Israel’s 2014 attack on Gaza, condemned as a “massacre” by Brazil’s president and France’s foreign minister, has exacerbated global anger and further eroded Israel’s already thinning support in European public opinion.
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The settlements are illegal under worldwide law and major stumbling blocks to peace efforts, with those in the West Bank and east Jerusalem built on land seen as part of a future Palestinian state.
“Because of the latest EU decision, Israel is suspending its diplomatic dialogue with the EU in various forums which had been scheduled to take place in the coming weeks”, Israel’s foreign ministry said on Wednesday, adding that its diplomats would not attend a number of scheduled EU meetings after the EU ruling.
Justice Minister Ayelet Shaked called the decision “anti-Israel and anti-Jewish”, and said she plans to look into possible legal action against the EU. “It took an immoral decision”, Netanyahu said. “Of the hundreds of territorial conflicts around the world, it chose to single out Israel and Israel alone, while it’s fighting with its back against the wall against the wave of terror”. In the past, he has said the continued settlement construction raises questions about Israel’s seriousness for peace. “It’s wrong. Europe should be ashamed of itself”.
The move has come in the context of a larger recognition of Palestine, as the European Union made a decision to proceed on guidelines years in the making after several of its member states, and its own Parliament, formally or symbolically recognised a legitimate Palestinian state. “Israeli settlement” on Israeli wine, food, or cosmetics made in the occupied territories, the EU Commission has said.
Israel has been the target of a global boycott campaign aimed at ending its occupation, known as BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions).
It is with this intention in mind that the Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Council welcomes the commission notice and call for its full implementation by all the European Union member states.
“Products made in Israeli factories and businesses in areas disputed between Israel and the Palestinians will no longer say “made in Israel”. “It’s interesting that they do not label products from the Western Sahara or [northern] Cyprus”.
The “unequal use of legal tools owes to the fact that the Israeli-Palestinian profile, because of its historical connotations, is incomparable to others in the level of interest it draws and its visibility in media and politics”, said Hagen.
Support for BDS is growing among academics, artists, trade unions, students, churches and environmental groups around the world, including in Europe. The catalyst for the number of successes was a high-profile controversy. The illegality of the settlement enterprise extends to its products. However, three Palestinians working in a factory in a settlement laughed off the suggestion. “Today’ s decision will play into the hands of those determined to demonize the Jewish state, offend mainstream Israelis who favor territories compromise and encourage maximalist Palestinian positions”, said Daniel Schwammenthal, Director of the AJC’s Transatlantic Institute in Brussels. “I think that it is important that the boycotters be exposed for what they are, they are classical anti-Semites in modern garb”, Netanyahu added, saying it was time to “delegitimise the delegitimisers”. As the tide in many areas of Europe turns increasingly anti-Semitic, the labeling will without a doubt have a negative economic effect on Israel regarding goods shipped to European Union nations from those areas.
Supporters of the movement disagree with this charge.
Israeli officials have claimed such measures are merely a prelude to a wider boycott of Israel and have repeatedly drawn comparisons to the boycott of Jews during the Holocaust.
The “anti-Semitic” tag that equates the movement with racism is deeply ironical.
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“Boycotts of that sort are simply unacceptable”, Helmer said.
