At a birthday party for a child at a fast-food restaurant, one of the young guests refuses to eat anything as his family has a policy of boycotting the chain.
At a pharmacy, a patient tells staff he is uncomfortable about continuing to take his long-standing medication as it is manufactured by an Israeli company and seeks a suitable alternative.
At a supermarket individuals quietly place stickers on dates which they believe originated in Israel but are unmarked.
And outside Croke Park, football, hurling and camogie players publicly press the GAA to end its relationship with insurance company Allianz, over what they see as its financial links with Israel.
READ MORE
All of the above are different ways in which campaigners have been acting out at individual, family and grassroots levels as civil society seeks to impose its own sanctions on Israel in support of the cause of Palestinians and to force an end to the country’s assault on Gaza.
This week Irish activists claimed victory after the Central Bank said it would no longer approve the sale of Israeli bonds.
Elsewhere, the campaign continues against Israeli goods and services and against companies critics describe as “complicit” in the actions of that country’s government.
Many of these campaigns follow the playbook set out by the international Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement which calls for non-violent pressure on Israel until it complies with international law in its treatment of Palestinians.
Israel, for its part, says such boycotts are discriminatory and anti-Semitic.
Zoe Lawlor, chairwoman of the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign, says it is a partner of the BDS movement and follows its lead and works on culture, academic, sporting and consumer boycotts.
“On the consumer boycott level, it would be any Israeli goods or services but also complicit companies,” she says.
There was a years-long campaign to pressure sports goods manufacturer Puma to stop sponsoring the Israeli football association, which was ultimately successful, but then another company, Reebok, has taken up the kit sponsorship, she says.
Now there is a campaign to pressure Reebok to drop its sponsorship deal.
She argues that Israel is “almost two years into a genocide” of Palestinians in Gaza and that there is “a culture of impunity”.
“Israel can commit any crime against Palestinians with zero consequences. So the boycott campaign is a way to impose, from civil society, sanctions on Israel and to cause an economic impact,” she says.
Lawlor says that since the start of Israel’s attacks on Gaza – triggered by the attack by Palestinian militant group Hamas on southern Israel in October 2023 in which about 1,200 people were killed and 251 people were taken hostage – there has been “a huge uptick” in the number of local groups and individuals seeking to take part in its campaigns.
[ ‘King Gimme’ Trump is lording it over the planet. Time someone stood up to himOpens in new window ]
“Everyone wants to know, what can I do?” she says.
She says that demonstrations take place on virtually a weekly basis, but that many new activists are also highlighting and opposing the sale or use of Israeli goods and services.
Philip Meaney from Co Limerick says over the years he attended protests to show solidarity with the Palestinian people, but events in Gaza made him “much more proactive in making sure that I am not in any way complicit”.
“We follow the BDS list and use that as a guideline for the different products and companies that we should be boycotting,” he says.
“So, for example, I have medication that I have been getting for years and then I realised it is produced by Teva which is an Israeli company. I immediately went to my pharmacist and I informed them. They said they could switch it over but it might cost a bit more and I said: that is fine.”
Meaney says he “explained to them what is happening and I brought them some information sheets that I had printed out” from BDS.
“The pharmacist then came to me and said they were going to divest as much as they can but obviously there will be people who need that medication.”
Fast-food giant McDonald’s faced a boycott after the BDS movement maintained in 2023 that the company was “complicit with Israeli atrocities” after a franchisee’s decision to offer discounts and free meals to soldiers. Last year the main McDonald’s company said it would take over the ownership of branches in Israel.
Meaney says his young family in the past loved going to McDonald’s, but had not been there in some time.
He says he “explained everything” to his two sons; the family have Palestinian friends, so they have a connection.
“One day our son was at a birthday party for someone at school and one of the parents called and said: ‘We are in McDonald’s but your son is refusing the food,’” he recalls.
“I said: ‘Oh, my God, it is just that as a family we boycott McDonald’s.’ But I said, if you are paying for it, I am not going to be mad with him or whatever.”
This opened a conversation in his son’s primary school on the topic.
“Some children in his class were picking on him about it. But I was pretty proud of him,” he says.
“He was very principled about it and he ended up talking in front of his class about Palestine and everything, and how McDonald’s was providing free food to Israeli soldiers invading Gaza.”
A campaigner, who identified herself as Nicola, told The Irish Times that her awareness of Israeli goods had been heightened considerably as a result of the attacks in Gaza.
[ TCD’s Israeli boycott draws criticism from Ireland’s Jewish communityOpens in new window ]
She says she would now actively chose goods and services that avoided companies associated with Israel or the arms industry even if this cost more.
She explained to her children about Palestine and not going for casual treats to McDonald’s, she says, and she has been careful about certain manufacturers when buying clothes for the children returning to school.
When seeking car insurance recently she sought a company with the least involvement with the arms industry through investments.
Former Meath player Colm O’Rourke was one of a number of high-profile GAA figures who last month signed an open letter urging the organisation to end its relationship with insurance company Allianz over its financial ties to Israel.
When he and others saw a UN report stating that firms including one owned by Allianz were significant buyers of Israeli treasury bonds that have helped support the country financially during its war in Gaza, they came to the view that this was not a company with which the GAA should be associated, he says.
The next stage of the campaign was to push to have the issue considered by clubs and county conventions next year with a view to having motions passed calling on the GAA to sever its links with Allianz.
Allianz is a sponsor of the GAA Football All-Ireland Senior Championship, the Allianz Leagues, the Camogie Association and Cumann na mBunscol.
Moves to seek alternatives to drugs manufactured by Teva are not confined to patients dealing with community pharmacies; they have now extended to hospitals.
The Irish Times reported last month that more than 50 consultants at Children’s Health Ireland (CHI), which runs paediatric hospitals in Dublin, have called on the State to stop using medicines manufactured by the Israeli company where “viable alternatives” are available.
Teva pharmaceuticals has a large presence in Ireland and is one of the biggest suppliers of generic medicines to the HSE.
The company said any boycott of its medicine could “impose a risk on the health and wellbeing” of patients.
Earlier this year the Irish Medical Organisation, the trade union for doctors, wrote to a number of ministers, following motions at its annual conference, urging them to review procurement chains in the health service to ensure they are in line with the UN and International Court of Justice rulings and directives and that any procurement does not support military action.
However, despite boycotts and campaigns by pro-Palestinian activists, the value of goods imported from Israel increased last year, official figures show.
Minister for Enterprise Peter Burke told the Dáil in June that goods to the value of €3.8 billion were brought from Israel to Ireland last year.
Most of this was accounted for by imports in the category of electrical machinery, apparatus and appliances, he said. The next largest imports were in the professional, scientific and controlling apparatus category, followed by small volumes of organic and inorganic chemicals, he said.
“The Government’s priority is to ensure that trade relations are compliant with international law,” the Minister said.
He said the EU-Israel Association Agreement, dating from 2000, was “highly relevant” in ensuring this compliance.
The agreement “provides the overarching legal and institutional framework for political dialogue and economic co-operation between the EU and Israel and excludes any preferential treatment of goods produced in Israeli settlements in the West Bank, East Jerusalem and other territories occupied since 1967”, the Minister said.
He said Ireland had been to the fore in calling for a review of the agreement to ensure conditions respecting human rights were being followed.
In 2023, goods to the value of €3.6 billion were imported.
The Government signalled last year that it would not in future buy military equipment from Israel. In 2023 the Department of Defence spent €307,500 on such equipment from Israel and about €600,000 last year – largely on maintenance and support for drones.
The Irish Times reported on Thursday that gardaí had paid €276,000 to an Israeli spyware company.
The ongoing conflict in Gaza will continue to keep the spotlight on Ireland’s economic connections with Israel.
