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Head of Israeli manufacturers’ association(MAI) Zvi Oren urged his European counterparts to not boycott Israeli businesses and warned that such a move could affect Palestinians too.
The, open letter seen on Monday sent to European industry leaders, came a week before Israel will end its export of dairy produce and poultry from its West Bank settlements to the European Union. It also comes amid growing calls by activists for an overall boycott of Israel because of its human rights violations in the occupied territories.
“I am asking for your support and assistance to convince the business community in your country not to use economic means to penalize their fellow Israeli manufacturers and exporters.Such actions can only affect our region in a negative way by loss of jobs and growth on both sides (Israeli and Palestinian)”, Oren wrote in the open letter.
On August 17th, European and Israeli officials said that from September 1st, Israel would stop illegal exports of dairy produce and poultry to the European Union from its settlements in occupied territory. In 2013, the EU issued guidelines banning European institutions from trading with Israeli enterprises operating in settlements.
There have been an increasing number of calls for an academic, cultural and economic boycott of Israel over human rights violations, especially in Gaza, where over 2,100 Palestinians have been killed during the current offensive.
Around 22,500 Palestinians work in settlements across West Bank, 6,000 of them employed by Israeli-owned businesses, the MAI said.
Dan Catarivas, the MAI’s international section chief, said that it was “clear that if businesses (in the occupied territories) were affected by the boycott, so would be their Palestinian employees”.
He also said that wider boycott campaign could have an “insignificant” effect on the Israeli economy, given that the settlements accounted for around $300 million of the $45 billion Israel makes in its annual exports. A few European funds have already been taken away from financial institutions that have branches in West Bank.
