Israeli Deputy Minister Oren: 'Israelis should think twice before buying French products'
рус   |   eng
Search
Sign in   Register
Help |  RSS |  Subscribe
Euroasian Jewish News
    World Jewish News
      Analytics
        Activity Leadership Partners
          Mass Media
            Xenophobia Monitoring
              Reading Room
                Contact Us

                  World Jewish News

                  Israeli Deputy Minister Oren: 'Israelis should think twice before buying French products'

                  Israeli Deputy Minister Oren: 'Israelis should think twice before buying French products'

                  28.11.2016, Israel

                  An Israeli Deputy Minister has called on Israelis to boycott French products in retaliation for France’s recent decision to label goods from West Bank settlements.

                  "France is labeling Israeli products from Judea, Samaria, and the Golan. Israelis should think twice before buying French products," Michael Oren, a Deputy Minister in the Prime Minister’s Office from the centrist Kulanu party and former Israel’s ambassador to the US, wrote on Twitter.

                  He was referring to France’s recent decision to implement European Union Commission guidelines, issued November 2015, that require the labeling of Israeli products made beyond the Green Line.

                  The Israeli foreign ministry has condemned the French decision, saying in a statement that “it regrets that France, which actually has a law against boycotts, is advancing measures that can be interpreted as encouraging radical elements and the movement to boycott Israel.”

                  “Moreover, it is unfathomable and even disturbing that France has chosen to apply a double standard with regards to Israel by ignoring the other 200 territorial disputes around the world, including those right on France’s own doorstep.”

                  France’s new ambassador to Israel, Helene LeGal, replied to Michael Oren’s tweet, asking him whether he was “calling for boycotting French products when in France boycotting Israel is punished by law.”

                  The EU delegation to Israel said that the labeling guidelines were merely an “application of EU consumer information regulations.”

                  Oren told The Times of Israel that he was not calling for a boycott of French products but merely wanted Israeli consumers “to be aware that France is moving to label Jewish products from Judea, Samaria, and the Golan.”

                  The Jerusalem Post recalled that in 2015, Oren went to a supermarket on Emek Refaim Street in the capital’s German Colony neighborhood and placed blue EU stickers on crackers, cookies and beer from Spain, France and Germany to protest the pending publication of guidelines to enable EU member states to place consumer labels on exports from east Jerusalem, the West Bank and the Golan Heights.

                  “The EU decision to label Israeli products is anti-Semitic,” Oren said. “There are dozens of border disputes and ‘occupations’ in the world but the EU decided to single out Israel. They are not labeling products from China, India or Turkey – only Israel.”

                  According to Israeli officials, France’s decision to go ahead with the labeling issue as “revenge” for Israel’s repeated objection to an international peace conference the government of President Francois Hollande intends to hold next month.

                  Israel is opposing such a conference, saying only direct negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians is an option.

                  EJP