Category: Features - Page 83 - International Solidarity Movement

Apartheid in the fields: Part 3 How the food gets to us and what we can do

1st April 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine

A new report from Corporate Watch outlines exactly how the food grown in the illegal settlements of Palestine gets to our plates in Britain. This final summary looks at what we in Britain can do to support the boycott called for by Palestinians.

Palestinian farmers and agricultural workers are asking us to boycott not only produce which we think was produced in the occupied territories, but to boycott all produce exported by Israeli export companies who benefit from economic conditions and exploitation in Gaza and the West Bank, particularly as ambiguous labeling can make it difficult to distinguish where exactly products originated.

BDS activists demonstrate outside Sainsbury's in Brighton. Photos provided by Brighton & Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign — BDS activists demonstrate outside
Sainsbury’s in Brighton. Photos provided
by Brighton & Hove Palestine Solidarity
Campaign

These companies include Arava, Mehadrin, Hadiklaim, Carmel Agrexco, and Edom and Valley Grown Salads. They export products such as peppers, tomatoes, onions, chillies, grapes, strawberries, avocadoes, figs, dates, aubergines, and herbs, and these foods end up at all the main supermarkets in the UK. They may be labelled as coming from Israel (wrongly, when produced in the occupied territories), Palestine, Jordan Valley, and even allegedly, Saudi Arabia.

In 2009, after intense pressure from campaigners, the UK’s Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) issued new guidelines regarding the labelling of products being imported from the West Bank: ‘the Government considers that traders would be misleading consumers and would therefore almost certainly be committing an offence if they were to declare produce from the OPT, including from the West Bank, as “Produce of Israel”.’

UK supermarkets now say they label such produce as “West Bank” but labels indicating produce of Israel remain common.

What can you do in the UK?

Read the full report for more detailed advice
Boycott Israeli goods altogether (read the label and also check for barcodes beginning 729)
Apply pressure to your local supermarket and its national office to stop using companies that benefit from illegal land seizure, appalling employment practices and child labour (this is a Fair Trade issue too).

For the full report: https://corporatewatch.org/publications/2016/apartheid-fields-occupied-palestine-uk-supermarkets

Apartheid in the fields: Part 2 Injustice in the Jordan Valley

30th March 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine

A new report from Corporate Watch outlines exactly how the food grown in the illegal settlements of Palestine gets to our plates in Britain, and what we (in Britain) can do about it. In this second summary report we look at what is happening in the Jordan Valley.

Much Jordan Valley produce is marketed as organic but is certainly not grown fairly

Israeli agricultural companies operate on land in the Jordan Valley taken from Palestinians by force. This leaves Palestinians there with few options but to work for the illegal settlements on land which was once Palestinian, and sometimes land which was once theirs. The research conducted in 2013 found that companies pay well below minimum wage, with workers being paid between £12.60 and £14.50 a day. They found evidence of children as young as ten being employed. There are often no written contracts, or contracts are in Hebrew only, there is no sick pay, no health insurance, no holiday pay, few health and safety precautions. Trade unions are not permitted. Some workers leave at 3 am to get through checkpoints to work and others sleep in barrack like accommodation, illegal under Israeli law.

Support for a boycott is widespread: ‘They are working on stolen land, using water that they have stolen from us. If the boycott campaign damages these companies then the settlers will leave our land’ says Fares from Beit Harava. ‘We support the boycott even if we lose our work. We might lose our jobs but we will get back our land. We will be able to work without being treated as slaves,’ agrees Zaid from Beqa’ot. (Names have been changed.)

For the full report: https://corporatewatch.org/publications/2016/apartheid-fields-occupied-palestine-uk-supermarkets

Youth Against Apartheid

29th March 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Hebron, occupied Palestine

On Sunday, the new team of Youth Against Apartheid was honored to meet with each other for the first time. The wonderful youth of al-Khalil city (Hebron) who have dedicated their time during the past few years doing voluntary work and activities to help their community, mainly in Tel Rumeida neighbourhood and Shuhada Street of al-Khalil City (Hebron).

The members have never before been part of any group, but have happily volunteered with all groups and entities that have asked for their activism. Just a few days ago they decided to form and establish an organized group (popular committee) and officially named themselves, Hebron Youth against Apartheid.

The group is filled with a mixture of very intelligent, energetic and enthusiastic youth while all of them are strongly attached to their people and land, all of who are hopeful for a better tomorrow. The group wishes show to the world what daily life is like under the zionist regimes occupation, the daily attacks and violations of human rights towards the Palestinian people, along with organising voluntary activities in their areas, nonviolent protests against zionist occupation, working for justice and human rights for their people at all levels and providing legal aid to the community. They are based in the old town of al-Khalil city (Hebron), mainly Tel Rumeida and Shuhada Street areas.

This new team would appreciate your support and solidarity at all levels. Please share the word of the great work these young youth are doing and let the world know who they are.

Another home destroyed in Gaza

29th March 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine

During the latest wave of aggression by Israeli forces against the Gaza Strip, Gaza resident Mohamed Shorrab, 70 years old, lost his family home. It was shot at and destroyed by Israeli tank fire and artillery shells from the gun turrets located on the annexation wall that separate Gaza from the lands occupied by Israel in 1948. During this wave of aggression, Israeli bulldozers also destroyed his five hundred beehives along with most of his fruit plantations and olive trees. Previously Mohamed’s twenty one sheep were killed, alongside all of Gaza’s livestock, during the 2014 massacre of Gaza by Israeli forces.

In 2012, two of Mohamed’s sons were killed by the occupying army. They were killed whilst heading home during a cease-fire, when a soldier told them they couldn’t continue and had to go back to where they were coming from. Immediately upon turning back a tank fired at them. Ambulance services were not allowede to reach the two men until six hours later.

House destroyed in the last Gaza massacre

Apartheid in the fields: Part 1 Gaza: farming under siege

29th March 2016 | International Solidarity Movement, al-Khalil team | Gaza Strip, occupied Palestine

A new report from Corporate Watch outlines exactly how the food grown in the illegal settlements of Palestine gets to our plates in Britain, and what we (in Britain) can do about it. The situations in Gaza and the West Bank are quite different so our summary here for ISM will look at it in three parts. Today:

The Israelis evacuated direct occupation of Gaza in 2005 but its control over that tiny strip of land remains almost total. Israel controls borders and with it all imports and exports. The effect on the Gazan economy has been calamitous. A buffer zone agreed in the 1990s under the Oslo accords has expanded until it covers over a third of all agricultural land, and exactly where that zone lies is unclear and changeable. Closest to the border farmers risk being shot at and further away land and crops may be destroyed. Over fifty farmers have been killed in the buffer zone, thousands of farms, nearly a thousand houses, mosques, schools and water wells have been destroyed. But farmers must continue to farm to make a living and to hold on to the land.

What cannot be sold in Gaza is largely waste: Israel only allows a tiny proportion of Gazan food produce to be exported, and that through Israeli companies.

Gazan farmers are calling for a boycott of all produce exported through Israeli companies although they know it will initially harm their livelihoods even more: ‘The Israeli occupation allows us to export a small quantity of produce, just to show the world that they are nice to the Palestinians, but they are using us. Everything they do is controlled by them,’ says Sa’ad Ziada from the Gazan agricultural union, UAWC.

For the full report: https://corporatewatch.org/publications/2016/apartheid-fields-occupied-palestine-uk-supermarkets