Ireland will be taking over as President of the Council of the European Union at the beginning of 2013, and Haaretz reports it will use the position to push for an EU ban on settlement products:
Ireland is planning to utilize its upcoming term as President of the Council of the European Union, which begins on January 1 2013, to advance efforts to achieve a joint decision between all 27 member states to ban products from West Bank Settlements.
The Irish Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade, Eamon Gilmore, revealed the plan in a letter to the chairman of the Irish parliament’s Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade (PDF).
In a letter obtained by Haaretz, dated November 2, Gilmore wrote that during a meeting of EU foreign ministers in October, he declared that Ireland will give rise to discussions and support a comprehensive EU boycott of goods from settlements.
In an interview with the Jerusalem Post Gilmore explains he supports the move on moral grounds:
Ireland supports a ban on West Bank settlement products even though the European Union is unlikely to impose one, its Foreign Minister Eamon Gilmore stated.
“Ireland would support a ban at EU level, and put it forward as an option the Council might consider,” Gilmore said.
He wrote this opinion earlier this month in a letter to the Joint Committee on Foreign Affairs and Trade, the text of which was posted on the web Friday by the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.
Gilmore said he supported a settlement products ban on moral, not legal grounds.
He explained that while settlements were illegal under international law, the people that lived in them and the products they produced were not.
“I believe there is a moral case for banning settlement products, and I agree it could have a symbolic,” Gilmore wrote.
It would be consistent with EU values and positions to exclude settlement products from the EU, he wrote.
Gilmore cautioned, however, that he didn’t fool himself into thinking that such a ban would make an economic impact.
“I am somewhat concerned that attention is being focused excessively on the issue of settlement products, which form only one aspect, and a comparatively small one, of the problem. The key issue is settlements themselves and their relentless expansion,” he said.
Hasbara is dead in Ireland. Same in Scotland
Germany will derail the proposal but Israel is slowly bleeding goy support in Europe and the Germans can’t shaft the Palestinians for what their grandparents did to the Jews forever.
It is indeed sad to see the sheer amount of vitriolic anti-Semitism coming out from even the highest echelons of European power. The continent has indeed not changed much in the last 70 years.
Where is the European Sheldon Adelson when you need him? He needs to buy all the papers. Maybe he can initiate some settlement construction in the heart of EU, just to show them who’s boss.
Eamon Gilmore said “that while settlements were illegal under international law, the people that lived in them and the products they produced were not”. I disagree the settlers are all culpable to varying degrees, the leaders of Yesha more so than the individual settler who moved to occupied territory for financial reasons. All know, or should do article 49.6 of the Geneva Conventions. The sale of products is also problematical, minerals and water all stolen Palestinian resources without which most settlements could not exist. Also these products do not have any legal validity, for instance, in order to stop the German trade in occupied Europe the Allies, the US, UK and Dominions and the USSR amongst others, put together this Resolution at the International Law Conference in London in 1944, this is still in force, Yesh Din used it in their unsuccessful Israeli High Court action recently.
(1) The rules governing the validity in third countries of the acts of belligerent occupants and of transfers of, or dealings with, property, rights and interests of any description whatsoever derived from such acts, are rules of international law the non observation of which entails international responsibility.
Note: In courts of third States cases may be decided according to a variety of legal considerations, but the result must be in harmony with the rules of international law, the main contents of which are set out below. The Conference has not discussed the conditions under which a third State that does not give effect to the said rules is liable to pay damages to the injured party and/or his State.
(2) The occupant does not succeed, even provisionally, to the status or rights of the sovereign whom he displaces. The occupant has at most, under international law, only limited rights or jurisdiction and administration; acts in excess of these limited rights are null and void in law and are not entitled to legal recognition in any country.
(3) The rights of the occupant do not include any right to dispose of property, rights or interests for purposes other than the maintenance of public order and safety in the occupied territory. In particular, the occupant is not, in international law, vested with any power to transfer a title which will be valid outside that territory to any property, rights or interests which he purports to acquire or create or dispose of; this applies whether such property, rights or interests are those of the State or of private persons or bodies. This status of the occupant is not changed by the fact that the annexes by unilateral action the territory occupied by him.
(4) The civil administration established in a country subject to belligerent occupation has no status in international law. Any rule of international law establishing the invalidity of transfers of, or dealings with, property, rights and interests effected by the occupant applies also to similar transfers and dealings carried out by any associate or agent of the occupant acting for him or in his interest.
Krauss
Calling a spade a spade is not a crime and criticising Israel´s brutal occupation is not anti-semitism.
Living in Europe I do not see any “vitriolic anti-semitism” anyplace, as matter of fact less than against turks, blacks, gypsies and moslems in general.
It is time that Europe lives up to its democratic values and speaks up again genocide and apartheid at its borders.
Erin go brah, ( I hope I got it right)!
Banning imports from the settlements themselves is STEP 1.
Banning imports from Israel (itself) is STEP 2, and follows (or could be said to be allowed to follow) as a step by any country in fulfilling its undertaking to “ensure respect” for the Fourth Geneva convention “in all circumstances”, the BAN ON IMPORTS to last until the settlements and wall (and settlers) are removed (or the occupation ended).