Dunnes getting around Israeli boycott?

by iosaf - i have always had a fondness for the strawberry Fri Dec 12, 2003 14:53

Strawberries have grown wild and been collected for at least 2,200 years. Latin poetical references to the Strawberry were made in c.230 BC! The little berry high in vitamin C, Folate and Potassium (K) actually belongs to the rose family and is indinginous to all continents except Africa.


The Levant is well suited to the cultivation of strawberries, and if you check the records available at the Web based Information System for Agricultural Research for Development, [WISARD] you will learn that the Nederlands played a rôle in supporting cultivation of Fragaria virginiana in both Israel and Palestine in the period from September 1998 until September 1999. The colloborating agencies being:
Israel - PCP ( Peres Center for Peace)
- PARC ( Union of Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees)
Netherlands - Min BuZa/ DGIS ( Directorate-General for International Cooperation

They hoped increased cultivation would assist the peace and economic prospects of the Levant region, in particular poor Israeli and Palestinian farmers. And hope to decrease Palestinian unemployment and so included training and education on IPM methods and product marketing.

http://www.minbuza.nl

The Dutch state described this project as "sustainable development", and their mission statement was:

"The Netherlands wants to combat poverty in a sustainable manner. This is the essence of development cooperation. Sustainable can mean a number of things. In the first instance, it means durable, in the sense that our efforts are aimed at ensuring that a country, city, village or people will continue developing on their own after the support stops. However, sustainable also implies that no harm is done to the environment. Any country that develops at the cost of its natural resources and healthy living environment must eventually pay the price. And that price will be more poverty.

Poverty has many dimensions - economic, social and political. It is not just a lack of income; it also means a lack of access to and control over means of production, insufficient participation in the political process and a shortage of social services.

To reduce poverty the Netherlands cooperates closely with:
· a limited number of developing nations (bilateral aid)
· development organisations (multilateral aid)
· non-governmental and civil society organisations"

So.... the Netherlands went and planted lots of Fragaria virginiana between 1998 and 2000. And in the second phase, control for the effort passed to PCP , Israel.
€€€€.
Q. ¿what do you think happened next?
well lots.

For example Beit Hannoun in North Eastern Palsetine lost it's strawberry fields in January 2003
see:
http://www.pna.gov.ps/subject_details.asp?subject_id=344

and well just as often as Palestinians lose their olives they lose their strawberries.

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Now the question posed above is "are Israel mislabelling export produce?". Well that question has been asked before, and indeed in connection with Fragaria virginiana. We may look back just a short while before the Dutch paid for the Palestinian strawberries though noting that they listed the project as being an Israel one.
http://lists.isb.sdnpk.org/pipermail/econo-list-old/1998-May/000888.html
there we read of a research paper put before the Eu that alledged "Palestinian goods produced or processed in the
West Bank and Gaza Strip were also being exported to the EU as if they
originated in Israel".

And it was _really cross_ about that, because: "Israel and the EU signed a trade agreement in 1995, called Treaty of
Association, which replaced the 1975 agreement, and calls for greater
liberalization of agricultural trade. The agreement defines Israel as that of
pre-1967"...."Israel's practices violate an agreement with Israel granting preferential
access to the EU, "since these territories do not form part of the State of Israel under public international law,".

and.... " research conducted in 1996 disclosed that "around 85 per cent of
the Palestinian carnations flower harvest and nearly 100 per cent of the
strawberry harvest is exported by Israeli companies, mainly Agrexco and the
Flower Board, to European markets. Until November 1996, despite thorough
investigation, the researcher has been able to locate very few Palestinian
private exporters who managed to export flowers directly, on a regular basis,
to Europe."





In addition there is "Trifolium fragiferum" which is known as Palestine strawberry clover, but is mostly found in Australia. & of course there is also Duchesnea chrysantha ( Rosaceae) known as False Strawberry, Mock Strawberry or Indian Strawberry. It's Japanese name being: hebi ichigo.

by Me Fri Dec 12, 2003 15:36

Do you boycott British goods? Nah, thought not. Still, Jews are
a soft target compared to the traditional enemy. So conveniently
far away, too. And of course the south doesn't trade much with
Israel anyway, so it's easy enough on you to be boycotting them.
Sure if you boycotted British goods, that's an action that might
have consequences! And God knows it would be rather incovenient,
too -- no more Man U strips, no more NME, no more Coronation Street
-- no, no; better stick to what you do best: sticking your noses
in whatever's going on far away -- and the further away, the better.


"Instead of finding their orientation in the actual social conditions
and their possibilities, the new leftists base their concerns mainly
on a set of ideologies that have no relevance to the requirements of
social change in capitalist nations. They find their inspiration
not in the developmental processes of their own society but in
the heroes of popular revolution in faraway countries, thereby
revealing that their enthusiasm is not as yet a real concern for
decisive social change."


--Mattick, Anti-Bolshevik Communism, vii.

by kokomero Fri Dec 12, 2003 16:17

it was extremely effective and the South Africans now
have a black president they can be proud of.

I have also boycotted Israeli goods since the same time
hoping that the campaign would gain some strength.

It doesn't matter how far away despotic regiemes are,
and it shouldn't be an excuse for doing nothing!

BTW the British have been on to Israeli deception in the form
of mislabeling for some time and are in the process of
recovering excise duties payable on mislabeled goods, our
govenrment will doubtless follow suit although for their own
right wing fiscal reasons.

by Socialist Sun Dec 14, 2003 00:57

We are not anti semitic merely anti zionist.
Zionists are only a tiny minority of the jews in the world. Zionism is a fascist creed no better or different from Nazism. The antisemitic card is always played as Zionists try to exploit the suffering of the jewish people by using it. Zionism is racism Jenin is no different from the Warsaw ghetto. The Palistinian people suffer from state sponsered Zionist terror just like the Jews suffered at the hands of the nazis. And now just like the nazis turned Cracow into a ghetto you build a wall around Palistine turning the land into one big ghetto. So why dont you crawl back into the nazi rat hole you came out of.

by avi H. Sun Dec 14, 2003 18:59

95% of Jews are Zionists, at the last reliable estimate. By the way, if Ireland boycotts Israel, why can't Israel boycott Ireland?

by captain boycott Sun Dec 14, 2003 20:53

Of course Israel should boycott Ireland .... sure we're all a bunch of palestinian sympathising "anti-semites" ...... we clearly deserve to be punished .....

Maybe ye should go even further and drop one of those carefully hoarded nuclear bombs on Ireland ..... just a deterrent of course ... so that all those other naughty-boy "anti-semites" everywhere else finally come to their senses .....................

by Ali H. Mon Dec 15, 2003 11:00

Sharon the war-criminals fan-club? The membership of the
Mossad assassination squad in the Israeli embassy?

by Statto Mon Dec 15, 2003 17:58

"95% of Jews are Zionists, at the last reliable estimate. By the way, if Ireland boycotts Israel, why can't Israel boycott Ireland?"
Another survey has that 49% of Jews are atheists.

And I like what a wiser man than me said.
"If you want to end today's 'anti-Semitism' against Jews, end Zionism's 'anti-Semitism' against Palestinians."

by Gaillimhed Wed Dec 17, 2003 13:18

.

by kokomero Wed Dec 17, 2003 22:15

Israel is welcome to boycott Ireland any time.

I'm sure the bacon factories will really hurt.

Seriously though, Israel has much more to loose so boycott them .

When they have nowhere left to export to they'll have to give up their nukes and make peace or go bankrupt!

by james Wed Dec 24, 2003 14:50

So what is the conclusion with the strawberries? Im in Norway and have encountered these strawberries but labelled as Israeli, so naturally I wouldnt touch them with a barge pole. I have a set of labels I carry withme when I go shopping and when every I find a display of Israeli goods I put my labels on calling for a boycott to support palestine. Based on the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Org.'s BIG campaign. Also worked wonders in getting superquinn to stop selling packaged herbs from the israelis
Has anyone noticed the christmas present gaza got from sharon yesterday? Another 8 innocent lives obliterated.

by Ron Fri Jan 20, 2006 05:24

Socialist,
There are 15 millions Jews live in the world. 5.5 of whom live in israel. 99.5% from Israeli Jews are Zionists.
In North America live a little less than 6 million Jews. Amongst whom, at lease 50% will declare themselves Zionist.
In Europe live 1.2 million Jews. mainly in Western Europe. 90% of French Jews are Zionist. Just these are about 70% of the world's Jewery. They are Zionists.
Zionists means they believe the Jews has right to an independant state of their own, and that should be placed in the middle east in a spot called Israel. Used to be called before Palestina in latin. Used to be called before Ivdea in latin (pronaunce Judea).

James,
in the last few weeks Sharon is in coma. Means that nothing people in Gaza gets comes from him.