To save Israel’s economy, businesses must separate from the settlements
Emily Schaeffer Omer-Man writes in Haaretz on 24 September 2026:
The announcement that the U.K., France, Canada and nine other countries are finally taking concrete steps to curb trade with Israeli settlements has many asking, can these measures be enforced? In particular, can settlement goods and services actually be differentiated from the rest of the Israeli economy within the Green Line?
But that may be the wrong question. Europe has been differentiating between Israeli and settlement-originating goods for two decades and, late as it may be, political will no longer stands in the way of practical implementation. The question now is whether Israel is willing or able to extricate itself from a political situation that is putting its entire economy in jeopardy.
In June, Global Echo, the organization I lead, published the first independent large-scale study on the prevalence of settlement goods among Israeli exports to Europe. We now know that one in six agricultural products exported from Israel to Europe are actually sourced from settlements.
The report also details, for the first time, exactly how settlement products are deceptively treated as products of Israel – through false labeling, invalid certification schemes, and intermingling along the supply chain. The result is that Europe now has a manual for how to detect them.
The picture painted by this data is not only one of widespread concealment by a host of Israeli actors, but also of structural failures and sustained complacency by European lawmakers and enforcement agencies.
For example, for over 20 years, Europe has agreed to an absurd arrangement in which Israeli exporters are allowed to declare eligibility for tariff exemption whether the goods are from within Israel, which qualify for the tariff exemption, or from settlements in the West Bank and Golan Heights, which do not.
Global Echo found in its examination of tens of thousands of documents that 42 percent of invoices for shipments containing settlement goods falsely declared Israeli origin. In all but a handful of cases, the true settlement origin of these shipments was detectable from close examination of the export paperwork.
At the same time, many are asking not whether Europe can distinguish settlement goods from legitimate Israeli goods, but whether there is a distinction anymore between the settlements and the rest of the Israeli economy. That prospect has caused concern within the Israeli business community that a ban on trade with settlements will eventually lead to a ban on trade with all of Israel, whether declared outright or implemented quietly.
Already, there is a trend among consumers and retailers alike to avoid Israeli products altogether because of the risk that they may be sourced even partially from settlements. In June 2025, Co-op supermarkets in the U.K. stopped stocking products from Israel (and 16 other countries) based on human rights concerns. On Israel specifically, the company said that there is no guarantee of a purely Israeli supply chain.
This leaves Israel with a choice: continue to scoff at European and now North American settlement trade restrictions, or bring its economy into line before it’s too late. We already know what the current Israeli government has decided. In response to the recent announcement of a settlement trade ban, the Israeli government pledged new state subsidies to settlement date farmers and financial backing for all settlement production, on top of the tens of millions of shekels it has provided to offset European tariffs over the past two decades.
If the Israeli government is not willing to change course, it is up to the Israeli private sector to create and enforce its own rules of differentiation in order to protect the local economy. The leaders of industry, labor and tech all joined forces to slow down the judicial overhaul three years ago. Soon they may have to band together again, or face an economic calamity.
Emily Schaeffer Omer-Man is an international human rights attorney and the founder and executive director of Global Echo Litigation Center
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