PLO denounces a call by US senators to label products made in settlements as ‘Made in Israel’
The Department of Public Diplomacy and Policy (DPDP) of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) today denounced a call by four Republican senators of the US Congress on their outgoing administration to label products made in the illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories as “Made in Israel,” describing this call as ‘outrageous.”
Senators Tom Cotton, Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, and Kelly Loeffler wrote a letter to US President Donald Trump asking him to label these products, made in the settlements ofwhat they referred to as “Judea and Samaria,” the Israeli name of the occupied West Bank, as “Made in Israel.”
“We write to urge you to change US customs policy and guidelines to allow Israeli goods produced in Judea and Samaria to be labeled ‘Made in Israel’,” said the letter.
US customs policy adopted during the administration of Bill Clinton required Israeli goods made in the illegal West Bank Israeli settlements to carry a label as “Made in West Bank” in order to distinguish them from products made in Israel proper even though the rest of the world label these products as made in the settlements.
The DPDP slammed the senators in a tweet and said that “this request from anti-Palestinian Senators violates international law and United Nations Security Council resolution 2334. Outrageous.”
The senators said that such a decision would be “another achievement by Trump’s administration that would support Israel.”
In another development, Palestinians today organized a protest against US Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s expected tour of a colonial settlement winery on the outskirts of Jabal al-Tawil in al-Bireh city.
Protestors waved Palestinian flags and chanted slogans against Pompeo’s anticipated visit to the Psagot Winery, part of the Israeli colonial settlement of Psagot, established on stolen Palestinian land in Jabal al-Tawil, just outside the West Bank city of al-Bireh.
They urged the international community to put an end to the Israeli occupation, including the colonial settlement construction, land grab and home demolitions.
The protest was attended by a host of officials, including Deputy Chairman of Fatah Mahmoud al-Aloul and Mahmoud Shaltaf, a representative of al-Bireh Municipality.
Addressing the protestors, al-Aloul said that Pompeo’s tour to Psagot is not surprising for the Palestinian leadership, particularly that all successive US administrations were biased towards the Israel occupation.
He asserted that US President Donald Trump’s administration is not only biased towards Israel, but is also complicit in consolidating the Israeli occupation and colonial settlement projects given its radical pro-Israel moves, including the recognition of Jerusalem as Israel’s undivided capital, declaring settlements as no longer violating international law as well as recognizing Israel’s sovereignty on the occupied Golan Heights.
Meanwhile, Shaltaf said that the Psagot colonial settlement is constructed on stolen lands mostly belonging to the residents of al-Bireh, which has become the scene of repeated settler assaults and deprived from tapping into its agricultural lands.
Source: WAFA