Neve Gordon on the slippery "Made in Israel" label
At Al Jazeera, Neve Gordon, contributor to the new collection, The Case for Sanctions Against Israel, follows the tangled political trail of the "Made in Israel" label on Israeli exports in light of South Africa's recent demand to remove that label on products originating in the occupied West Bank and Golan Heights.
Gordon explains how, despite the legal requirements of Israeli customs authorities to provide the precise name of the city or village of production, many Israeli companies use the postcodes of their headquarters within the borders of pre-1967 Israel in order to propagate the "Made in Israel" label. This fradulent practice is abetted by the government's absorption of custom duties to void any loss from production in the Occupied Territories.
Gordon then lauds the South African decision to undermine this specious label towards an empowerment of their citizen's buying practices in accord with opportunities for moral choices. The obscurantist project behind the "Made in Israel" label between the Israeli government and corporations would be thus rendered moot against more transparent rules of origin.
Read the entire editorial at Al Jazeera. The Case for Sanctions against Israel is now available from Verso.