The US Ambassador to Israel has criticised the Occupied Territories Bill, calling on Ireland to "sober up".
The bill would prohibit trade between Ireland and Israel's illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.
It was scrutinised yesterday by the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs and was introduced by Independent Senator Frances Black.
Mike Huckabee described the bill as "so stupid" and questioned if it could be attributed to an act of "diplomatic intoxication".
"Did the Irish fall into a vat of Guinness," he said in a post on social media platform X.
Mr Huckabee said the bill, known as the Israeli Settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories Bill, "will harm Arabs as much as Israelis".
He urged Ireland to "call the Israel Foreign Ministry and say you're sorry!"
His comments come after the bill was scruntinised at the Oireachtas Committee on Foreign Affairs yesterday during which former minister for justice Alan Shatter likened it to legislation passed in Germany in the 1930s.
Mr Shatter described the proposed legislation as the first 'Boycott Jews bill' by a European government since 1945, and replicated the type of legislation initiated by the Nazis.
However, Committee chair John Lahart of Fianna Fáil said that a claim made during the proceedings that the bill is anti-Semitic was "hugely hurtful and slanderous".
Labour TD Duncan Smith said there was a failure to recognise that the Israeli settlements in the Palestinian territories are illegal.
"That's a fundamental point of divergence," he said, adding Israel was "not the only example of Ireland deploying such a bill".
In 2014, he said, an "identical bill was passed in Irish law prohibiting trade in goods and services with Russian-occupied Ukraine".
Read more: Pointed exchanges and combative language as OTB before committee
Independent TD Catherine Connolly said that Government has "inexplicably" "left out" three of four categories contained in Senator Black's OTB bill, which dates from 2018.
"The violation of international law puts an obligation on us to do all we can" in the face of "genocide and slaughter", she told the Dáil during Leaders' Questions.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin condemned Israel's actions particularly the "latest phase" of the war which is "collective punishment".
He outlined the Government's logic on the issue, adding that: "when we get the legal advice back we will have greater clarity in terms of the inclusion of services or not".
