Made In Palestine? South Africa To Label West Bank Products, Angering Israel

The South African government has decided that all goods sold in the country that are produced on the West Bank must be labeled as coming not from Israel, but from the occupied Palestinian territories -- and Israel is very angry.

South African government spokesman Jimmy Manyi said the labeling decision "is in line with South Africa's stance that recognizes the 1948 borders delineated by the United Nations and does not recognize occupied territories beyond these borders as being part of the state of Israel," according to the Guardian.

The products in question are those made on Israeli settlements in Palestinian territory, and that makes this seemingly minor South African decision a matter of great importance to the Israeli government. Jerusalem officials worry that the new labels could spark a boycott -- and they may be right.

South African Trade and Industry Minister Rob Davies said?an official nationwide boycott was not in the cards, but that the new labels might help "South Africans who do not support Israel, but who do support the Palestinians, to identify those products."

Tricky Terminology

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Ever since the end of apartheid and white rule, South Africa has had a prickly relationship with Israel. Critics of the Israeli government often accuse it of practicing apartheid today, and this only heightens the conflict.

Many leading figures in black South Africans' fight for equality, including former President Nelson Mandela and activist Archbishop Desmond Tutu (both Nobel Peace Prize winners), have denounced Israel's policies.

"We know too well that our freedom is incomplete without the freedom of the Palestinians," said Mandela during a speech in Pretoria in 1997.

"If you changed the names, the description of what is happening in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank would be a description of what is happening in South Africa," said Tutu during New York City address in 1989.

Freedom fighters' antipathy toward Israel stems from the Jewish state's close ties to the former white regime.

Israel nominally participated in Western sanctions against apartheid South Africa beginning in the 1980s. But before that period, the two countries were strong collaborators in military training and weapons development, according to the U.S. Federal Research Division.

And even after the sanctions were put into place, Israel kept up a hushed trade and defense relationship with South Africa -- partly because Israel was generally opposed to U.N. embargoes due to its own vulnerability, and partly because there were about 110,000 Jews residing in South Africa.

When the apartheid government ended in 1994, South Africa's new leaders -- members of the African National Congress, a longtime ally of the Palestinians -- were disinclined to cozy up to Israel, and that attitude persists to this day. Just last week, according to the Guardian, Deputy Minister of International Relations and Cooperation Ebrahim Ebrahim discouraged travel between the two countries, saying it was "not proper for South Africans to associate with Israel."

Far From Settlement

Source: http://www.ibtimes.com/articles/377055/20120824/south-africa-label-israel-west-bank-settlement.htm

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