[Published 24 June 2015]
The European Union (EU) runs the risk of being labelled “Jew-hater” - should it proceed with its plans requiring supermarkets and other retailers to label products made by Jews in Judea and Samaria (West Bank) differently from those made by Jews in Israel.
No matter what spin the EU uses to justify any such discriminatory labelling — the EU will be seen to be actively supporting the 2005 Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel — whose manifesto states:
“We, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel ... We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel ...”
These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by:
1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall
2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and
3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.”
The BDS campaign regards the ending of all trade and economic relations with Jews living in Judea and Samaria as just the “first step” in its campaign of racial vilification, denigration and delegitimisation designed to ultimately dismantle the Jewish State.
The EU appears to be readying itself to help the BDS campaign achieve this “first step” — as the foreign ministers of 16 of the EU’s 28 member states have urged EU Foreign Policy Chief Federica Mogherini to introduce the labelling regulations—stating in a letter dated 16 April that they:
“remain of the view that this is an important step in the full implementation of EU longstanding policy, in relation to the preservation of the two-state solution. The continued expansion of Israeli illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and other territories occupied by Israel since 1967 threatens the prospect of a just and final peace agreement.”
These foreign ministers conveniently ignore that:
1. The two-state solution — as contemplated by the Oslo Accords and the Bush Roadmap — is dead and buried after fruitless negotiations and rejected Israeli offers made during the past 20 years have all come to nought. Any hope of peacefully resolving the competing territorial claims of both Jews and Arabs to Judea and Samaria under these negotiating parameters is a figment of the EU’s imagination.Jews are residing legally in Judea and Samaria pursuant to the rights vested in the Jewish people under article 6 of the Mandate for Palestine and article 80 of the United Nations Charter.
2.The Palestinian Authority—Israel’s negotiating partner under Oslo and the Roadmap - no longer exists — having been disbanded by decree of Mahmoud Abbas on 3 January 2013.
3.Earlier two-state solutions were rejected by the Arabs:
(i) when that result could have been achieved with the stroke of an Arab League pen at any time between 1948-1967 or
(ii) when previously proposed by:
(a) Britain in 1923
(b) the Peel Commission in 1937
(c) the United Nations in 1947
The EU labelling diktat — if it proceeds — will have very little economic effect.
Such EU action will however align the EU squarely with those BDS racists and Jew-haters who continue to drool at the prospect of Israel being replaced by another Arab and Islamic State.
The EU will indeed merit the “Jew-hater” tag - should its ill-considered and misconceived labelling action proceed.
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