J Street, the New Israel Fund, Partners for Progressive Israel, Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, and T’ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights, are demanding that President Joe Biden revoke a Trump administration policy that permits products made in Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria to be labeled “Made in Israel” when they reach US stores, Huffington Post reported Wednesday (Key Jewish Groups Ask Joe Biden To Revoke Trump’s Parting Gift For Israel’s Netanyahu).
The six anti-Israel Jewish groups sent a letter to Homeland Security Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas on Tuesday warning the Biden administration against the new regulation which “would worsen tensions in the Middle East if allowed to go into effect.”
Yes, the planet will become extinct should Samaria wine be sold alongside Carmel Mizrahi in your favorite liquor store.
One day before Christmas, on December 24, 2020, US Customs and Border Protection announced that an order requiring goods made in “Israeli-controlled areas of the West Bank to be labeled as ‘Made in Israel'” had taken effect.
After the signing of the Oslo accords, the US required products made in Judea, Samaria, and Gaza to be labeled according to their locations. This was reiterated in 2016 by the Obama administration, which established fines to vendors who sold those products as “made in Israel” – as they had been labeled in the US before 1995.
“By inaccurately and misleadingly treating settlement and other products from Area C of the West Bank as if they were made in Israel, the [Trump-era notification] attempts to reverse decades of U.S. policy that makes a firm distinction between Israel and the West Bank,” the six groups wrote Mayorkas. “It runs counter to the Biden administration’s policy of opposing settlement activity and unilateral annexation of territory as harmful to the prospects for the peaceful, just resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”
No news yet if the Biden administration plans to change Trump’s policy.
Happy Purim.