Branded

The Israeli press has harsh words for Europe Thursday after the EU rolled out a series of measures to brand products made in Israeli communities over the Green Line — West Bank settlements, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights. Israel Hayom barely contains its venom, paraphrasing Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on its front page by calling the move “the height of European hypocrisy.” Haaretz demonstrates greater sangfroid, reporting that the Foreign Ministry summoned the EU representative and gave him a piquant dressing-down over the decision long in the making. Though the story plays second fiddle to Culture Minister Miri Regev’s cultured remarks about the attorney general’s office in Yedioth Ahronoth, the paper reports on “Boycotting the boycotters.” The most drastic response taken by an Israeli official, the paper says, was Agriculture Minister Uri Ariel returning his European-made car.

As a consequence of the EU’s move, the buzzword in the Israeli press, particularly the op-eds, which scathingly reject the EU labeling initiative, is Western Sahara. It’s a fair wager that most Israelis, let alone Europeans, outside the limited population of geography whizzes and students of international law, have heard of the place or given a thought about its existence. And yet, in Israel Hayom, Boaz Bismuth makes the leap to anti-Semitism faster than a speeding EU bureaucrat. “Europe is once again branding us,” his headline reads, and follows up his allusion to mandatory Jewish garb in European history saying, “So thanks, Europe. You’ve branded us in the past — we’re already used to it.”

After lambasting the EU for giving in and joining the BDS movement, which he says seeks Israel’s destruction, he points out that the EU doesn’t discriminate against other countries with territorial disputes, such as Western Sahara, India, or China.

“Let’s make a deal, dear Europe: After your finish solving the problems of the borders of Cyprus and the nonviolent conflict between Spain and Britain on the matter of Gibraltar — which has been going on for over 200 years — come to us,” he says with no smugness whatsoever.

Pulling no fewer punches, Ben-Dror Yemini calls the EU’s decision “the march of stupidity” in his Yedioth Ahronoth op-ed. While he concedes that Israel’s West Bank settlements are the most pressing international issue facing the country, he says that the EU’s branding of Israeli products from over the Green Line “is not a step that will advance reconciliation and understanding.”

“It’s a step that will only encourage the appetite of opponents to peace and compromise,” he says. “It’s not the intention of the EU, but there’s no doubt that it will be the result.”

He asks why the EU, which supports the peace process and two-state solution, dances to the tune set by those who oppose a Jewish state and normalized ties between Jews and Arabs.

Astonishingly, Haaretz doesn’t feature a single opinion piece concerning the labeling of settlement products.

Instead, the paper highlights some of the coming attractions from its Haaretz Peace Conference, including President Reuven Rivlin accusing the political right and left in Israel of burying their heads in the sand and ignoring the fact that the Palestinians are here to stay.

But the story spread all over the front page of Yedioth Ahronoth is a recording aired on Channel 10 Wednesday evening of Miri Regev badmouthing Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein and his staff for preventing her from putting the screws to an Arab theater for running a controversial play. Regev can be heard in the recording calling Weinstein “garbage” and his staffers “scumbags.”

Regev, the paper says, “has already made headlines in the past because of controversial remarks, but it’s doubtful if such scathing words in such low speech were heard in the past — and moreover about such a senior figure.”

With all the hullabaloo over the labeling of settlement products, a reported Israeli strike on a weapons convoy in Syria barely gets the attention of the Hebrew print media. Israel Hayom notes in its Page 7 brief that the reported airstrike near the Damascus airport was the second of its kind since Russian forces began operating in Syria last month. The late-night incident doesn’t make a single headline in Haaretz’s print edition, and only makes it to Page 8 in Yedioth Ahronoth. Yedioth Ahronoth points out that Israel and Russia set up a coordination system for their respective operations in Syria, but says that Israel likely doesn’t give Russia advance warning, and is likely given free rein in pre-arranged areas.