Colin Sheridan: Same old faces, does it mean the same old stalling of the Occupied Territories Bill?

Much like the recognition of the State of Palestine last year, the Occupied Territories Bill is more a symbolic rebuke of Israel than a self-immolating act of moral sacrifice that has any tangible effect on our economy other than one: the US and Israel don’t like it

That it’s the same players that have been re-elected who denied the passing of the Occupied Territories Bill into law for the last six years should only amplify the pressure on party leaders Micheál Martin (right) and Simon Harris (left). File photo: Leah Farrell / RollingNews.ie

The key to being an effective politician in government, it seems, is convincing the public that the work you do is much too complicated for ordinary people to understand. 

There was no clearer evidence of this than during the recent election campaign when candidates knocked on doors expecting to woo voters with the exclusionary language of legislators. 

Ask them about the Occupied Territories Bill, however, and the mask slipped quicker than a drunk on ice. They bloviated like a parent trying to avoid a conversation about how babies are made. 

I do wonder what instructions came from higher headquarters for those poor foot soldiers sent out to canvas.  Obfuscate with extreme prejudice? 

From what I could tell the answers given to concerned citizens who inquired as to why it had taken so long to pass the bill did not amount to much more than “ask your mother”.  For the most part, it obviously worked. 

With few exceptions, the same politicians were re-elected, and despite the facade of “ongoing negotiations” between Fianna Fáil and Fianna Gael (another pseudo-intellectual ruse), we are inevitably a couple of weeks out from a new government with the same old faces. 

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Experience will tell them they can expect a cooling off period — a brief honeymoon that will allow clemency on all but one issue in their new improved program for government; the Occupied Territories Bill. The sinus infection they just can’t shake. 

That it’s the same players who denied the passing of the bill into law for the last six years should only amplify the pressure on party leaders Micheál Martin and Simon Harris, especially as they conveniently hinted it would be wrapped around election time, only for that vague promise to disappear before Christmas.

So, what’s the problem? The “it’s complicated” shtick no longer holds. That fallacy evaporated when the International Court of Justice published a revised opinion last summer on the status of the occupied territories, which prompted new advice from the Attorney General, paving the way for the bill to be passed by Government. 

With an election looming and a genocide almost unanimously declared in Gaza, the Government said they would proceed with the bill. Conveniently, they dissolved the Dáil before they could. 

Now, with an election won and a new government imminent, there are murmurs of cold feet amongst senior officials in both parties.

Let’s be clear. All the passing of the bill will achieve is a ban on trade between Ireland and Israeli firms operating in the occupied Palestinian territories. 

It would not prevent Ireland from trading with Israel, which we continue to do despite the International Criminal Court (ICC) issuing arrest warrants for Benjamin Netanyahu as the architect of the continuing genocide in Gaza, not to mention Israel's brutal military campaigns in Lebanon and the Occupied West Bank. 

Much like the recognition of the State of Palestine last year, it is more a symbolic rebuke of Israel than a self-immolating act of moral sacrifice that has any tangible effect on our economy other than one: the US and Israel don’t like it. We know they don’t like it because they’ve told us, both publicly and in private. 

Moral responsibility

Disguising any fresh hesitancy shown by a new government as pragmatism is to recuse Micheál Martin and Simon Harris of the moral responsibility they assume as leaders of our country. 

They choose to deal with a terrorist state. No Irish job is worth that betrayal.

The horror in Gaza will end. Not because of anything Ireland has done, but because there is literally nothing else to destroy, and nobody left to kill. Then, the real reckoning will start. Where we stand (and how we stood) will matter.

There is an inherent sickness within our political class if the calculations our leaders make on continuing to associate with those who commit the state-sponsored industrial slaughter of innocents are done purely on the theory of capitalist economics. 

If we, as a society, tolerate such moral abdication, we are just as sick ourselves.