PARIS (EJP)---European Jewish Congress President Moshe Kantor expressed outrage at reports of the banning of Israeli books and distinctively marking Israeli products in several districts near Glasgow, Scotland
.Israeli books translated into English were recently added to the list of prohibited books in libraries.
"It is inconceivable that products from the Jewish State are banned or distinctively marked in Scotland," Kantor said. "These acts are eerily reminiscent of darker times and perhaps there is a level of hatred that connects them."
According to reports, two and a half years ago, shortly after the Israeli Operation Cast Lead against Hamas in Gaza, the West Dunbartonshire Regional Council, located west of Glasgow, approved a bill that called to boycott goods produced in Israel.
West Dunbartonshire was joined by the large Scottish city Dundee, which decided to issue a recommendation to boycott all goods produced in Israel.
Legal advisers however instructed Dundee's mayor to refrain from legally enforcing the boycott in order to avoid future lawsuits as such action is illegal under European Union law.
Instead, the municipality plans to distribute posters throughout the city, calling on some 150,000 residents to refrain from buying Israeli goods, and will also apply a special mark on Israeli products, in order to make them easily identifiable.
"While those behind the boycott will claim that this is not anti-Semitic, targeting the only Jewish state, a democracy, while ignoring serial human-rights abusing nations tells us that this is indeed anti-Semitic in intent and in effect," Kantor continued.
"This demonstrates how far ‘respectable anti-Semitism’ has come. Clearly it has become acceptable to boycott and discriminate against Jews, as long as there is a thin veneer of anti-Zionism which purportedly covers the hateful act."
Kantor called on Scottish and British officials "to immediately pronounce this boycott illegal."
"A place that boycotts books is not far from a place that burns them," Israel's ambassador to the U.K., Ron Prosor, remarked.
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