Samaria regional council head Yossi Dagan responded sharply on Friday to reports the day before, revealing that the US reissued its orders to importers not to label products from Judea and Samaria as being from “Israel.”
US State Department spokesman Mark Toner on Thursday defended the instructions, saying that they were not a new policy.
The instructions were published on Saturday, calling to enforce the 1995 American law on marking goods from the region.
“Even though this is just a ‘reissuing,’ it is clear why US Customs ‘remembered’ to brush the cobwebs off this wretched law,” said Dagan.
“Unfortunately sources in the US are joining the anti-Semitic campaign against the state of Israel, and we rely on the Foreign Ministry and Deputy Foreign Minister, the Israelis who will know to respond firmly and decisively to this unacceptable attempt to mark Israeli businesses.”
Dagan concluded by saying, “we also trust that this time there won’t be any influence on the businesses in Judea and Samaria. We will continue to produce and live our lives.”
While the US guidelines do not distinguish between Jewish and Arab products, the Obama administration gave support to the EU decision last November to label Jewish products from Judea, Samaria and the Golan Heights.
Highlighting Dagan’s accusations of American hostility, his response comes the same Friday that a shocking revelation was made from documents released by National Security Agency (NSA) whistle-blower Edward Snowden, showing the US and UK have been infiltrating Israeli intelligence drones on sensitive missions throughout the region for the past 18 years.
Regarding the legal status of Israel’s presence in Judea and Samaria, and consequentially of products from the region, the 2012 Levy Report proved that Israel’s presence is legal according to international law. However, despite being commissioned by Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, two consecutive coalition governments led by him have yet to adopt the findings of the report.
