Palestinians view the ruling as a significant milestone; Israel sees it as a hostile political tool
Palestinians are delighted, while there is widespread discontent among Israelis, after a ruling by the European Court of Justice (ECJ) in Luxembourg on November 12 that requires EU member states to label Israeli products that come from settlements and distinguish them from other Israeli products by clearly indicating their origin and place of production as “coming from a settlement in the occupied territories.”
The ECJ ruling applies the European Union’s rules of origin and the European Commission Directive of November 2015 on the identification of settlement products.
Minister Walid Assaf, head of the Colonization and Wall Resistance Commission, told The Media Line that the ECJ’s new ruling was significant and strategic in terms of European dealing with settlements products. “Currently, it’s important to work on identifying the companies operating in settlements and publish a list stating their names.”
Assaf explained that the move would weaken and oppose what he termed the Israeli settlement and colonial project, which, he said, destroyed any chance for peace in the area.
“The existence of Israeli factories on Palestinian lands in the West Bank is against international law. These lands are privately owned by people whose land was forcibly confiscated,” he said, adding that these factories are using natural resources in the West Bank that Palestinians are prevented from using. The Palestinians don’t have an equal opportunity to produce or compete since Palestinian producers have to pay for land, water, electricity and more that the settlements receive at subsidized rates or for free.
Assaf said that Israel used stolen lands and resources to reduce production costs, at the expense of Palestinian products. “Basically, Israel usurps the land by force and uses it for development,” he said.
Israel rejected the European Court of Justice’s decision, promising to work with European governments to prevent implementation of the resolution on the ground.
A spokesperson for Israel’s Foreign Ministry told The Media Line that Minister Israel Katz considered the ECJ ruling unacceptable both morally and in principle. “I intend to work with European foreign ministers to prevent the implementation of this gravely flawed policy, which contradicts Europe’s position that a resolution to the conflict must be advanced through direct and unconditional negotiations, and not through legal rulings,” Katz stated.
Additionally, the spokesperson said that the European court ruling served as a tool in a political campaign against Israel, whose objective was to single out and apply a double standard against Israel.
“There are over 200 ongoing territorial disputes across the world, yet the ECJ has not rendered a single ruling related to the labeling of products originating from these territories. Tuesday’s ruling is both political and discriminating against Israel,” the spokesperson said.
Moreover, the ministry pointed out that the court decision diminished the chances of reaching peace and contradicted the positions of the European Union on the conflict. “It plays into the hands of the Palestinian Authority, which continues to refuse to engage in direct negotiations with Israel.”
However, a London-based international human rights activist who spoke to The Media Line on condition of anonymity asserted that Israel couldn’t do anything about the new ruling, or lobby any European country not to implement it “because it means that the country then will be in breach of the law.”
The activist was thrilled that Israeli settlement products finally would be labeled with their actual origin and not as made in Israel “although I believe that all Israeli products should be banned and boycotted; it’s absolutely unacceptable that products coming from the occupied West Bank are being sold in Europe. But in any case, of course we need to know where the products we buy are coming from.”
In addition, the activist said that Palestinians found it difficult to export their own products to Europe because this required Israeli approval, “which is extremely unfair.”
Yishai Fleisher, spokesman for the Jewish community in Hebron, in the West Bank, told The Media Line that the real issue was Israel’s failure to make clear to the world that it intended to hold on to these lands, “so an easy fix would be if Israel would just rename Judea and Samaria or the West Bank, or at least the parts where Israelis live, ‘the Israeli territories.’ Meaning that we intend on holding on to them.”
Fleisher explained that what the Europeans had done was to distinguish between the West Bank and Israel “because Israel has not made it clear that it does not distinguish between them.” And this had led the Europeans to try to undermine “Jewish rights in Judea and Samaria.”
“I’m not so upset that the Europeans are marking [the products] like this; I think that if we had guts, we’d say, look, Europe, now we’re going to mark all products coming out of Israel as ‘West Bank’ just to show solidarity [with the settlers],” Fleisher continued.
“I think speaking with clarity, speaking in unity, will defeat this [EU decision]. And in the end, this is a boycott-type effort and the Europeans should be ashamed of themselves. They might as well just put a yellow star on Jews. It’s really the same thing. But the root of it is the lack of clarity that comes out of Israel,” Fleisher said.
Uri Pilichowski, a resident of Mitzpe Yeriho, a settlement in the West Bank, told The Media Line that the European effort vilified Jews who lived in the settlements, and that it was unwarranted since the territory was disputed. “Yes, the EU considers the settlements to be violating international law or occupied or whatever negative connotation you want to give them. But from Israel’s perspective, it’s disputed. Israel has gone in with full faith trying to negotiate an end to the dispute but the Palestinian Authority will not enter into those negotiations.”
Pilichowski added that the people living in the disputed territories were, “according to any rational view,” not leaving. “There’s going to have to be some sort of settlement [of the dispute] and we’re not going to uproot 450,000 or [including the Jewish residents of east Jerusalem] 700,000 people.
Palestinian experts said that the ruling had particular importance because it was binding on all EU member states, took effect directly, and was not subject to appeal. It was by the highest European judicial authority and put an end to evasion by the governments of EU member states. Moreover, any European citizen, institution or association could sue any member-state government that failed to apply the judgment of the European Court of Justice in this area.
Steven Ganot contributed to this report.