Please take a moment to write to the Co-Op board and sign the petition — see below for more details!

Olympia Food Co-op Boycotts Israeli Goods!
Now We Need Your Help!

Just last week the Board of Directors of the Olympia Food Co-op in Olympia, WA, the hometown of Rachel Corrie, took the courageous step of instituting a boycott of Israeli goods, the first grocery boycott of Israel in the US.

Already, there is a movement afoot to condemn the Co-op for taking this important stand. Please help us thank the Olympia Food Co-op and its board of directors for supporting human rights in Palestine!

• Send brief emails of thanks to board@olympiafood.coop
• Show your support for this boycott by signing our petition!
• Visit us at www.OlympiaBDS.org to learn more.

More Information

Olympia BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) is a grassroots network of community members in Olympia, WA, joining the call by Palestinian civil society for a non-violent, global movement of boycott, divestment, and sanctions of Israel, until it meets the requirements of human rights and international law.

In answering to the Palestinian Call, we stand with Desmond Tutu, Naomi Klein, Elvis Costello, Richard Falk and many, many others. The failure of elected officials to hold Israel accountable for its atrocious actions forces global civil society to act, for a non-violent solution and justice for Palestinians and Israelis alike.

Olympia BDS
www.olympiabds.org
contact@olympiabds.org

It is after considerable contemplation that I have lately arrived at the decision that I must withdraw from the two performances scheduled in Israel on the 30th of June and the 1st of July.

One lives in hope that music is more than mere noise, filling up idle time, whether intending to elate or lament.

He continues:

Sometimes a silence in music is better than adding to the static and so an end to it.

Read the complete statement here.

This follows in the footsteps of a similar decision by Gil Scott-Heron.  Let’s continue to put pressure on others including Elton John and Joan Armatrading!

1. Pampers

diapers and baby products
Pampers’ parent company Proctor & Gamble is the biggest client of Avgol Nonwoven Industries, one of the world’s leading diaper makers which supplies diaper fabrics.  Avgol’s lead manufacturing plant is located in the Barkan industrial zone, an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank.  According to international law, it is illegal for Israel, as an occupying power, to use occupied Palestinian territory for profit.
(Source:  Who Profits)

2. Sabra

hummus, baba ghanoush, and other refrigerated foods
This brand of hummus, baba ghanoush and other foods is co-owned by Pepsico and Israel’s second-largest food company, The Strauss Group.  On its “Corporate Responsibility” webpage, the Strauss Group boasts about “sweetening the special moments” of the Israeli military’s notorious Golani Brigade by supplying it with food products and political support.  In 2008, Breaking the Silence, a group of ex-Israeli soldiers came forward with documentation of the Golani Brigade’s torture and humiliation of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories.
(Additional Sources:  Adalah NY, Ha’aretz)

3. Yes to Carrots

bath and beauty products
Israeli beauty manufacturer Yes to Carrots purports to make organic, “cruelty free” and all natural beauty products that “make a difference, not only to how you look, but also to how you feel about yourself and the world around you.”  Yes to Carrots also prides themselves in using minerals from the Dead Sea.   According to Oxfam International, the area where Yes to Carrots gets it minerals is Palestinian land illegally occupied by Israel and, according to international law, it is illegal for Israel to exploit these natural resources for profit.

For more information about Israeli products made illegally from Dead Sea natural resources visit www.stolenbeauty.org.

4. Osem

croutons, snacks, and couscous
Osem Investments Ltd is an Israeli-based food manufacturer and distributor, 39% of which is owned by Nestlé.  According to its website, Osem’s USA company reaches more than 1000 independent stores and 3000 supermarkets.  According to London-based NGO Corporate Watch, Nestlé has been implicated in a variety of harmful practices since 1977 including: the unethical and harmful promotion of its baby formula, farm labor violations, union busting, and environmental abuse.
(Additional Sources:  Oxfam International, Greenpeace, The Guardian)

5. Tribe

hummus
This 15 year old hummus company based in Massachusetts was recently sold to the Osem Investments (see above) for $57 million.
(Source:  Reuters)

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To view our complete list of Israeli products to boycott, click here.  To report new product sightings, email us at products@baceia.org.

Here’s what the US Campaign has to say:

Hang Up On Motorola organizers have been contacting Credo about joining our boycott for over a year.  Last week US Campaign member group CODEPINK met with Credo and was assured that Motorola phones would no longer be offered.  We’re thrilled that people looking for a progressive phone service now have a Motorola-free option!

What does Credo will no longer offering Motorola phones mean?

It means that Credo will no longer be supporting a corporation that is responsible for providing infrastructure to West Bank settlements and facilitating Israeli military attacks on Palestinians.  Click here to thank Credo for dropping Motorola.  Find out more about Motorola’s involvement in Israel’s occupation by watching our new video.  We were inspired to ask award-winning documentary film-maker Adam Shapiro to make this video after seeing Motorola’s outrageous new commercial for its Droid phone.  In this advertisement, Moto shows its phones being shot to Earth from stealth bombers.  This commercial is shockingly close to reality; as our video shows, bombs enabled with Motorola fuzes were actually dropped by Israel on Gaza from F-16s.  Click here to watch our video or click here to send it to a friend.

This is a big step, not only in the campaign targeting Motorola, but also a step towards incorporating Palestine solidarity within a broader “progressive” agenda.

>> Take a minute to thank Credo by clicking here!

>> Union members: endorse the letter here!

Here’s an excerpt:

Support for BDS has grown rapidly, especially since December 27, 2008, when Israel broke a truce with the democratically-elected Palestinian government and attacked Gaza…

In the best tradition of labor solidarity, South African and Australian dockworkers responded by refusing to handle Israeli cargo, and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) “call[ed] on other workers and unions to follow suit and to do all that is necessary to ensure that they boycott all goods to and from Israel until Palestine is free.”

Their action echoes the West Coast dock-workers who refused to handle cargo for Nazi Germany (1934) or fascist Italy (1935); those in Denmark and Sweden (1963), the San Francisco Bay Area (1984) and Liverpool (1988), who refused shipping for apartheid South Africa; those in Oakland who refused to load bombs for the Pinochet dictatorship in Chile (1978); and those at all twenty-nine West Coast ports who held a May Day strike against the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan (2008).

Since Gaza, the 2005 BDS call also been endorsed or reaffirmed by numerous other labor bodies around the world, including the trades union congresses of Ireland, Scotland and the UK; UNISON (UK); Transport and General Workers’ Union (UK); L’Union syndicale Solidaires Industrie (France); Canadian Union of Postal Workers; Canadian Union of Public Employees-Ontario; six Norwegian trade unions; and Intersindical Alternativa de Catallunya.

It is no accident that South African workers play a leading role in the BDS movement. They remember that Israel was apartheid South Africa’s closest ally. They agree with Archbishop Desmond Tutu’s observation that Israel’s treatment of Palestinians is “worse than apartheid.” They recognize that the Gaza massacre mirrors the infamous Sharpeville massacre of 1960, which gave birth to an international boycott against South African apartheid.

And a telling statement from Trumka himself:

“Sanctions alone cannot eradicate apartheid; that task is ultimately left to the people of South Africa themselves. But economic pressure and political isolation of the South African government can hasten the day when justice and freedom reign in that troubled land.” –Richard L. Trumka, June 23, 1987

>> Read and endorse the full letter here.

One of Motorola / Verizon Wireless’s latest ads:

From the US Campaign:

Tell the Department of Energy to sanction, not award, Motorola Israel
Stop your tax dollars from subsidizing Motorola Israel!

Last week, the U.S. Department of Energy announced that it will award $900,000 to Motorola Israel and SmartSynch for a joint project to develop an energy grid management system. The Department of Energy should not be rewarding Motorola Israel with this contract; instead it should be sanctioning Motorola for supporting Israel’s illegal settlements. Click here to send a message to the Department of Energy telling them to end their relationship with Motorola Israel.

Motorola “virtual fences” are used to support dozens of illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but this isn’t the only support that Motorola offers Israel’s occupation. Up until last April, Motorola also provided fuzes for Israel’s MK80 series of bombs. These bombs were used against civilians in Israel’s 2006 war on Lebanon and again during last winter’s assault on the Gaza Strip. Moto’s new advertisements for the “Droid” phone come startlingly close to showing this side of Motorola’s business. The commercial shows stealth bombers blasting Droid phones to unsuspecting fishermen, farmers, and motorists.  [...]

The encrypted mobile phones that Motorola provides the Israeli military also enable Israel’s regime of over 600 checkpoints in the occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem. Motorola “virtual fences” in Hebron facilitate settler violence against Palestinians. Many transmission towers for Motorola Israel’s subsidiary MIRS communications are built on privately- owned Palestinian land confiscated to make communication easier for settlers living illegally in the West Bank.  Tell the Department of Energy that they shouldn’t be rewarding Moto’s lawlessness in Palestine/Israel.

>> Click here to take action!

Updates available via Twitter: http://twitter.com/ProtestOlmertSF.

From the Press Release:

Twenty-two activists were arrested at Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s speech to the World Affairs Council tonight between 6:30 and 7:30pm at the Westin St. Francis Hotel (Union Square).  Inside the auditorium, activists began disrupting the event by placing Olmert under citizens arrest.  Every couple of minutes, more activists disrupted his speech, barely allowing him to speak, by reading the names of the children killed in Gaza last winter, reading from the recently published Goldstone Report, and displaying banners that read “Lift the Siege on Gaza” and “War Crimes are Not Free Expression!”  Activists were removed from the auditorium chanting “War Criminal!” and taken to the Tenderloin Police Station where they were held for citation, then released.  Ten additional people participated in the action but were not arrested.

Olmert ordered Israel’s brutal attacks on Gaza beginning in late December 2008, codenamed Operation Cast Lead. Last week, the UN Human Rights Council passed a resolution endorsing the Goldstone Report, an independent investigation into the Gaza operation, which found that Israel violated international law and possibly committed crimes against humanity.

“Israel is an apartheid state guilty of war crimes and its leaders should not be welcome in San Francisco,” said Lisa Nessan, a Jewish resident of Oakland, who has traveled several times to Israel and Palestine, most recently in May. “For the past sixty years, under leadership like Olmert’s, Israel has denied Palestinians their basic human rights, built settlements on their lands, and killed civilians – all to force them from their homeland.”

A lively protest also gathered across from the hotel in Union Square, where about 250 people carried signs bearing the names and pictures of children killed during Operation Cast Lead. Olmert is making several appearances in the US this month, and has been met with strong protests at locations including the University of Chicago and Tulane University in New Orleans. “We join with people around the world who believe that Israel and its leaders must be held accountable for their actions. Israel killed 1400 people during its attacks on Gaza last winter alone, and many more have died or suffered from the effects of siege, occupation, and apartheid on their daily lives,” said Monadel Herzallah, a Palestinian activist who lives in Fairfield and whose 21 year old cousin was killed in Gaza in January.

Organizers also expressed outrage that President Obama has ignored the findings of the Goldstone Report. The US has pledged more than $3 billion each year in unrestricted aid to Israel. “Israel’s use of US aid and military equipment violates our own laws,” said Rae Abileah, an organizer with CODEPINK whose father is Israeli. “Why are we giving aid to a country that is destroying people’s homes and attacking civilians, while our own nation is struggling with unemployment and underfunded social services?”

Eduardo Cohen of San Francisco sums up the sentiment: “The war crimes in the Goldstone Report are not an exception, but a reminder that Israel’s apartheid law is itself criminal. We must not only hold Olmert accountable, but all of Israel’s leaders, our own elected officials, and other companies and individuals that profit from these crimes. Only then can true justice be reached.”

The protest was sponsored by: Arab Resource & Organizing Center (AROC), Bay Area Campaign to End Israeli Apartheid (BACEIA), CODEPINK Women for Peace, Friends of Deiribzi’a, Northern California International Solidarity Movement, Middle East Children’s Alliance (MECA), South Bay Mobilization, Stop AIPAC, CAL Students for Justice in Palestine, US Palestine Communities Network (USPCN), Bay Area Women in Black, and the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network.

Additional Press Coverage:

• SF Chronicle
• San Jose Mercury (with photos)
• Electronic Intifada
• YNet News
• Mondoweiss

On September 22, Mohammad Othman was arrested by soldiers on the Allenby Bridge Crossing, the border from Jordan to Palestine. He is now being held in Huwara prison as a prisoner of conscience, arrested solely for his human rights work.

Mohammad, 33 years old, has dedicated the last ten years of his life to the defense of Palestinian human rights. He has campaigned with the Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign against the dispossession of Palestinian farmers and against the involvement of Israeli and international business in the violations of Palestinian human rights.

His village, Jayyous, has been devastated by the Apartheid Wall and Zufim – a settlement, built by Lev Leviev’s companies. These companies are facing a successful boycott campaign because of their violations of Palestinian rights.

Mohammad was returning from one of his trip to Norway, during which he met with senior officials, including Norwegian Finance Minister Kristen Halvorsen. Norway’s national Pension Fund recently announced that it had divested from Elbit, the Israeli company which provides both Unmanned Aerial Vehicles (UAVs) and other military technology for Occupation forces, as well as security systems for the Wall and settlements.

This is not the first time Palestinian human rights defenders have been arrested after trips abroad. Recently, Muhammad Srour, an eye witness at the UN Fact Finding Mission on Gaza, was arrested on his way back from Geneva. This arrest was a clear act of reprisal against Srour for speaking out about Israel’s violations of international law. Arresting Palestinians as they return from travel is yet another Israeli tactic to try to silence Palestinian human rights defenders. It complements the overall policy of isolation of the Palestinian people behind checkpoints, walls and razor wire.

Take Action!

>> Send a letter to the US Embassy in Tel Aviv, and the Israeli Consulate in Washington, DC, by clicking here.

>> Sign the online petition for Mohammad.

>> Join the Facebook Group to keep updated and spread the word!

Click here to read more about Mohamad Othman and how to get involved.