Sir, – John McManus’s “Will Bill to ban investments in illegal Israeli settlements have any real impact?” (Opinion & Analysis, March 27th) was disappointing in its limitation.
It discussed the issue of divestment and sanctions without any reference to the multiple breaches of international law by Israel which prompted the Ireland Strategic Investment Fund Divestment Bill, or the fact that the people of Gaza are, according to the International Court of Justice (ICJ), at plausible risk of genocide, and suffering starvation imposed on them by Israel.
Divestment and sanctions are not acts without context; they are a response, in this case to war crimes and genocide.
Over the nearly six months of Israel’s onslaught on Gaza, the instruments of international law have profoundly failed the Palestinian people, with terrible consequences.
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Having enjoyed with impunity decades of breaches of international law, together with inaction from the international community, Israel is now oblivious to criticism.
In the West Bank and Gaza, it has ignored its legal obligations as an occupying power, repudiated the notion of civilian protection, and ignored the most important rules of international humanitarian law, as well as the orders of the International Court of Justice.
Faced with this intransigence, the only remaining option for states is the adoption of sanctions, including divestment from businesses complicit in an illegal settlement enterprise.
The ICJ ruling on the Bosnian genocide case obligates states to employ all means available to them to prevent genocide, including trade links. Ireland has significant trade links with Israel, including, for example, investments by our national pension fund in Israeli banks which finance and benefit from illegal settlements built on Palestinian land.
Choosing to be passive witnesses to de facto annexation, to genocide and to state-imposed famine is not an option, legally or morally. – Yours, etc,
ÉAMONN MEEHAN,
Chair,
Sadaka – the Ireland Palestine Alliance,
Blackrock,
Co Dublin.