On October 26 – 29, 2009 two women will be put on trial in the United Kingdom for taking part in a blockade of Carmel Agrexco’s produce warehouse during the Bloody Valentine Week of Action. They are accused of obstructing police officers and assaulting a police officer during the women only action. This is only the second time that people have been brought to court for actions against Carmel Agrexco in over 5 years of sustained direct action at the London depot.
The action was taken in solidarity with the Palestinian people on whose land the flowers, fruits and vegetables are grown and harvested. The action came in the aftermath of the 3-week Israeli invasion of Gaza in which more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed. Carmel-Agrexco is the Israeli national exporter of fruit and vegetables and imports large quantities of goods from illegal Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian land. As feminists and as Palestinian solidarity activists, the women blockading Agrexco aimed to challenge the oppression of Palestinians by targeting a tool of the occupation.
According to a statement the activists released prior to their trial:
Carmel Agrexco directly profits from the Israeli occupation, which colonises Palestine. These goods are grown in the rich soils of the Jordan Valley where the indigenous people are prevented from building houses, schools, accessing water. Palestinians, including many children, work and are exploited in Agrexco-owned settlement packing houses. The sale and distribution of goods produced in settlements must be resisted in the countries which receive them as exports. The UK is the most important export market for Agrexco and so we think that challenging and disrupting their business here is important.
During previous direct actions the police have been reluctant to arrest any protestors – even when they have invaded the warehouses, destroyed goods and locked on to the gates for over 10 hours. Evidence strongly suggests that this is a result of collusion between Agrexco and the local police. In the first (and until now, only) trial of direct action activists at the depot in 2006, the case collapsed after evidence of Carmel-Agrexco’s dealings with illegal settlements was disclosed. The charges were dropped and subsequent actions no longer lead to court cases.
This action, undeniably feminist in spirit, has resulted in the first people being brought to trial for activities against Agrexco since 2006. The systematic and entrenched sexism we know exists within the police force was clearly reflected in the misogynistic comments and treatment these women received during the action. In this gendered context, we ask ourselves why the police and CPS have decided to try this case, rather than the 30+ others preceding it.
This case is crucial in the continuing campaign against Carmel Agrexco. Please spread the word about the trial, post the defendants’ statement widely and take action against Carmel Agrexco.
Demonstrators protest in solidarity with Palestinian political prisoners, Photo: Hanan Tabbara
On Saturday forty New York human rights advocates rallied on a cold fall day at the Madison Avenue jewelry store of Israeli settlement mogul Lev Leviev to demand that Israel release jailed Palestinian boycott activist Mohammad Othman. Othman, held without charges and in solitary confinement since September 22nd, is from Jayyous, a West Bank village where Leviev’s company Leader is building the Israeli settlement of Zufim. The protesters also called for an end to Israel’s wave of arrests of Palestinian activists from Bil’in, another West Bank village campaigning against the construction of settlement homes by another Leviev company, Africa-Israel.
Andrew Kadi of Adalah-NY commented, “Israel’s arrest of Mohammad Othman and residents of Bil’in simply affirms the need for a global movement of Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), similar to the movement against apartheid South Africa, to hold Israel accountable, and pressure Israel to respect Palestinian rights.”
Mohammad Othman is believed to be the first person to be arrested by Israel specifically for advocating for the growing international movement to boycott companies, including Leviev’s, that support Israeli human rights abuses. The New York protest was one of fourteen events held worldwide on October 16th and 17th calling for Mohammad Othman’s immediate release.
Hundreds of Madison Avenue shoppers took home a cartoon flyer “Jailed for an Idea” that depicts Othman’s detention, and Israel’s efforts to crush the protest campaigns in the villages of Bil’in and Jayyous against Leviev’s settlements (download the cartoon flyer). The protesters chanted, “Jayyous and Bil’in will not bow, Free Mohammad Othman now,” and “Boycotting Israel is no crime, Leviev should be doing time.” With a guitar accompaniment, the protesters sang songs calling for the boycott of Leviev and Israel, including an updated version of the civil rights classic, “which Side are You On,” and “Don’t Buy Israeli” to the tune of Hava Nagila.
Calls to free Mohammad Othman have been highlighted by The Nation, in letter campaigns by the US organizations Jewish Voice for Peace and Grassroots International, as well as in an international petition. Othman was detained as he crossed the Allenby bridge from Jordan, returning home to the West Bank from a trip to Norway. Othman’s advocacy efforts on behalf of the growing international movement for BDS against Israel contributed to the Norwegian government’s recent decision to divest from its pension funding holdings in Elbit Systems. Norway has also been asked by a coalition of eleven organizations and the villages of Jayyous and Bil’in to divest from Leviev’s company Africa-Israel.
The villages of Jayyous and Bil’in have both been targeted with arrests and repression due to their multi-year nonviolent protest campaigns. Twenty-eight Bil’in activists have been arrested by Israel since June when Bil’in’s lawsuit against settlement construction on village land was heard in Canadian court. Just weeks after he testified in Canada, Bil’in activist Mohammed Khatib was jailed by Israeli forces for 15 days and then released on bail. Bil’in protester Adeeb Abu Rahme and seventeen others are still being held in Israeli jails, and Bil’in protest organizer Abdullah Abu Rahme is “wanted” by the Israeli army for his nonviolent organizing.
The protest was 14th held in front of Leviev’s New York store since it opened in November, 2007. Leviev’s company Africa-Israel is currently reeling from a financial crisis. Additionally, the international campaign to boycott Leviev due to his settlement construction and involvement in abusive business practices in the diamond industry in Angola and Namibia has achieved a string of successes. UNICEF, Oxfam, The British Government and major Hollywood stars have all distanced themselves from Leviev. The investment firm BlackRock and pension giant TIAA-CREF both also recently sold off their shares of Leviev’s company Africa-Israel, though both denied they did so due to his settlement construction.
Approximately 30 activists — mainly students from area universities — disrupted a lecture given in Chicago by former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert yesterday which was hosted by the University of Chicago’s Harris School of Public Policy. While Olmert’s speech was disrupted inside the lecture hall, approximately 150 activists protested outside the hall in the freezing rain.
Protesters inside the hall read off the names of Palestinian children killed during Israel’s assault on Gaza last winter. They shouted that it was unacceptable that the war crimes suspect be invited to speak at a Chicago university when his army destroyed a university in Gaza in January. They reminded the audience of the more than 1,400 Palestinians killed during the Gaza attacks and the more than 1,200 killed during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 2006. Both invasions happened during Olmert’s premiership.
With interventions coming every few minutes throughout his appearance, Olmert had difficulty giving his speech and often appeared frustrated. At one point he appealed for “just five minutes” to speak without being interrupted.
The demonstration was mobilized last week after organizers learned of the lecture, paid for by a grant provided by Jordan’s King Abdullah II. Within hours an appeal was issued, urging those concerned with Palestinian rights to call the university and demand that the lecture be canceled. The call was put out by major community organizations such as the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC)-Chicago, American Muslims for Palestine and the United States Palestine Community Network, as well as solidarity organizations al-Awda, the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, the International Solidarity Movement, the Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago and area campus groups such as Students for Justice in Palestine chapters at DePaul University and the University of Illinois at Chicago, as well as the Arab Student Union at Moraine Valley.
The security presence at the lecture was severe with university police, the US Secret Service and Israeli security present — many of them visibly armed — with Israeli security checking in those who had registered in advance to attend the lecture. Video and photography was banned inside the hall and media were not allowed to cover the lecture. Despite these restrictions, activists managed to take video inside the hall and drop an eight-foot-long banner from the mezzanine that read “Goldstone” in both English and Hebrew, referring to the recently published UN report investigating violations of international law during the Gaza invasion. One activist was arrested and put in a headlock by a police officer, witnesses said, and released around midnight. Approximately 30 supporters waited for him at the police station while he was detained.
Towards the end of the lecture, Olmert put his hand over his brow and squinted to search out the source of the shout, “There’s no discussion with a war criminal — the only discussion you should be having is in court!” That call was made by Ream Qato, who graduated from the university in 2007, and added, “You belong in the Hague!” Qato told The Electronic Intifada that yesterday’s protest “Set the stage for University of Chicago students and students in the Chicago area … no one should be afraid of speaking out against someone.” She added that the demonstration was significant because “The Palestinian community [in Chicago] for the first time went to a university campus to protest.”
Second-year medical student Afshan Mohiuddin was removed from the hall after she voiced her disapproval at the Harris School dean’s on-stage assertion that Olmert was invited to express his views. “He can do that at the International Court of Justice, not at this university,” Mohiuddin shouted, adding, “[Olmert] belongs in a cage, not on a stage!”
Mohiuddin told The Electronic Intifada that “it was ironic that they searched us [instead of him],” considering that Olmert is suspected of war crimes. She added, “As a University of Chicago student I was upset with the lack of commotion on behalf of the student body before the event … No one has protested the event.”
Mohiuddin’s frustration was echoed in a commentary published by the University of Chicago’s student publication The Chicago Maroon earlier this week, in which third-year student Nadia Marie Ismail decried the lack of protest by the university community towards the Olmert speech. She contrasted this silence with the pressure the Center for Middle Eastern Studies faced after a lecture earlier this year by The Electronic Intifada’s Ali Abunimah (who was the first to disrupt Olmert’s speech yesterday), University of Chicago professor John Mearsheimer and Norman Finkelstein, whose lost bid for tenure at DePaul University is attributed to outside pressure by Israel government apologists. “[T]hat University center was put under unprecedented pressure for weeks before and months after the event, with claims that University centers and schools should not host ‘one-sided’ speakers,” Ismail wrote.
Olmert’s lecture in Chicago was one of several scheduled throughout the United States. His speech at the University of Kentucky the previous day was disrupted by activists and met with a protest outside. These demonstrations are part of a wave of notched-up dissent towards Israeli officials implicated in war crimes and racist policy. In 2003, former Israeli minister Natan Sharansky was greeted with a pie in the face by an activist at Rutgers University in New Jersey. Last year at the UK’s Oxford University, a speech by Israeli President Shimon Peres was drowned out by protesters outside while students inside the hall disrupted his talk.
One of the organizers of the protest, Hatem Abudayyeh, National Coordinating Committee member of the United States Palestine Community Network, hoped for a larger count of protesters despite the adverse weather. However, he said, “The fact that there’s people around the world who know about it, the fact that PACBI [the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel] sent us a letter of support and endorsement of our action, the fact that there was coordination with the outside protest and the inside disruption — all of these components and aspects of the action made it one of the more successful ones that we’ve done.”
He added, “There is real change happening, whether it’s the international response to the Lebanon war or the international response to the Gaza war. The US is the most powerful country in the world, Israel is a powerful military as well, but the Palestinians have the world on their side.”
Video shot and produced by The Electronic Intifada.
Maureen Clare Murphy is Managing Editor of The Electronic Intifada and an activist with the Palestine Solidarity Group-Chicago, which co-sponsored the demonstration.
On 11th October 2009, a swarm of activists descended upon Sainsbury’s on Cromwell Street, West London to highlight the sale of Israeli and illegal Settlement produce by both Sainsbury’s and other major supermarket chains. Coming from a diverse range of campaign organisations, around 40 activists stood in solidarity with the Palestinian call for a global boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign.
Enterring the store, protestors held up an array of settlement and Israeli produce demanding that the supermarkets put a halt to their sale and reminding consumers of their capacity to effect change by not buying these goods.
Popping up a tent and claiming it to be an “Israeli Settlement”, the actions demonstrated the ridiculous ease at which Israeli Settlements pop up around the West Bank, protected by the military and evicting Palestinians from their land and homes.
They proceded to chant against the occupation and the sale of Israeli goods, following this they went on a tour of the store so that all staff and customers were made aware of Sainsbury’s role in supporting illegal settlements. Handing out leaflets and engaging with customers, many of which were supportive, the actions communicated the need for greater citizen action.
Management and security were keen to encourage the protestors to leave but with no success. After twenty minutes within the store, demonstrators left of their own accord, clapping hands and chanting “Free Free Palestine”, feeling that their efforts had been succesful in communicating to the store and the general public.
Police arrived soon after and despite a brief interaction with protestors there were no arrests and no signs of aggression.
Activists then left the scene and were followed for some time afterwards, however no further action by the police was taken.
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This non-violent initiative seeks to challenge the economic and political infrastructure that supports the Israeli occupation of Palestine. Similar to the efforts against Apartheid South Africa, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign hopes to undermine the apartheid in the West Bank and Gaza whereby checkpoints, Israel only roads and the Apartheid all segregate and impoverish Palestinians. According to the International Committee of the Red Cross, over 60% of Palestinians live below the poverty line, and in Gaza the figure sits at 70%.
Illegal Israeli Settlement produce is on sale in most of the high street supermarket chains, including Tesco’s, Morrisons, Waitrose, Marks and Spencers, and Asda as well as Sainsbury’s. According to the 2004 judgement by the International Court of Justice, Settlements are illegal and in violation of the Fourth Geneva Conventions. Sale of produce from these Settlements reinforce their existence and financially contribute to Israel’s theft of Palestinian land and violent oppression of Palestinians themselves.
This mass action follows a number of smaller protests that have taken place across in London and across the UK which make explicit public opposition to the sale of Settlement goods in British stores. It also follows the September 2009 decision by the Trade Union Congress to commit to building a mass boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign.
Pro-Palestine Supporters picketed the start of a 5 day Israeli Tourism event held in Spitalfields market, East London. Despite efforts by Israeli security to get demonstrators to move, police made no efforts to move them to the frustration of the Pro-Israel organisers.
To celebrate the new low cost EasyJet route to Tel Aviv, EasyJet are holding a five day event with a big orange bus touring the city to promote ‘Tel Avivian goodness’. It is being undertaken to further celebrate the city’s centenary. In response, Palestine activists from International Solidarity Movement, Palestine Solidarity Campaign and other groups protested in front of the Big Orange bus. In solidarity with the unified Palestinian call out for an economic and cultural boycott of Israel, protestors sought to show that tourism feeds the Israeli economy which in turn supports the illegal occupation of Palestinian lands.
The Israeli security there were clearly frustrated with the presence of activists and the police were duly called upon for support. In an ironic twist, the police gently requested protestors to move, and when protestors decided against this, no further action was taken. Israeli security and EasyJet organisers were visibly frustrated and made numerous appeals to the police to move the protestors but failed to get the demonstrators to budge.
Most members of the public showed support with the protest and asked relevant questions with a few Israelis showing their opposition.
After a couple of hours, protestors left, pleased they had ruffled the feathers of those promoting Israeli tourism.
Please find below the promotion message for the event and the dates and locations for their five day tour.
“To present EasyJet’s new route to the Big Orange and celebrate the city’s centenary, Tel Aviv will be coming to London this October!
For 5 days, a double-decker bus crammed full of Tel Avivian goodness will tour London and give a glimpse into the many facets of Tel Aviv’s character.
Day 1 – 11th October, Spitalfields Market, 10am – 5.30pm
Market Tel Aviv- enjoy the smells & tastes of Tel Aviv’s markets in the middle of East London – craft stalls, Turkish coffee, mint tea, shakshouka, olives, baklava, and live music.
Day 2 – 12th October, Leicester Square, 1pm – 5.30pm
Bohemian Tel Aviv – Day 2 sees a typical Tel Aviv coffee shop scene, replete with mismatched sofas & chairs, stacks of books, and a soundtrack provided by street performers & musicians.
Day 3 – 13th October, Coin Street, Southbank, 12pm – 6pm
Tel Aviv, city of beaches – enjoy sunbeds, beach umbrellas, beach balls, backgammon, matkot, live music, and a surfing simulator! And hopefully some sun.
Day 4 – 14th October, Broadgate, 9am – 7pm
Tel Aviv: 100% architecture, 100% Bauhaus – more examples of which are found in Tel Aviv than any other city in the world! Architecture aficionados should not miss Day 4’s outdoor photography exhibition & lecture.
Day 5 – 15th October, Old Truman Brewery, 5pm – 10.30pm
Tel Aviv nightlife – Day 5 will finish the tour with a party open to all, guaranteed to give a glimpse into just why Tel Aviv is known as the city that never sleeps – with a little help from DJs & dancers.”
It is hoped Pro-Palestine Activists will help picket and protest these events. All Israeli tourism feeds into the Israeli economy that supports the occupation.
