(JTA) – The City Council of Tromso in Norway adopted a resolution calling on its residents to boycott products made in the West Bank, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.
The resolution was adopted Wednesday in a 25-17 vote, according to the municipality’s website.
It states that “the municipal council encourages Tromso Municipality’s residents to boycott goods and services produced in the Occupied Territories.”
The resolution, which was introduced by left-wing council members, also said that the municipality “will therefore refrain from buying Israeli goods and services produced in occupied Palestinian territory.”
Opponents of the measure argued that foreign policy was beyond the municipality’s expertise.
Tromso has 72,000 residents. Trondheim, Norway’s third largest city, adopted a similar measure last month.
Whereas the Tromso resolution explicitly called for boycotting goods from what the international community regards as land occupied by Israel, it called only for checking the provenance of goods from other disputed territories.
The draft resolution was filed by Mads Gilbert and Jens Ingvald Olsen of the Red Party. In 2009, Gilbert published a book, “Eyes in Gaza,” in which he accused the Israeli army of deliberately targeting women and children in the coastal strip.
Gilbert has also defended Hamas’ rule in the Gaza Strip as that of a democratically elected government, according to The Guardian, and said that he viewed the perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks on the United States in 2001 as having had a “moral right” to strike since he viewed them as oppressed.
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