Showing posts with label Israel boycott. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Israel boycott. Show all posts

Friday, January 29, 2016

Obama Joins Israel Boycott, Labels West Bank Goods - BREITBART/Associated Press

Obama at Western Wall 2008 (Associated Press)

Obama Joins Israel Boycott, Labels West Bank Goods

Jan. 28, 2016  BREITBART/Associated Press

In a step towards joining an Israel boycott, the U.S. is now requiring goods originating from the West Bank (also known as Judea and Samaria) to be labeled separately from products from the rest of Israel, following the European Union’s crackdown on products from the disputed territories.

The U.S. Customs and Border Protection service, which falls under the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), has issued new mandates requiring that West Bank products not be marked “Israel,” citing a notice from the year 1997 that offers such instructions.
The memo from DHS, titled, “West Bank Country of Origin Marking Requirements,” reads:  
“The purpose of this message is to provide guidance to the trade community regarding the country of origin marking requirements for goods that are manufactured in the West Bank.”
According to the instructions, “It is not acceptable to mark” goods from the West Bank as having been from “Israel,” “Made in Israel,” or from “Occupied Territories-Israel.”
In its statement, U.S. Customs threatens, “goods that are erroneously marked as products of Israel will be subject to an enforcement action carried out by U.S. Customs and Border Protection.”
“Goods entering the United States must conform to the U.S. marking statute and regulations promulgated thereunder,” the statement adds.
Groups advocating “boycott, divestment, and sanctions” (BDS) against Israel have demanded separate labeling of Israeli goods from the West Bank and the Golan Heights as a step toward a total boycott of Israeli products.
Israel maintains that under international law, the West Bank is “disputed,” and not “occupied,” since there was no legitimate sovereign in the territory when Israel took control of it in self-defense after Jordan attacked Israel in 1967.
Many of the products that will be affected are made within areas of the West Bank, such as the Etzion bloc, are likely to be part of Israel under any peace agreement.
The new instructions were published by DHS over the weekend, following complaints from Palestinian and fringe leftist outfits that the U.S. was not complying with a 1995 law that calls for the marking of goods from the West Bank, Israel National News reports.
In November, the European Union mandated the labeling of Israeli products from the West Bank and the Golan Heights. Critics, including presidential candidates, have argued the labeling of products only from “Israeli areas” of the West Bank, and not Palestinian-controlled territories, is a discriminatory and anti-Semitic act.
The EU now refuses to allow the label “Made in Israel” on products made anywhere outside of the pre-1967 lines.
Following the implementation of EU labeling mandates, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called the actions an “exceptional and discriminatory step.”
This will not advance peace; it will certainly not advance truth and justice,” he added.
Last week, the State Department effectively endorsed the anti-Israel labeling measures.
On Wednesday, to mark Holocaust Remembrance day, President Obama pledged to confront worldwide anti-Semitism:
“Here, tonight, we must confront the reality that around the world, anti-Semitism is on the rise. We cannot deny it,” he said from the Israeli Embassy in Washington, D.C.

Saturday, September 19, 2015

Iceland capital retracting decision to boycott Israel

A view of Reykjavik, Iceland's capital. (CC BY-SA 3.0 Andreas Tille/Wikipedia)
A view of Reykjavik, Iceland's capital. (CC BY-SA 3.0 Andreas Tille/Wikipedia)

Iceland capital retracting decision to boycott Israel

Reykjavik mayor to amend motion voted on this week, proposal to single out only Israeli goods produced ‘in occupied areas’

 September 19, 2015 TIMES OF ISRAEL
A controversial and harshly criticized decision by the Reykjavik City Council this week to boycott Israeli products will be retracted, Reykjavik Mayor Dagur B. Eggertsson said Saturday, according to local website Iceland Monitor.
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The proposal will be amended to indicate that the Council will be boycotting only those goods produced “in occupied areas,” the website reported, citing the mayor.
On Tuesday, the Reykjavik City Council voted in favor of a general boycott of Israeli goods “as long as the occupation of Palestinian territories continues,” Iceland Magazine reported.
Council members said the boycott was a symbolic act demonstrating the Icelandic capital’s support for Palestinian statehood and condemnation of Israel’s “policy of apartheid.”
Israel’s Foreign Ministry condemned the move, and, in an apparent reference to Iceland’s status as a hotbed of volcanic activity, said “a volcano of hatred spews forth from the Reykjavik city council building.
“For no reason or justification, except hatred for its own sake, calls of boycotting the state of Israel are heard,” the Foreign Ministry said in a statement. “We hope someone in Iceland will come to their senses and end the one-sided blindness fielded against Israel, the only democracy in the Middle East.”
On Thursday Iceland’s Foreign Ministry distanced itself from the decision, saying the move was “not in line” with the country’s foreign policy.
Speaking to The Times of Israel, a spokesperson of the island nation’s government said that: “The Ministry for Foreign Affairs wishes to underline that the City Council’s decision is not in line with Iceland’s foreign policy nor does it reflect on Iceland’s relations with the State of Israel.”
Earlier Saturday, before the retraction was announced, Yesh Atid leader Yair Lapid announced that he published an op-ed in two Icelandic publications entitled “The Hypocrisy of [a] Boycott.”
In the piece, also published on his Facebook profile, Lapid rails against the now-amended decision, firing off questions such as: “Does the boycott include products made by Israel’s Arab minority which is 20% of the population? …the 14 Arab Israeli parliamentarians who sit beside me in Israel’s parliament?…Israeli factories which employ tens of thousands of Palestinians for whom this is the only opportunity to provide for their children?…Israeli hospitals at which tens of thousands of Palestinians are treated every year?”
“Does the boycott include Microsoft Office, cellphone cameras, Google – all of which contain elements invented or produced in Israel?” he goes on.
“If the answer to all these questions is ‘yes’ then I’ll move aside and wish you all an enjoyable life until the sadly unavoidable heart attack (sorry but pacemakers are also an Israeli invention),” he said.
Lapid goes on to criticize the boycott movement as a whole, arguing that its “purpose is not the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel but a Palestinian state on the ashes of Israel.

Friday, June 5, 2015

France says it’s ‘firmly opposed’ to Israel boycott

France says it’s ‘firmly opposed’ to Israel boycott

In first comment since Orange pullout, Foreign Minister Fabius says business decisions up to company’s CEO, who insists, ‘We love Israel’

 June 5, 2015
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on March 27, 2015. (photo credit: AFP/JEWEL SAMAD)
French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius on March 27, 2015. (photo credit: AFP/JEWEL SAMAD)
France’s foreign minister on Friday said Paris was “firmly opposed” to any boycott of Israel as a row raged over telecom group Orange’s decision to withdraw its brand from the Jewish state.
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“Although it is for the president of the Orange group to determine the commercial strategy of the company, France is firmly opposed to a boycott of Israel,” Laurent Fabius said in a statement.
“Also, France and the European Union have a consistent policy on settlement-building that is known to all,” added Fabius.
Israeli leaders had urged Paris on Thursday to condemn the pullout, as some 13 percent of the company’s stocks are held by the French government.
Meanwhile, French telecom firm Orange said Friday that its move to withdraw its brand from the Israeli market was a purely business decision, insisting: “We love Israel.”
The company’s chairman and chief executive Stephane Richard said an international campaign to boycott Israel had played no part in the decision.
“This has nothing to do with Israel, we love Israel, we are in Israel, in the enterprise market, we invest money in innovation in Israel, we are a friend of Israel, so this has absolutely nothing to do with any kind of political debate, in which I don’t want to be,” Richard told Israel’s Yedioth Ahronoth newspaper.
Orange CEO Stephane Richard (YouTube screen capture)
Orange CEO Stephane Richard (YouTube screen capture)
“It is a purely commercial point regarding the use of our brand by the company (Partner Communications) under a license agreement, we don’t want to do that,” he said.
“I was not aware there is a kind of international campaign regarding this. I am very sorry about that.”
Richard had triggered an uproar on Wednesday when he told reporters in Cairo he was ready to “withdraw from Israel” as soon as “tomorrow morning… but without exposing Orange to huge risks” and potential compensation claims from Partner.
His remarks touched a raw nerve in Israel which is growing increasingly concerned about its international image.
Richard’s latest statements seemed inconsistent with those he made on Wednesday. In Cairo, the company head had explained to his audience: “I know that it is a sensitive issue here in Egypt, but not only in Egypt … We want to be one of the trustful partners of all Arab countries.”
He added that profit from the Israeli market was negligible. “The interest for us is certainly not a financial interest. If you take those amounts on one side and on the other side the time that we spend to explain this, to try to find a solution and the consequences that we have to manage here but also in France, believe me it’s a very bad deal,” he said.
Partner pays to use the Orange name and operates in Israel and in settlements in the West Bank. This has elicited calls by supporters of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) that Orange pull its brand from the country.
Israeli flags are seen inside the "Partner Orange" Communications Company offices in the city of Rosh Ha'ayin, Israel, Thursday, June 4, 2015. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)
Israeli flags are seen inside the “Partner Orange” Communications Company offices in the city of Rosh Ha’ayin, Israel, Thursday, June 4, 2015. (AP Photo/Dan Balilty)
Richard’s Cairo comments followed the publication last month of a report accusing Orange of indirectly supporting Israeli settlements in the West Bank through its relationship with Partner.
The report by five mainly French NGOs and two trade unions urged Orange to cut business ties and publicly declare its desire to avoid contributing to the economic viability of the settlements, which are regarded as illegal under international law.
Israel on Thursday urged the French government to condemn the Orange move.
“I call on the French government to publicly denounce the despicable statement and miserable actions of a company that is under partial French government ownership,” Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.
President Reuven Rivlin said he found it “troubling” that “I haven’t yet heard condemnations by the French leadership of the comments by the Orange CEO, as I’ve heard from Britain.”
“I expect that their voices will be heard here in Israel, in Cairo, and in the entire world.”
Israeli-American media mogul Haim Saban, who holds a controlling share of Partner Communications, accused the French company of buckling to pressure from anti-Semitic groups.