New York Times
The Opinion Pages | OP-ED CONTRIBUTOR
When ‘Made In Israel’ Is a Human Rights Abuse
By EYAL PRESSJAN. 26, 2016
Just before Christmas, Ron Dermer, Israel’s ambassador to the United States, sent the White House a box of holiday gifts with a pointed political message. Inside were items (body lotion, halvah, olive oil) produced in Jewish settlements in the West Bank.
Or rather, as Mr. Dermer put it in an accompanying letter, in Judea and
Samaria — the term used by religious nationalists who see the
settlements as no less a part of Israel than the Galilee or Tel Aviv.
From a biblical perspective, this view may be tenable. From a legal and moral perspective, it is not. As documented in a new report by Human Rights Watch,
Israel’s occupation has grown into a lucrative business, exploited by
companies as part of a system that is unlawful and abusive.
Like
the settlers, these enterprises receive benefits from the Israeli
government — preferential access to land and water, low rents — that
make the occupied territories an alluring destination. It is another
story forPalestinians,
who are routinely denied permits to open their own businesses, cut off
from their land and hemmed in by restrictions that, according to the
World Bank, cost the Palestinian economy $3.4 billion a year.
All
of these businesses are operating on illegally occupied land. A
significant amount of land, it turns out. There are roughly 1,000
factories in the chain of Israeli-administered “industrial zones” strung
across the West Bank. The geographic footprint of these commercial
enterprises, together with shopping centers and agricultural projects,
exceeds the built-up areas of settler housing.
Some Israeli officials have argued that
Palestinians benefit by working in settlement businesses, producing
what one factory owner calls “goods of peace.” But many work in
settlements only because Israel’s stifling of the Palestinian economy
has deprived them of alternatives. Because the government rarely
conducts labor inspections, Palestinian workers often earn less than the
Israeli minimum wage. If workers complain, employers sometimes
retaliate by fabricating a “security incident” that will deprive
Palestinians of their work permits, according to the H.R.W. report.
To
view goods made under these conditions as no different than products
made within Israel requires going blind to such indignities.
Unfortunately, that is exactly what new legislation that will soon land
on President Obama’s desk would require the United States government to
do. Under a provision of a larger piece of legislation, popularly
known as the Customs Bill, that has been approved by the House and is
expected to soon pass the Senate, American officials will be obligated
to treat the settlements as part of Israel in future trade negotiations.
The
ostensible reason this provision was added to a bill on international
trade is to combat the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, a
grass-roots campaign that seeks to pressure Israel to change its
policies toward the Palestinians. But under existing law,
Washington already forbids American companies to cooperate with
state-led boycotts of Israel. Under the guise of an antiboycott
provision, the Customs Bill extends similar protections to
“Israeli-controlled territories” — meaning settlements. For American
trade negotiators, the industrial zones dotting the occupied territories
would have the same status as the high-tech industry in Tel Aviv, just
as settler zealots insist.
This
potential, and largely unnoticed, shift in American policy comes just
as frustration with the stalled peace process and Israel’s deepening
grip on the occupied territories is leading to more targeted pressure on
Israel’s settlements. This month, the pension board of the United
Methodist Church decided that
five Israeli banks that fund construction in the settlements are
ineligible for its investment. In November, the European Union, Israel’s
largest trading partner, declared that products made in the occupied
territories should be labeled separately from Israeli goods.
As
the H.R.W. report makes clear, these steps are consistent with
international law. Since all companies that do business in or with
settlements inevitably contribute to human rights violations, they
should stop. And since no country recognizes Israeli sovereignty over
the occupied territories, all of Israel’s trading partners should insist
that the label “Made in Israel” be removed from products from the
settlements.
The
Palestinian Authority has described separate labeling of settlement
goods as a useful step. (The authority supports boycotting these
goods.)
Not
surprisingly, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
disagrees. In the letter Mr. Dermer sent to the recipients of his
holiday gifts, he claimed that the European Union’s push to
differentiate settlement products casts Israel as a “pariah state.” He
neglected to mention thepetition signed
by over 550 prominent Israelis that welcomed the union’s decision and
called on other nations to follow suit. Among the signatories was
Avishai Margalit, a former recipient of the Israel Prize in philosophy,
and Avraham Burg, a former speaker of the Israeli Knesset.
The
Obama administration has made it clear that it does not accept the
conflation of the settlements and Israel. When the Customs Bill reaches
his desk, Mr. Obama may take the rare step of issuing a signing
statement objecting to its pro-settlement language. But if this
provision becomes law, it will be a major victory for the Israeli right,
albeit one that it may come to regret. The more the line between Israel
and the occupied territories is blurred, the more likely the rest of
the world will be to question the legitimacy of not just the settlements
but Israel itself. In the long run, this will not prevent Israel from
being depicted as a pariah state, but instead will provide powerful
ammunition to those who see it as such.
Eyal Press is the author of “Beautiful Souls: The Courage and Conscience of Ordinary People in Extraordinary Times.”
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