Israel blasts EU settlement goods labeling

Israel on Tuesday condemned as "discriminatory" and "intolerable" a plan by the European Union to start labeling Jewish settlements produce.

The EU is expected to publish the new guidelines this week, after the European Parliament voted overwhelmingly for the labeling on Sept. 10. The guidelines are widely seen as a demonstration of displeasure of Israel's continuing expansion of settlements in territories that the Palestinians consider as their future state.

"Whereas the upcoming labeling guidelines are presented by the EU as a purely 'technical measure' designed to protect European consumers, there is no doubt that the main purpose of the measure is to exert political pressure upon Israel," Israel's Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement.

"These measures are discriminatory in nature," the statement read, adding that it is "intolerable that Israel is the only country that has been singled out by the EU for such a policy," despite numerous territorial conflicts worldwide.

The EU already banned settlement products from getting customs exemptions that are given to goods produced within Israel's legal borders.

According to Sari Bashi, director of the Israel-Palestine office of Human Rights Watch, there are approximately 1,000 companies operating in 16-20 industrial zones in the settlements. Israel rarely discloses data on the value of settlement goods, but Bashi said that the World Bank has estimated that in 2008, the value of European imports of goods that were entirely or partially produced in the settlements was 5.4 billion U.S. dollars.

Israel occupied the West Bank and East Jerusalem, the Gaza Strip, and the Golan Heights, during the 1967 Mideast War. It later annexed the Golan Heights and East Jerusalem, in a move never recognized by the international community.

In 2005, Israel withdrew its army from the Gaza Strip but kept its control over the Palestinian enclave's entries and exists. Enditem