Boycott the Fruits of Apartheid

Boycott is an instrument for the people and for individuals to express their solidarity concretely with those who are struggling in a just cause, and in today's world there is no juster cause that that of the Palestinians.

In 2005, Palestinian civil society made a united proposal to the international solidarity movements; identify ways of boycotting Israeli products, of disinvesting from commercial activities in Israel, of imposing sanctions on the state of Israel, of imposing academic and cultural boycotts on Israelis who do not take a position against the occupation and against apartheid.

All these requests have been coherently formulated in the BDS campaign, which has already achieved many successes (for example against Veolia, Africa-Israel, Motorola..) and has obtained support from organisations in civil society - accademic groups and trade unions from all over the world, including Israel. All the prAinciple unions that represent the Palestinian workers, often used as a workforce in Israel and in the settlements, are among the promoters of the BDS campaign.

Apartheid farms and Carmel Agrexco

In several European countries, a campaign has built up against Agrexco Ltd; the principle export company for Israeli agricultural products, which is partly state-owned.

With the Carmel lable, Agrexco sells around 70% of all fruit and vegetables produced in the Israeli settlements in the occupied territores, including those in the Jordan valley.

Some reasons to boycotto Agrexco:

• In the Jordan valley, which covers one third of the West Bank, the Israeli settlers control 95% of Palestinian land with military bases, 30 illegal settlements, and immense plantations, in violation of the Oslo accords.
  
• The agriculatural activities of the settlements have led to the illegal confiscation of land and the diversion of Palestinian water resources. Palestinians are not allowed to extend their houses, dig wells, or transport their few agriculatural products to market. So, while their products rot at checkpoints, those of the settlements are freely exported to Europe.
  
• The company has benefited from agricultural subsidies granted by the Israeli government to intensify colonisation of the Jordan valley, and has used them to increase production of fruit, flowers and vegetables, that are then sold in Europe, Latin America, Africa and East Asia.
  

80% of the Agrexco's products are exported to Europe, by way of France, Spain, and since last summer, also through Italia's Vado Ligure port in Savona. So, since 2009, Italy has become an essential link in the distribution of agricultural producs from Israeli settlements to Southern Europe.

Each of us can contribute to the construction of a different future for the Palestinian people, opposing Israeli violations of UN resolutions; boycotting Carmel-Agrexco, Israeli exporter of products from illegal settlements. protesting against the docking of the ships at the port of Vado.

Per further information about the StopAgrexco Italia campaign, write to savona@donneinnero.it


Report on Agrexco from Stop the Wall Campaign (Nov 2009)


Siti utili
http://www.boicottaisraele.it/
http://www.bdsmovement.org/
http://www.bigcampaign.org/
http://www.whoprofits.org/
http://www.coalitioncontreagrexco.com/

Break the Silence Break the Siege

A year ago, we were out on the streets to show our indignation and our pain for the massacre caused by the Israeli military intervention - Operation Cast Lead - against the Gaza Strip, to call for a ceasefire, to bring an end to the siege and to guarantee the right of life of Gaza's population.

In 23 days of bombardment, more than 1,400 dead (one third were children) and more than 5000 palestinians injured. 13 Israelis dead (10 soldiers and 3 civilians). Thousands of homes, many schools, 20 mosques, the water and electricity supply networks destroyed; UN centres, hospitals and ambulances struck by the Israeli army. Tens of thousands left homeless.

A year has passed and the siege continues

You can't get into Gaza and you can't get out.
Amnesty International described the blockade of Gaza as a "form of collective punishment of the entire population, a flagrant violation of Israel's obligations under the 4th Geneva Convention". The special UN rapporteur for human rights in the occupied Palestinian territories, Richard Falk, condemned the siege as "a crime against humanity". The consequences of the siege are undeniably causing a situation of mass suffering, created for the most part by Israel, but with the active complicity of the international community, in particular the United States and the European Union.

The illegal siege of Gaza isn't happening in a void. It is one of many illegal acts committed by Israel in the Palestinian territories, militarily occupied in 1967.

Illegal:

• The wall and the settlements
• The demolition of houses
• The indiscriminate destruction of agricultural land.
• Closures and curfews
• Roadblocks and checkpoints
• La detenzione
• Torture
• The occupation itself.
  

The ending of the military occupation which began in 1967 is a fundamental condition for bringing abouot a just and lasting peace. For more than 60 years, the Palestinian people have been denied their right to freedom, to self-determination and to equality.

1400 people from 43 countries (the Gaza freedom March) tried in recent days to enter Gaza, to join with thousands of Palestinians in a non-violent march which would have gone from the north of the Strip to reach the border with Israel, calling for the end of the siege.

Egypt stopped them leaving Cairo, allowing only around 100 to enter Gaza. Hedy Epstein, 85 year old Jewish pacifist and Holocaust survivor, started a hunger strike in protest.

“It is important that the population of Gaza, under siege, know that they are not alone. I want to be able to say to the people of Gaza that I represent many people in my city and in the USA who are indignant about the policies adopted by Israel, the USA and Europe towards the Palestinians and that ever more people are coming to think in this way.”

said Ms Epstein, who escaped from the Nazi persecution while her parents died in Auschwitz.


Together with the participants in the Gaza Freedom March who demonstrated in the streets of Caior on January 1st, and with all those who at the same time marched in Israel and in the Gaza Strip, with those who protested in Ramallah, Bethlehem and in other West Bank cities, joining the protests organised in many cities throughout the world, we continue to draw attention to Gaza. We do not forget the tragic attack on the strip and we demand justice.

We call on politicians - local and national, on the government, on the European Union and the governments that are part of it to ensure respect for international law that has been trampled on. And to the leaders of Israel, we say:

End the siege of Gaza, stop the building of settlements in the West Bank, end the occupation, respect and apply the UN resolutions. That is the only way to peace.