Pressure builds against Israeli farm products

Posted by Voice Reporter on June 24, 2011. Filed under International,Palestine. Posted with the tags:Boycott, Israel, Palestine
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AGREXCO is Israel’s largest fresh produce exporter and European markets account for the vast majority of their sales under the brand Carmel.

The Israeli government’s 50 per cent stake in the company as well as their marketing of 60-70 per cent of the fruit and vegetables grown in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank have made Agrexco a prime strategic target for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

Last week in Montpellier, France, over 100 activists from nine countries gathered for the first ever European Forum Against Agrexco.

Delegates from Italy, UK, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Germany and Palestine joined the French organizers for two full days of workshops aimed at strengthening the boycott campaign against the Israeli agricultural export giant.

Rafeef Ziadah, representative of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), recalled that the campaign against Agrexco includes all three components of BDS: boycott of Agrexco products, divestment via suspension of commercial agreements and sanctions through legal procedures.

Agrexco’s is implicated in a broad range of human rights violations, profiting from crops grown on stolen land, irrigated with stolen water and worked with child labour.

The meeting focused on two parallel tracks with the objective of ridding European supermarkets of Agrexco products: boycott campaigns and court actions.

Activists presented a review of the campaigns and actions taking place in the various countries, including lobbying retail chains and co-op member meetings, actions at supermarkets and trade fairs, airport blockades and Italy’s very first BDS flash mob.

In Belgium last May, over 400 people in twenty-two cities filed a complaint with the police citing Agrexco’s complicity with violations of international law.

In France, the new Agrexco terminal at the port of Sète became a catalyst for the movement, with a mass demonstration of over 1,500 people.

Campaigns are also under way in Sweden and Norway, who were unable to send delegates to the forum. In Sweden activists presented the national co-op with a dossier on Agrexco’s activities who promised to investigate.

In Norway, the campaigning instead focuses on the local importer, who is consulting their attorneys on the question.

Michael Deas, European coordinator for the BNC, underlined the importance of boycotting Agrexco as a company and not just the products it exports from the illegal Israeli settlements.

Aside from problems of traceability – Agrexco has been caught on numerous occasions mislabeling products or mixing settlement produce with that from the Israeli side of the Green Line – purchasing any Agrexco products means supporting a company profiting from the occupation and apartheid policies of the Israeli government.

The involvement in the French campaign of farmers’ unions, Confédération paysanne and Via Campesina, keeps the issues of sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty at the forefront.
Michael Deas also underlined the role Palestinian farmers unions have and can play in the campaign against Agrexco. In fact, Palestinian farmers unions were crucial role in helping to expose a propaganda stunt organized by Agrexco in France, claiming that boycotts of Agrexco products damaged Palestinian farmers in Gaza.

The discussion on legal campaigns, with the presence of three Palestinian attorneys from the Palestinian Bar Association, concentrated on possible court actions against Agrexco.

While several countries – Belgium, UK, Italy – are currently exploring legal action, the French case has already produced an important result.

An agent of the court inspected customs documents for the Agrexco ships docking at Sète and found clear cases of fraud.

A 2010 decision of the European Court of Justice ruled that products from Israeli settlements are not eligible for preferential trade tariffs under the EU Israel Agreement. Yet here were invoices for dates from the Jordan Valley declared to be “Israel Preferential Origin.”

This proof of fraud, from none other than a court official, will be vital to campaigns throughout Europe.