West Bank, ALRAY - Norway decided on Friday to label products from Israeli settlements with their place of origin, Israel considered it an antisemitic step.  

Norway’s social democrat government announced its new policy on Friday, saying it was not enough to label products coming from the occupied territories as Israeli.

The measure mainly concerns imports of wine, olive oil, fruits and vegetables, and will apply to products from the occupied West Bank “including East Jerusalem” and occupied areas of the Golan Heights, Oslo said.

Foreign Minister Anniken Huitfeldt stressed in an interview with Norwegian news agency NTB that this in no way constituted a boycott of Israel.

The European Commission recommended its member states follow this practice in 2015, a decision confirmed by the European Court of Justice in 2019.

Norway said that the principle behind its decision, as set out in the 2019 ruling, is that consumers should not be deceived by misleading labelling on the origin or products.

Israel’s foreign ministry said the position “will adversely affect bilateral relations between Israel and Norway, as well as Norway’s relevance to promoting relations between Israel and the Palestinians.”

The European Parliament passed by 525 votes to 70 a resolution on labeling settlement products since 2015 and the resolution was ratified by the European Commission, however it is not considered binding, and few EU countries have adopted it.