3 days ago
Committee to hear from Shatter, Palestine Alliance on Occupied Territories Bill
Consideration of the Occupied Territories Bill will resume at the Oireachtas Committee of Foreign Affairs this afternoon.
The commitee will hear from former justice minister Alan Shatter, of the Ireland Israel Alliance, who opposes the measure, and from speakers from pro-Palestinian organisations based in Ireland.
For some weeks the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade has been scrutinising the bill, known as the Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories Bill, which prohibits the importation of goods from those settlements.
In his opening statement. Mr Shatter will claim the bill is a sectarian measure, based on falsehoods, riddled with anomalies and obscurity and detached from historical and present day reality.
He is expected to say the bill discriminates against Jewish people.
Chair of the Ireland Palestine Alliance Eamonn Meehan will say the bill is an appropriate legal and necessary measure given the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands as judged by the UN's International Court of Justice.
The court, he will add, has ruled Israel's occupation of Palestinian territory is illegal and it must be brought to an end, with Israel evacuating existing settlements.
Following committee scrutiny. the proposed Government legislation is due to return to the floor of the Dáil for further debate, but with the Dáil rising for the summer on Thursday, that will not happen until the autumn.
