Outside a protest took place before and during the concert, along with a counter-protest organised by the Zionist Federation.  Present alongside the Zionists were ultra-right EDL-type counter-protesters with their assorted collection of flag combinations. Also shown were some placards of victims of Israeli oppression, as well as the famous J-BIG “It’s KOSHER to Boycott Israeli Goods” banner.

Some of the chants heard both outside (and inside) the Royal Albert Hall included:

“The settlements are out of tune with international law”

“The Apartheid Wall is out of tune with international law”

“The siege of Gaza is out of tune with international law”

It wasn’t too hard to find a concert-goer who decided to boycott the IPO’s concert. I’m sure there were plenty more, as someone who was inside, I noticed there were many seats that remained empty throughout the performance.

The first action took the form of a choral disruption. Afterwards several different groups of activists shouted and chanted at intervals throughout the concert.

The scene outside:

See the press release

We believe that our action was lawful and justified.

Today’s judgement illustrates the complicity of the authorities in allowing companies to profit from the occupation. Throughout the trial neither the Judge nor the prosecution challenged the assertion that the settlements are illegal in international law.

Irrespective of today’s judgement campaigners believe that they are still the victors. As a result of the collective efforts of activists, Ahava’s flagship Covent Garden store will close this September. This demonstrates the efficacy of grassroots action in creating real and tangible change. We call for mass participation in the campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, building a movement that can directly challenge Israeli apartheid and occupation.

Press contact: thewallmustfall@gmail.com

Background:

Ahava Blockaders Finally on Their Way to Court

Ahava: The Occupier Becomes the Occupied

Fifth Blockade of Ahava Shuts the Shop for Business

Ahava is an Israeli company based in settlements in the occupied West Bank . NO to goods from West Bank colonies!

See the London BDS blog for more details:

AHAVA IS ON THE RUN!

JCrap.com (the Jewish Chronicle) today posted the news on their website that the campaign against Ahava has scored a direct hit. The landlord, Shaftesbury PLC will not renew Ahava’s lease after over a year of regular fortnightly demonstrations and direct actions. The shop’s neighbours are also keen to see Ahava leave and most have voiced support for the BDS campaign against the company

Continue reading…

Protestors last night disrupted the British Olympic Ball to send a message to its sponsor, BT, to cut its ties with Bezeq, supplier of telecommunications services to Israeli checkpoints, military bases and illegal settlements in occupied Palestine.

As celebrities and officials arrived at Grosvenor House Hotel on Park Lane for the £500-a-ticket event protestors waved banners and shouted slogans in support of the boycott of companies that profit from, are complicit in and actively supporting Israel’s continued occupation of Palestine and the on-going presence of illegal settlements in the West Bank.

The highlight of the protest saw a pro-Palestine samba band emerge from a pink limousine at the red carpet entrance, causing great embarrassment to the organisers and drawing attention away from the celebrities and towards the demonstrators’ concerns.

Police arrived and were soon being aggressive with the participants in the peaceful protest – described as having a “carnival atmosphere” by one BBC reporter present – and attempted to force them away from the entrance. The demonstrators resisted this antagonistic policing but eventually took up a position near the massed press.

Later, after the police had departed, the cyclists taking part in Critical Mass arrived to block the street outside the hotel, join the demonstration and enjoy the samba music.

In January 2010 BT announced that Bezeq had “joined the BT Alliance programme with a Gold Partner status”[1]. Bezeq provides communications technology to the Israeli military in the West Bank and Gaza where violence against Palestinians is the norm. It also serves the checkpoints, which limit Palestinians’ freedom of movement around the West Bank. Bezeq reinforces and supports the expansion of settlement activity in the West Bank by providing telecommunications infrastructure for the settlements that are illegal under international law.

The company also insists that its employees have served in the Israeli army, effectively excluding Palestinian citizens from the workforce as almost all Arabs are excluded from military service in Israel.

BT pays lip service to its commitment to upholding human rights and supporting “an inclusive workplace, where people have equal opportunities and are judged on merit alone.” The affiliation with Bezeq, a company with an appalling human rights and equal opportunities track record, undermines these evidently empty platitudes.

The boycott of Israeli settlements and companies complicit in the construction of and support for these settlements is rapidly gathering pace in the UK and around the world as civil society rejects Israel’s illegal activities and disregard for human dignity and international law. Civil society calls on BT to cut its ties with Bezeq with immediate effect to show that it takes its ethical and moral commitments seriously.

The protestors call on civil society to boycott BT until it has terminated its ties with Israel’s illegal occupation.

More details on the RToP website.

Tadamon means solidarity in Arabic and these images show moments of strength witnessed in the Palestinian struggle for survival.

Moments following extra-judicial killings of beloved members of the community wanted by the Israeli government.

Moments in which people in the West Bank are forced to deal with their confusion and pain brought on by the Gaza war of 2008/2009 – combined with the Palestinian Authority clamping down on protest in the West bank at this desperate time.

Moments such as the bravery of children whose first language has become the politics of survival, out on the streets hurling stones at the wall following yet another bombardment of their cousins in Gaza.

Or moments of the villagers of Nilin and B’lin facing tear gas and stun grenades in their protests, held every Friday since 2004, resisting the illegal apartheid wall built on village lands.

There is a saying in Palestine that ‘to be Palestinian is to exist to resist’ and this essential stubbornness and refusal to disappear, this insistence on being continually present in the face of ongoing repression that interferes in every area of life, is a potent force in the demand for sovereignty.

The price of this is high, and people have been paying it since 1948. But there is no choice but to keep on paying it to resist is to survive.

I love and admire this Palestinian strength in the struggle for self-determination and the moments where dancing and joy overflow despite everything. I am proud to share some of these moments I was honoured to witness during my work in Palestine.

Tadamon Exhibition opens on the 3rd September 2010 at the Freedom Gallery, above Freedom book shop in Angel Alley off Whitechapel High Street. Nearest Tube Aldgate East. Map

The Tadamon Exhibition is open 12.00 – 18.00 Monday to Saturday and Sundays 12.00- 16.00 from 3rd September until October the 5th.

Freedom Bookshop
Angel Alley
84b Whitechapel High Street
London
E1 7QX

Pennie Quinton

http://penniequinton.org

In celebration of the recent court victory in which four campaigners were acquitted for blockading the Covent Garden Ahava shop in 2009, approximately 60 protesters gathered outside its doors in Monmouth Street, central London, to celebrate and continue promoting boycott, divestment and sanctions against the Israeli occupation. While demonstrators were met by the usual Zionist counter-demonstrators, on this occasion they arrived flanked by the openly racist English Defence League.

Ahava, the cosmetics retailer and spa outlet, manufactures its products on the illegal Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Shalem. It has openly flouted tax requirements by exploiting the EU-Israel trade agreement and violates UK DEFRA guidelines in respect of proper labeling. The campaign against Ahava supports the Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions as a global nonviolent means to challenge the Israeli Occupation of Palestine and the ongoing siege upon Gaza.

At the outset the small group of around ten EDL members remained close to the Zionist contingent of Ahava supporters, handing out leaflets. Over the course of the demonstration they began to take an increasingly prominent role, culminating with the unfurling of a flag of St. George and chanting “E-E-EDL.” This was accompanied by racist remarks towards a number of Ahava protesters who were of Asian/Middle Eastern descent. What was more surprising, and unsettling, was the apparent unwillingness of the Zionist contingent to distance themselves from the EDL.

Vice chair of the Zionist Federation of Britain Jonathon Hoffman was present and took no action to put some distance between the two groups. This comes only days after a recent report in the Israeli paper Haaretz claiming that the Board of Deputies of British Jews were not affiliated with the EDL and did not want anything to do with them. The stark contrast between the formal statement and the reality in front of the Ahava shop, in which senior members of the ZF stood along side EDL members, undercuts any public statements and underlines the racism inherent in the Zionists’ agenda.

The EDL’s history of far right opinions and racist chanting and abuse — as well as their violence and hatred towards Muslim communities — have earned them a variety of unflattering labels, including ‘fascist’. Jewish groups have long since been targeted by right-wing, racist and fascist groups, so to see the Zionists and the EDL united against Palestinians illustrates that as far as the Zionist Federation is concerned, the enemy of one’s enemy may become an ally no matter what they stand for. That they were welcomed by the Zionists may be shocking to some, but might also be reflective of their desperation for support in the UK.

This is not the first instance of the two groups coming together in support of each other. In the immediate aftermath of the brutal attack on the Mavi Marmarra flotilla by Israeli commandos in which nine human rights activists were murdered, the EDL joined up with Zionists outside the Israeli embassy in Knightsbridge to show support for the Israeli state’s violent actions.  In addition, the EDL marched to Downing Street two weeks ago with Israeli flags being held alongside British and St. George flags.

Despite their presence and the racist slurs they shouted at members of the Ahava demonstration, the protest took place without violence.  The verbal abuse hurled by EDL members and their Zionist partners was met with a series of police cautions. Numerous members of the public stopped to chat with Palestinian solidarity activists and showed support. A small brass band played music to entertain the masses and build a celebratory spirit as many people chanted for justice and for an end to the sale of Israeli and Settlement produce.

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17th August 2010

Additions:

Since the publication of the original report, a few points have been raised which are felt important to incorporate.

1) In noting that the event passed without violence, it is important to recognise there was no explicit physical violence. Racism is a form of verbal violence and must be acknowleged as such. Similarly, although no physical violence took place, the EDL did threaten physical violence to at least two members of the Ahava protest.

2) Regarding police cautions: There were a total of five referals for prosecution to the Crown Prosecution Service for racially aggravated offences.

3) Where the Board of Jewish Deputies have sought to distance themselves from the EDL, this must not be confused with the lack of efforts by the Zionist Federation at the demonstration itself to do the same. The  two are distinct organisations and must be considered and treated as such.

On the 9^th, 10^th and 11^th of August 2010, four protestors will appear in court facing the charge of aggravated trespass for having twice blockaded the Israeli-owned cosmetics shop, Ahava. Intending to prevent the sale of illegal settlement goods, the trial forms part of an ongoing boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign against the cosmetics shop and other consumer goods retailers which trade in products manufactured or grown on Israeli Settlements which have been recognised as illegal under international law by both the United Nations and the British government.

The London based campaign against Ahava compliments a larger international campaign against the company which mis-labels it’s products “Dead Sea: Israel”. Protests against Ahava have taken place in the US, Canada, Denmark, the Netherlands and France, with the French collective CAPJPO (Coordination pour une Paix Juste au Proche Orient) bringing the case against Ahava to French courts.

Irregular protests had taken place outside the shop over the course of 2009, including the first ever blockade in the midst of Operation Cast. In September 2009 two protestors went into the shop and locked onto a concrete block to prevent them being moved, in December 2009 the action was repeated.  However it was in 2010 that the campaign really gathered momentum and has seen protests take place outside the Covent Garden shop on a fortnightly basis. In addition, the actions have been supplimented by formal complaints to Camden Trading Standards calling for investigations, formal complaints to police, parliamentary questions and lobbying of MPs.

The campaign incorporates a wide number of organisations inclusive of ISM-London, Palestine Solidarity Campaign, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods, Jewish Anti-Zionist Network, Kings College Palestine Solidarity, and many others. What the blockaders set out to accomplish was what the government, Camden Trading Standards and the police have so far refused to do; stop the trade in illegal settlement goods. They are now due in court to prove their actions were justified.

In response to the forthcoming court case a large demonstration has been called for the 14^th August from 12 noon till 2pm. Bringing together concerned people to send a clear message regarding the ongoing trade in settlement produce and Israeli produce in general. More information on the trial and what comes from it will be posted in the forthcoming week so do look out for notifications.

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Ahava’s products are manufactured on the Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Shalem and where the factory is a cooperative integral to the settlement, consequently profits go towards making the illegal settlement financially viable. Where the Fourth Geneva Conventions state that it is illegal for an occupying power to transfer civilian population into an occupied territory, and that an occupying power must not appropriate natural resources from an occupied territory, Ahava’s business practices thus serve to violate international law. Additional information on Ahava can be found here.

Furthermore, Ahava’s business practices are due to come before the Russell Tribunal on Palestine which will next convene in London in November 2010. The peoples tribunal will place the company’s actions within the context of international law and consider its complicity in possible war crimes

The BDS initiative [7] was born in 2005 through a call by Palestinian civil society groups and organisations seeking a global non-violent means to challenge the illegal Israeli occupation of Palestine. It has been taken up by numerous groups and organisations internationally and has become a unifying global movement for those seeking justice for Palestine.

Ahava, 39 Monmouth Street, Covent Garden, London , WC2H 9DD