posters calling to boycott Israel
posters calling to boycott IsraelFlash 90

The City Council of Tromso in Norway has adopted a resolution calling on its residents to boycott products made in Judea, Samaria, eastern Jerusalem and the Golan Heights, JTA reported on Thursday.

According to the Jewish news agency, the resolution was adopted on Wednesday in a 25-17 vote.

The resolution, according to the municipality’s website, states that “the municipal council encourages Tromso Municipality's residents to boycott goods and services produced in the Occupied Territories.”

The resolution, which was introduced by leftist city council members, also said that the municipality "will therefore refrain from buying Israeli goods and services produced in occupied Palestinian territory.”

Opponents of the measure argued that foreign policy was beyond the municipality’s expertise.

Tromso has 72,000 residents. Trondheim, Norway's third largest city, adopted a similar measure last month, noted JTA.

Whereas the Tromso resolution explicitly called for boycotting goods from what the international community regards as land occupied by Israel, it called only for checking the provenance of goods from other disputed territories.

Last year, the European Union approved a measure requiring the labeling “of goods from the territories occupied by Israel since June 1967.”

The notice is effectively a set of guidelines for labeling products from Israeli communities in Judea, Samaria, the Golan Heights and neighborhoods of Jerusalem liberated during the 1967 Six Day War.

Several weeks ago, in accordance with those guidelines, France issued a directive to all importers and retail chains in the country to label such products.

EU officials have insisted that the guidelines do not constitute a boycott of Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria.

To that end, EU Ambassador to Israel Lars Faaborg-Andersen said in March that the European Union is opposed to the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement and that the body’s decision to label products from Judea and Samaria did not constitute a boycott.