Jordan Valley Farmers Defy EU Guidelines

Israeli farmers in the Jordan Valley have declared their refusal to comply with EU guidelines requiring labels saying the products do not come from Israel, The Jerusalem Post reported on Monday.

Jordan Valley Regional Council head Dudu Elhayani made the local feelings known in writing to the German government after a German company recently requested that they label their produce “Occupied territories by the Government of Israel.”

In the letter to German Ambassador Clemens von Goetze, he rejected the request as “discriminatory” and “politically motivated.”

“I want to clearly inform you: we will not label our products. Such labeling is equivalent to the marking of Jews in Europe during dark and terrible times in the past. It is absolutely unacceptable,” Elhayani said.

Elhayani also explained to the ambassador that 60 percent of the people who live in the Jordan Valley rely on agriculture to make a living.

Approximately 20 percent of the valley’s exports are shipped to Europe. The rest, he said, are sold to Russia, the United States and Asia.