Tag: BDS

Boycott of Ahava Dead Sea products makes an impact

Adri Nieuwhof | The Electronic Intifada

2 December 2009

Bathrobe brigades in Amsterdam informing people about the dirty secrets of Ahava beauty products in front of a store that sells the product. (Cris Toala Olivares)
Bathrobe brigades in Amsterdam informing people about the dirty secrets of Ahava beauty products in front of a store that sells the product. (Cris Toala Olivares)

The international campaign to boycott Ahava beauty products has recently won the support of a Dutch parliamentarian and an Israeli peace group. During the past few months, activists in Canada, the UK, Ireland, Israel, the United States and the Netherlands have campaigned against the sale of Ahava products because of the company’s complicity in the Israeli occupation.

The Stolen Beauty campaign has included protest actions by “bikini brigades” around the United States organized by the American peace group CODEPINK, and allied actions have taken place in London, Paris, Vienna, Montreal and Amsterdam. The Dutch “bathrobe brigades” that appeared in shopping centers in Amsterdam and Haarlem, not only caught the eye of the press, but also that of Dutch parliamentarian Harry van Bommel.

Ahava manufactures its cosmetics in a factory in the illegal Mitzpe Shalem settlement in the occupied West Bank. However, Ahava labels its skin care products imported into the EU as originating from “The Dead Sea, Israel.” Van Bommel, concerned about this misleading labeling, asked Dutch minister of Foreign Affairs Maxime Verhagen to investigate the origin of Ahava cosmetics, and Verhagen agreed.

The settlements Mitzpe Shalem and Kalia, located deep within the Israeli-occupied West Bank, own 44 percent of the shares of the company. Before the June 1967 war, Palestinians lived on some of the lands that are now part of the two settlements; there were Palestinian communities in Nabi Musa where Kalia is now located and in Arab al-Taamira next to Mitzpe Shalem.

According to the Israeli group Who Profits From the Occupation? (www.whoprofits.org), the mud used in Ahava products is taken from a site on the shores of the Dead Sea inside the occupied territory, next to Kalia. Ahava uses Palestinian natural resources without the permission of or compensation to the Palestinians. Meanwhile, Israel denies Palestinians access to the shores of the Dead Sea and its resources, although one-third of the western shore of the Dead Sea lies in the occupied West Bank.

This week Palestinian tourism minister Khouloud Daibes voiced her disagreement with Ahava’s practices in the West Bank. In protest of Israel’s aspirations to nominate the Dead Sea for the Seven Natural Wonders of the World competition, Daibes wrote her Israeli counterpart a letter to express her objection to “promoting the Dead Sea in the competition, alongside products like Ahava, which are produced illegally in the Israeli settlement on occupied Palestinian lands.”

Recently, the international campaign to boycott Ahava beauty products received support from the Israeli peace group Gush Shalom, which sent an open letter on 17 November to Ahava’s management, urging the company to move its operations out of the Occupied Palestinian Territories. Gush Shalom stated: “Your decision to locate in Occupied Territory and make use of natural resources which do not belong to Israel was a mistaken gamble which already harmed your interests and might harm them even much further. Sooner or later you will have to get out of this damaging and illegal location — and the sooner, the better.”

Meanwhile, in the Netherlands, parliamentarian Van Bommel told The Electronic Intifada he welcomes the international Ahava campaign. “It might appear a minor issue, but it is important as an example of [Israel] economically hampering the realization of a Palestinian state.” He added that he would welcome initiatives in other EU countries to raise the issue in their parliaments. “Subsequently, the pressure on Israel will increase and more importantly, we can engage the public in the debate.”

Adri Nieuwhof is an independent consultant based in Switzerland.

Let’s Talk About Resistance

Natalie abu Shakra

27 November 2009

The choice of civil resistance in challenging the Israeli occupation is considered by some as a form of “surrender.” In an interview [in Arabic] on Al Aqsa, Palestinian activists Mazen Qumsiyeh and comrade Haidar Eid answer these questions.

Eid was asked about the meaning of civil resistance of which he spoke about the numerous terms coined to non-violent resistance, civil resistance, non-violent struggle and therefore multiple definitions to each term. There is, he says, the Gandhian non-violent struggle, Satyagraha, which is to depend totally on people power and the strength of economic boycott of the occupier’s products. “What happened in South Africa was that this concept was further developed to include multiple and different forms of struggle, of which complete one another. And there was an emphasis in the later part of Apartheid, during the eighties, on Boycott [in all its forms].” Eid emphasized that the four pillars of struggle in South Africa should be taken as a model to learn from in the Palestinian struggle.

In the Palestinian context, the word “peace” has come to have a negative connotation, and Eid explains that this is due to the “industry of peace” processes that the Palestinians had to face constantly, and particularly from 1993 till now, where peace as a process was not linked to the attainment of justice for the Palestinian people, and the right of return of the refugees with reparation of the decades of suffering, estrangement, refugeehood and exile. “When we speak of peace, we will speak only of peace that leads to the implementation of Palestinian people’s legitimate rights.” What the settler colonial policies and direct military occupation of the WB and GS since 1967 require, says Eid, is an amalgam of the different forms of struggle. And, as such, the Palestinian call for Boycott, which brings together and is a common ground to all Palestinian national and Islamic factions, was initiated and appeals to the official and unofficial international community to boycott Israel. As a result of this initiative, the BNC [BDS National Committee] was formed in 2005 of which held the participation of all Palestinian national and Islamic factions.

“I believe that we in Gaza, unlike the WB, have not invested much in other forms of resistance. I don’t believe that armed struggle, of which I do not oppose and believe to go hand-in-hand with other forms of resistance, is enough taking into consideration the absurd imbalance of power between the Israeli state and the Palestinian national and Islamic resistance-there is a need to turn to people power as well.” Eid mentioned that if a minority involve themselves in armed resistance, then the majority of the people “from farmers, academics and intellectuals” need engage more in civil resistance against occupation.

“Can we imagine the Palesitnian people without Edward Said, Ghassan Kanafani, Mahmoud Darwish?” Eid asks. “What makes those Palestinians stand-out is their emphasis on the fact that the struggle against the Israeli occupation is an ideological struggle: we must defeat the Zionist mentality that this land is for the Jews, and that, we as Palestinians, should prove to the world that we posses the higher moral ground, that the Palestinian people in their resistance, whether armed or civil, will re-humanize the Israeli, unlike the latter whom strips the Palestinian off her humanity.”

Qumsiyeh, answering to “what is civil resistance,” mentioned that the Palestinian struggle has, since the British mandate till this date, involved resistance in all its forms: from civil to armed.

“Sumuud [endurance] by itself is resistance,” says Qumsiyeh. Simple acts as “getting married, going to school, reading a book” become acts of resistance. “When a student comes to my class at eight in the morning after passing numerous checkpoints- that is resistance,” Qumsiyeh notes.

Civil resistance is inclusive[at a time when exclusivity seems dominant]: from a woman, to a child to an elderly – all can resist. And that was what both academics and activists implied.

“We all need to look at Bil’in, ” says Qumsiyeh, “the demonstrations against the wall occurring all those years, unhesitatingly and consistently.” Not only in Bil’in does this civil resistance emerge but, more recently, in Gaza, says Eid, when the Palestinians in the Strip attempted to break the wall separating them from Egypt, twice, in forming a human chain from the beginning till the end of the Strip. Beit Sahour, the town of which Qumsiyeh is from, was exemplary in its civil resistance and civil disobedience, during the First Intifada, according to Eid. “When the Palestinians from Beit Sahour gave up their IDs to the military officer there,” this, Eid says was an example of civil resistance.

What about the use of bodies and human shield? Eid says that this is one of the most sublime forms of civil resistance, using the body in fighting off the bullets the bombs, in protection and defense of home and land.

A question arises of whether or not this kind of resistance creates a battle within the psyche of the occupier. This, Eid says, was something Mandela wrote about in his diaries and something which Said questioned a while before his death: “who possesses the higher moral ground: the colonized or the colonizer; the occupied or the occupier?” According to Eid, that as a civilian struggling for your moral and legal rights possesses the higher moral ground and, therefore, psychologically attacks the occupier. “This was what happened with the Nazi German, this was what happened with the White South African colonizer,” Eid says.

Eid mentions that “Israel is one of the societies of which domestic violence is most encountered” and “that there is a direct relation between domestic violence and suicide cases in the Israeli society and between the occupation in the WB, GS and 1948 lands.” He continues, “I think this is very important. For instance, there are many US soldiers who come back from Iraq and Afghanistan who commit suicide shortly after their return.” Thus the occupied possesses a moral and psychological power that should be invested against the occupation itself.

Eid re-emphasises that the obvious, huge imbalance of power in the Israeli-Palestinian case requires the moving away from negotiations that are but a waste of time:

“Israel has more than 450 nuclear heads, it has Apaches, it has F16s- it has the most strategic alliance with the USA. I mean, how can we as 10 millions Palestinian, more than half living in the Diaspora and in refugee camps living under horrendous conditions, fight that? People power.”

This inclusivity which brings together and encourages Israeli Jews against Israeli Apartheid and policies of colonization, with 1948 Palestinians, along with the farmer, the student, the fisherman, and all supporters of these universalistic rights share together this moral grounding, and can channel their suppression through civil resistance, through boycott – which is but the simplest of forms of resistance, and one of the most powerful simultaneously.

According to Eid, “if you hit the occupation in the core of its existence, through its strategic relations with the USA, through US boycott of Israel in all its faces […] if all the Islamic Palestinian factions, for instance, from Islamic Jihad, to Hamas, which all have a supportive stance from Islamic movements worldwide, promote BDS in their discourse, when every leader of an Islamic movement speaks and it was demanded to boycott US & Israeli products till the implementation of every basic Palestinian right-” then we can talk about the road to liberation.

Israel’s occupation, linked by rail

Seth Freedman | The Guardian

26 November 2009

The architects of Israel’s occupation of the West Bank are highly skilled at the art of needlework, deftly stitching up land inside Israel proper and disputed territory over the Green Line as though it was the most natural thing in the world. According to their logic, it should be possible to seamlessly suture together the two parts without raising eyebrows either at home or abroad, regardless of the contravention of both international law and basic morality that such actions entail.

All that is required is a healthy dose of chutzpah, combined with a drip-drip effect in which a steady stream of expropriating activities are undertaken at a slow but relentless pace, in the hope that insufficient feathers are ruffled to put a halt to the overarching campaign of annexation.

The Jerusalem light railway is a case in point: in isolation, few Israelis would be too perturbed by the idea of providing a rail link between the city centre and outlying towns and suburbs on the periphery of the capital. However, in doing so, the authorities are simultaneously declaring their view that settlements such as French Hill and Pisgat Ze’ev are integral parts of Jerusalem and banging yet another nail into the coffin of a viable Palestinian state.

Under the guise of a desire to ease traffic congestion on Jerusalem’s streets, the project bears all the hallmarks of previous efforts to stake a permanent and intractable claim to areas that once might have been considered as appropriate territory to concede as part of a permanent settlement with the Palestinians. As the Alternative Information Centre notes, “by providing direct access to [these locations], the main illegal settlements will finally be linked with the centre and western part of the City. The adverse effects of this will serve to diminish any chance of East Jerusalem becoming the future capital of a Palestinian state under a two-state solution”.

Palestinian officials this week issued a call for overseas assistance in preventing the completion of the rail link, having recognised that without such external pressure there is no hope of putting a halt to the illegal construction. Basing their opposition on statutes that deem such building work a violation of international law, the Palestinian Authority urged all Arab countries to end their links with companies associated with the light railway – including French conglomerates Veolia and Alstom – in the hope that such a stance would encourage the corporations involved to pull out of the project.

The Palestinians know full well that the rail link’s presence will further ingrain in Israelis’ minds the idea that every affected township over the Green Line is to be viewed simply as a benign part of Greater Jerusalem, rather than a malignant settlement that threatens the security of both Israelis and Palestinians in the long term. To confirm their fears, they need only look as far as Gilo or Har Homa, both areas built over the Green Line outside Jerusalem’s original city limits, but now treated as no more contentious than Rehavia or the German Colony when it comes to Israel’s continued construction there.

Last week’s international criticism of plans to build a further 900 homes in Gilo raised hackles among the Israeli public. Many Israelis have become so accustomed to the idea that Gilo is part of Israel proper that they cannot for the life of them understand why anyone should deny them the right to construct houses there at will. Such a mind-set did not develop overnight; rather, it took years of patient joining of the dots by successive Israeli governments – by way of transport links, forging social ties between Gilo and other parts of Jerusalem, and so on – to convince Israelis that Gilo had come in from the cold and was now Jerusalem through and through.

When my army unit was based in Har Gilo (a suburb of Gilo even deeper into West Bank territory), none of the residents living alongside our headquarters saw themselves as settlers. Those to whom we spoke thought of themselves as simply Jerusalemites with no more reason to feel guilty about the location of their homes than those dwelling in Tel Aviv or Haifa. The fact that their houses were a stone’s throw from Palestinian towns such as Bet-Jalla did little to change their minds: the Israeli government had thrown a comforting arm around their shoulders and told them all was well, and that was what mattered. But all is not well – whether in terms of Israel’s relationship with the outside world, the spectre looming of a third Palestinian intifada, or the fact that Israelis are unquestioningly becoming more and more used to their collective status as perpetual oppressors of another people – and time is not on the peace camp’s side.

The light railway and the construction plans for Gilo are not deal-breakers on their own, but the whole is greater than the sum of the parts when it comes to the annexation of the West Bank, and all interested parties should be doing their utmost to oppose anything that further cements an Israeli presence in the area. To sit back and do nothing is to be complicit with the insidious plans of those who seek never to accommodate Palestinian needs in terms of their statehood. Israelis, Palestinians and outsiders alike must continue to stand up to the occupation machine’s operators, before the rot sets in completely and for ever.

Palestinians to Arab states: You can stop Jerusalem light rail

Amira Hass | Ha’aretz

17 November 2009

The chairman of Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas’ office, Dr. Rafiq Husseini, on Monday urges all Arab countries to cancel their business ties with two French companies – Veolia and Alstom – involved in the construction of a Jerusalem-based light railway which passes through the West Bank.

Husseini spoke in a press conference organized by the BNC – The Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee – made up of several non governmental organizations.

So far, the Palestinian civil society organization are those which have initiated local and international activities calling for various types of boycotts (mainly on companies which are active in the occupied territories, and on Israeli academics and artists.)

It seems that the international attention their activities have garnered has encouraged the Palestinian Authority to join in the boycotts: The new Palestinian minister of economy, Hassan abu Libdeh, recently declared that the PA considers itself obliged to enforce the ban (so far declarative only) on selling settlements products in the Palestinian market.

Also present at the press conference were Jerusalem Mufti Mohammad Hussein and Orthodox Archbishop Attallah Hanna, both of whom supported the requested boycott.

This is the first time that the BNC has publicly addressed Arab nations, specifically Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, and requested that they join the boycott and cancel their existing contracts with the French companies.

Until recently the committee has focused – with the assistance and support of organizations abroad – on arranging activities in the West which have brough to the termination of business deals with the two companies in Sweden, Britain, France and Australia.

The committee has petitioned the Saudi government to end their business deals, specifically with Alstom, but have yet to receive a response.

Saudi Arabia has contracts worth billions of dollars with Alstrom to build a railway to Mecca, as well other deals to constryct power plants.

Husseini lambasted those Arab countries continuing to work with the two companies, accusing them of “not fulfilling their duties” despite the repeated requests by the Palestinian from them and from the Arab League.

The committee worded softer criticism and said in a press release that “the BNC strongly urges Arab governments to practically translate their consistent verbal support for Palestinian rights in Jerusalem into action, at least by refusing to deal on a business-as-usual basis with companies implicated in violation of international law and Palestinian rights.”

According to the committee, building the light rail on occupied territory is a violation of international law.

Plea to boycott firms with Israel link

Abbas Al Lawati | Gulf News

17 November 2009

Group urges GCC states to shun Alstom and Veolia involved in Occupied Jerusalem projects

Dubai: A pressure campaign targeted at Gulf states was launched in Occupied Jerusalem on Monday by a coalition of 170 Palestinian organisations urging Arab states to boycott companies complicit in Israel’s expansion in the holy city.

In a rare public pressure campaign, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement in Palestine, a grouping of Palestinian civil society organisations, has turned its focus on the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC), which is preparing to build a multi-billion dollar railway to link its six members.

The BDS campaign has called on the GCC and its member states to shun French transport giants Alstom and Veolia, both of which are involved in the construction of the Jerusalem Light Rail (JLR), an Israeli project that is expected to link the eastern and western parts of Occupied Jerusalem as well as Jewish colonies on the West Bank.

Critics say the JLR will hinder Palestinian aspirations to have occupied East Jerusalem as a capital of a future Palestinian state.

Unaware

The BDS campaign has proven successful in Europe, where companies have excluded the two transport companies from tenders and divested from them, leading to a loss of $7 billion (Dh25.69 billion) to $8 billion in opportunity cost, according to campaigners.

“Despite these important achievements in the West, no Arab state, especially in the Gulf, has to date excluded Alstom or Veolia from bidding for their public contracts,” read a press release issued by the movement yesterday.

The two companies are now facing a lawsuit in France filed by Palestine Liberation Organisation and French advocacy group Association France-Palestine Solidarité for their activities in Occupied Jerusalem.

Diplomacy

Alstom has expressed enthusiasm about participating in forthcoming Gulf rail projects, estimated to be worth $25 billion.

“We are certainly going to be participating in all tenders in the GCC for transport and power,” said Sylvan Hijazi, country president for Alstom Gulf. “We are proud to contribute and build the future of the Gulf.”

Activists are hoping that Gulf states could use their financial prowess to pressure the two companies to abandon the JLR, thus crippling the already troubled project.

The BDS movement has resorted to a public campaign targeted at Gulf states after apparently failing at a behind-the-scenes pressure campaign with the region’s governments.

Jamal Jum’a of the Stop the Wall, part of the BDS movement, said that the BDS movement sent a number of letters to Gulf governments asking them to withhold contracts from the two French companies which were “met with silence”.

Jum’a however insisted that the public campaign was not an attempt to shame Gulf states or “prove any kind of Arab conspiracy against [occupied] Jerusalem”.

“There’s a strong possibility that Gulf states are unaware of the work Alstom and Veolia are doing in occupied Jerusalem. It is unacceptable that Arab states don’t take a stand on this.”

Alain Gresh, editor of Le Monde Diplomatique in Paris, said that the political climate was right for Gulf states to apply pressure on Israel.

“It is the right moment to show clearly to Israel that the continuation of the occupation policy has a price, and not only a political price but even an economic price,” he said.

“I can’t say if the Gulf states will do it. The political climate is right especially after the Gaza [war] and the Goldstone report. Public opinion in Europe is that we can’t let the [status quo] continue. If the [Gulf states] take a strong position now it will have an effect not only on Israel but also on Western positions on Israel.”

He said however that Israel being a “legal entity” meant that European companies could not legally apply a blanket boycott on the state, but the two companies could legitimately withdraw based on the argument that the project is being built on occupied territory. “This can be defended in any court,” he said.

Were the companies to withdraw, he added, they would likely attribute the decision publicly to reasons other than occupation, “but everybody will understand”.

Gulf News did not receive a response from Veolia by the time of going to print.