South Africa’s cabinet has angered the Israeli government by approving the labelling of goods coming from Israeli occupied territories (mainly West Bank) as such and not as produced in Israel. At the moment, imported goods from Jewish settlements in the Israeli occupied West Bank are being labelled as “produced in Israel”, but this was misleading.
South Africa recognises the 1948 borders established by the United Nations and therefore does not recognise the occupied territories beyond this borders as being part of the Israeli state. Following the principle of international law by which all settlements are illegal, South Africa does not recognise the Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank as being Israel neither.
According to its government, South African buyers have the right to know the origin of many products is not Israel as commonly marked, but the Occupied Palestinian Territories instead. Currently they are being misled by a wrong labelling that states all this products come from “Israel”.
Local Jewish leaders said they were “outraged” over what they called “discriminatory, divisive” measures. They say this measure is driven not by technical trade concerns but by political bias against the state of Israel. It seems they forget their labelling of products coming from Jewish settlements in the West Bank as Israeli is quite political too. It seems they interiorised too much the mantra of the Zionist state by which it ignores all settlements are illegal under international law.
South Africa says its backing of Palestine stems from its own history of apartheid, oppression and rights abuses. In this line, South Africa’s deputy foreign minister recently called on the citizens of his country to avoid visiting Israel because of its treatment of Palestinians: “Israel is an occupier country which is oppressing Palestine, so it’s not proper for South Africans to associate with Israel”.
Israel says the South African government is driven by a political agenda that is characterised by racism against Israel through the boycott to their products. However, South Africa has not talked about cancelling any of its agreements with Israel.
Once again, Israel is vistimising itself and accusing whoever opposes its zionist policies based on racism, of being what they actually are: racist. South Africa did not oppose Israel; it opposed their occupation of the Palestinian territories. It is quite different.
It is still unclear if the new labelling will say “Israeli occupied territories”, “occupied Palestinian terriories” / “occupied West Bank” or maybe “Palestinian terriories” / “West Bank”. There is quite a slight difference too.
If you want to read more, check the article in Al Jazeera English.
[من فلسطين] 