Business owners fume at European decision

Owners of businesses and factories likely to be hurt by the EU decision on product labeling are furious but defiant, according to a Channel 2 report.

The Tura Winery in Samaria, in the West Bank, produces 56,000 bottles a year, of which some 40 percent are intended for export. According to Vered Ben Sa’adon, the owner, the boycott movement achieved the opposite of what it wished. “For five months we had no wine left on the shelves thanks to people who did not appreciate the violence of the boycott movement,” she said.

The Bazelet Hagolan winery in the Golan Heights decided to export its chardonnay with a cap printed with the blue and white Israeli flag. “We are proud of our national flag and hope that other wineries will follow suit and put the flag of Israel on wine bottles intended for export to Europe,” Yoav Levi, one of the owners, tells Channel 2.

The owner of a boutique soap factory in the West Bank says the European move makes him worry for the future of his employees. “When they boycott products without checking first, they hurt working people, in our case people with special needs. In other places it can be Arab workers working shoulder to shoulder with Jewish workers. This is why there’s no place for boycotts. Let’s end this,” he says.