PM raps Meretz bill to label settlement goods

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticizes a Meretz bill that would label products made beyond the Green Line.

“The State of Israel is in the midst of a struggle against efforts to boycott it in international arenas. There is opposition to these efforts from right and from left and an effort to act against the boycott calls,” the prime minister says at the opening of a Likud faction meeting.

“Legislation against this phenomenon has already started in the US, and this helps our international efforts,” says Netanyahu, referring to laws recently passed in the state of Illinois that threatens companies boycotting Israel with the state divesting from their pension plans.

“I was surprised to discover that one of the factions in the House [Knesset] has submitted a bill to label products,” Netanyahu says.

The Meretz bill was submitted last month. All Meretz MKs signed on it. According to the bill, a clause would be inserted to the Law for Consumer Protection that would mandate manufacturers to state “the city or community where the product was made.”

The explanatory notes accompanying the bill say that the law as it stands is lacking, since “the… location does not reflect the place where goods were actually produced and may actually be quite remote from it.”

“The community or city where a product was made has great importance regarding the quality of a product, the working conditions there, climate effects on production and the circumstances of production, including whether it is inside Israeli jurisdiction or in territory held by Israel by way of occupation,” according to the notes.