KL NEWS NETWORK
SRINAGAR
On Wednesday, Israel said that Kashmir is an ‘occupied territory’, accusing European Union (EU) of imposing ‘double standards’ on different territories.
The EU has announced a plan to impose labelling on goods produced in Jewish settlements on occupied land. The EU does not recognise Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, lands it captured in the 1967 Middle East war.
The EU says the labelling policy aims to distinguish between goods made inside the internationally accepted borders of Israel and those made outside.
“This is a discriminatory policy,” said Israeli Energy Minister Yuval Steinitz, responding to EU’s stance, adding that the EU labelling is not enforced in other places of occupation, such as northern Cyprus, Western Sahara, Kashmir or Tibet.
Israeli ministers have cast the EU’s plans as akin to a boycott of Israel, regarding it as little different to the boycott, sanctions and divestment (BDS) movement that Palestinians – who seek a state on occupied land including the West Bank and East Jerusalem – have advocated in recent years.
Some EU countries already affix labels to Israeli goods, differentiating between those from Israel and those, particularly fruits and vegetables, that come from the Jordan Valley in the occupied West Bank. If the Commission goes ahead on Wednesday, all 28 member states would have to apply labels.
