Ireland’s biggest food retailer drops Israeli produce, as European boycotts surge | The Electronic Intifada

Major Israeli food exporters are facing an unprecedented wave of cancellations in orders from Europe as a result of Israel’s most recent massacre of Palestinians in Gaza.

SuperValu, the biggest food distributor in Ireland, told the Irish media last week that it has withdrawn Israeli products from its shops.

And Israeli media reports suggest that other major European retailers have taken similar decisions without announcing them publicly.

Israeli fruit and vegetable exporters have faced cancellations from Scandinavia, the UK, France, Belgium and Ireland.

Retailers have become fearful of the rapidly growing consumer boycott of Israeli goods, according to an 11 August article in Hebrew business website The Marker.

A spokesperson for EDOM, a major Israeli fruit grower and exporter that has extensive operations in illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank, told The Marker:

Importers from Europe are telling us that they can’t sell Israeli produce … One European buyer has told me that he had been blocked in several chains in Denmark and Sweden, and then in Belgium. Last weekend, he told me that mangoes which had been packaged in the Netherlands, as always, and shipped to Ireland, were returned, claiming that Israeli produce would not be accepted …

I’ve heard of major exporters from whom chains in southern France are no longer buying. There is no official boycott, but everyone is afraid of selling Israeli fruits. We can only hope that things do not get worse.

Among the other exporters interviewed for the article is an Israeli pomegranate grower who is quoted as saying that they had been forced to cancel their “entire work plan in the UK” because major retail chains were no longer interested in Israeli goods, and that similar messages had been received from importers in Belgium and Scandinavia.

A separate article published in The Marker on 27 July detailed how fruit juice producer Priniv had lost a major contract with a business in Sweden after refusing a request to export the produce in a way that would make it easier to conceal the fact it was produced in Israel. Customers in Belgium and France also made similar requests.

Priniv director Ido Yaniv attributed the drop in sales to Israel’s attack on Gaza.

Organised boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaigns have in recent years succeeded in pressuring retailers across Europe to announce that they will not stock produce from illegal Israeli settlements or from companies that operate in settlements, with the Tesco chain the UK the latest to make such an announcement.

But it is now becoming increasingly clear that European businesses are starting to react to growing public support for Palestinian rights and boycotts of Israel in Europe. They are deciding not to sell Israeli produce of any kind — at least for now. (...)

 ScottN wrote: 
With the similarity that not all that much attention was paid to that either, until after the war (and not because it wasn't known)...

 
Gaza: Whole Villages Have Been Wiped Off the Map - Dr. Mona El-Farra

 RichardPrins wrote:The history of the early Zionist movement and formation of Israel had many victims—-and (in the west) is largely forgotten.  The holocaust was perhaps the most horrific crime of modern times, but two wrongs don't....

“But Hamas…”

UN Specialist for Palestinian Rights Suspects Israel Committed War Crimes
An Interview with Richard Falk on the Crisis in Gaza

by KEN KLIPPENSTEIN

Richard Falk is an American professor Emeritus of International Law at Princeton University. He just completed a six-year term as United Nations Special Rapporteur on Palestinian human rights. He was appointed to this role by the UN Human Rights Council, in 2008.

Ken Klippenstein: Could you describe Sisi’s (Egypt’s new leader) relationship with Hamas?

Richard Falk: The (Sisi) government is determined to destroy the Muslim Brotherhood and they view Hamas as an extension of the Brotherhood. So they’re in a certain way on the same side as Israel on this particular confrontation.

KK: Has the aerial bombardment campaign adopted by Israel done anything to decrease the rocket fire coming from Gaza?

RF: There’s no evidence that it has. It certainly has caused some damage and some deaths to those involved in either making and deploying and firing the rockets. But there’s no discernable effect in stopping Hamas’ and other militias’—its not only Hamas, there are other militias, some of which Hamas doesn’t control—that have engaged in this kind of rocket fire. The only alternative to using these rockets for defenseless people like those living in Gaza is to absolutely do nothing—to be completely passive. They have no military capability to resist Israel on the ground or in the air or from the sea. So it’s a very one-sided war; and one-sided wars are, in my view, by their very nature, unlawful and constitute crimes against humanity.

KK: Since Palestine lacks statehood, does that deny them recourse to the protections afforded by international law?

RF: The UN General Assembly on Nov. 29, 2012 passed a resolution recognizing the statehood of Palestine as a non-observer member state of the UN. That has been interpreted as giving Palestine the status of being a state in an international society for most purposes. They have joined UNESCO, for instance, as a member state, and they’ve adhered to more than 15 international treaties open only to states. They’re recognized by I think 130 governments as a state. They could at this point seek redress at the International Criminal Court, a step that Israel and the United States have declared would be very provocative from their point of view and would lead to adverse consequences.

In effect, the United States and Israel are saying it’s not acceptable to use international criminal law to uphold your legal rights.

KK: What is the US role in the aerial bombardment campaign?

RF: The US is definitely complicity and legally accountable, at least in theory, that this weaponry is not supposed to be used except in accordance with international law; and if the whole undertaking is a violation of international law, then the United States is a responsible, and should diplomatically, have been seeking to restrain and censure Israel rather than to lend its support.

Beyond that there is the sense that Congress itself, again at least theoretically, restricts military assistance to foreign countries in a way that is supposed to be compatible with international law and the UN Charter. So by the guidelines that are embedded in American law itself, this is an unlawful and unacceptable policy that the US government has been pursuing.

KK: Could you talk about the legality of the siege of Gaza?

RF: The siege of Gaza is clearly a form of collective punishment that is prohibited by Article 33 of the 4^th Geneva Convention that unconditionally prohibits any recourse to collective punishment. A blockade that has been maintained since the middle of 2007 is directed at the entire civilian population of Gaza. It includes many items that are needed for health, subsistence, and minimum requirements of a decent life. So in my view, Israel as the occupying power under international law of Gaza, is supposed to protect the civilian population rather than to subject it to a punitive blockade of the sort that’s been existing these past 7 years. (...)

 RichardPrins wrote:Well, as I wrote "as he likes to think". Irony is lost on his type. I wonder if he realizes much in the laundry list (the ad homs) below describe him? .  OK, thirty seconds was enough time wasted on any response.

FTR, I don't think there is any point in looking for original sin as a solution "to Palestine".  This is a highly complex one-sided war that is itself shameful, but is also a proxy for other issues/powers. On both sides.  But very one-sided. Best short term hope is that the killing stops.

 ScottN wrote: 
To be fair, not as much a troll as a bully.

Mattresses!  beaker, by any other name is not to trifled with.  This is a world class (he likes to think) troll you're taking on! Respect for others is not part of his game. Of course, there is the option of simply ignoring trolls....usually the best strategy.

 mutepoint wrote: 
well that escalated quickly. To the rockets, boys.

holy fucking shit. 

 mutepoint wrote:This "objective reporting" is from The Times of Israel.  Kind of like going to Fox for an evaluation of Obama.

Here is a quote from the article itself:  "There was no independent confirmation of the report".   Hamas is doing nasty stuff no doubt, but so is Israel.

The Greenhouse propaganda—How Gazan history is being rewritten to dehumanize Palestinians | Mondoweiss

(...) Pro-Israel politicians and pundits have rewritten the history of the demise of an agricultural project in the Gaza Strip to blame the victims of an economic tragedy for their own hopeless situation. During the past few weeks, several pro-Israel political pundits including Ezra Levant, Charles Krauthammer, Richard Chesnoff, Jeffrey Goldberg and Alan Dershowitz have taken this line of victim-blaming. Notably, Hillary Clinton also advanced the Israeli effort to rewrite history. (...)

Similar, related: Haaretz: What American Jews Haven’t Been Told about Gaza | Peter Beinart

London:

Glyn Secker, Jews for Justice for Palestinians: "Today, an image remains in my mind. It is the image of a Palestinian father carrying the flesh of his son in a plastic bag. As a Jew, I will not ever be associated with these monstrosities. Never in my name, never in my life, never in my children's life." Glyn Secker speaks at the mass rally for Gaza in Hyde Park, London, today.
www.palestinecampaign.org

Capetown:

Uri Avnery on Gaza Crisis, His Time in a Zionist "Terrorist" Group & Becoming a Peace Activist | Democracy Now!

 mutepoint wrote: 
Wow! Interesting!  That's how it's done huh?

Part 2: Noam Chomsky: Israel’s Actions in Palestine are "Much Worse Than Apartheid" in South Africa | Democracy Now!

Contextomy, Ad hominem, Red herring

"A Hideous Atrocity": Noam Chomsky on Israel’s Assault on Gaza & U.S. Support for the Occupation | Democracy Now!

 islander wrote:  
and when did you stop beating your wife ?

Actually I was thinking more about my freely admitting support for the Tea Party and many of its positions.  The Tea Party is widely hated in America and very much so here at RP.  Some even call it a terrorist organization.

And freely admitting my position of securing our southern border.  Both make me racist by most widely held standards.  I will again state that I am not racist although that is not believed by most here as you also do not believe it as stated above.

So it is fair for someone whose positions and thoughts are well known to ask another who participates regularly what their thoughts or relationships might be on a possibly germane issue.  I'm not hiding anything.

Cliven Bundy is another subject and its implications are about proportionality in response by our government.  And if one wants to discuss proportionality as it relates to the current Israeli / Palestinian skirmish, then by all means ....

 kurtster wrote: 
Well you share some opinions with the (in)famous Cliven Bundy, so it's reasonable to assume you or your family have been mentored by him in the past. Clearly there has been some trouble with his views in the popular media, so when exactly was it that you started to adapt your views to be less racist?  

Seems like a fair question. 

 kurtster wrote: 
Talk about changing the subject.