Palestinian traders and farmers will gather in the Tulkarem Refugee Camp on September 20th for a Palestinian goods market, boycotting Israeli products as a statement of resistance against Israel’s ongoing occupation, The Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign said.
The Campaign said that The Tulkarem trade fair will gather over a hundred businesses and farmers, many of them from Tulkarem Camp itself, as part of a growing movement to boycott Israeli goods and promote Palestinian produce.
“Seizure and destruction of land and property has made life almost impossible for many Palestinian farmers, and restrictions on movement have devastated trade,” it said.
The Trade Fair will run from September 20-23, from 9.00 – 4.00 every day in The Hall of the Martyr Kamal Saleem, Main Street, Tulkarem Refugee Camp.
The Trade Fair is organised by the Tulkarem Refugee Camp organising committee with the support of the Grassroots Palestinian Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign.
During the first intifada Palestinians created ‘victory gardens’, mostly famously in Beit Sahour, in an effort to feed themselves without relying on Israeli goods.
Meanwhile, in the latest international boycott action, shops and supermarkets across Ireland were picketed last Saturday by the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) to mark the anniversary of the Sabra and Shatila massacres. Shops were targetted by pickets which handed out leaflets as well as by trolley actions, which involved activists filling up trolleys with Israeli products and taking them to the checkout to vociferously demand that these products no longer be sold. Actions took place in Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Limerick, Galway and Sligo. Especially targetted was the Irish-owned supermarket chain Dunnes Stores as this was where workers first refused to handle goods from Apartheid South Africa in 1984.
These actions coincided with a call in a letter to the Irish times signed by 61 Irish academics for a moratorium on EU support for Israeli academic institutions until Israel abides by UN resolutions and ends the occupation of Palestinian territories.