The European Union’s recent decision to require special labels for Israeli products originating in places it deems to be “settlements” is a purely political move against Israel, writes Eugene Kontorovich:
[T]he labeling controversy must be viewed as just one step in a broader, purposeful, and gradual escalation of anti-Israel measures by the European Union. Two years ago, the commission promulgated a regulation that barred spending money on Israeli academic, scientific, or cultural projects in the West Bank or Golan Heights. Then the EU began refusing to allow imports of certain Israeli agricultural products. Last year, fifteen European states issued warnings, alerting people to unspecified legal dangers of interacting with Israeli settlements. These steps, while supposedly motivated by what the European Union sees as Israel’s occupation of territory, have been applied only to Israel, and not to other countries regarded as occupiers under international law, such as Morocco or Turkey.
Having warned about settlement products, the European Union is now labeling them. Diplomats in Brussels and NGOs have made clear that more coercive measures will follow. In this context, labeling is important not in its immediate economic effects but as a highly visible step in a conscious process of building a legal ghetto around Israel, within which a special set of rules applies.
Read more on New York Times: http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/13/opinion/europe-mislabels-israel.html