‘Buycott’ Campaign For Israel - November 20-21, 2010

With the holiday season just a few weeks away, there are some fabulous products for you to consider buying as gifts, which will also make a political statement in support of the State off Israel. The Dead Sea Essentials® by Ahava are world-class skincare products that are made from the mineral-rich Dead Sea area and are manufactured on the Kibbutz Mitzpe Shalem, These products have been the center of an ongoing boycott campaign by Pro Palestinian groups.

This continuing pro-Palestinian effort to de-legitimize Israel and to hurt this country is growing increasingly evident in rallies that boycott Israeli products, especially Ahava’s. These actions that began in 2005, have become known as ‘Boycott, Divest, & Sanctions (BDS) campaigns, and have been organized by solidarity activists from a wide range of Pro Palestinian civil society groups. Their ‘peaceful weapon’ of choice is boycott as a means of pressuring countries and companies to stop Israeli products from being sold. Even the Palestinian Authority, which governs the West Bank, has vigorously encouraged and supported boycotting, confiscating and destroying products made in the Israeli West Bank ‘settlements.’

Over the last few years, these groups have put enough pressure on government agencies and companies that they have succeeded in making headway against Israel. The UK and the Dutch governments have launched investigations into Ahava’s labeling practices, and a few companies have refused to or have stopped buying Israeli products. These Anti-Israel campaigns have been going on without much counter attacks from Pro Israeli protestors or from the Israeli government itself.

However, this is changing as Pro Israeli people are starting to organize counter attacks in support of Ahava and Israel.

For the past two years, the influence of this ‘BDS movement’ has been getting greater attention as more boycott demonstrations have been staged targeting Ahava Company, The participants of these ‘Stolen Beauty’ boycotts make the claim that “the Ahava Company, under the label ‘made in Israel,’ is profiting and exploiting Palestinian resources and doing so on a ‘settlement’ in occupied West Bank.”

2010 has seen an increase in the ‘Palestinian Solidarity Campaign’ (PSC) and the  ‘Stolen Beauty’ boycotts that have included retail shops in South Africa, UK, France, Denmark, Sweden, Canada and the US. In the suburbs of London, bi-monthly boycotts organized by PSC, a left-wing activist women’s group, have continued at Covent Gardens for over a year with just a few incidents of Pro Israeli counter attacks. (Link: richardmillett.wordpress.com/).

In the US, the ‘CodePink’ group’s email and phone call campaign in January and February directed at Costco Wholesale, a US retail club warehouse, was successful in getting the company to discontinue selling Ahava products.

In June and July, the Sabeel DC Metro, an affiliate of Friends of Sabeel North America, a human rights activist group working within churches, staged a protest they called ‘Boycott to End the Occupation” at Ulta Cosmetics Salon in Silver Springs, MD.

In a counter campaign after the July protest, The Jewish Community Relations Committee of Greater Washington began a pushback that “cleaned the shelves out” of Ahava products. (Link: mondoweiss.net/2010/07/in-an-effort-to-combat-bds-the-jcrc-doubles-down-on-the-occupation.html, www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=182493)

Demonstrations at Ricky’s NYC in Brooklyn Heights, coordinated by ‘CodePink’ and a newly joined group called ‘Brooklyn for Peace,’ a network of Brooklyn residents organized to educate themselves and respond actively to the growing militarism in our society, have made this store a battlefront against Ahava. Here the Pro Palestinian protesters are being confronted by newly emerging Pro Israeli counter protestors. This is where boycott is meeting up against ‘buycott’; where skin and hair products have replaced terrorism and land rights as the center of the Israeli/Palestinian argument. (Link:www.forward.com/articles/132607/?utm_medium=email&utm_source=Emailmarketingsoftware&utm_content=70944260&utm_campaign=November52010&utm_term=READMORE#ixzz142LC7odv)

A group of rabbis in Brooklyn drafted a letter in response, urging people to buy Ahava products and denouncing the campaign. The rabbis’ letter states: “CodePink ignores the history and legal status of Mizpeh Shalom, a kibbutz settled in 1970. It is located in ‘Area C’, a huge section of the West Bank, which incorporates all West Bank settlements as Israeli, as by joint agreement in the 1993 Oslo Accords. Israel was granted full control, except over Palestinian civilians.”

The letter goes further to present a fair and balanced opinion: “The problem with a boycott is there’s one side that’s all right and another side that’s all wrong. If that’s what the boycotters think, then there really is nothing to discuss. But if not, then why not boycott Palestinian business for years of rejecting peace accords?”

The relentless targeting of Ahava hasn’t gone unnoticed by the company. A letter that has recently been circulated by Ahava to its business partners states that “our company and products have been the subject of unfortunate, ugly and clearly politically motivated smear attacks” that are being pushed by a “couple of small radical fringe organizations, which are part of a larger and more insidious campaign aimed against the State of Israel.”

The NYPress comments: ”Regardless of how one feels about the West Bank situation, it makes no sense to single out an Israeli company, much less a store that carries its products. U.S. retailers stock products from many countries with appalling human rights records. Made in China, anyone? Ever hear of blood diamonds? And the gasoline in your car quite possibly comes from a place where women aren’t allowed to go to school and infidelity is considered a capital offense.” (Link:www.nypress.com/blog-6823-protest-=-publicity.html)

On October 26, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA) and the Jewish Federations of North America announced the creation of the Israel Action Network to actively combat BDS campaigns. The initiative, with an initial budget of $6 million, will have seven paid staffers working out of JCPA’s main office in New York, plus a staffer in Jerusalem and one in Washington. Some will be tasked with responding immediately to BDS actions as they occur, others with planning strategies for the long term. Hindy Poupko, director of Israel and international affairs for the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York: “They’re not convincing the unconvinced,” Poupko said of the anti-Ahava activists. “They’re talking to themselves.”

Beginning November 20, in a counter attack against a ‘BDS Week of Action’ in Covent Gardens, The Zionist Federation UK is orchestrating efforts to bring people to this Ahava Store, to come and shop. This ‘buycott’ will last all weekend, so Londoners and tourists can come and support these wonderful Israeli products, as well as the other stores suffering from these extremely unruly and rowdy activists. In Brooklyn, so far, Ricky’s has not budged, and adamantly confirms that it will continue to sell Ahava products.

So, with the holidays coming soon, this is an opportunity for individuals to show their support of Israel by purchasing these wonderful beauty items. The fact is, that it will take a concerted international effort to put an end to the insidiousness of BDS campaigns against Israel…and each of us can play a small part.

(Link: www.ahavaus.com/)