By Fintan Drury
Dan O’Brien has consistently questioned the value of the Occupied Territories Bill, long overdue legislation with political support across the spectrum. His Institute of International and European Affairs (IIEA), where he’s chief economist, is hosting an official event this evening on how the US might react were Ireland to pass the bill.
O’Brien opposes the bill, warning of serious consequences for the economy in the event of its passage. He is among a cohort of business and academic figures who argue that, as it has only a symbolic impact, it shouldn't proceed. None of those people objected to the decision of our government that Ireland should recognise the state of Palestine nor to the raising of the flag at the Oireachtas and government buildings that day, 24 May 2024. Such recognition was a symbol of our national support for the Palestinian people. Dissenting voices were few.
It follows that such a commitment would bring with it our belief that this nation, Palestine, which we chose to recognise, should be entitled to its territory without fear of it being taken by outside colonisers. At a minimum, the symbol of recognising Palestine must mean we believe that its people are entitled to live in peace and security on the land that we – by the sovereign decision we took – recognise as theirs.
The Occupied Territories Bill is critical to this belief. At a minimum government needs to pass it.
As that legislative process, hopefully, nears its end, Dan O’Brien’s IIEA has chosen to hold a briefing on how the US will react.
That choice, to worry about the US’s reaction above other considerations, should inspire anger. The event’s guest list should bring more: one of the two “experts” the IIEA has chosen to speak is a Zionist settler who has a home on stolen Palestinian land in the West Bank.
The IIEA website says that Eugene Kontorovich is a senior research fellow at the Heritage Foundation and a professor at the Antonin Scalia Law School of George Mason University. What it does not say, even though others previously brought these facts to the attention of Dan O’Brien, is that Kontorovich has taken Palestinian land in the West Bank and “settled” it for his home.
Kontorovich has a home in Alon Shvut, on land stolen from the people of a Palestinian town, Khirbet Beit Zakatiyyah.
When considering these settlements, where O’Brien’s guest has a home, take Israel’s word for it. Former IDF commander and Israeli government minister Moshe Dayan declared after the 1967 war that Israel was an empire. He recognised the Zionist mission for the corrupt theft of land that it was, later saying, “Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. There is no place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population.”
Kontorovich has argued that international law cannot determine Israel’s occupation of the lands is illegal. He disputes the term “occupation”. Whatever he thinks, Ireland recognises all the international rulings that consider these settlements illegal.
The IIEA knows this: there can be no misunderstanding that Ireland considers the West Bank to be Palestinian. Why has an Irish institution like it chosen to offer such a person an important platform?
Why, in this moment, as the state of Israel continues to pursue its genocide of the people of Palestine, would the IIEA, whose patron is the president of Ireland, consider it appropriate that Kontorovich would be one of two people briefing its members on the reaction in the US to the Occupied Territories Bill when he himself is an illegal settler? Kontorovich has strong views on Israel’s rights, views he is entitled to express, but that isn’t the point. What is curious is that his views didn’t disqualify him as a contributor for this particular briefing.
Those who choose to attend and hear what he has to say need to understand his beliefs. When he speaks about how the US might react to the passage of the Ocuupied Territories Bill, know this: he is a man who has dismissed the findings of genocide against Israel as “absolutely absurd”; he has called for the UNIFIL presence on the Lebanese border, where Irish troops play such a significant role, to be ended; he’s called for the US to defund the UN.
Just three days ago he wrote an opinion piece in the Washington Times arguing the Trump administration should respond to the increasing number of countries recognising Palestine by announcing the US supports Israel’s right to the land of Judea and Samaria. That’s the West Bank to us.
On its website the IIEA claims to be at the centre of thought leadership in Ireland and boasts a reputation for independence. Those ambitions were critical to the ideals of its founder, the late Brendan Halligan, whom I was lucky to have as a friend. Those hopes are not being met by the deliberate inclusion of a Zionist settler in the West Bank – on land stolen in direct contravention of international law – as one of two “experts” meant to guide members on the likely fallout in the US to our imminent passage of the Occupied Territories Bill.
