“The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.”
- Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention of 1949
Boycott Israel
Please continue to protest the supermarkets mislabeling of stolen goods
One way in which the supermarkets attempt to misinform consumers who would boycott Israeli product is to mislabel produce sourced from Israeli settlements. Waitrose admit that they label all produce from the occupied territories as 'Produce of West Bank',Goods carrying this label are almost certainly settlement goods not Palestinian goods. In a recent ITN report Sainsbury and Tesco's, when confronted about this, admitted 'mistakenly' mislabelling settlement produce in the past and undertook to label settlement produce ' West Bank ' in the future. Labelling settlement produce ' West Bank ' misleads the consumer and denies them the choice between Palestinian goods (of which there are almost none) and settlement goods. It undermines the boycott movement by making Israeli and settlement goods harder to identify.
As it's Christmas, a lot of our last minute purchases will be perishable and luxury goods, this constitutes a major part of settlement production. The products listed below are all made in Settlements on the West Bank or in The Golan Heights and branded as made in Israel. Don't support Israel's ecenomy this Christmas.
* Tivall (West Bank) (Sainsbury's Meatfree Hot Dog Sausages and Vegetarian Sausages)
* Carmel (West Bank) (Organic Fruit and Veg sold in most Supermarkets)
* Tomer (West Bank) (Organic Fruit and Veg sold in most Supermarkets)
* Beigel and Beigel (West Bank) (Sweets and Pretzels etc)
* Agriver/Flowersdirect (West Bank) (strawberries sold in Aldi), but also other berries, cut herbs, pomegranates, figs, peppers, passion fruit, plums, carrots, cut melons, cut mangos and many other products.
* Wines
o Barkan Wines (West Bank)
o Galil Wines (The Golan Heights) (Waitrose, Sainsbury's)
o Palwin Wine (West Bank) (Sainsbury's, Tesco, Waitrose)
o Carmel Wine (West Bank) (Smithfield Wines, Manchester)
o Tishbi (The Golan Heights) (Smithfield Wines, Manchester)
o Binyamina (West Bank/Golan) (John Lewis, Waitrose)
These are just a small selection of the illegal goods exported from Israel, feel free to add to this, it is just our attempt at increasing awareness.. Distribute to as many as possible and if you're looking for fresh produce, Always Buy Local.
For more information please visit
www.bigcampaign.org
http://www.gush-shalom.org/Boycott/boyceng.htm
We want the Israeli authorities to make a distinction possible by stating clearly whether a certain product is imported from Israel or from an Illegal Israeli Settlement.
You can help a lot by writing to your store management, demanding this marking and by constantly asking the storekeeper for the exact origin of such products ·
Please write to DEFRA and ask them to take action against the labeling of settlement goods as 'produce of West Bank ' by supermarkets:
DEFRA
Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs Nobel House
17 Smith Square
SW1P 3JR
Tel: 020 7238 6000 (switchboard).
· Write to Tesco's an Sainsbury's and tell them that packaging goods 'produce of West Bank' instead of 'produce of Israel' is replacing one misleading label with another:
Tescos
Company Secretary
Baird Avenue
Dundee
DD1 9NS
or call them on 0800 50 55 55
Sainsburys
Company Secretary
Sainsbury's Supermarkets Ltd
33 Holborn
London
EC1N 2HT
or call them on 0800 636262
· Waitrose also admit labelling settlement produce as ' West Bank '. Please write to:
Ms Margaret Casely-Hayford
Company Secretary & Director of Legal Services Waitrose
John Lewis Group Partnership House
Carlisle Place
London
SW1P 1BX
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17 comments:
"Don't support Israel's ecenomy this Christmas."
I support Israel through my buying as much as possible. Always good to support a fellow bulwark against terrorism and Jihadism. You should try it - best decision you'll ever make.
Yes, let's support Zionism and state terrorism.
How lovely and christmassy!
I think there is a lot to be said for boycotting Saudi, although the organised campaign is against BAE allegations of corruption.
US support for both Saudi (the unacceptable face of Islam) and Isreal (with their occupation) fuels Jihadism which were are all against...well if you mean warfare rather than spiritual struggle
So if it's made in the West Bank by Arabs, good stuff that we should buy.
If it's made by Jews, boycott it.
Can't say clearer than that, can you ?
Derek
Did I miss the bit in your post when you said what term you would like the supermarkets to use when labelling their products?
Also, your list includes producers most of whose products are made in Israel proper. You might have guessed that the winery called "Galil" draws almost all of its grapes from the Galilee, not the Golan Heights. It's winery, which sits beneath the Lebanese border, is squarely within Israel. Such an broad brush approach to boycotting Israeli goods does your cause no good at all.
Mr. Wall,
I suggest you take some geography classes, it is clear that you are a complete ignorant. Many of the places you mentioned are located in Israel within the 1967 pre occupation borders.
Further to my 12.01pm comment, I've taken another look at your list of products that are "all made in Settlements on the West Bank or in The Golan Heights". It has more holes in it than a piece of Swiss cheese.
Just to be clear, the wineries of Carmel and Tishbi are in the town of Zichron Ya'acov, about 20 miles north of Tel Aviv, overlooking the Med; it's a town squarely within Israel founded in about 1890. The Binyamina winery is in the town of Binyamina, which is immediately due south of Zichron Ya'acov. Indeed, the two towns merge into each other. Galil Mountain winery is on Kibbutz Yir'on, on the northern border with Lebanon. It sits directly under a former Hizballah border post. Barkan winery is located at Kibbutz Hulda, midway between Tel Aviv and Jerusalem. As for Palwin, I believe it is produced in Rishon L'Zion, due of Tel Aviv and squarely within Israel.
It amazes me that some people are willing to print such ill-informed nonsense without first checking their sources. Some kind of retraction or apology is in order, no?
Dear Derek
"There is a lot to be said for boycotting Saudi"
Yes indeed... and quite a few other countries. Yet, I have not seen calls for such boycott from you or others in the UK self-proclaimed left.
Can you point to Green Party policy supporting this Boycott call?
What do you think of the use of an Orange dripping in blood as a cartoon of the BIG campaign? Do you think it is a very wise and considerate choice?
I think a boycott is appropriate, I am also working in my small way to challenge the Saudi regime and a whole host of other human rights abusers.
What do you suggest is appropriate action to reduce the suffering of people in Palestine?
There seems to be a dismissal of this concern, which is may be why the debate is a little polarised.
Derek, I really don't get your arguments here. On the one hand, you want to differentiate between goods made in Israel and those made in the territories. But you ALSO want to boycott all Israeli goods. If that's the case, who cares whether they are produced on a lefty eco-conscious collective farm or a nasty right-wing religious settlement. To follow your argument, the whole lot are beyond the pale. You can't have your organic humous and eat it.
Dear Derek
Can you explain in which way the boycott is going to improve the lives of Palestinians?
I note that you ask me a question (What do you suggest is appropriate action to reduce the suffering of people in Palestine?), but did not bother answering mine:
""
Can you point to Green Party policy supporting this Boycott call?
What do you think of the use of an Orange dripping in blood as a cartoon of the BIG campaign? Do you think it is a very wise and considerate choice?
""
If you support the BIG campaign, you should be able to provide a rational for it based on universal principles. And this rational should also explain why Israel is the only state on the planet that you propose to boycott. If you could provide such rational, or this led you to propose a series of boycotts based on these principles, that would certainly help getting the debate less polarized.
The best way to reduce the suffering of Palestinians is through the establishment of an independent Palestinian state alongside Israel through a peace process and economic development. Do you think that support for the boycott has any chance of contributing to the peace process? Have you heard Palestinian negotiators in Annapolis and at the Donor's conference in Paris calling for a Boycott?
Boycott because Israel is the world's last racist colonialist settler state, sponsored by western imperialism for its own material ends. I was pleased to see Caroline Lucas supporting Palestinian Solidarity.
Please Derek, if you think like Ellis that the GP should be boycotting Israel and only Israel because it is "the world's last racist colonialist settler state", then, say so. It is a bit short to say "I think a boycott is appropriate" if you cannot provide an explanation about why it is appropriate for the GP to boycott Israel and only Israel.
In the past, you have supported the academic boycott of Israeli academics (now ruled illegal under antidiscrimination laws in the UK). When asked about your support for the academic boycott at Green Party conference in Liverpool, your response was: 1) I need to think about it; 2) But we need to do something for the Palestinians, don't we?
This is called tokenism and moral posturing. If you are not able to defend policies, do not advocate them...
Raphael (Green Party member)
Raphael is wrong to say that an academic boycott of Israel has been "ruled illegal under antidiscrimination laws in the UK". The matter was never tested in the courts. All that hapened was that the trade union leadership which never wanted the ban used legal advice as a convenient excuse to drop the democratically wished of the union membership. A rather similar thing happened when the Church of England voted to disinvest from Caterpillar, which manufactures the machines that the Israeli terror state uses to destroy Palestinian homes and kill the people inside them.
Is there a corresponding organization to yours informing customers not only inthe UK but as well on he continent specially in France, Germany, Italy, Spain and Switzerland?
hey thanks -- I was looking for a list of Judean/Samarian/Golan wines to buy for my childrens' weddings... appreciate the info!
The trouble with people such as yourself who have well-meaning sentiments is that the sole singling out of Israeli goods for boycott, when there are extreme repressive regimes in the world, such as Burma and China leaves you open to accusations of anti-semitism. If you are well meaning,see the oppression of the people of Burma, see the oppression in China - soon the largest world economy - and boycott those countries who we trade with. The best way to help alleviate the Palestinian suffering is to be an advocate for peace and to encourage mainstream, peaceful reconcilliation instead of threatening the interlinked Palestian/Israeli economies with silly boycotts!
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