Israel party proposes labelling of colony products

Ramallah: Three days after Israel announced it would start diplomatic efforts to attempt to stop the European Union requiring the labelling of goods originating in West Bank colonies, occupied East Jerusalem and the occupied Golan Heights, Netanyahu’s government is fighting the same battle on a new domestic front.

The left-wing Meretz party has proposed a bill which would require the labelling of products made in the colonies.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed his “surprise” about the proposal and said that he has a “plan to ask that they withdraw this bill.”

In comments to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, Meretz Chairwoman Zehava Galon rejected Netanyahu’s request.

“Netanyahu must really be in trouble if he’s lashing out at Meretz, at this rate he will soon forbid the drawing of the Green Line on maps,” she said.

The Meretz leader said that the Israeli government already marks goods made in colonies as per its trade agreement with the European Union and the OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development.)

“There is no way Meretz will withdraw the bill which just clarifies for Israeli consumers — the distinction between products made in Israel and those made in the territories it captured 48 years ago.”

“If Netanyahu wants to cancel this distinction and the heavy price the colonies exact from Israel he is more than welcome to begin negotiating a permanent agreement [with the Palestinians] and end the occupation. Until then he will have to learn to live with the devastating ramifications of his policy,” Galon said.

The Meretz proposal coincides with a Hareetz claim that the Israeli Ahava Dead Sea cosmetics company is investigating opening an additional factory inside the Green Line.

While the company’s main production location is at the southeastern end of the West Bank on the edge of the Dead Sea (components of which are used in the manufacture of its products), Haaretz argues that the new plant will allow Ahava to export its products to nations concerned by colony production and to gain the benefits of the free trade agreement between Israel and the EU.

In a statement, Ahava acknowledged it is considering a new factory, but sidestepped the political ramifications. “In light of expanding production needs and changes in regulations for cosmetic products in some Western nations, Ahava is indeed examining the possibility of opening an additional factory. One of the possibilities is the Tamar Regional Council. Other possibilities are also being looked into. As of now there is no final decision.”

An editorial on Tuesday in Haaretz welcomed the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) movement and the EU stance. “Any international move that makes it clear to Israel that this “consistent trend” of growth in the number of colonists is destructive to Israel itself bolsters the chance that, someday, Israel will also have a government that understands this,” it stated.

The editorial is blunt about Israel’s situation, warning “It’s convenient for the right to claim that the pressure to boycott Israel stems from anti-Semitism rather than opposition to its insistence on continuing the colony enterprise and its refusal to make progress, in good faith, on an agreement with the Palestinians. But this is a fundamentally false claim that is meant to mobilise Israelis to defend the colonies. It’s true that one goal of the BDS movement is to return the Palestinian refugees to Israel. But it’s also clear that this isn’t the goal of serious players worldwide that are beginning to lose patience with the Israeli delusion: on the one hand, its desire to belong to the world’s advanced democracies; on the other, its insistence on keeping the Palestinians under an apartheid regime.”

“The prime minister’s policy, throughout his years in office, is what has turned many people worldwide against Israel,” warned the Haaretz editorial, “and that this policy is leading Israel itself to disaster.”