Palestinian goods
In contrast to Israeli goods, genuine Palestinian products, where available, are selling extremly well. An article in the Guardian newspaper (Feb 2009) titled "Palestinian olive oil bucks UK recession" revealed that as "an unintended consequence of Israel's offensive in Gaza, sales of Palestinian olive oil in Britain are soaring"[40]. Equal Exchange, a seller of Fairtrade products, reported a threefold increase in sales of Palestinian olive oil from the West Bank in January compared with a year ago. "We have run out of one-litre bottles and we expect sales to double to 400 tonnes this year compared to 2008," said Barry Murdoch, the sales director of Equal Exchange. The company Zaytoun, also established to sell Palestinian olive oil in the UK, reported a fourfold rise in sales last month instead of the usual post-Christmas lull. Nasser Abufarha, the chairman of the Palestinian Fairtrade Association revealed "we have a buyer in the Netherlands who has sold the whole container before the container arrived, they had enough orders from shops that were very excited, eagerly waiting for the product to arrive so certainly there is a lot of excitement about Palestinian products and a lot of interest in supporting Palestinian communities through the product". The Co-operative Group is the first supermarket to stock Palestinian Fairtrade olive oil (available in around 300 Co-op stores across the UK from 22 March 2009)[31].
Zaytoun Palestinian Fairtrade Organic Olive Oil - fourfold rise in sales
Targetting Settlement Companies
Whilst there can be no moral distiction between land stolen in 1948 and land stolen in 1967, between those ethnically cleansed in 1948 and those ethnically cleansed in 1967, between the massacres and crimes committed in 1948 and those that were committed later, yet from a campaigning perspective there is an important difference. Every country in the world recognises the 1967 occupation and the settlements built on that occupied land as illegal, since Olso this is no longer the case with land occupied in 1948. Because of this, companies operating in the israeli settlements make excellent targets for boycott campaigns. By setting up shop in the settlements the companies are in violation of international law, leaving them vunerable to pressure to divest their illegal holdings. Following this strategy has lead to some spectacular victories in recent months for the boycott movement:
AUG 2008:
In August 2008 Barkan Wineries moved its operation out from the illegal West Bank settlement of Barkan after its parent company Tempo joined the Dutch Heineken Group. Faced with calls of boycott and negative publicity Heineken relocated the winery. The company directors report explained to its stockholders: "In the past, the location of the company's winery at the Barkan area caused a negative image and made difficult the exporting of the Barkan brands. The company is acting to change this image.."[29]
OCT 2008:
The Swedish company Assa Abloy in October 2008 annouced it was closing its Mul-T-Lock locksmithing factory in Barkan in the West Bank following a daming expose by the Swedish NGO Diakonia which warned that the company may be subject to law suits over its violation of international law by operating on occupied land. Assa Abloy spokesman said: "We are very sorry that we did not notice it before, but we did not understand that we might be violating international law."[28]
NOV 2008:
Israeli water cooler company Eden Springs was forced to close its East Scotland depot after loosing 'hundreds of contract' across Scotland following a determined campaign by the Scottish PSC. Lost contracts include East Lothian and West Lothian Councils, Caledonian MacBrayne Ferrries, Heriot–Watt University, Stevenson College, Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations, as well as a number of Scottish trade unions and student bodies having all voted to boycott Eden springs explicitly on the grounds of their violations of international and human rights law in the Golan Heights[30]. Its parent company in Israel sells mineral water which it extracts illegally from the Salukia spring in the Golan Heights and has a bottling plant in Katzrin, also in the Golan Heights. The Golan Heights is Syrian territory illegally occupied by Israel since June 1967.[31] Since the closure, Strathclyde University and Dundee University (Feb 2009) have also taken steps to boycott Eden Water.[32]
DEC 2008:
In 2001 Univeler through its take-over of American company Bestfoods it aquired a 51% stake in Beigel & Beigel Ltd which is located near the Ariel settlement on the West Bank. After sustained campaigning and bad publicity with retailers like Harrods clearing their shelves of Beigel & Beigel products (August 2008), Uniliver finally announced in December 2008 that it will sell its stake in Beigel & Beigel[27] - for the multi-national the negative publicity in keeping an illegal bakery of 140 workers just wasn't worth it.
JAN 2009:
On 5th January 2009, th Co-operative Group chair Len Wardle announced : "The Co-operative Group board has decided to suspend sourcing products from illegal West Bank settlements. However, we will continue to trade with Israel and will seek to develop trading links with Palestinian farmers. The Co-operative Group only rarely curtails trade with particular countries or regions. However, in the case of the illegal settlement in the Israeli controlled occupied territories, it has proven to be all but impossible to ensure that supplies derived from the region are not perpetuating injustice and unfair terms of trade. We will no longer source dates, grapes and a number of herbs from the illegal West Bank settlements and will be phasing out the use of similar items from our own brand products."[43] This followed a sustained campaign of pickets and represetations from consumers demanding the Co-op live up to its ethics policy. Having achieved victory regarding the boycott of settlement goods campaigners are now lobbying the Co-op to boycott all Israeli goods. On 13th February they picketed a meeting of the Co-operative in Aberdeen, a representative from the meeting revealed that a motion on a full boycott had been put forward from the Scottish Co-op for discussion by the UK executive.[42]
Students at the University of Aberdeen protest at the Elphinstone Hall, where members of The Food Co-operative were meeting, to pressure the food retailer to ban Israeli products from its stores (13 Feb 2009)
MAR 2009:
Alstom and Veolia are partners in the CityPass consortium, contracted to build a light rail tramway system linking west Jerusalem to illegal Jewish settlements in occupied east Jerusalem therby directly helping Israeli annexation of the territory of east Jerusalem.[66]
In March 2009 the Swedish national pension fund AP7 excluded the French transportation giant Alstom from its portfolio due to Alstoms involvement in Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land[68]. This follows the 2006 decision by Dutch ASN Bank to exclude Veolia from its portfolios. At the time ASN Bank explained its decision: "Veolia's involvement does pose a problem for ASN Bank in applying the banks' social criteria on Human Rights. We believe that Veolia's involvement in the light rail project is not in line with the UN's demand to stop all support for Israel's settlement activities, and is therefore not in line with ASN Banks' social criteria.. we are of the opinion that Veolia's activities in Jerusalem are in conflict with UN Resolutions. Therefore, on this current information Veolia will be removed from our investment universe."[66]
APR 2009:
In April 2009 Veolia lost a local government contract in Bordeux worth 750 million Euro to manage France's biggest urban network[64], and in March 2009, Sandwell Metropolitan Borough Council expelled Veolia from the list of tenders for a waste management contract worth £1 billion over 20 years[65]. This followed a sustained campaign from activists across Europe exposing Veolias illegal activities in the settlements.
Legislation Margaret Thatcher put in place to protect apartheid era South Africa prohibits local authorities in the UK from taking in to account moral considerations like human rights violations when allocating contracts[67]. This means councils can not admit to being influenced by such considerations, so Sandwell Council announced their decision was purely a business one.
Protest against Connex (Veolia) in Genève
This follows a similar decision by Stockholm community council in January 2009 not to continue its contract with Veolia who had for the past 10 years been contracted to run Stockholm' Subway. The new contract for the next 8 years was worth 3.5 billion euro, the biggest in Europe[71]. Veolia’s involvement in the controversial Israeli tramway project has been intense in Swedish media with politicians demanding on prime time tv that Veolia should be excluded from bidding because of its involvement in the Israeli light rail project that illegally runs on Palestinian land[70].
In August 2006, Veolia were forced to cancel plans to train Israeli engineers and drivers on the Dublin Luas light railway after the Irish trade union SIPTU, representing the drivers on the Dublin tran system, refused to train them due to the illegality of the Israeli line.[69]
Veolia protest on apartheid wall near Ramallah
And these victories are having an impact on the ground in the settlements. A recent Jerusalem Post article (3 April 2009) revealed widespread disillusionment amongst settlers who have been hit hard by the combination of the intifada and the boycott. A settler living on the Ma'aleh Ephraim settlement in the Jordan Valley, sometimes refered to as Israels capital in the Jordan Valley, revealed "there was an industrial zone, but since 2002 the hangars are empty. It's impossible to bring people there and foreign companies won't come because of the boycott [on West Bank products]." House prices in Ma'aleh Ephraim have dropped to a third of their value, and around 80% of the settlers who founded the colony in 1978 have left and a similar proportion of the current population of around 1,400 would leave if they had the means to do so. This is a far higher figure then the Nov 2005 Israeli survey which found that "25% of settlers would leave immediately if they were offered comparable housing within the Green Line."[33]
In our research we highlight any settlement linkage.
729 Israeli Barcode?
It has been suggested that one way to identify Israeli products is to look at the barcode. The first 3 digits of the EAN 13 digit barcode indicates the country in which the barcode was assigned, barcodes assigned in Israel start with the number 729. Unfortunately Israeli products can still be assigned barcodes outside of Israel, for example a UK company selling Israeli products may assign UK barcodes to it. The two examples below show an Israeli Keter product rebranded Homebase which has retained the Israeli barcode (729), and a Tivall product which has been produced and packed in Israel for Tesco - yet it has acquired a UK barcode (500). So whilst a 729 barcode is a good indication that the product has been made by an Israeli company, not all Israeli goods have 729 barcodes.
