JERUSALEM (JTA) — Attempts to compare the European Union’s settlement labeling guidelines to the Nazi boycott of Jewish goods and stores cheapens the memory of the Holocaust, the EU envoy to Israel said.
The attempt to draw parallels is a “distortion of history and a belittlement of the crimes of the Nazis and the memories of their victims,” Lars Faaborg-Andersen said Wednesday in Jerusalem at The Jerusalem Post Diplomatic Conference.
Under the guidelines, products manufactured in Jewish settlements in the West Bank and the Golan Heights must say so on their labels.
Faaborg-Andersen said there is no European boycott of products manufactured in Israel and the West Bank, just that the latter’s products will be labeled as coming from the West Bank.
“Europe is not boycotting Israel and Europe is not boycotting settlement products,” he said. “Products from the settlements will continue to enter the EU market. It is simply not permissible to write ‘Made in Israel’ on products from Israeli settlements.”
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