Is it from Israel or Palestine? EU labeling guidelines spur more controversy
Congress — and Israel — say new European labeling guidelines are an anti-Semitic ploy; the EU says they’re in line with 15 years of trade law.
The European Union’s decision to clearly label products from outside Israel’s pre-1967 borders is laying bare a fundamental difference with the United States over how to stop the spread of Jewish settlements.
The Israeli government and its allies in Congress pilloried the new guidelines released Nov. 11 as a discriminatory assault that borders on anti-Semitism. The EU for its part insists that the guidelines are nothing more than a technical clarification to 15 years of trade relations with Israel.
The spat highlights the chasm between the EU and the United States over how best to pressure Israel over its expansion into the territory of a would-be Palestinian state, with potentially deep ramifications for bilateral relations.
“Future administrations should vigorously oppose [the guidelines] through legal challenges to this politically motivated barrier to trade,” Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., a top-tier Republican candidate for president, said in a statement. “This should also be treated as a significant problem in US-EU relations.”
