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the West Bank and East Jerusalem, as well as towns and villages in the Golan Heights.
Thirty members of the Senate voted in favor of the draft law on the control of economic activity (Occupied Territories) – the first phase of which was approved in July – and 13 members opposed it.
According to the proposal, any import from "illegal settlements in occupied territories" would entail not only a fine of € 250,000, but also a five-year prison sentence.
BDS protest (Photo: Hagai Dekel)
For the legislation to be ratified, it requires further approval by the Senate, the lower house of the Irish parliament and the Irish president.
The bill, intended to break all commercial ties between Ireland and East Jerusalem, zone C of the West Bank and the Golan Heights, was presented to the Senate last February by Irish Senator Frances Black of Sinn Féin.
Senator Black recently led an anti-Israel campaign in cooperation with Al-Haq, a Ramallah-based Palestinian human rights organization, which has deep ties to the terrorist group The Popular Front for Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). support for the BDS movement (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) in the country.
In the past, Black described Israeli settlements as "war crimes" and compared his Senate initiative to Irish legislation aimed at fighting apartheid in South Africa.
Irish Senator Frances Black
"Ireland must regularly defend justice and human rights," said Mr. Black to the applause of almost all of Parliament, with the exception of the center-right party Fine-Gael.
The Irish Government strongly opposes this initiative and claims that this creates trade restrictions contrary to EU values and undermines Ireland's influence in the region.
According to EU law, its members can only mark products from settlements, but can not boycott or impose sanctions on their importation.
In addition, this decision could have serious consequences for Ireland, as many US companies (where anti-BDS laws have recently been adopted in 26 US states) are in force in the country.
Several major boycott organizations operating in Ireland have strong antisemitic rhetoric and disturbing relations with Palestinian terrorist organizations. For example, the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC), which "raises public awareness of human rights violations in the occupied territories", is responsible for the cancellation of many events organized by Israel in the country.
Gilad Erdan (Photo: Avi Mualem)
The Minister of Public Security and Strategic Affairs, Gilad Erdan, called the last vote of the Irish Senate "disgrace" that is "contaminated by anti-Semitism."
"The Irish Senate has supported the abominable boycott organizations linked to terrorist groups and cynically uses the term" human rights "to spread hatred that only exacerbates the conflict," the minister said in a statement.
"If this law is pbaded, we will act to expose the real motives … and to prevent its implementation in accordance with international trade laws," he concluded.
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