Two leaders of the international Young Israel movement, Harold Jacobs, president of the National Council of Young Israel, and Martin Lasher, chairman of the National Council of Young Israel public affairs committee, have called for a Congressional investigation of an Oct. 27 U.S. Customs Service ruling changing the identification of goods made in Judaea and Samaria from “made in Israel” to “made in Israeli-occupied West Bank.”
Jacobs and Lasher described the designation change as “symbolic of a clear shift of American foreign policy away from its traditional support of Israel and the Camp David peace process. While official Administration spokesmen pay lip service to the Camp David process and the security of Israel, actual American foreign policy continues to tilt toward the so-called ‘Saudi peace plan,’ which demands that Israel withdraw from Judaea and Samaria.”
The two Young Israel leaders stated that “This shift in U.S. Customs regulations would seem to substantiate such a shift in the American attitude away from the administrative solution proposed by the Camp David treaty and closer to the ‘rejectionist’ demands for the partition and eventual dissolution of the State of Israel.” They added that actions such as the Customs Service ruling “which unilaterally and implicitly” deny “Israel’s legitimate claim to sovereignty” over Judaea and Samaria “hurt the peace process and Israel’s confidence in the good will of this country in the pursuit of peace.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
