Red Card Israeli Racism

The Israeli government violates international law.  It discriminates against Palestinian Arabs through laws and actions involving ethnic cleansing, cultural genocide and collective punishment.  This discrimination is severe, widespread, and unrelenting.  It is generally unrecognised. Palestinian footballers suffer their share.  They are arbitrarily arrested and imprisoned without charge, cannot travel freely and cannot meet properly for games and training. Shamefully, Western governments do almost nothing to stop this racism. We believe that sporting activities can do much to improve relations between communities.  Yet by admitting Israel to international sporting organisations those organisations directly condone the racism.

For more information, go to-

http://rcir.org.uk

Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories

Ahava promises “Beauty Secrets from the Dead Sea” but the real secrets it keeps  are ugly truths- its products actually come from stolen Palestinian  resources in the Occupied Territories  of the Palestinian West Bank, and are produced in the illegal settlement of Mitzpe Shalem. For more information, go to-

http://www.codepink4peace.org/

What is the campaign to stop the JNF?

Stop the JNF is an international campaign aimed at ending the role of the Jewish National Fund (Keren Kayemet LeIsrael) (JNF-KKL) in:

• the on-going displacement of indigenous Palestinians from their land
• the theft of their property
• the funding of historic and present day colonies, and
• the destruction of the natural environment.

The JNF continues to serve as a global fundraiser for Israeli ethnic cleansing, occupation and apartheid. Despite its role in a State institution of Israel (the Israel Land Authority) and in institutionalized racism and apartheid, the JNF and its affiliate organizations enjoy charitable status in over 50 countries and many also enjoy consultative status with the United Nations.

How can we stop the JNF?

Join the campaign in your region to Stop the JNF. In addition to the ongoing struggles against the JNF in Palestine, the campaign is underway in Britain, Canada, France and the United States.

Help stop the human rights and environmental violations of the JNF.

For more information, go to :

http://www.stopthejnf.org/

Sainsbury’s: Fairtrade for people or for profits?

A call to action – end Sainsbury’s complicity in Israel’s occupation and human rights violations

Participate in Fairtrade Fortnight activities 24 February-9 March 2014. 

Join monthly national day of action on 1^st March

Sainsbury’s claims to be the “the world’s largest retailer of Fairtrade products” and boasts of their commitment to “sourcing with integrity”.  According to Sainsbury’s: “Consumers care about the provenance of the goods they buy and the integrity of the companies they spend their money with.”

Yet Sainsbury’s refuse to respond to customer demands to end trade with companies that export agricultural produce from Israel’s illegal settlement farms, as The Co-operative Group has done.

On 9th February last year, a worldwide campaign was launched in response to the call from Palestine to expose and end the complicity of Israeli agricultural export corporations in Israel’s ongoing violations of international law and Palestinian human rights.

www.sainsburyscampaign.org

info@sainsburyscampaign.org

Protest at Sainsbury’s AGM: Wednesday 9^th July: Central London

Sainsbury’s: where are your values?’

‘End your Indifference to Palestinian Farming communities’.

 We will be holding a protest at the Sainsbury’s AGM, as part of our continuing campaign calling on Sainsbury’s to cease all trade with companies which are complicit in the colonisation of Palestinian land and destruction of Palestinian farming communities.

 Assemble from 10 a.m. outside Queen Elizabeth Conference Centre, Broad Sanctuary, just off Parliament Square, London SW1P 3EE. We will be leafleting shareholders as they arrive for the AGM, which starts at 10.45 a.m.

 Sainsbury’s has spent the last year promoting itself as the supermarket chain most concerned with values. The CEO designate, Mike Coupe cannot be clearer when he says:

 Consumers care about the provenance of the goods they buy and the integrity of the companies they spend their money with. They put their trust in us to do the right thing throughout our buying process, so sourcing with integrity is key in our dealings with farmers, growers and suppliers in the UK and around the world.

 We are calling on Mike Coupe to finally ‘do the right thing’ when he takes over as CEO on July 9^th, to end the indifference of his company to the destruction of Palestinian farming and to end support for the immoral and illegal practices of agricultural companies which operate on Palestinian land.

 For more information, to sign the online petition, and to endorse the campaign statement: seewww.sainsburyscampaign.org

Go to the StopG4S campaign page (see the ‘Campaigns’ pull down menu above) and read an eye witness report of the major protests at this year’s company AGM on June 5^th. Use the live link to the Stop G4S campaign website to read more reports on the AGM, plus news of the decision by the Gates Foundation to sell all its shares in G4S- thereby dealing yet another major blow to its reputation

Musical protests  at Sheffield Sainsbury’s

Sat June 7th

The campaign to expose Sainsbury’s bogus claims to be Britain’s leading ethical High Street trader was stepped up a notch in Sheffield  recently. Protesters, including the Sheffield socialist choir, marched through Sainsburys City centre store singing popular songs, but with new words exposing the retail group’s policy of buying from companies who trade in produce grown on land stolen from the Palestinian owners. The land illegally settled by Israelis is in Palestine’s West Bank and Jordan Valley, it has deprived the Palestinians of their land and their livelihood and is part of Israels attempt to drive Palestinians out of their ancestral homeland. All governments other than the government of Israel have denounced the settments as Illegal.

Sainsburys claim they do not buy from the settlements despite the fact that they have been shown proof that companies they trade with sell settlement goods which have been re-labelled “Israeli Produce” . Sainsbury’s intransigence is in contrast to the policy of the Cooperative movement, who, when shown the same proof, not only refuse to trade with the illegal settlements but also with the companies who are based in the settlement or who benefit directly from settlements. Government advice to retail companies is that they should avoid all trade with Israeli settlements. Israeli companies have been repeatedly shown to be re-labelling settlement goods as “produce of Israel.”  Sainsburys purport to be Britains leading ethical retailer, but  continued support for Israeli companies complicit in ethnic cleansing is helping to perpetuate a humanitarian disaster for the Palestinian people.

After the protest inside the store the 50 protesters, many of whom had come from other towns to support the campaign, gathered outside in the busy shopping area to protest songs and hand leaflets to shoppers for over an hour.

On Wednesday July 9th at 10.45am. Sainsburys will hold its Annual General Meeting at the Queen Elizabeth ll Hall opposite Westminster Cathedral. Once again protesters will gather to tell the Sainsburys management that the protest will end the day they change their policy of supporting Companies who benefit from the occupation of Palestine, and not a minute before.

COALBROOKDALE YOUTH HOSTEL, TELFORD, SHROPSHIRETF8 7NRS

October 17th- 19th

The BIN Coordinating group are beginning to plan our next BIN residential workshop. As always, the programme will be designed to provide an opportunity for activists to come together over a weekend to exchange ideas, discuss progress, develop new projects and share best practice. Special rates and financial support for students will be available. Full details to follow soon.

Following two years of regular street protests by pro-Palestine campaigners outside the EcoStream store in central Brighton, the shop has announced that it has ceased trading.

Campaigners have held regular demonstrations outside the store since it opened in the summer of 2012. The protests have raised awareness about the role of the shop’s parent company SodaStream in Israel’s programme of ethnic cleansing and human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territory. SodaStream’s main factory is located on an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, where Palestinian villages have been destroyed and the population removed to make room for Israeli colonists and businesses. The SodaStream company enjoys numerous financial incentives from the Israeli government to operate there in order to consolidate the illegal occupation of Palestine.

The people of Brighton and Hove have been asked to boycott the EcoStream shop to show their disapproval of Israel’s illegal settlements and their violations of human rights, and to put pressure on the Israeli government to comply with international law. The people of Brighton & Hove have responded by refusing to buy into the shop’s alleged ‘green’ image. The shop’s profits declined steadily over the two years of the protests. Today’s announcement of the shop’s closure is the result.

The regular protests outside the EcoStream store in Western Road have attracted huge support from local residents and from human rights campaigners all over the country and internationally. The campaign has featured regularly in the local, national and international media – including coverage in the Times and the Guardian. The campaign is now a national one, with stockists of SodaStream products being targeted for protests in local areas across the UK.

Brighton & Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign today issued the following statement:

‘This campaign has taken the message about human rights abuses in occupied Palestine to the people of Brighton, and their response has been fantastic. They have made it clear that they do not want businesses from illegal Israeli settlements trading in their town. The closure of SodaStream’s so-called flagship UK store in Brighton is just one step in a campaign to send a clear message to the Israeli government and the international community that, at the grassroots level, people of conscience are taking action to force Israel to comply with international law and to bring about justice for the Palestinian people. We give notice to the other stockists of SodaStream products in the city that we will continue to take the message about SodaStream to the people of Brighton on behalf of the Palestinian people. Congratulations to the people of Brighton and Hove, who can tell the difference between ethical and unethical.’

These protests are part of a wider international movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), following a call in 2005 by over 130 civil society organisations in Palestine (http://www.bdsmovement.net/). The BDS Call urges a boycott of all Israeli companies until Israel complies with international humanitarian law, recognizes the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality, the rights of return of refugees and ends the siege of Gaza and the occupation of all lands occupied in 1967. The EcoStream protest has focused specifically on the Israeli programme of illegal settlement expansion, and the presence in the store of products manufactured on a key illegal settlement in the West Bank.