Don’t let Belgium discriminate against products from Jewish communities in their biblical homeland.
Belgium’s government announced on Wednesday that it will not allow products made in Israeli ‘settlements’ to be labeled as “made in Israel.”
In a statement sent to the Jerusalem Post, a Belgian government spokesperson tried to minimize the requirement, insisting that “Belgium has always applied international and European law, which distinguishes between Israel on the one hand and the settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories on the other.”
“Belgian policy has not changed,” the statement continued. “This ‘differentiation’ has existed for years and is also enshrined in the federal coalition agreement, which stipulates that the government must take further steps towards a policy of differentiation.”
“Differentation”?
That’s a diplomatically polite way of saying discrimination.
There are 150 territorial disputes in the world, yet Belgium is arbitrarily applying its labeling laws to Judea and Samaria and no other area. Belgium’s law was crafted to apply to Israel and not to other high-profile disputed territories such as Turkish-occupied Northern Cyprus, Russian-occupied Crimea, Spain’s North African enclaves of Ceuta and Melilla, or British overseas territories such as Gibraltar, the Falkland Islands or the Chagos Archipelago.
Brussel’s somber invoking of “International law” is just a fig leaf for prejudice against the Jewish state. International law doesn’t require special labeling for goods coming from disputed territories.
In recent years, snooty European Union lawmakers, egged on by the BDS movement, have tried to change that. But all they have to show for those efforts are a few headlines from Ireland and no legal precedents.
As international law expert Professor Eugene Kontorovich put it, the Belgian government’s labeling policy “puts a new kind of yellow star solely on Jewish products.”
Demand Belgium rescind this discriminatory labeling policy!
Email Prime Minister Alexander De Croo: contact@premier.be
Email President of the Senate Stephanie D’Hose: stephanie.dhose@stad.gent
Contact President of the Chamber of Representatives Eliane Tillieux by clicking here
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