“The Israeli pushback is about trying to intimidate Europeans from not going further down this path,” said Daniel Levy, Middle East director at the European Council on Foreign Relations. “The Israelis want this process to move as slowly as possible, because at a minimum it’s a headache, and at a maximum, ultimately, it could be devastating.”The European Union’s decision to proceed on guidelines years in the making, despite fierce lobbying by Israel and intervention by a group of United States senators, came after several of its member states, and its own Parliament, formally or symbolically recognized an independent Palestinian state. Those resolutions reflect mounting frustration in Europe over the stalemated peace process and the growing political pressure on leaders in countries with large Muslim populations sympathetic to the Palestinian cause.A spokesman for the European Commission, speaking on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said Wednesday’s move “in no way changes” the bloc’s stance on the peace process or Israel’s special treatment in European markets, where “Made in Israel” items carry little or no tariffs. But “products coming from the settlements cannot benefit from those preferences,” the spokesman said.
Source: E.U. Move to Label Israeli Settlement Goods Strains Ties – The New York Times
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