S. Africa: W. Bank products won't be labeled Israeli, will have ‘made in Palestinian territories’ labels.

S. Africa: W. Bank products won't be labeled Israeli, will have ‘made in Palestinian territories’ labels.(JPost).Pretoria – South Africa’s Department of Trade and Industry is preparing a policy change mandating that products originating from West Bank settlements not be labeled as Israeli products. In a statement published last week in the governmental gazette, Trade Minister Rob Davies declared that consumers in South Africa should not be misled into believing that products originating from the “Occupied Palestinian Territories” originate from Israel. The minister specified in his note some “misleading labeled products” as “Ahava products, and other cosmetic brands, technology and soft drinks.”“For now, there is no decision but people should know that South Africa recognizes Israel inside the 1948 U.N. borders,” Macdonald Netshitenzhe, the trade ministry’s director for trade policies and legislations, told AFP.“Now coming to the issue of Palestine and Israel, a product from Israel has to be manufactured or produced within the borders of 1948,” he said.Any territories taken over by Israel in the wake of the war which accompanied its independence in 1948 -- such as the West Bank and Gaza Strip, which were occupied in 1967 -- would not be included in that definition.

“Therefore, for the goods or vegetables which are grown in the area where Israel invaded other Arab countries, South Africa says, you better say these products are grown in Palestine or Occupied Palestinian Territories,” Netshitenzhe added. Israel reacted furiously to the South African announcement, which the Foreign Ministry said was the first of its kind in the world. Spokesman Paul Hirschson said the ministry would call in the South African ambassador to protest the move. “The singling out of one side of one conflict out of all the conflicts in the world is verging on racism,” he said, adding that “this is sad coming from South Africa, which should know better.” Open Shuhada Street, a Palestinian international organization focusing on the issue of “rules of origin,” has been campaigning in South Africa for several months against products manufactured by Israelis in the West Bank. It has been threatening legal action whose goal would be to require the South African government to declare the labeling of these products as “illegal” and “consumer misleading.” The Palestinian lobby group specifically targets Dead Sea beauty products made in Mitzpe Shalem.The Israeli Embassy in Pretoria criticized the proposal on Saturday, saying, “We regret the decision to adopt this notice, which carries an unpleasant scent of singling out Israel on a national and on a political basis.”Ben Swartz, the spokesman of the South African Zionist Federation, said the Jewish community in South Africa was deeply concerned about the proposal. Swartz said that the content of the notice is “highly political and politicized, and has been prepared without proper public debate and discussion.” He added that he did not believe that this proposal reflected the policy of all governing parties in South Africa, nor of the African National Congress as a whole.Read the full story here, more @ IsraelMatzav and here.