The Matter of Labelling and That Boycott of Yesha Products

An EU-Israel trade agreement allows goods made in Israel to be imported into the 27-nation EU at reduced or nil rates of customs duty. However, products of Jewish communities in the areas of Judea and Samaria are excluded from the benefits and must pay the full rate of duty.

The UK Foreign Office claims there had been reports that the agreement was being circumvented and that some goods produced at these Jewish communities may have been wrongly labelled as made in Israel.

The Foreign Minister, David Miliband, called recently for

"the fair and proper implementation of the agreements on produce from this region...That means preferential trade for Israeli products, preferential trade for Palestinian products, but not preferential trade from the settlements," he said. The Foreign Office spokesman said Britain wanted the trade agreement implemented and products of Jewish settlements labelled as such. "Neither the UK nor the EU should do anything that inadvertently supports or encourages illegal settlement activity," he said.

[Israel President Shimon] Peres said there was an EU agreement. "I think it would be strange to have 27 agreements on every issue, with all due respect. We negotiated very hard to find a compromise," he said. Most workers in the settlements were Palestinians and if they were fired due to a crackdown on exports it would increase unemployment, said Peres, who is on a five-day visit to Britain.

Asked how he justified the suffering of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, Peres said: "Why should they suffer? Let them stop shooting and they won't suffer."

First of all, kudos to Peres for finally being rational and pithy.

Second of all, do we now have to label exactly who made these products? After all, if Arabs are employed, does it not make the products, partially at least, non-Jewish?

Third, if Israeli Arabs who consider themselves "Palestinian Arabs with Israeli citizenship", as is the latest subversive nationalist fashion among them, would Mr. Miliband & Co. require any products and produce they make to be labelled as, what?

And fourth, if Israel decided that the UK was doing something "illegal", I don't know, like Ireland, the Falkland Islands, the British Virgin Islands, Gibraltar, South Georgia and the South Sandwich Islands, the British Indian Ocean Territory or such matters as the operations of the Judicial Committee of the Privy Council, could we retaliate economically - with full justification?