Don't Buy Your Dates From Israel

Don’t buy Israeli dates

The London-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) is urging people not to buy Israeli dates through an awareness raising project which includes leafleting outside mosques.
Dates have been Israel’s leading fruit export and account for about 15% of export from Israel into the EU. It is estimated that Israel produces over 10,000 tonnes of dates per year and the total income for Israel from dates in a year is approximately £80 million – the majority of which are sold during the month of Ramadan.
Illegal Israeli settlements produce Medjoul dates that are grown for export on stolen Palestinian land in the Jordan Valley. The Jordan Valley is a fertile area of the West Bank where Israel has been pursuing a deliberate policy of stealing land and water from Palestinians as well as demolishing their buildings and refusing to allow Palestinians to build structures such as irrigation ditches.
Israelis claim Palestinians are given jobs working in illegal settlements and a boycott will harm Palestinians. In fact Palestinians themselves have called for a boycott of Israeli produce because Palestinians are employed for poverty wages, and are given the hard and dangerous tasks that the Israeli settlers will not do themselves.
The PSC is providing campaigners with letters in English, Arabic, Urdu and Bengali to give to shopkeepers. The English letter says:
Dear Friend,
Please could we ask you to take two minutes to read this important letter for the sake
of our brothers and sisters in Palestine.

Palestinians are suffering as the Israeli state continues to steal their land and water,
and destroy their homes and lives. If we buy or sell Israeli produce, we are giving
money to Israel and helping Israel to continue its unjust actions.

Palestinians have asked people across the world to support them by refusing to buy
produce from Israel and its illegal settlements. Millions of people are already
supporting Palestinians in this way.

We are writing to ask you to respect the wishes of Palestinians in their just struggle
for freedom, equality and justice. So please could we request you not to sell Israeli or
Settlement produce in your shop.

(For more information on the call by Palestinians for support by not buying Israeli
and Settlement goods see htttp://www.bdsmovement.net/call#.T3nT-2EgdZE)

During Ramadan we would like to ask you especially not to
order or sell dates labelled from \'Israel\' or from the \'Jordan Valley\'.

The following brands should be avoided because they are examples of dates from
Israel or illegal Settlements:

Jordan Plains
Jordan Valley
King Solomon
Jordan River
Hadiklaim

Most Medjoul dates are Israeli. There are lots of different types of dates apart from
Medjoul. But if you would like Medjoul dates from Palestine which help Palestinian
farmers, they are available from:

*Zaytoun, www.zaytoun.org or
*Yaffa Limited, www.yaffa.co.uk or
*The Taste of Palestine, thetasteofpalestine.com