Advice on settlers' goods slated
10 December 2009
Charity demands supermarkets trade ban
British ministers today came under fire over new voluntary guidance on supermarkets' trade in produce from Israeli settlement farms.
The anti-poverty charity War on Want attacked the government's failure to take stronger action that would end the sale of settlement goods.
Yasmin Khan, senior campaigns officer at War on Want, said: "By selling produce from Israeli settlements, British supermarkets like Tesco, Sainsbury's and Waitrose are profiting from Israel's illegal occupation of Palestinian land.
"Voluntary advice on labelling fails to deal with the issue. The government should impose an immediate and total ban on the sale of settlement goods in Britain.
"The government's position is utterly contradictory. Ministers call settlements obstacles to peace, yet sustain their existence by allowing UK retailers to trade with them."
The Department of the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs issued the guidance over three years after the charity first highlighted the matter in a report that named supermarkets which sold goods from illegal Israeli settlements.
The report said the government risked charges of complicity in Israel's breaches of international law.
The new advice says the settlements flout article 49 (6) of the 1949 fourth Geneva convention, which prohibits an occupying power from transferring its own civilian population into occupied territory.
It adds that settlements make the establishment of a viable Palestinian state more difficult and that Israel has not yet met its duties under political agreements on freezing all settlement activity.
The government says traders and retailers may wish to indicate whether the product originated from an Israeli settlement or from Palestinian producers.
This could take the form, for example, of "Produce of the West Bank (Israeli settlement produce)" or "Produce of the West Bank (Palestinian produce)".
The government considers traders would mislead consumers and almost certainly commit an offence if they declare produce from the occupied Palestinian territories (including from the West Bank) as "Produce of Israel".
This would apply whether the goods were from a Palestinian producer or from an Israeli settlement in the territories.
NOTES TO EDITORS
- War on Want's report Profiting from the Occupation is at www.waronwant.org/campaigns/fighting-occupation/palestine/inform/12573-profiting-from-the-occupation
- The US president Barack Obama, the United Nations and the European Union have made repeated calls on Israel to halt its settlements expansion and condemned them as a barrier to peace in the region
- Britain is a leading market for exports of Israeli fresh agricultural produce and the biggest market for state-owned Israeli company Agrexco.
- Agrexco has become a target for activists in the UK over its business in the Israeli-occupied Jordan Valley.
CONTACT: Paul Collins, War on Want media office (+44) (0)20 7549 0584 or (+44) (0)7983 550728
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