Fair 10 Challenge: West Bank Produce

Election time is an incredible opportunity to get your voice heard. Candidates are more receptive to ideas now than at any time during their term of office, and the promises they make now will shape their agenda for the next five years.

That’s why we’ve created the Fair 10 Challenge. It’s a campaign to get Leeds election candidates to commit to strong action on social and environmental justice. Run by a coalition of global justice activists in Leeds, the challenge asks candidates to sign up to a 10-point manifesto covering a range of issues including climate change, debt cancellation, tax justice and refugee rights.

Manifesto point 3 was on West Bank Produce

“Produce grown on occupied Palestinian West Bank land is imported to the UK and labeled as Israeli, and thus Israel benefits from reduced import duties under the EU Trade Agreement. As settlements are illegal under international humanitarian law, do you support a complete UK ban on the importation of Israeli settlement products and will you write to the Foreign Secretary to call for such a ban?”

Israel’s continued colonisation and annexation since 1967 of Palestinian land in the West Bank (WB), described by Israel as ‘settlements’, are illegal under international law and thus a major obstacle to peace (see eg UN Security Council resolutions 446 in 1979 and 465 in 1980; 2004 International Court of Justice). Much agricultural food produce exported to the UK by such as Agrexco and labelled as produce of Israel originates from the fertile WB Jordan Valley area, grown on confiscated Palestinian land . Following increasing consumer pressure, even a change of labelling to such as “produce of West Bank” or “Jordan Valley” misleads consumers seeking to make informed ethical choices, since the vast majority comes from Israeli settlement areas anyway.

Hansard from 2nd December 2009 (Israeli Goods Labelling, led by Phyllis Starkey) outlines the exact nature of the problem: Namely that exports to the European Union under the EU-Israel trade agreement benefit from the trade preference and avoid import duty. However goods identified as from settlements cannot legally be labelled “made in Israel” and should pay full import duty. Ruling in a case involving the German courts and Brita bottled water, theEuropean Court of Justice recently reaffirmed that the trade agreement applies only within the 1967 borders of Israel.

As the sale of agricultural and other produce from the illegal settlements contributes significantly to their economic viability and thus their continuation, we are asking candidates to:

a) Make immediate representation to HM Revenue and Customs via Treasury ministers to ensure only goods identified as originating from within the internationally recognised borders of Israel are permitted to enter under preference, thus ending the unlawful flouting of EU regulations and a loss of income to UK public finances?

b) Publically support the growing international justice movement (see eg the TUC website) led by Palestinian civic society that calls for a complete ban on the sale of settlement goods within the EU?

The Results

Full Response

James Lewis:

I think labelling should be clear so consumers can make correctly informed choices about which produce they buy.

Hilary Benn:

I don’t support a ban, but I have introduced guidance as Environment Secretary so that it can be made absolutely clear where produce comes from; this will help shoppers to make their own decisions about what they wish to buy. What the Middle East really needs, however, is courageous political leadership on both sides to find an agreement. Only the parties to the conflict can make this happen (as we saw in Northern Ireland).

Mike Davies:

Yes. The settlements are illegal under international law and Britain should seek urgently to force their closure. Allowing the Israelis to break the law further by fraudulent labeling demonstrates how indulgent the west is to its Zionist protégés.

Fabian Hamilton:

On the surface this seems a fair suggestion. Pragmatically it might make the present situation worse by driving the government of Israel into stances even more rigid than at present and depriving some Palestinians of an income. If I thought that this measure would in some ways stop the construction of illegal settlements, I would give it greater credence but sadly until both Israelis and Palestinians both decide they want to live in peace with each other and respect the borders of two separate states, such a move risks becoming what I would call gesture politics.

Judith Blake:

The issue of West Bank produce is a difficult one. The Labour Party is committed to a peaceful and lasting solution to the Middle East conflict which produces two viable sovereign states, and our manifesto commits to working to make this a reality. Judith fully supports this approach.

Judith is not able to give an unequivocal answer to question 3, simply because the question is too simplistic. It is clear that the continued settlement building in defiance of international law must stop, and it is right that pressure be put on Israel to do this and to dismantle settlements illegally constructed. But Judith has spent time in Israel and Palestine and spoken to Palestinians for whom the farms within illegal settlements provide much needed employment – with unemployment in areas of the occupied territories at 80% or above, can it be justified to remove those employment opportunities?

Greg Mulholland:

“Dear Fair 10 Challenge organisers,

I would like to take this opportunity to congratulate the Fair 10 Challenge campaign. As a great supporter and former volunteer of TIDAL and Leeds CAFOD, I am very pleased to support this excellent campaign and am delighted to give you my wholehearted support.

As someone who remains very concerned by the inequality in the world, I am worried that the critically important issues of international development, climate change and global injustice are not sufficiently on the political agenda in this campaign.

So I pay tribute to the Fair 10 Challenge which I think has helped address that and in Leeds and I will continue to do what I can to raise these issues if I am re-elected.

Thank you for your efforts and keep up the good work.

Best wishes,

Greg Mulholland”

Ruth Coleman:

Yes.

Rachel Reeves:

I think we have potentially a unique opportunity with President Obama in the White House to secure peace in the Middle East – for Israelis and Palestinians. In this situation I think we should be more ambitious than just banning imports from settlements but instead work with Israel, Palestine and through the Quartet to bring about a two-state solution with a viable and contiguous Palestine alongside a safe and secure Israel. Banning imports is likely to further fuel antagonism towards that ambition and so I think it would, in the current environment, be counter-productive.

Ed Balls:

The Government has issued advice to retailers and importers who wish to respond to consumer demand for information about the origin of food that has been produced in the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT).

Rules on the labelling of produce are set by the European Union and require that the place of origin or provenance should be supplied on foodstuffs where omission of such information might materially mislead the consumer about true origin or provenance of the foodstuff.

Since the “West Bank” is a recognised geographical area within the OPTs, labelling produce with the “West Bank” does not infringe EU labelling rules.

The Government will keep its policy on labelling food imports from the OPTs under review, in conjunction with the European Commission and other EU Member States, and in the light of developments in the Middle East Peace Process. At the same time, the clear position of the Government is that we are opposed to boycotts of Israel or Israeli goods. We do not believe that boycotts help engage or influence Israel, or lead to progress in the Middle East Peace Process.

David Dews:

I agree that mis-labelling is wrong, but am not sure how you will differentiate between West Bank and genuine Israeli produce. Solving the Israel/Palestine dispute is a key issue in resolving wider Middle East and terrorism issues, and as such I would hesitate to subscribe to actions which might make an extremely complex situation even more volatile. Though I have some experience of the area I do not claim to be an expert, which is why I would need to be much better informed before jumping headlong into this arena.

I am not sure how your proposal for a settlement produce ban would work, and I think that a trade ban on Israel at the present time may be counter productive. I would be prepared to look at any detailed proposals on their merits and support them if I considered that doing so would have a chance of an overall positive outcome. Many years ago I spent some time working in Israel, and learned something of their outlook and fears. More recently I have worked with Palestinians in the Middle East, hearing of their difficulties and injustices. What I have learned is probably a small fraction of the complexity of the situation and I regret that my name is not Solomon. I do know though that extreme care is needed in order to avoid making things worse.