The Dutch cabinet is preparing a ban on goods from illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, but enforcing it will be far harder than announcing it.
The problem boils down to the humble labels on imports, which currently give customs officers almost nothing to work with.
An investigation by the legal non-profit Global Echo analysed nearly 6,000 shipments of citrus, dates and tahini sent from Israel to Europe between 2017 and 2026.
Roughly one in five consignments arriving in the EU turned out to be grown in illegal settlements, despite carrying a “Product of Israel” label.
According to NU.nl, less than you might assume. The measure the cabinet announced covers agricultural goods such as citrus, sesame, dates, avocados and pomegranates.
However, Israel’s heavyweight exports to Europe are medical equipment, weapons, chips, and services like software, cybersecurity and cloud computing. Those are almost entirely made inside Israel proper, so they’re untouched.
Thomas van Gool, spokesperson for the peace organisation PAX, tells NU.nl the ban is good, but won’t cause much harm.
“Physical agricultural products are only a small part of the trade between Israel and Europe,” he tells the outlet. “But even so, any form of trade is enough to keep a settlement economically afloat. However small, it contributes to its viability.”
Three years in: “dammit, you’ve really gone and made me do the absolute bare minimum!”
Meaningless political theatre
I wish I saw this comment before I posted mine. You simplified so many points in only 3 words. Impressed.
Israel will just white-wash stuff if necessary. Thus, as long as there is no proper way to certify if a good from the illegal settlementts or from Israel the precautionary principle applies: ban ALL the imports from Israel, not only from the settlements.
Moreover: why is importing from an apartheid state allowed anyways?
It’s as if a country banned imports from occupied France and Eastern Europe but kept allowing them from Nazi Germany proper. History will not look kindly upon the governments of the world today and the ways in which they’ve aided and abetted genocide. I miss the Eastern bloc
illegal Israeli settlements
So the entire regime.
Yup
Importing anything from Israel is aiding genocide.
“And remember guys, no blood diamonds or products made entirely through torturing babies will be accepted anymore… After November 11th. Make sure to get all that stuff in now. We’ll buy as much as you have now, but eventually we’re going to stop. I mean, we’ll still buy it after that date but we won’t pay you nearly as much cuz we’ll have to be super quiet about it.”
“The blood diamonds from our “”Legal”” mine in less “”sensitive”” areas will still be available as we won’t stop trade with the blood diamond regime altogether, that’d be silly, just the apartheid wait I mean “”sensitive”” areas”
“Do you pinky swear all these gold fillings came from anywhere other than Palestine? … Great, here’s your money!”
More symbol politics from the symbol politics party.
Maybe but it’s an actual physical sanction so it’s at least actually something that at least will have some impact.
Also Netherlands is simliar to Ireland and Belgium a large passthrough haven for stolen Palestinian goods going into Europe. So Israeli colonists will have to find other harbors (or just lie about country of origin and probably get away with it).
Lastly Booking.com has been renting out stolen Palestinian homes in the West Bank I wonder if this will affect them in any way.
This is nonsense. Why are they accepting imports from Israel at all? (Especially since it’s hard to tell the difference.)
The Netherlands is extremely invested in Israel and has a large Zionist lobby. Not at the scale of Germany or the USA but still significant.
Them putting action financial sanctions on Israel to begin with is a slight miracle. And while these sanctions can be sidestepped, this is an actual step with meaningful impact meaning the political pressure has at least resulted in something which can definitely be pushed further.
It’s a very small step but it’s something beyond only rhetorics and condemnation. The political pressure works so lets keep it going.
Is rhe verification process accurate. Can’t the product be rerouted to israel to pretend it didn’t come from the colonies?
No, but it’s something finally.
It’s something in two months. It’s nothing yet.
