New York, NY, September 17, 2015 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) today condemned the decision by the city council in Reykjavik, Iceland to boycott Israel products as “counterproductive and frivolous.”
Michael A. Salberg, ADL Director of International Affairs, said:
The Reykjavik city council’s decision to boycott Israeli products is one of the most counter-productive boycotts we can recall. The municipality itself has likely never bought any Israeli products, and all of Iceland only imported $6 million in Israeli goods last year. Yet, this decision will certainly harm Iceland’s reputation in the U.S., an overwhelmingly pro-Israel country, which imported almost $300 million of goods from Iceland in 2013.
Millions more were spent on tourism by the 150,000 Americans who visited Iceland last year. We imagine Iceland’s leading exporters of goods and services are the ones who will be most concerned about the potential consequences of the City Council’s decision.
With one frivolous decision, the Reykjavik city council has damaged Iceland’s expensive multi-year marketing campaign. While ADL does not support counter-boycotts, we imagine Iceland’s leading exporters of goods and services are more concerned than Israel about the consequences.