Independent councillors Cieran Perry, Nial Ring, Christy Burke, John Lyons, Noeleen Reilly and Sinn Féin

RTÉ reports:

Dublin City Councillors have voted to boycott the ceremony to commemorate the Royal Irish Constabulary and Dublin Metropolitan Police.

The motion described the event planned to be held in Dublin Castle on 17 January as “obscene”.

It pointed out that this force identified those to be executed after the 1916 Rising.

It stated “only a subservient government suffering from a post-colonial state of mind and ashamed of our revolutionary history would encourage this disgraceful event”.

The motion was passed by 38 votes to 10 – those voting against included Fine Gael councillors.

Dublin City Council votes to boycott RIC ceremony (RTÉ)

Varadkar defends holding RIC commemoration amid boycotts of event (The Irish Times)

What do we want?

Fair Rent, fixity of tenure and beardy in Coventry.

FIGHT!

Captain Boycott?

National Chairperson of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign Fatin Al Tamimi outside RTÉ Studios in Donnybrook, Dublin 4 in March, calling for RTÉ to boycott the Eurovision Song Contest which is taking place in Tel Aviv

I usually find Mark Paul a precise and interesting writer. However, his language in his opinion piece is unusually slipshod.

He describes the call for a boycott of the Israeli-hosted Eurovision song contest as “indiscriminate”, “blunt” and “ill-defined”.

It is none of those things: it is a peaceful, calibrated and proportionate attempt to exert leverage over the Israeli government so that it might change its egregious policies towards Palestinians.

Far from a failure to “communicate fairly” with Israelis, the boycott call is sending a serious and constructive message – that so long as its policies are persisted with, the Israeli government will not be allowed reap the propaganda and other benefits it very consciously seeks to accrue from its sponsorship of cultural events like the Eurovision.

For this mild and measured boycott call to be equated with anti-Semitism is, among other things, an insult to the many Jews (including Israelis) who support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign in defence of Palestinian rights.

Andy Storey,
Sandycove,
Co Dublin.

Reaction to Eurovision boycott call (The Irish Times letters page)

Eurovision boycott stirs painful memories for Jewish people (Mark Paul, The Irish Times)

Rollingnews

This morning.

FIGHT!

Update
:

Update:

Yesterday: The Nation Holds Its Breath

Independent Senator Frances Black speaks in the Seanad on the Control of Economic Activities (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 last January;  Lawyers John ReynoldTom Moerenhout

On July 11, The Seanad will vote on Frances Black’s proposed legislation to prohibit trade with settlements in occupied territories.

The Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018 does not mention Israel and the Palestinian territories but will make it an offence “for a person to import or attempt to import settlement goods”.

Ahead of this, a legal opinion – drafted by Tom Moerenhout, of the Geneva Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, and John Reynolds, of Maynooth University – shows why “it is not just possible but compulsory” for Ireland to do this under international law.

From Tom and John’s summary (full opinion with footnotes at link below):

International law mandates a prohibition on the importation of goods and services coming from settlements in occupied territories, and the exportation of goods and services to settlements in occupied territories.

Ireland would fulfil its obligation under international law by withholding from trade with settlements.

This trade prohibition is not a sanction. It is a rectification of an error in international economic relations between the State of Ireland and the State of Israel.

Trade with settlement enterprises that primarily benefits the economy of the occupying power has never been allowed under international law. The same applies to the Moroccan occupation of Western Sahara

The obligation to withhold from trading with settlements arises from the Duties of Non-recognition and Non-assistance, which are activated because of the violation of peremptory norms of international law (jus cogens) by Israel in its settlement activity.

In particular: the obstruction of the right to self-determination, the acquisition of territory by the use of force, the violation of fundamental norms of international humanitarian law and the application of Apartheid;

This mandate to withhold from trading with settlements applies, at the same time, to the European Union as a whole and all of its Member States individually.

Member states do not only have the right, but the obligation to act on their own account. Ireland can only be in accordance with its obligations under international law if it withholds from trade with settlements

Prohibiting settlement trade does not constitute a trade measure and is not in violation of the exclusive competence for common commercial policy of the European Commission.

This measure is taken in response to obligations laid down in the International Law Commission Articles on State Responsibility. These obligations are customary, self-executing and of an erga omnes status. This means they do not require United Nations Security Council authorisation and they apply immediately to individual states.

EU law invites member states to file a complaint before the Court of Justice of the European Union when the European Commission or other institutions of the Union fail to act in accordance with the EU treaties, which incorporate international law.

The EU in its Regulation on Imports also allows Member States to deviate from the Common Commercial Policy for reasons of public morality.

Prohibiting trade with settlements does not violate World Trade Law. Article XXVI.5.(a) of the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade (GATT), including its negotiation history, confirms that GATT does not apply to illegal settlements….

Legal Obligations With Respect To” Control of Economic Activity (Occupied Territories) Bill 2018

Screenshot: Oireachtas.ie

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Captain Charles Boycott

Big rifle shotgun, extra ‘packaging’ and a fine hat.

But nothing seemed to work.

“Shun him in the streets of the town, you must shun him in the shop, you must shun him in the fairgreen and in the marketplace, and even in the place of worship, by leaving him alone, by putting him in a moral Coventry, by isolating him from the rest of his country as if he were the leper of old, you must show your detestation of the crime he has committed”.

Parnell’s advice regarding British landlords’ agent Captain Charles Boycott who died today in 1897.

FIGHT!

INDIFFERENCE!

Via Rare Irish Stuff (Facebook)

Thanks Spaghetti Hoop

JerusalemPost10/5/2013. Elders Visit Ireland(L-R) Tanaiste Eamon Gilmore pictured with the Elders – former US President Jimmy Carter, former Prime Minister of Norway Gro Harlem Brundtland and former President of Ireland Mary Robinson in Dublin last week.

The Jerusalem Post writes:

The pledge to single out “settlement” products was occasioned by the meeting in Dublin of a group dubbed “the Elders,”  All exuded enthusiasm for reviving Mideast peace negotiations, but all were also outspoken in their antagonism toward Israel. Gilmore reported that preparations are underway to label Israeli settlement goods in Ireland, but argued that a European-wide initiative would be much more effective. However, “we already have the process in train to do it ourselves unilaterally if necessary,” he noted.

…Many of Israel’s harshest critics weren’t well-disposed to it before so-called “occupation” and the muchmaligned settlements. In their eyes, even pre-1967, Israel could do no right.

Mainstream Israelis know that when foreigners claim they’re merely castigating beyond-the-green line (aka the 1949 armistice line) settlements, they really disparage all of Israel. When they claim they only target the Jewish state’s perceived policies, foreigners may actually be giving voice to preexisting bias.

Anti-settler and anti-Israel ardor is, more often than not, the latterday politically correct guise of Judeophobia. It may be suspected when Israel-bashers fail the 3-D test: delegitimization, demonization and double standard.

Double standard is evinced in cases of obsessive focusing on Israel rather than on truly ruthless occupiers.

Never mentioned is the Arab/Muslim genocidal incitement against Israel; nor the Jewish state’s diminutive size, its acute vulnerability, its past withdrawal from most of the territories it held and its readiness to cede most of the remainder. Instead Israel continues to be tarnished.

Demonization becomes undeniable when spurious crimes are attributed to Israel and unhesitatingly disseminated as fact.

Reporting on Gilmore’s latest quasi-boycott drive, at least two Irish newspapers – the Independent and the Examiner – informed their readers that Israel plans “to build another 3,000 settlements in the West Bank.” No less.

When seminal sites such as the Old City of Jerusalem are deemed “occupied,” Jewish roots and rights in this land are delegitimized. Indeed, Ireland was the last EEC member to recognize Israel and the lone EU member without an Israeli embassy until 1996.

Besides being baffled by Irish officialdom’s pugnacious antipathy, we can only envy Ireland’s evidently very happy lot. Although so geographically distant, it appears to have no greater worry than the Israeli bogeyman.

Irish ire (Editorial, The Jerusalem Post)

(Sam Boal / Photocall Ireland)