The European Union has circled back to focus on its favorite pet issue: Israel

Via Israel Hayom - Prof. Eyal Zisser:

After eradicating the coronavirus that ravaged the countries of Europe and mending the deep rifts within its ranks, the European Union has circled back to focus on its favorite pet issue: Israel.

The new government, which was barely assembled and hasn't even published a plan of action yet, is already facing EU threats of punitive action, including economic sanctions and even the suspension of diplomatic ties if Israel dares follow through with its intention to apply Israeli law in parts of Judea and Samaria.

The bureaucrats at EU headquarters in Brussels can't actually drag Europe into a war on Israel, which has close ties with many countries on the continent, such as Austria, The Czech Republic, Hungary and others. These countries all harbor animosity for the EU, which failed in the moment of truth and left them, each on their own, to contend with the quarantines, deaths and economic crises caused by the coronavirus. But several leading European countries, chief among them France, Belgium, Spain and Ireland, are determined to spearhead an anti-Israel initiative and have threatened to enact punitive measures even if the majority of EU countries don't join them.

Disagreements between friends are legitimate, but when it comes to Israel-European relations, and to be more precise, several EU countries, this isn't the case. The EU doesn't care about the Palestinians whatsoever. Its concern for international law, which it says Israel is violating, also isn't a top priority. After all, the EU is indifferent to the Turkish occupation of Cyprus, and Brussels doesn't typically care about Tibet and Western Sahara either. 

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Ireland: Politician says that Israel has ‘taken Nazism to a new level’

Via Harry's Place (Eve Garrard):

Sinn Fein TD has said sorry for a tweet she posted some years ago in which she declared, among other obnoxious remarks, that Israel has ‘taken Nazism to a new level’. She has now announced that “I apologise unreservedly and wholeheartedly to people I have offended …… I never intended to cause hurt or distress to anyone.”

This apology is couched in a form of words that is quite frequently used by people who have found that the uncensored expression of their views about Israel and its supporters has turned out to be politically damaging to them. It’s a singularly irritating form of words, and it’s worth pinning down just why this is so. For a start, let’s not overlook just how extreme Réada Cronin’s particular claim was: she was saying that the Jewish state has engaged in the practices which were used by the Nazis at their very worst. Just think what those practices actually amounted to back in the day, and think also of the complete lack of evidence that Cronin provided when claiming that Israel is doing the same kind of thing today. (Nor could she possibly have provided it, since it doesn’t exist.). That appalling and unfounded charge is what she’s apologising for, and she casts her apology for it in the language of regret for giving offence.

It’s true that quite a lot of Jews will indeed be offended by being told that Israel engages in industrial-scale mass murder, with attendant rapes, tortures, and hideous medical experimentations on millions of helpless Palestinians, in the total absence of evidence for this. (Why, it’s almost as if people are prepared to make up disgusting lies about Jews – whoever heard of such a thing!)

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Europe: 55% of Israelis see the EU as Israel’s "enemy"

Via The Jerusalem Post:

Last October, the EU Delegation to Israel published an unusual tender, worth €285,000, soliciting the assistance of local public relations companies in order to “change the negative image” of Europe in Israel.

The proposal cites an EU-commissioned survey which demonstrates the extent of Israeli public mistrust of Europe. According to the survey, 55% see the EU as Israel’s “enemy,” while only 18% identify it as a “friend.” According to the Israeli news outlet ICE, the results of the survey reaffirm negative perceptions toward EU member states on a number of fronts, including their funding to non-governmental organizations (NGOs), claims that the EU supports the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign directly or indirectly, and even accusations that it “supports terror entities indirectly.”

These attitudes, apparently held by many Israelis, did not emerge suddenly. The EU is completely out of sync with Israelis on the issues that strike the deepest emotional chords, and is seen as tone deaf, at best, in appreciating the Israeli perspective.

Even if the public learns about the EU’s investment in cutting-edge scientific research at Israeli universities, they will not soon forget about how Europe flirts with BDS with product labeling or treating the anti-Israel movement as merely free speech.

Israelis see that the EU engages selectively with a narrow ideological group of civil society, such as B’Tselem and Breaking the Silence. They hear the repeated condemnations of Israeli policy concerning Area C of the West Bank, as if this is the major issue on the EU’s agenda.

Then there is EU and European funding for organizations that delegitimize Israel, including those that have ties to groups which the EU itself designates as terrorist entities. Two months after the European tender proposal, the Shin Bet (Israel Security Agency) announced it had uncovered a 50-person terrorist network operated in the West Bank by one of these groups, the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP). The statement named several leading PFLP figures, several who currently or previously worked for European-funded NGOs in financial roles.

Samer Arbid, suspected of having commanded a PFLP terrorist cell that murdered a 17-year old Israeli girl in August 2019, worked as the accountant of the PFLP-affiliated NGO Union of Agricultural Work Committees (UAWC) at the time of his arrest. UAWC is funded directly and indirectly by the Netherlands, Germany, France, Belgium, Spain and Norway. Arbid previously worked as an accountant for the PFLP-tied NGO Addameer, funded by Norway, Ireland, Spain, Switzerland and the German Heinrich Böll Foundation. 

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Ireland: Will Sinn Féin’s ascent hurt Israel-Ireland relations?

Via The Jerusalem Post:

With Sinn Féin, the political arm of the former Irish Republican Army, surging in exit polls in Saturday’s election, there is a real possibility that the next government of Ireland could take anti-Israel steps in the near future.

Sinn Féin, which has long held anti-Israel positions, reached 22.3% of the vote for the Daíl, Ireland’s lower house of parliament, the highest share of the national vote it has ever received, according to exit polls. […]

“Fine Gael, which has been in power since 2011, has been friendlier to Israel than Fianna Fáil or, for that matter, Sinn Féin, of course, which has been known to be extremely anti-Israel and very close to the Palestinian delegation in Ireland,” said Daniela Traub, Israel’s former deputy ambassador to Ireland. […]

Still, Irish journalist Michael Fitzgerald said: “You never lose votes for being anti-Israel here. Just about every party supports anti-Israel measures.”

There are two issues on the agenda when it comes to Israel and Ireland: the “Occupied Territories Bill” and possible recognition of a Palestinian state.

Both Sinn Féin and Fianna Fáil said ahead of the election they support the bill to criminalize doing business with Israelis from the West Bank, east Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. They also said they would recognize a Palestinian state. Both are popular positions shared by almost every party running.

If the “Occupied Territories Bill” becomes law, it could fine merchants in Ireland that sell products from the West Bank, Golan Heights or east Jerusalem for up to €250,000 or sentence them to up to five years in jail.

Sinn Féin’s election platform said it will “ban goods from Israel’s illegal colonial settlements in Palestine from entering the Irish market by implementing the Occupied Territories Bill.”

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U.K.: BBC’s Correspondent links the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians

Via Antisemitism UK:

Orla Guerin, the BBC’s International Correspondent, has appallingly used a primetime segment on the BBC’s flagship News at Ten programme to link the murder of six million Jews in the Holocaust to Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians.

In a story ahead of the 75th anniversary of the liberation of Auschwitz-Birkenau, directly after interviewing a Holocaust survivor whose entire family was murdered by Nazi Germany, Ms Guerin showed images of young Israelis who were performing their military service entering Yad Vashem, the World Holocaust Remembrance Center in Jerusalem. Ms Guerin narrated in the background, saying: “The State of Israel is now a regional power. For decades it has occupied Palestinian territories. But some here will always see their nation through the prism of persecution and survival.”

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Ireland: Israel slams ‘immoral’ bill banning trade with settlements

Via The Times of Israel:

Israel on Wednesday slammed an Irish bill that would outlaw the sale and import of settlement-produced goods, saying it was “immoral” and encourages terrorism.

“The Embassy of Israel is concerned by bills that further the divisions between Israel and the Palestinians. Legislation, which promotes a boycott of any kind, should be rejected as it does nothing to achieve peace but rather empowers the Hamas terrorists as well as those Palestinians who refuse to come to the negotiating table,” Israel’s mission in Dublin said in a press release. (…)

The government in Dublin — known to be one of the most pro-Palestinian governments in Europe — is opposed to the law, arguing that it is not legally entitled to curtail trade with Israeli companies based in the settlements.

“The Irish Government has always condemned construction of illegal settlement,” Foreign Ministry Simon Coveney tweeted on Tuesday. “But this Bill asks Irish govt to do something it is not legally empowered to do — trade is an EU competence, not an Irish one. FF [Fianna Fáil — The Republican Party] knows this — so this move is both opportunist and irresponsible.”

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Ireland: Leila Khaled, a convicted plane hijacker, to speak at a teachers’ club in Dublin

Via The Times of Israel:

Israel has lodged an official protest to Ireland over the invitation of Leila Khaled, a convicted Palestinian plane hijacker who has continued to advocate violence against Israelis, to speak at a teachers’ club in Dublin belonging to the Irish National Teachers’ Organization.  

Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan sent the protest letter to Dublin’s education minister, Richard Bruton, demanding that he cancel Khaled’s appearance, Hadashot TV reported Thursday. Khaled is scheduled to speak via video link in a public talk hosted at the club by the socialist groups Anti Imperialist Action Ireland and Lasair Dhearg.  

“It is hard to understand why Ireland, which has also experienced many terror attacks, would agree to honor a terrorist at an educational event, who expresses solidarity with terror attacks and views them as a legitimate tool,” Erdan wrote.

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Ireland: Capital's city council endorses boycott and mayor seems to endorse Palestinian mufti who met Hitler

He is the sort of person so many Europeans pick to represent them...

Via The Times of Israel:

The Foreign Ministry on Thursday rebuked the Irish ambassador to Israel, days after the Dublin City Council passed two anti-Israel resolutions and the city’s mayor attended a conference in Ramallah that appeared to praise the Palestinian mufti Amin al-Husseini, who in 1941 met with Adolf Hitler.

The ministry said its deputy director-general for European Affairs, Rodica Radian Gordon, expressed to Ambassador Alison Kelly her “astonishment and deep disappointment” over the fact that Dublin’s Lord Mayor Mícheál Mac Donncha had chosen to participate in a “blatantly anti-Israel event.”

“This is particularly disturbing in light of the event’s timing, in the week in which Israel observes Holocaust Remembrance Day,” the ministry said in a statement. “The government of Israel expects a public and official Irish response to the conduct of the city council of Ireland’s capital in general, and of its head in specific, which are conducting a campaign of discrimination and hatred against the State of Israel.” (...)

Earlier this week, Dublin’s city council passed two resolutions endorsing the anti-Israel boycott movement and calling on the national government to expel the Israeli ambassador.

As a result of those votes, Interior Minister Aryeh Deri said Tuesday that he would bar Mac Donncha from entering Israel on his way to to a conference on the status of Jerusalem in Ramallah, at the invitation of the Palestinian Authority.

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Ireland’s Boycott-Israel Bill violates EU and international law and will dmage trade with the U.S.

Via Mosaic Magazine:

Yesterday the Irish Senate considered a measure that would make it a crime—punishable by up to five years in prison—for citizens or corporations to do business with Israelis in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem, or the Golan Heights. (Voting on the bill has been postponed until a later date.) Orde Kittrie writes:

The senator who introduced the bill, Frances Black, previously signed a letter calling for a boycott of all Israeli products and services. While the bill does not mention Israel or Palestine by name, Black and its other sponsors have announced that it was designed to . . . prohibit Irish transactions relating to Israeli settlers and settlements. . . . The bill would punish Irish citizens and residents, as well as companies incorporated in Ireland, that engage in such transactions, regardless of whether the violation occurs in or outside Ireland. . . . .

[The] bill, if enacted, would be inconsistent with EU and international law. For example, the EU has exclusive competence for the common commercial policy, and member states are not permitted to adopt unilateral restrictions on imports into the EU.

The bill is also inconsistent with the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, the international agreement covering trade in goods. . . . [Furthermore, it] would gravely undermine Ireland’s economic links to the United States, which are vital to Irish prosperity. U.S. investment in 2016 accounted for 67 percent of all foreign direct investment in Ireland. Yet this bill would make U.S. companies with subsidiaries in Ireland, Irish companies with subsidiaries in the U.S., and their employees who are Irish or reside in Ireland choose between violating Irish law or violating the U.S. Export Administration regulations [which forbid participation in such boycotts]. . . . These companies would also be forced by Irish law to run afoul of some or all of the two-dozen U.S. state laws that impose sanctions on companies that boycott Israel.

read more @ The Hill 

EU: In the W. Bank, the EU creates its own facts on the ground

Via Mosaic Magazine:

The European Union has begun building settlements for Palestinians and Bedouin in a small strip of the West Bank known as the “E1 corridor.” As the Oslo Accords place this territory under direct Israeli control, these building projects—conducted under the shelter of diplomatic immunity and without proper permits—violate both Israeli and international law. Israel has finally moved to dismantle some of these structures, and now the EU is demanding compensation. David M. Weinberg comments:

[I]llegally established Palestinian villages and Bedouin shantytowns have slowly closed the corridor between Jerusalem and [nearby] Maaleh Adumim, where a major highway runs, crawling to within several meters from it. These illegal outposts steal electricity from the highway lights and water from Israeli pipelines. 

Civil Administration data, presented last year to the Knesset’s subcommittee on Judea and Samaria, showed that 6,500 Palestinians were living in some 1,220 illegally built homes in the area, and the number undoubtedly has grown since then—thanks to the EU, [which] has poured perhaps €100 million into EU-emblazoned prefabs, EU-signed roads, and water and energy installations. [And not only] in E1, [but also] in Gush Etzion, in the South Hebron Hills, and even in the Negev. . . . 

In short, the EU’s support of the Palestinians has graduated from passive diplomatic and financial assistance to subversive participation in the Palestinian Authority’s illegal construction ventures. The explicit EU intent is to erode Israeli control of [this portion of the West Bank] and east Jerusalem while promoting Palestinian territorial continuity leading to runaway Palestinian statehood. . . . 

Belgium, Denmark, France, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Spain, and Sweden—members of the so-called “West Bank Protection Consortium,” a body that coordinates “humanitarian assistance” to Bedouin and Palestinian squatters in [the area]—are now demanding that Israel pay them compensation of more than €30,000 each. . . . First the EU builds illegal settlements in defiance of Israel, then it demands that Israel pay for these offenses when Israel acts against them.

 Read more at Israel Hayom

Ireland: Sunday Times apologizes and removes article accusing Jews of being moneygrubbing

Update 2:
Sunday Times sacks antisemitic trope columnist

Update1:
The Sunday Times has apologized and the article has now been taken down.  Here.

Via UK Media Watch:

The Irish edition of The Times and The Sunday Times published an article today by Kevin Myers which actually accuses Jews of being money grubbing. As another journalist who tweeted accurately noted, this is simply vile.

"Jews are not generally noted for their insistence on selling their talent for the lowest possible price, which is the most useful measure there is of inveterate, lost-with-all-hands stupidity. I wonder, who are their agents?"

Ireland: Palestinian flag to be flown over county and civic offices in south Dublin

Via Dublin Live:

The move follows the flying of the flag over City Hall after Dublin City councillors voted on it 

The Palestinian flag is set to be flown over the South Dublin County Council hall in Tallaght and civic offices in Clondalkin. 

It will fly for a month after councillors voted to show their solidarity with the people of Palestine. 

The motion, tabled by Sinn Fein councillor Enda Fanning, follows the flying of the flag over City Hall after Dublin City councillors voted on it. 

Many councillors showed their support for the motion, with Fine Gael councillor Emer Higgins sharing her personal experience of her visit to the area. 

She said the move is a “signal to Israel that we think they could do better as a society”.

Fianna Fail councillor Ed O’Brien said he had reservations about the precedent that the motion would set for flying other flags, while Independent councillor Guss O’Connell said he could not support the motion. 

He said: “I don’t believe we should be flying a flag for one side or the other. This is too sectarian.”

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Ireland: Israel deplores Ireland's traditional policy towards Jerusalem

Via European Jewish Press:

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed his dissatisfaction over Ireland's traditional policy towards Israel, during a meeting in Jerusalem with visiting Irish Foreign Minister Simon Coveney. 

Netanyahu deplored that Ireland does not condemn the Palestinians for incitement and for glorifying those who commit terrorist attacks. 

He also asked the minister why his country helps NGOs that call for the destruction of Israel and noted that many European countries are overlooking the core problem of the conflict  which is the Palestinian refusal to recognize the state of the Jews. 

Ireland is generally considered as one of the most critical country towards Israel within the European Union, alongside Sweden. 

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Ireland: Muslim man jailed over threat to 'cut heads off Jews'

Related: Man holding the Koran ‘threatened to cut off the heads of Jews’ in Cork

Via Irish Independent:

Shmael Heirouche

A man who warned his French housemates that recent Isil terror attacks in France were "excellent" and that Jews should be beheaded was jailed for five years. 

Dutch national Shmael Heirouche (40) appeared before Cork Circuit Criminal Court after pleading guilty to a charge of threatening to kill or cause serious harm. Heirouche, who is of Moroccan ancestry, also told gardaí after his arrest that if he had a sword he would cut the heads off Jews. 

He told one French man that those who carried out terrorist attacks in France would "get a first class ticket" to paradise. 

Judge Sean O'Donnabhain warned that it was a very serious matter. 

The judge said society had a right to be protected but that this right must be balanced by a duty of care to Heirouche, who was diagnosed as schizophrenic in Holland.

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Europe: Manchester bombing highlights UN and Europe hypocrisy on terror

Via Washington Examiner (Michael Rubin):

As thousands of teens and young adults enjoyed an Ariana Grande concert in Manchester Arena, Salman Abedi, a 23-year-old detonated a bomb he had strapped to his body. That he packed the bomb with nails made his goal clear: He not only wanted to kill as many innocents as possible, but maim many times more. 

The Manchester attack is terrorism, plain and simple. There is no justification nor would any self-respecting politician nor diplomat even attempt to offer one. 

But what if someone detonated a nail-packed bomb amidst a crowd of children and other civilians and both the human rights community and European diplomats said it was justified? 

That's exactly what happened 15 years ago when the United Nations Human Rights Commission, operating under the leadership of former Irish President Mary Robinson, did just that against the context of a wave of suicide bombings in Israel. 

In an April 15, 2002 vote, 40 countries — including Austria, Belgium, France, Portugal, Spain and Sweden — argued that Palestinians could engage "all available means, including armed struggle" to establish a Palestinian state. That U.N. Human Rights Commission resolution enshrined the right to conduct suicide bombing in international humanitarian law. After all, many academics, diplomats, and human rights activists argue that the U.N. and its human rights wings set the precedent that becomes the foundation for international humanitarian and human rights law. 

When the Human Rights Commission voted, Israel was weathering a months-long suicide bombing campaign that, at its height, saw multiple bombings of buses, cafes and other public buildings every week. Many European diplomats might have been frustrated with Israel's counter-terrorism policies and unwillingness to accept the European view of the peace process, but to channel that frustration into a resolution that legitimized deliberate targeting and murder of civilians created a precedent which went far beyond the politics of the day.

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Ireland: Trinity College Dublin to host conference on academic boycott of Israel

Here we go again!  Europeans just can't help themselves from engaging in Israel/Jew-bashing.

Via The Jerusalem Post:

Trinity College Dublin is slated to hold a conference in September in which academics will call for an active ban on Israel in the name of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, according to the Jewish Chronicle this week.  

The event, which is expected to take place in the Irish capital on September 12, is organized by a group named 'Academics for Palestine' and will feature academics who will speak in favor of boycotting educational institutions in the Jewish state. 

A website promoting the conference offers several strong statements in support of an academic shunning of Israel, such as: "Across the world, academics and students have responded to the Palestinian call for boycott by refusing to cooperate with Israeli higher education institutions on grounds of conscience."  

The slated anti-Israel event has drawn criticism, particularly due to Trinity College's strong, decades-long ties to Israel and to Judaism, which were expressed recently when the university's student union voted twice against the introduction of a BDS policy, with the last vote determined by a "significant majority" just last week. 

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Also:
Trinity College Dublin event involving Israeli ambassador cancelled (February 2017)

Ireland to fly Palestinian flag over Dublin City Hall in display of solidarity

Via Truth Revolt:

Apparently, Ireland thinks the "plight of the Palestinians" is akin to its own struggle for independence, hence the country has called for the recognition of a Palestinian state and now, in another mindless display of "solidarity," will fly the Palestinian flag over City Hall in Dublin for a month beginning May 15. 

As usual, the entire motion is based on a number of false premises.  

"If the flag was to cause a bit of a debate amongst some people who are unsure of it flying over City Hall I think that's a welcome development," said People Before Profit Councilor John Lyons, the Dublin City Councilman who introduced the motion.  

"I think it's opening more people's eyes just to the actual reality of the daily life of Palestinians living under occupation which is a brutal life really," Lyons said, adding that the flag will fly "as a gesture of our solidarity with the people of Palestine living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, with the Palestinian citizens of Israel denied basic democratic rights and with the over 7 million displaced Palestinians denied the right of return to their homeland." Below is Councilman Lyons official motion: 

Noting recent reports of diplomatic developments by the Irish state toward full recognition of the state of Palestine, aware also that Ireland accorded the Palestinian delegation in Dublin diplomatic status in 2014, the same year that witnessed both Houses of the Oireachtas pass motions in support of Palestinian statehood, this city council will fly the flag of Palestine over City Hall for the month of May 2017 in support of the above diplomatic moves and as a gesture of our solidarity with the people of Palestine living under occupation in the West Bank and Gaza, with the Palestinian citizens of Israel denied basic democratic rights and with the over 7 million displaced Palestinians denied the right of return to their homeland.

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Ireland: Mossad Agents Cheered 9/11, Claims American Jewish Academic at Anti-Israel Conference

Via Algemeiner:

A controversial conference that wrapped up in Ireland on Sunday included 9/11 conspiracy theories, according to live-stream footage from the event.

The three-day conference in Cork — “International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Exceptionalism and Responsibility” – featured academics from various countries, including Israel, who had gathered to call the Jewish state’s right to exist into question.

In the question-and-answer period of one of the panels on the third day of the event, which, as The Algemeiner reported, was held at the University College Cork (UCC), American-Jewish professor emeritus Joel Kovel, former Alger Hiss Chair of Social Studies at Bard College and author of Overcoming Zionism, stated: “There are so many facts that aren’t known, and then they’re lost to memory. Did you know that, as the towers were burning on 9/11…the five painters who were cheering on the process from across the river…were Mossad agents?! And they were arrested and disappeared from the face of the earth.”

David Collier of the blog The Great Divide, who attended the event, wrote that this section of Kovel’s talk “will no doubt take the headlines, but in truth, his entire speech could be classified as a horrific antisemitic attack.” Collier said, as well, that the audience “seemed to appreciate [Kovel’s] suggestion that the world is ecologically doomed unless you can remove Israel from the Middle East.”

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Ireland: Pro-Israel speaker pulls out of conference over presence of Richard Falk

Via The Jewish Chronicle:

Alan Johnson

One of only two speakers due to argue Israel’s case at a conference questioning the existence of the Jewish state has withdrawn from the event over the appearance of an author who has endorsed a book espousing antisemitic conspiracy theories.

Professor Alan Johnson, BICOM’s senior research Fellow, confirmed he has pulled out of the conference in Cork, Ireland in protest at the organisers’ decision to bill Richard Falk as one of the keynote speakers.

In a statement, Prof Johnson, who also edits the Fathom journal, said:“I have informed the organisers of the Cork Conference that I will no longer be participating. The organisers have issued an invitation to Richard Falk to give a keynote speech. 

“I had agreed to participate in an academic conference to present a paper in defence of Israel’s right to exist. But by inviting a speaker who espouses antisemitic conspiracy theories the conference is now objectively an attempt to normalise antisemitism and I cannot attend such an event."

The Cork conference, which is titled “International Law and the State of Israel: Legitimacy, Exceptionalism and Responsibility” and begins on March 31, will feature some of the most outspoken critics of Israel. Speakers include anti-Zionist historian Professor llan Pappe and the University of Southampton’s Professor Oren Ben-Dor, who has blamed the Jewish mind set for provoking antisemitism.

Prof Johnson had initially believed he had a duty to attend the event in order to “defend Israel’s right to exist”.

But he told the JC he had decided to withdraw because in his view Mr Falk’s appearance “changes the character of the event”.

He cited Mr Falk’s endorsement of a book by musician and writer Gilad Atzmon, who describes himself as “a proud, self-hating Jew”, as an influencing factor.

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Ireland: Senators slammed for anti-Israel bias

Via Jerusalem Post (written by Benjamin Weinthal):

Irish senators attacked Israel with accusations of apartheid during a parliamentary debate in late November about the closure of the bank account of a BDS group, prompting criticism on Friday from the Jewish state and the Simon Wiesenthal Center.

“What has happened with Bank of Ireland is very sinister. We have a foreign apartheid state interfering directly to pressurise a bank that was bailed out by our taxpayers to close an account to try to undermine this organization,” said Sen. Paul Gavan, from the Sinn Féin party.

Israel’s embassy told The Jerusalem Post on Friday: “Regarding the debate in the Irish Senate a few weeks ago in which only a very small number of senators participated, it was unfortunate to see such one-sided bias against Israel and a number of inaccurate accusations made about Israel.”

The members of the Irish upper house are not directly elected, and the legislative body has considerably less lawmaking power than the lower house, the Assembly.

The Senate debate was initiated by Sen. David Norris, an independent lawmaker, who said he was contacted by the Dublin-based Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign because the Bank of Ireland pulled the plug on the group’s accounts.

IPSC advocates for the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement targeting Israel.

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