By Staff Reporter

A recent motion adopted by Dublin city councillors calling for an economic boycott of Israeli will not be implemented by the council’s chief executive.

“Since its violent establishment in 1948 through the ethnic cleansing of more than half of the indigenous people of Palestine, the state of Israel has denied Palestinians their fundamental rights and has refused to comply with international law,” the motion read, adding that DCC “fully supports and endorses the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions [BDS] movement for freedom, equality and justice.”

Specifically, the motion called for an end to “all business contracts” with IT giant Hewlett-Packard, which it claims supplies and operates “much of the technology infrastructure that Israel uses to maintain its system of apartheid and settler colonialism over the Palestinian people.”

However, Dublin City Council chief executive Owen Keegan said the power to implement their motion rests with him, and it would not be implemented. 

“In exercising this responsibility, he is bound to have regards to national and EU procurement law,” said a spokesperson. “In view of this, he will not be implementing a procurement boycott of Hewlett-Packard or of any other entity … as to do would mean acting in breach of national and EU procurement law based on the legal advice [he has received].”

In a separate motion on Monday 9 April, the council also called for the Israeli Ambassador to Ireland to be expelled.

Meanwhile, it has emerged that Israeli authorities attempted to stop the Lord Mayor of Dublin from entering Palestine a few days after the motion.

Mícheál Mac Donncha says that immigration at Ben Gurion Airport in Tel Aviv only failed to stop him because they had his name wrong, confusing his title of Ardmhéara (Irish for Lord Mayor) as his first name.

In a statement from Ramallah, Cllr Mac Donncha said: “To ban people from entering Palestine on the basis that they oppose your policies is not only undemocratic, it is part of Israel’s attempts to censor its opponents.

“I am here in Ramallah at the invite of the Palestinian Authority to take part in a conference on the status of the city of Jerusalem. It is my understanding that others who were due to take part in the conference have been refused entrance. That is disgraceful in my view.”