Results 1-20 of 26 for israel segment:8866829

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

Pearse Doherty: ...which are under the control of ISIF and are not pooled investments, are in banks. Taxpayers are appalled that their money is going to the likes of Leumi Bank, which is one of the largest banks in Israel. For decades this bank has facilitated the expansion of illegal settlements in the occupied territories. In 2022, it granted a loan for a construction project in the Palestinian village...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

...to reputation. The Deputy has used some examples from the list. Even from our own analysis in recent months, we are aware of our reliance. Companies are not stating their amount of activity in Israel. It will be broken down on their accounts. The accounts might refer to activity in Europe, the Middle East and Asia. We are very reliant on NGOs, as is the UN for its list. That is why...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

Aidan Davitt: ...would be a trickle down to other companies that are based or headquartered in Ireland for their European operations, such as Facebook, Meta, X or whatever else, which are evidently leading into Israel and would be servicing that area? I am curious to hear the witnesses' thoughts on that. As Deputy Doherty rightly said, if we are giving money to some of these banks that are funding the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

Alice-Mary Higgins: ...in the investments being made here. That contributes to, and is partly responsible for, the situation we see now, where there has been a culture of absolute impunity and the idea that international law does not apply to Israel’s actions, as well as the fact that it has not had to defend itself economically and has not faced pressure to comply with international law. It has not...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

Matt Carthy: ...that an Irish Government agency not only uses the list, but cites it to provide cover for political charges? At one point, IDA Ireland was planning to employ a business development consultant in Israel, which rightly caused concern. In response, the Minister for Enterprise, Trade and Employment tried to ease concerns by stating that IDA Ireland would not interact with any Israeli company...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

Matt Carthy: Last month, the Attorney General made a presentation to the ICJ in the context of its examination of Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine. He stated: In the present case, States are obliged not to render aid or assistance in maintaining the situation created by Israel’s breach of its obligation to respect the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination. The General...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

John Brady: ...enduring what the UN Secretary General, Antonio Guterres, described as horrifying levels of hunger and suffering. Children are literally dying of starvation. This is a continuation of a sustained Israeli strategy designed to annex Palestinian territories through a process of isolation, fragmentation and dispossession. It seeks to separate Gaza from the West Bank, with the further...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

...Palestinian people in countless creative ways. I am here to represent the 80% of people in Ireland who understand that they are seeing a live-streamed genocide unfold, the 70% who understand that Israel is an apartheid regime and the 70% who want to see sanctions imposed on Israel. They are who I represent today. There is a mass movement for Palestine in Ireland right now. The latest...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

Mr. ?amonn Meehan: I thank the committee for inviting Sadaka to make a presentation. A key element in the strategy to make permanent Israel’s 57-year long occupation of Palestinian territory is the construction of settlements. As members heard from Deputy Brady, there are now more than 700,000 Jewish Israeli settlers living in 144 settlements in the occupied Palestinian West Bank,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

Richard Boyd Barrett: ...western international political community are displaying, especially over the past couple of years in this regard? Many of us, including all the witnesses, were calling for sanctions to be imposed on Israel long before the recent genocidal massacre it has inflicted in Gaza due to decades of apartheid, ethnic cleansing, persecution of the Palestinians and refusal to allow the refugees...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

John Brady: ...respond with sanction after sanction on Russia following its illegal invasion of Ukraine. We have not seen the same level of interest or action being taken with the ongoing illegal actions of the Israeli state. All we get is condemnation and rhetoric with no affirmative action being taken. It is quite interesting that one action the Government is looking at taking, which it has been...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

Mr. ?amonn Meehan: Sure. In response to Deputy Boyd Barrett, it is absolutely true that Israel has up to now led a charmed life as a member of the international community. In votes of the UN General Assembly in recent months, three quarters of member states have voted in favour of ceasefires on more than one occasion. The obstacle, however, is the UN Security Council and, in particular,...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

Matt Carthy: I sincerely thank our guests for attending and again commend Deputy Brady on bringing forward a meaningful action in response to what has been a decades-long policy on the part of successive Israeli Governments to flagrantly breach international law without consequence. That is why legislation such as this is so important. Words matter, of course, and the words of the Irish Government in...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

Matt Carthy: ...fit into the wider campaign, as our guests see it, of boycott, divestment and sanctions that has been advocated? How does it fit into the wider campaign to bring to bear international pressure on Israel for its gross violations of international law? What will it say if we do not do this? What will be the implications of Ireland not taking this opportunity to divest the money that has...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

John Brady: I thank the Deputy. He touched on the annexation motion, which was historic in its own right when it was passed overwhelmingly by the Dáil in 2020. It stated quite clearly that what Israel is doing by grabbing Palestinian land is absolutely illegal. There have to be repercussions from such a designation, whereby ours was the first European country to unilaterally state that Israel is...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

Mr. Brian ? ?igeartaigh: I echo everything my colleague has said. The fact is that 70% of people in Ireland want to see sanctions imposed on Israel. The Irish Government has also acknowledged this by reaching for the Euro-Med trade agreement as a fig leaf. This is not going away. The Government needs to take action.

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

Frances Black: ...will not take this tangible action. We can all condemn until the cows come home and make all the rousing speeches we want about peace and human rights, but if we fail to act to end our complicity in Israel's violation of international law, then our words do not matter very much; that is the truth. Deputy Brady initiated the Bill in March 2023. Second Stage was debated on 16 May 2023....

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

John Brady: ...for the security of these settlements. This involves everything from surveillance equipment, CCTV, the illegal checkpoints to stop Palestinians travelling from their fragmented communities, which Israel has generated, and even right down to the current situation on the ground in Gaza where Motorola components are critical. This involves everything from surveillance equipment, CCTV, the...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

...regime. Senator Black mentioned the Attorney General and his presentation to the International Court of Justice last month in the context of looking at the question of the illegality of Israel's occupation. We are likely to get a judgement from the ICJ on this question in the coming months. Not only is it likely that we will have a situation where the settlements per se breach...

Joint Oireachtas Committee on Finance, Public Expenditure and Reform, and Taoiseach: Illegal Israeli Settlements Divestment Bill 2023: Discussion (20 Mar 2024)

...and ordinary Irish people would be complicit in all of these crimes. Even leaving the genocide in Gaza aside, well over 330 Palestinians have been murdered by Israeli occupation forces and by Israel's illegal settlers in the West Bank in the past five months. It is unconscionable and impossible to stand over. It is completely unsustainable and that is why we are calling for this Bill.