Labeling goods isn't good enough for haters like Stephen Sizer

Stephen Sizer is a prominent Israeli-hating minister in England.

His most recent blog post accuses UK supermarket Tesco of lying in its labeling of goods from Israel and the territories. The labels on some of their Medjool dates say "Produce of Israel, Packed in the West Bank (Israeli settlement.)"

He writes:

Without saying so explicitly, Tesco is admitting the dates are packed in Palestine. So where are they grown? In Israel and then shipped to an illegal Israeli settlement in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank? Unlikely. More likely, they are grown and packed on the settlement, which makes them Palestinian dates. If so, Tesco is not only mis-labelling the dates but supplying stolen goods.

Now where did he get his images of the packaging from? They came from a November 2013 post in the Boycott Israel UK website.

On that same website they show the labeling from other Tesco products. For example, these dates are labeled as being grown and packed in the West Bank:

These are also grown in Judea and Samaria:

These dates, however, were grown and packed within the arbitrary 1949 armistice lines:

We can see that Tesco has been labeling produce grown in Judea and Samaria since at least 2009:

It is obvious that Tesco is being accurate in its characterization of the produce Sizer is so upset about. And all this information is on the website that Sizer apparently reads.

So from this little episode we can learn a few things:

• Clearly Tesco has been consistent about labeling its goods and has done so for over five years. When it says that the goods were grown in Israel and packed in Judea and Samaria, they are telling the truth.
• Sizer is a liar in his accusations of Tesco. This was in all probability a conscious lie, since he seems to have taken the photos from a site that shows his accusations to be lies.
• Sizer's regard for the truth is nil.
• Even after five years of labeling, Tesco still sells goods grown by Jews in Judea and Samaria. None of the boycotts and efforts by haters like Sizer has caused the supermarket to abandon selling these goods.
• Sizer is frustrated that the labeling isn't having the desired effect, because he really wants a full boycott of Israel - something that British consumers clearly don't desire.