Tadamon letter: Hudson’s Bay Company/Canada Israel Committee AHAVA release

Photo: Israeli apartheid wall cutting through Palestinian territories.

Bonnie Brooks
President and CEO, the Bay
Hudson’s Bay Company
hbc.communications@hbc.com
11 March 2011

Dear Ms. Brooks,

The purpose of this letter is to take issue with the content of a statement that you issued on 13 January 2011 referring to the decision of the Hudson’s Bay Company (HBC) to withdraw AHAVA brand skincare products temporarily from its store shelves. Available documentation indicates that the statement was “jointly issued” by you, the UJA Federation of Greater Toronto and the Canada Israel Committee (CIC). [1]

We are a grassroots collective based in Montreal working to advance social justice and improved conditions (economic, social, political) for the peoples of the Middle East. We give particular attention to the condition of Palestinians living in Israel/Palestine. In supporting Palestinians in their struggle for liberation and justice, we also support the call from Palestinian civil society organizations to advance a strategy of boycott, divestment and sanctions against the state of Israel until it complies with international law. We take issue with your “jointly issued” statement because it indicates that on the matter in question – the sale of AHAVA brand products at Bay stores – HBC chose to act with disregard for international law and principles of human rights. Further, in openly aligning itself with two organizations that engage in political advocacy in the interests of Israel, HBC is being blatantly one-sided on the Palestine-Israel question and, troublingly, choosing the side of apologetics for apartheid. We urge HBC to issue a retraction.

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08-03-2011 | Dexia in Israel announcement via Triodos Bank

Photo Israeli occupation soldiers arrest Palestinian youth at protest in West Bank.

Belgian bank Dexia has been excluded from the Triodos sustainable investment universe because of its ongoing financing of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.

Dexia Israel Bank (DIB), a subsidiary of Dexia, has financed Israeli settlements in the past. In response to shareholder and stakeholder pressure, DIB stopped new loans to Israeli settlements in June 2008. There are also indications that current loans are being withdrawn, although the longest maturity loan in the portfolio will not end until 2017. DIB’s actions have caused uproar in Israel and a regional council major in southern Israel called for a DIB boycott.

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evening of spoken-word & poetry during Israeli Apartheid Week 2011 in Montreal.

Sunday March 13th, 2011
doors 20h, $8-10
O Patro Vys
356 Mont-Royal east
(métro Mount Royal)
Montreal, Quebec
facebook event page

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press release Montreal, March 3, 2011

Photo Palestinian girl plays under Palestinian flag in protest against Israeli occupation.

Montreal will join over 50 other cities around the world in kicking off the 7th annual Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW), which runs from March 8th until March 15th, 2011. Events will be taking place at UQAM, Concordia, and McGill universities, as well as other locations. This year, organizers of this international week of events are celebrating the inspiring revolutions happening throughout the Arab world as a sign that justice may be within reach, even for the Palestinians.

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Spotlight on Filmmaker John Greyson brings together sex, penguins & Elton John

Monday, February 28th, 2011
Screening begins 19h00
Concordia University
Room H-110
1455 de Maisonneuve West
Montreal Quebec
facebook event page

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Boycott National Committee (BNC) Occupied Palestine, 17 Feb. 2011

Photo ActiveStills Palestinian youth in Sheikh Jarrah against colonies in Jerusalem.

The recent public exposure of a large number of documents related to the U.S.-sponsored “peace process” between Israel and Palestinian officials provides hard evidence, if any was needed, not only of readiness on the part of unrepresentative Palestinian “negotiators” to concede basic Palestinian rights, but also of Israel’s rejectionism and unwillingness to negotiate even an unjust and unsustainable peace. The leaked documents also reveal the arm-twisting employed by international “peace brokers” to compel – unelected — Palestinian officials to serve Israel’s expansionist and colonial agenda through the surrender of UN-sanctioned rights of the Palestinian people. It is now clearer than ever that the so-called negotiations were never based on principles of international law and human rights and never promoted just peace.

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7th annual Israeli Apartheid Week | March 8-15th, 2011

A week of conferences, workshops, film screenings, demonstrations, and cultural events to raise awareness around the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli apartheid.

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Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel PACBI Feb. 2011.

Photo ActiveStills Israeli military wire on Palestinian lands in Bil’in, West Bank.

The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) views with great dismay your upcoming performance in Tel Aviv, despite your acknowledgment that “what the Israeli government is doing to the Palestinians is disgusting” [1]. Furthermore, PACBI has learned that you intend to go one step further in your support of the Israeli state by meeting with members of the Israeli Knesset (parliament) on this trip. In doing so, you would be electing to serve directly the interests of the campaign to Brand Israel [2].

This is a campaign that has been launched by the Israeli government and promoted by institutions throughout the country and abroad in order to whitewash Israel’s violations of international law and project a false image of normalcy. To be sure, you have served this near-ambassadorial position for Israel several times in the past: playing at the opening of the Israeli consulate in Los Angeles in 2008 [3], and most recently visiting the consulate on request of its diplomats and releasing a statement declaring your support for Israel [4].

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World Social Forum. Dakar, Senegal, February 10, 2011

Photo: Palestinian flag in Dakar at World Social Forum opening protest.

In Dakar, Senegal the People’s movement Assembly on Palestine convenes at the World Social Forum (WSF) at a time of intense popular struggle in Palestine against Israeli apartheid, colonization and occupation, and for full implementation of the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people.

For the People’s Movement Assembly on Palestine hundreds have gathered during the WSF at the Palestine tent to strengthen, re-enforce and strategize on the growing global solidarity movement rooted in and lead-by the Palestinian popular resistance against Israeli occupation.

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Tadamon! supports candidacy of Dru Oja Jay for membership on the Board of Directors of Mountain Equipment Co-op in 2011.

Photo: Israeli colonies in the occupied West Bank, Palestine.

We agree with the many goals that Dru would like to achieve, not least his desire to strengthen MEC’s commitment to ethical sourcing. In this regard, what is especially important to Tadamon! is Dru’s goal to build on ongoing efforts to convince members of the Co-op to vote to prohibit the sale of products made in Israel at MEC stores in Canada.

This is in keeping with the call from Palestinian civil society in July 2005 for an international campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) in order to pressure Israel to end its policy of apartheid, its illegal occupation of Palestine, its war crimes and its human rights violations. As Dru puts it: “you can benefit from war and occupation, or you can be considered an ‘ethical supplier’, but not both.”

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