Frances Black is an acclaimed national and international singer.
She wooed audiences all over the world with songs like, ‘After the Ball’, ‘Wall of Tears’, ‘All the Lies that You told Me’, ‘Talk to Me’ and of course her distinctive contribution to the memorable album, ‘A Woman’s Heart’, among many others.
Her music and songs not only connect people to their emotions and the challenges of their lives but they also point them in a positive direction towards a different, more optimistic future.
The experience of her music and her natural empathy for people on the margins experiencing injustice of many kinds finds her, as a singer, or indeed in her relatively new role as a Seanadóir, in Seanad Eireann, championing passionately causes from Palestine to the north of Ireland to the streets of Dublin helping people affected by addictions like alcohol, gambling or drug abuse.
And that passion will be very obvious next Wednesday in the Seanad when she tables the ‘Occupied Territories Bill’, seeking support from the Seanad to ban the importation of goods and services from Israel’s illegal settlements in the West Bank.
The bill carries with it the force and authority of the Fourth Geneva Convention which relates to the protection of civilians in times of war.
The settlements are illegal and that is the firm view of the Irish government, the European Union, the United Nations and the International Court of Justice. It is also the view of the Irish Congress of Trades Union, Trocaire and Christian Aid.
Not only are the settlements illegal under international law their existence is a war crime.
Frances recently visited Palestine and toured the illegal settlements and vowed to help the Palestinians reclaim their stolen land.
Her bill is deliberately designed to prohibit the import and sale of goods, services and natural resources from the illegal settlements.
The bill is consistent with the EU and its ‘exception’ in serious cases clause, which permits a member state – in this case the Irish government, to act unilaterally and ban goods from the settlements.
The EU already treats settlement goods and resources differently from Israeli goods in its exclusion of them from low tariff rates and its labelling of settlement produce.
And in a speech earlier this year in a Seanad debate sponsored by Seanadóir Black, Tanaiste Simon Coveney said he was “open to consideration” whether the EU’s approach on settlement products could be tightened further.
In the same speech the Tanaiste said the settlements are illegal under international law, constitute an obstacle to peace and threaten to make a two-state solution to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict impossible.
It is quite obvious that the EU and the Irish government view produce from the settlements differently – morally and legally – from Israeli produce.
The bill seeks to take a further and formal step to ban settlement goods altogether.
It targets settlement produce only and is not a variation on the important ‘Boycott Divestment and Sanctions’ campaign.
Supporters of the bill are looking to the Irish government to lead the EU in banning settlement goods in the same way that the workers in Dunne’s Dublin store led, against all the odds, an international boycott of South African goods.
Across all the parties in the Seanad and the Dáil there is support for a ban. In 2012 the Joint Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs urged the minister for foreign affairs to act in support of the ban.
Seanadóir Black has the support of Sinn Féin, Labour, the Greens and many independents in the Seanad.
To ensure success she needs the support of Fianna Fáil, at least, if not Fine Gael as well.
And FF’s track record in supporting the Palestinian people has been positive.
Justice for the Palestinian people has universal support. To rapturous applause, last week, at a Pink Floyd concert in Dublin, the band's singer Roger Waters read out a letter from Frances Black.
A decision by the Seanad to support a ban and acted on by the Irish government would be a powerful and meaningful act of solidarity with the people of Palestine and supporters of peace in Israel.
It could trigger a similar response in the EU and lead to a much-needed independent policy by the EU in the long search for a two-state solution to the conflict.
