During his visit to South Africa, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas Sunday urged African countries to boycott goods produced by Israeli-owned companies in the occupied West Bank, The Times of Israel reported on Monday.
Speaking at the 25th African Union assembly in Johannesburg, Abbas called on state leaders to require the labeling of settlement products as a means of informing consumers that such items are produced in occupied land.
The Palestinian leader added that the sale of Israeli goods produced beyond the Green Line violated international legal standards.
“We must boycott the settlements which were established on Palestinian land, contrary to international law and resolutions,” Abbas said, according to the WAFA news agency.
The call on African leaders follows after the European Union is expected to soon begin rolling out rules that require the labeling of goods from the occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, diplomats said recently.
During a previous visit to South Africa in 2013, Abbas stated that Palestine does not support a general boycott of Israel, but a boycott of the products made in occupied lands.
“We ask everyone to boycott the products of the settlements. Because the settlements are in our territories. It is illegal,” he said.
The PA president’s comments at the time conflicted “with the Palestinian national consensus that has strongly supported BDS against Israel since 2005,” one of the founders of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, Omar Barghouti, told Electronic Intifada at the time.
The BDS movement calls for boycotts of Israel, not just Israeli settlements, with the stated goal of ending the Israeli occupation of Palestinian lands and granting a right of return to all Palestinian refugees.
Occupied: Headlines From Palestine 