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Anyone who has experience in dealing with government regulations – which must include almost every adult Canadian – is familiar with the mindlessness that often afflicts the blinkered world of public administration.

Kids enjoying a game of road hockey become a safety issue that can’t be tolerated; a sheet of open pond must be closed to skaters for fear of liability issues; a pet that wanders into the neighbour’s yard against local bylaws exposes its owner to a hefty fine.

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To pretend the EU decision is merely an administrative quirk is to trivialize the spiteful nature of its impact.

These are relatively minor irritants, but reflect an administrative denseness that on a larger scale becomes altogether insidious. One rule begets another, which leads to a third, which ends with the absurd, the unfair or the vindictive.

This is what underlies Israel’s justifiable anger at a European Union ruling that goods produced in areas gained by Israel during the Six-Day War in 1967 must be labeled to indicate they originate in Israeli settlements. The ruling may not equate to the use of yellow stars to identify Jews in Nazi Germany as some Israeli politicians have claimed, but it is unquestionably discriminatory and meant to have a punitive impact on Israel. There are no health, safety or other legitimate reasons to justify separate labeling, which can only encourage politically-motivated efforts to mount boycotts of Israeli products and Israel itself.