18 june 2019
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BDS organizers and activists for justice in Palestine organized dozens of international actions calling for a boycott of Puma on Saturday, 15 June.
After Adidas dropped its sponsorship of the Israeli Football Association in 2018 after being presented with over 16,000 signatures of protest, Puma took up the sponsorship. This means that the global German athletic manufacturer is a partner in apartheid, supporting teams in Israeli illegal settlements on occupied Palestinian land. Over 200 Palestinian sports clubs have called on Puma to end the sponsorship. On 15 June, organizers around the world – including in Germany, France, Portugal, Malaysia, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Italy, Denmark, Egypt, Nigeria, the Spanish State, Belgium, Hong Kong, Argentina, New Zealand, Jordan, Sweden, Austria, Switzerland, Hungary and the United States – organized actions to support the Palestinian athletes’ call to #BoycottPuma. In the German capital, BDS Berlin organized a protest outside the Puma Concept Store at Hackescher Markt. Organizers delivered leaflets and information about the boycott call to staff at the Puma store to be forwarded to corporate headquarters. The response from passers-by was overwhelmingly positive, and participants distributed hundreds of flyers to nearby people. The demonstration included loud chants to “Boycott Puma! Boycott Apartheid!” as well as social justice songs and music. After the rally, a falafel vendor from the nearby market donated a round of sandwiches to the activists involved. In Toulouse, the Collectif Palestine Vaincra, a member of the Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network, held an information stand for over 2 hours at Olivier Place in Toulouse. Despite being displaced from their original location by the prefecture to a less heavily-trafficked location at the last minute, activists distributed 800 flyers and had hundreds of positive conversations. Dozens of people took selfies in solidarity with the campaign. Actions took place throughout France, including in Lyon, Marseille, Montpellier, Strasbourg, Paris and a few days earlier in Clermont-Ferrand, Foix, Tours and elsewhere. In Paris, the violent provocateurs of the Jewish Defense League (JDL) attempted to physically attack activists from the BDS France campaign in order to attempt to force them to end their boycott action outside the Puma store. However, their attempt failed and over 20 activists participated in the action, receiving strong support from the public for their anti-apartheid campaign. In Charleroi, Belgium, the Plate-forme Charleroi-Palestine distributed information about Puma’s involvement with sponsoring Israeli apartheid and the call for boycott from Palestinian athletes and collected support photos for the campaign. |
In Vienna, BDS Austria held an information table outside the Puma store, posting informative displays and distributing flyers to hundreds of passers-by about the athletic gear company’s complicity with Israeli occupation and apartheid.
In Amsterdam, docP activists took to the streets for the international day of action, delivering a petition to the management of the Puma store and distributing flyers on the Koningsplein and in the Vondelpark.
Manchester Palestine Action kicked off the international day of action with a direct action inside Puma’s Manchester office, protesting and delivering the message that sponsoring apartheid is not acceptable: video
Organizers followed up the action with a day of protest from Piccadilly gardens and through Manchester City Center, targeting corporate complicity in Israeli occupation, specifically by Puma, Barclays and HSBC.
There were almost 30 actions throughout the UK for the #BoycottPuma day of action. In addition to a protest in London, grassroots “counter-advertisements” for the Boycott Puma campaign appeared at bus stations throughout the city.
In Rome, BDS Roma secured the support of 14 rugby teams in the city to join the call of the Palestinian athletes to #BoycottPuma: video
In Belfast, the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign protested Puma’s involvement in supporting Israeli apartheid teams.
The campaign against Puma is not stopping. Palestinian football players themselves struggle to play, practice and improve their skills when they face Israeli violence, including arrests and imprisonment by occupation forces. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges people and organizations to join the ongoing actions to put pressure on Puma to end its sponsorship of Israeli apartheid, including taking the #BoycottPuma pledge and organizing events and actions at Puma stores and corporate offices.
In Amsterdam, docP activists took to the streets for the international day of action, delivering a petition to the management of the Puma store and distributing flyers on the Koningsplein and in the Vondelpark.
Manchester Palestine Action kicked off the international day of action with a direct action inside Puma’s Manchester office, protesting and delivering the message that sponsoring apartheid is not acceptable: video
Organizers followed up the action with a day of protest from Piccadilly gardens and through Manchester City Center, targeting corporate complicity in Israeli occupation, specifically by Puma, Barclays and HSBC.
There were almost 30 actions throughout the UK for the #BoycottPuma day of action. In addition to a protest in London, grassroots “counter-advertisements” for the Boycott Puma campaign appeared at bus stations throughout the city.
In Rome, BDS Roma secured the support of 14 rugby teams in the city to join the call of the Palestinian athletes to #BoycottPuma: video
In Belfast, the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign protested Puma’s involvement in supporting Israeli apartheid teams.
The campaign against Puma is not stopping. Palestinian football players themselves struggle to play, practice and improve their skills when they face Israeli violence, including arrests and imprisonment by occupation forces. Samidoun Palestinian Prisoner Solidarity Network urges people and organizations to join the ongoing actions to put pressure on Puma to end its sponsorship of Israeli apartheid, including taking the #BoycottPuma pledge and organizing events and actions at Puma stores and corporate offices.
17 june 2019
US-based group HaYovel brings Christian Zionist volunteers to harvest grapes in Israeli-settlement wineries established on occupied Palestinian land in violation of international law. An EU legal opinion confirms such wines should be accurately labeled as originating from settlements. (via Facebook)
Selling settlement products as “Made in Israel” may mislead consumers and stop them from making what they consider to be ethical buying choices, a senior European Union legal official says.
“Just as many European consumers objected to the purchase of South African goods in the pre-1994 apartheid era, present-day consumers may object on similar grounds to the purchase of goods from a particular country” because it pursues “policies which that consumer happens to find objectionable or even repugnant,” Gerard Hogan, advocate general of the Court of Justice of the European Union, writes in an advisory opinion published last week.
The opinion specifies that consumers may object to buying goods from Israeli settlements “precisely because of the fact that the occupation and the settlements clearly amount to a violation of international law.”
Israel’s construction of settlements on occupied Palestinian and Syrian land is a war crime.
A 2011 EU directive requires accurate labeling of goods in order to protect a consumer’s right to information, including the origin of a product.
In 2015, the EU issued an “interpretive notice” requiring goods made in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to be labeled as originating from such settlements.
The French government then issued a regulation in 2016 requiring such labeling on settlement goods.
Two years later, Psagot Winery and the Jewish communal group Organisation Juive Européenne filed a lawsuit with the French Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court, claiming the practice is discriminatory.
In response, French authorities suspended the labeling requirement and referred the case to the EU Court of Justice seeking guidance.
The advocate general’s legal opinions are not binding on the EU court, but they are authoritative and are followed in the majority of cases. The EU court has yet to issue its own ruling.
The French court will then have to settle the dispute in line with the EU court’s decision, which will also be binding on other national courts.
Growing grapes on stolen land
The Israeli wine industry is deeply complicit in the occupation and colonization of Palestinian and Syrian land.
Dozens of Israeli wineries in the West Bank and the Golan use stolen land and water resources, according to monitoring group Who Profits.
Large commercial wineries within present-day Israel – like Teperberg Winery – use grapes from occupied West Bank land in their wines.
Psagot Winery is a stellar example of a settlement profiteer.
It is based in the settlement of Pisgat Zeev in occupied East Jerusalem and its winery sources grapes from vineyards near the settlements of Psagot, Kida, Har Bracha, Gush Etzion and Elon Moreh.
Psagot Winery’s visitors center is in the settlement of Psagot, just outside Ramallah.
Yaakov Berg, founder of Psagot Winery, immigrated with his family from the Soviet Union to Israel at a young age.
With the assistance of occupation authorities and the World Zionist Organization, Berg’s father, Meri Berg, had by the 1990s begun seizing land from the Palestinian village of al-Bireh, according to Israeli settlement monitoring organization Kerem Navot.
Yaakov Berg also received financing from the settlement division of the World Zionist Organization to expand the wine business he founded on the land stolen by his father.
“Within a few years, Psagot Winery, which started as a modest family enterprise, became a winery that produces hundreds of thousands of bottles a year, including those destined for export to countries in the European Union,” Kerem Navot notes.
Psagot Winery partner Josh Hexter thinks that despite the winery’s location, BDS – the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights – is not a problem because the largest oveseas customer base “are Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox wine drinkers,” as The Times of Israel reported.
“It might even be a plus for some of our customers,” Hexter said.
And each year, a group of American Christian Zionists comes to help with the grape harvest at Psagot and other settlements.
The organization HaYovel brings Christian volunteers to “prophetically serve” Jewish farmers in “Judea and Samaria.”
HaYovel recently sponsored a fundraiser honoring Yehuda Glick, a leader of the Israeli-government backed Jewish extremist movement that aims to destroy the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and replace it with a Jewish temple.
Undermining rights
Yet there can be no doubt about the illegality of Psagot Winery’s business.
The International Court of Justice and countless UN resolutions have declared the construction of Israeli settlements in the occupied Golan and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal.
Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented the devastating impact of Israel’s settlement enterprise and called on all businesses to stop working in or with settlements.
But Psagot Winery and its supporters don’t care about international law, EU law or Palestinian rights.
Nor do EU governments, which have done little or nothing to enforce EU rules and international law.
Amnesty and others have called on governments to ban trade in settlement goods altogether, yet after decades of inaction, EU countries are still quibbling over mere labeling.
While Israel lobby groups use any opportunity to bully and intimidate citizens who criticize Israel’s violations of international law, the advocate general affirms that it is not the task of the EU Court of Justice to approve or to disapprove consumers’ ethical choices.
That is up to individuals, who are entitled to make those choices based on full and accurate information.
It remains to be seen whether the court itself will accept the advocate general’s reasoning and limit Israel’s ability to profit with impunity from its crimes by affirming that accurate labeling of settlement goods is required.
Ali Abunimah contributed research.
Selling settlement products as “Made in Israel” may mislead consumers and stop them from making what they consider to be ethical buying choices, a senior European Union legal official says.
“Just as many European consumers objected to the purchase of South African goods in the pre-1994 apartheid era, present-day consumers may object on similar grounds to the purchase of goods from a particular country” because it pursues “policies which that consumer happens to find objectionable or even repugnant,” Gerard Hogan, advocate general of the Court of Justice of the European Union, writes in an advisory opinion published last week.
The opinion specifies that consumers may object to buying goods from Israeli settlements “precisely because of the fact that the occupation and the settlements clearly amount to a violation of international law.”
Israel’s construction of settlements on occupied Palestinian and Syrian land is a war crime.
A 2011 EU directive requires accurate labeling of goods in order to protect a consumer’s right to information, including the origin of a product.
In 2015, the EU issued an “interpretive notice” requiring goods made in Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank and the occupied Syrian Golan Heights to be labeled as originating from such settlements.
The French government then issued a regulation in 2016 requiring such labeling on settlement goods.
Two years later, Psagot Winery and the Jewish communal group Organisation Juive Européenne filed a lawsuit with the French Council of State, the country’s highest administrative court, claiming the practice is discriminatory.
In response, French authorities suspended the labeling requirement and referred the case to the EU Court of Justice seeking guidance.
The advocate general’s legal opinions are not binding on the EU court, but they are authoritative and are followed in the majority of cases. The EU court has yet to issue its own ruling.
The French court will then have to settle the dispute in line with the EU court’s decision, which will also be binding on other national courts.
Growing grapes on stolen land
The Israeli wine industry is deeply complicit in the occupation and colonization of Palestinian and Syrian land.
Dozens of Israeli wineries in the West Bank and the Golan use stolen land and water resources, according to monitoring group Who Profits.
Large commercial wineries within present-day Israel – like Teperberg Winery – use grapes from occupied West Bank land in their wines.
Psagot Winery is a stellar example of a settlement profiteer.
It is based in the settlement of Pisgat Zeev in occupied East Jerusalem and its winery sources grapes from vineyards near the settlements of Psagot, Kida, Har Bracha, Gush Etzion and Elon Moreh.
Psagot Winery’s visitors center is in the settlement of Psagot, just outside Ramallah.
Yaakov Berg, founder of Psagot Winery, immigrated with his family from the Soviet Union to Israel at a young age.
With the assistance of occupation authorities and the World Zionist Organization, Berg’s father, Meri Berg, had by the 1990s begun seizing land from the Palestinian village of al-Bireh, according to Israeli settlement monitoring organization Kerem Navot.
Yaakov Berg also received financing from the settlement division of the World Zionist Organization to expand the wine business he founded on the land stolen by his father.
“Within a few years, Psagot Winery, which started as a modest family enterprise, became a winery that produces hundreds of thousands of bottles a year, including those destined for export to countries in the European Union,” Kerem Navot notes.
Psagot Winery partner Josh Hexter thinks that despite the winery’s location, BDS – the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement for Palestinian rights – is not a problem because the largest oveseas customer base “are Orthodox and ultra-Orthodox wine drinkers,” as The Times of Israel reported.
“It might even be a plus for some of our customers,” Hexter said.
And each year, a group of American Christian Zionists comes to help with the grape harvest at Psagot and other settlements.
The organization HaYovel brings Christian volunteers to “prophetically serve” Jewish farmers in “Judea and Samaria.”
HaYovel recently sponsored a fundraiser honoring Yehuda Glick, a leader of the Israeli-government backed Jewish extremist movement that aims to destroy the al-Aqsa mosque in Jerusalem and replace it with a Jewish temple.
Undermining rights
Yet there can be no doubt about the illegality of Psagot Winery’s business.
The International Court of Justice and countless UN resolutions have declared the construction of Israeli settlements in the occupied Golan and the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, illegal.
Both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch have documented the devastating impact of Israel’s settlement enterprise and called on all businesses to stop working in or with settlements.
But Psagot Winery and its supporters don’t care about international law, EU law or Palestinian rights.
Nor do EU governments, which have done little or nothing to enforce EU rules and international law.
Amnesty and others have called on governments to ban trade in settlement goods altogether, yet after decades of inaction, EU countries are still quibbling over mere labeling.
While Israel lobby groups use any opportunity to bully and intimidate citizens who criticize Israel’s violations of international law, the advocate general affirms that it is not the task of the EU Court of Justice to approve or to disapprove consumers’ ethical choices.
That is up to individuals, who are entitled to make those choices based on full and accurate information.
It remains to be seen whether the court itself will accept the advocate general’s reasoning and limit Israel’s ability to profit with impunity from its crimes by affirming that accurate labeling of settlement goods is required.
Ali Abunimah contributed research.
16 june 2019
Foreign Minister Katz says Israelis will participate in the June 25-26 workshop 'if all coordinations are made,' while sources claim that Israel is expected to send a business delegation only; Palestinians vowed to boycott the conference, alleging pro-Israeli bias
Israelis will attend a U.S-led conference in Bahrain next week on proposals for the Palestinian economy as part of a coming peace plan, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday.
The United States has billed the gathering as a workshop to boost the Palestinian economy as part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump's administration to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A source briefed on the event said Israel would send a business delegation but no government officials to the June 25-26 workshop, which is being boycotted by the Palestinian leadership.
"Israel will be at the Bahrain conference and all the coordinations will be made," Katz said told Israeli Channel 13 News in New York. He gave no further details. The Foreign Ministry declined comment, as did a spokesman for Katz.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what level of representation Israel was expected to have at the conference.
U.S. officials have said they are inviting economy and finance ministers, as well as business leaders, to Bahrain to discuss investment in the Palestinian territories.
Palestinian leaders have spurned the conference, alleging pro-Israeli bias from Washington.
The Palestinians say the still unpublished U.S. peace plan falls short of their goal of statehood. They blame a halt in U.S. aid and Israeli restrictions for an economic crisis in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
A White House official said on Tuesday that Egypt, Jordan and Morocco planned to attend the conference.
Egypt and Jordan's participation is considered particularly important because they have historically been major players in Middle East peace efforts and are the only Arab states that have peace treaties with Israel.
One of the sources said that U.S. and Bahrain had deliberated over whether a non-official Israeli presence was preferable to a government-level delegation, given that Israel currently has a caretaker government in place, pending a September election.
A second source said Israel would be sending a private business delegation.
Trump's plan faces possible delays due to political upheaval in Israel, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a government last month and must fight a second election this year, set for September 17.
Trump's Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt said the unveiling of the peace plan may be delayed until November, when a new Israeli government is expected to be in place.
"Had the election not been called again perhaps we would have released it during the summer," Greenblatt said on Sunday.
"If we wanted to wait until a new government is formed we really do have to wait until potentially as late as November 6 but we'll decide that after Bahrain," said Greenblatt.
Israelis will attend a U.S-led conference in Bahrain next week on proposals for the Palestinian economy as part of a coming peace plan, Foreign Minister Israel Katz said on Sunday.
The United States has billed the gathering as a workshop to boost the Palestinian economy as part of a broader effort by President Donald Trump's administration to address the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
A source briefed on the event said Israel would send a business delegation but no government officials to the June 25-26 workshop, which is being boycotted by the Palestinian leadership.
"Israel will be at the Bahrain conference and all the coordinations will be made," Katz said told Israeli Channel 13 News in New York. He gave no further details. The Foreign Ministry declined comment, as did a spokesman for Katz.
The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment on what level of representation Israel was expected to have at the conference.
U.S. officials have said they are inviting economy and finance ministers, as well as business leaders, to Bahrain to discuss investment in the Palestinian territories.
Palestinian leaders have spurned the conference, alleging pro-Israeli bias from Washington.
The Palestinians say the still unpublished U.S. peace plan falls short of their goal of statehood. They blame a halt in U.S. aid and Israeli restrictions for an economic crisis in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.
A White House official said on Tuesday that Egypt, Jordan and Morocco planned to attend the conference.
Egypt and Jordan's participation is considered particularly important because they have historically been major players in Middle East peace efforts and are the only Arab states that have peace treaties with Israel.
One of the sources said that U.S. and Bahrain had deliberated over whether a non-official Israeli presence was preferable to a government-level delegation, given that Israel currently has a caretaker government in place, pending a September election.
A second source said Israel would be sending a private business delegation.
Trump's plan faces possible delays due to political upheaval in Israel, after Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu failed to form a government last month and must fight a second election this year, set for September 17.
Trump's Middle East envoy Jason Greenblatt said the unveiling of the peace plan may be delayed until November, when a new Israeli government is expected to be in place.
"Had the election not been called again perhaps we would have released it during the summer," Greenblatt said on Sunday.
"If we wanted to wait until a new government is formed we really do have to wait until potentially as late as November 6 but we'll decide that after Bahrain," said Greenblatt.
