Importing Occupation is based on a body of evidence amassed by Global Echo, of a kind not seen before, that analyzes close to 6,000 Israeli agricultural exports to Europe from the past eight years. It details a complex and widespread system by which agricultural goods produced in illegal Israeli settlements are regularly imported to Europe as if they were Israeli: declaring eligibility for preferential tax treatment on ineligible settlement goods, holding invalid organic and plant health certifications, and bearing the label, “Product of Israel” — violating European law, policy, and trade agreements.

Global Echo’s investigation demonstrates that these failures are not isolated incidents. They form a pattern that violates European laws, trade agreements, and policies. In practice, the entire system blurs the Green Line and conceals the origins of goods produced through displacement, land theft, and exploitation, while European customs agencies, importers, and supermarkets are doing little to stop it.

Global Echo is initiating legal action to force action on these violations, fix the system that allows settlement goods to enter European markets in breach of European and international law, and advance accountability for the broader system of Palestinian dispossession sustained by settlement agriculture.