US Jewish groups urge Biden to revoke Trump policy of labeling settlement products as Israel’s
Washington (QNN)- A group of six leading progressive Jewish US groups called on the Biden administration to revoke a policy by the previous administration that requires all US exports from West Bank settlements to be labeled as “made in Israel.”
“We believe the [policy] is inconsistent with current US policy on the status of the occupied territories, requires inaccurate and misleading labeling on the origin of products, and is harmful to essential interests of Israelis and Palestinians alike,” the groups said in a letter on Tuesday to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, whose office is charged with implementing the policy.
The groups which signed on to the letter were Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, J Street, New Israel Fund, Partners for Progressive Israel and T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights.
Former US secretary of state Mike Pompeo announced the new policy in November, weeks after former president Donald Trump’s election loss.
After visiting a winery in the illegal Israeli settlement of Psagot in the occupied West Bank, Pompeo issued products from the settlements to be labeled as ‘made in Israel.’
Pompeo said the rules were “consistent with our reality-based foreign policy approach, requiring all producers within areas where Israel exercises authority — most notably Area C under the Oslo Accords –… to mark goods as ’Israel,’ ’Product of Israel,’ or ‘Made in Israel’ when exporting to the United States.”
Pompeo said the new policy recognizes that producers in the settlements operate within the economic and administrative framework of Israel. They will be required to mark goods as “made in Israel” when exporting to the United States.
He also added that products made in territory under the control of the Palestinian Authority will be recognized as products of the “West Bank” and a separate label would be given to products ‘made in Gaza.’
“Under the new approach, we will no longer accept ‘West Bank/Gaza’ or similar markings, in recognition that Gaza and the West Bank are politically and administratively separate and should be treated accordingly,” Pompeo stated.
The groups’ appeal came exactly one month before the directive is slated to come into effect, as Pompeo made the announcement on November 23, but agreed to a three-month transition period before it could be applied.
The Jewish groups noted that it came “amidst a flurry of activity by the previous administration to endorse and legitimize Israeli settlements following Donald Trump’s election defeat.”
“By inaccurately and misleadingly treating settlement and other products from Area C of the West Bank as if they were made in Israel, the General Notice attempts to reverse decades of US policy that makes a firm distinction between Israel and the West Bank,” the groups stated.
The groups also noted that the directive “runs counter to the Biden administration’s policy of opposing settlement activity and unilateral annexation of territory as harmful to the prospects for the peaceful, just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
Neither the State Department nor the Department of Homeland Security responded to requests for comment on the letter.
