Women support the boycott of Israeli products in Rainbow Grocery as an anti-war action

 

As women who shop for food for ourselves and our family, we are supporting the call for a boycott of Israeli products as a peaceful and effective way of opposing the policies of the government of Israel and their allies in Washington DC which fund and arm them. The boycott is also an action to prevent war in Iraq as any war would aim to establish Israel as the only power in the Middle East, protecting US economic and political interests, beginning with oil, the prime source of global warming.  Since 1967 the US has spent $15, 068,493 every day on aid to Israel, much of which has gone to building up the Israeli military.[1]   We are therefore deeply dependent on Palestinian people’s struggle against Israeli occupation and military onslaughts in our battle to prevent Bush’s war with no end.  The situation is urgent.  Violence grows each and every day and we must do everything in our power to prevent a war. 

 

Many around the world have taken up the boycott of Israel.  As well as Israeli goods, the boycott includes tourism, sports, trade and arms agreements, art and academia. The boycott against apartheid was a way of people internationally acting in support of the anti-apartheid movement within South Africa and was a key element in bringing an end to apartheid.  Typically, the only industrial country that traded with apartheid South Africa was Israel.  Through the Israeli boycott we act in support of people in Palestine, starting with women and children who have been the majority of victims, and of the growing peace movement in Israel led by women and including army “refuseniks” who are opposing the occupation. 

 

For many decades now, Rainbow has taken a lead in our community providing organic, non-toxic products.  In addition to non-polluted food, Rainbow provides many ‘free trade’ products.  Rainbow is an outgrowth of a social movement for greater access to holistic health and well-being and for protecting the environment in a socially conscious way.  Community members who shop at Rainbow assume the food and products in the co-op are not the result of exploitation of other people and the environment around the world.  Good health cannot be compatible with hunger, war and environmental devastation. 

 

We urge Rainbow not to move away from its historical principle of standing for social justice, and to support the call by the Palestinian people to boycott products made in Israel.  

 

Below are some facts that we have gathered to inform ourselves and to bring out the situation of women where possible, as this is so often invisible.

 

October 2006

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Fact sheet supporting a boycott of Israeli products

 

The occupation:

 

·          In 1948 Israel was awarded 78% of the land [of historic "Palestine"] "mostly as a result of a UN partition and partly by force" [2]

·           

·          40% of the 22% of remaining land has been confiscated by settlements and by roads isolating them.  Almost a third of these settlements have been built SINCE the Oslo Accord in 1967.

 

·          Israel has ignored all of the numerous resolutions of the UN Security Council since 1967 calling for an Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories [the Gaza strip and the West Bank (including East Jerusalem)].  Of course Bush is not calling for a war on Israel for ignoring UN resolutions.[3]

 

·          There are now 190 settlements in the Occupied Territories, housing 403,240 armed settlers on stolen Palestinian land.  All of this construction is built on prime locations, controlling, for example, 83% of all water resources.[4] 

 

·          In the same tradition as Native American people in the US, 5 million Palestinian people[5] have been forced off their lands and live as refugees in areas like bantustans in apartheid South Africa. 

 

·          Palestinians live in a state of military closure and siege, with travel restrictions, curfews with randomly changing times, loss of homes and land, closed schools, tanks and armoured personnel carriers around homes and neighbourhoods and a dense network of military checkpoints and road blocks.  Denial of access to health care including attacks on ambulances carrying sick and injured people has resulted in injury and death, including of pregnant women and newborn children.[6]  In Jayyous where the military has built a huge militarized wall through the town, the mayor says the town will lose access to 80% of its 18,000 olive trees and 50,000 citrus trees.[7]

 

·          “Israelis get between five and seven times as much water as Palestinians . . . Israelis get 350 litres per person per day [pppd], whilst Palestinians get 70 litres pppd.  The minimal quantity of water recommended by the World Health Organisation for household and urban use alone is 100 litres pppd. . . . In practice, this means settlers get their swimming pools topped up whilst Palestinian villages only a few miles away don't have enough water for drinking and eating."  [8]

 

Violence and Poverty:

 

·          Since the recent invasion in March 2002 no one can establish the numbers of dead and injured by army violence, as Israel continues to deny access to medical personnel.  But from Sept 28, 2000 until March 29^th 2002 at least 1,300 Palestinians have died and around 27,000 were injured by the military.[9]

 

·          "According to a US government survey, more than half of all Palestinian children suffer from malnutrition, including chronic malnutrition defined as stunted growth." [10] 

 

·          75% of the Palestinian population living in the Occupied Palestinian Territories live below the poverty line ($2.00 per person per day).[11] 

 

·          "While military spending has risen, about 20% of Israelis now live below the official poverty line, including 531,000 children; 1.1 million people are on welfare and many more "in distress".  Foreign investment has fallen; tourism has collapsed, unemployment is over 10% and the begging bowl is once again extended to Washington." [12]

 

·          The greatest attack on Palestinian women is the slaughter of their children. Palestine women shoulder the main responsibility of nurturing and taking care of children, many of whom are regularly shot at and killed by the military and verbally harassed, threatened, traumatised and beaten by settlers who treat them in a savage, racist way. [13] 

 

·          The work of putting people’s lives back together after death and destruction, and dealing with hunger and poverty is largely done by women.  This burden has increased enormously as a result of the latest Israeli military onslaughts.

 

·          Rape and sexual abuse are  systematically used by soldiers, guards and settlers to persecute and torture women and girls in neighbourhoods, in detention and elsewhere. 

 

·          Curfews mean that children are imprisoned in small houses for days on end unable to go outdoors.

 

·          In September 1982, hundreds of Palestinian civilians, including women and children were massacred in the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatila by Israeli forces headed by the current president of Israel, General Ariel Sharon.[14]  There are calls for Sharon to be tried for war crimes.

 

Other key facts

 

·          In 1933 the Zionist leadership made secret pact with Hitler’s German government to transfer 60,000 German Jews and their assets to Palestine.  In exchange, the Zionists undermined the world-wide Jewish-led boycott of German goods which threatened to topple the Hitler regime in its first year. The Zionists agreed to trade in German goods thereby knowingly enriching the German economy and contributing to military recovery to the extent that it was strong enough to start the second world war.  Six million Jewish people and many millions of others died during this war. [15]

·           

·          The Jewish and Christian fundamentalists began a coalition in 1978 with the publication by Likud (Sharon’s party), to encourage fundamentalist churches to give their support to Israel.[16]