Israel Hayom..
17 November '19..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/paving-the-way-to-total-boycott/
The European Union's supreme court, which now requires all 28 member states to label Israeli products manufactured in Judea and Samaria, yet again bared its peculiar list of priorities in the areas of human rights and international law for all the world to see.
The Europeans and the organizations they fund have never labeled products from any of the world's other disputed areas, such as northern Cyprus, Western Sahara and dozens others, while EU member states even transfer money to and invest in these places. Every inquiry into other conflicts, unlike the Arab-Israeli conflict, has ended in the rejection of the idea to mark certain products.
This is because the European Court of Justice has direct links to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement against Israel. This is more than a "classification" – all boycotts begin by singling out those designated to be ostracized. Proof of this can be found in the series of measures that have been implemented by EU-funded organizations, which have always argued that marking goods is merely the start of an evolving boycott campaign – with clear and intended ramifications for the Israeli economy inside the Green Line.
A study conducted by Israeli group NGO monitor points to a broad coalition of rights groups working to carry out an ideology of boycotting through product labeling. As early as 2012, for example, the Interchurch Organization for Development Cooperation asked for EU funding to "precisely mark settlement products as a first step," and suggested intensifying the sanctions until "the complete prohibition of settlement imports… and the prohibition of money transfers to settlements and related activities." The code-speak "related activities," incidentally, also includes Israeli and international business initiatives that have nothing to do with the settlements.
This strategy is aptly expressed by the "Platform of French NGOs for Palestine" – an umbrella organization of 40 NGOs in France. Immediately following the French government's decision to adopt the European Commission's recommendation in 2015 to label settlement products, the "Platform" rushed to demand credit for the measure. In other words, the organization appropriated the European Court of Justice's ruling and is one of the leading BDS organizations in France.
Although the Platform claims its campaigns "aren't part of the boycott movement," its president, Claude Léostic, said in an interview that "we certainly support it." In a report that Léostic and other boycott groups published in June 2018, they call on French companies such as Egis, Systra and Alstom to "terminate their contracts with the Israeli authorities” and urge the French government to "take all the measures needed" to prevent French public operators SNCF, RATP and CDC from fulfilling their contracts with the Jerusalem tramway.
Another boycott group working alongside the Platform is the International Federation for Human Rights (FIDH). Together, they established the "created illegally" campaign in France, which calls on the French government to sever its economic ties with the "Israeli settlements" and any business with connections to them. The campaign's demands include prohibiting the import of products from these communities to France, convincing French companies "not to invest in the settlements," and providing information to tourists in order to "ensure they avoid supporting local companies or tourist sites in the settlements."
The innocuous rhetoric is meant to divert the discussion from its true goal: A complete boycott of Israel, sans actual effort to promote co-existence or human rights in the region. Indeed, these measures will also hurt Palestinians trying to make a living, but a senior EU official justified the initiatives by saying the Europeans "regret it, but need to look at the wider picture."
When the EU decided in 2015 to recommend labeling Israeli products from Judea and Samaria, the Golan Heights and east Jerusalem, the EU's ambassador to Israel at the time said the move was "just a technical matter." Two days ago, the current EU ambassador to Israel said the European Court of Justice's ruling reflects "parts of the EU's consumer policy."
We must ask, are assisting and funding boycott campaigns against Israel, harming Palestinian employment, discriminating on the basis of nationality and seeking to return the Golan Heights to terrorist groups in control of what was once Syria – also technical matters and part of the EU's consumer culture?
Itai Reuveni is the director of communications at NGO Monitor.
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