by Julian Ku
The BBC reports:
The European Court of Justice has ruled that Israeli goods made in Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank cannot be considered Israeli.
This means goods made by Israelis or Jews in the West Bank cannot benefit from a trade deal giving Israel preferential access to EU markets.
At first glance, this seems like the correct result, especially given the existence of a separate EC-PLO trade agreement that is intended to govern such goods. Moreover, according to the ECJ, Israel never responded to German requests to confirm the origin of these goods. So Israel doesn’t seem to have much of a case here.
Of course, the result seems of dubious benefit to actual residents of the West Bank, but that is another matter I suppose (see here for an argument on this line). A fuller discussion of the opinion can be found here but I can’t seem to find the full judgment on the ECJ website. Anyone who has a link should feel free to post it in the comments.