Ireland moves to ban Israeli imports; university cuts ties with Israel
Ireland is making significant steps by aiming to become the first EU country to ban trade with Israeli-occupied territories. At the same time, Trinity College Dublin has severed all academic ties with Israel, marking a strong stance in the ongoing debate over the region.
Its long-held continuing support for the Palestinian people has roots in the country's own history – and these latest measures have crystallised tensions with Israel, News.Az reports citing foreign media.
Ireland's prestigious Trinity College Dublin said on Wednesday, 4 June that it would cut all ties with Israel in protest at "ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law" – the first first Western university to make such a move.
The university's board informed students by email that it had accepted the recommendations of a taskforce to sever "institutional links with the State of Israel, Israeli universities and companies headquartered in Israel".
The recommendations would be "enacted for the duration of the ongoing violations of international and humanitarian law," said the email, sent by the board's chairman Paul Farrell and seen by French news agency AFP.
The taskforce was set up after part of the university's campus in central Dublin was blockaded by students for five days last year in protest at Israel's actions in Gaza.
Jenny Maguire, president of Trinity's student union, told RFI's Dublin correspondent Clémence Pénard: "Last year, the university threatened to fine the union €250,000 for our protests. But today, we are gathered here, in a better Trinity, a Trinity free of apartheid."
Among the taskforce's recommendations approved by the board were pledges to divest "from all companies headquartered in Israel" and to "enter into no future supply contracts with Israeli firms" and "no new commercial relationships with Israeli entities".
The university also said that it would "enter into no further mobility agreements with Israeli universities".
Trinity has current Erasmus+ exchange agreements with two Israeli universities: one with Bar Ilan University, which ends in July 2026, and one with the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, which ends in July 2025, the university told AFP.
The board said that the university "should seek to align itself with like-minded universities and bodies in an effort to influence EU policy concerning Israel's participation in such collaborations".
Eoghan, a student at the university, said: "Not so long ago, under British colonisation, we too experienced oppression that we recognise in what the Palestinian people are suffering. In Ireland, we cannot remain silent in the face of this. Maybe others can, but not us. And we will make sure that our voices are heard."
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