Overview
CODEPINK's Stolen Beauty is a boycott campaign
against Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories and its products.
Ahava markets its products, including Dead Sea mineral
bath salts, as “Made in Israel,” with the
slogan “This Leaf has Nothing to Hide.” But
in fact its products are manufactured in a factory compound
located in an illegal settlement in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories, and it uses resources stolen from Palestinian
land, in direct contravention of international law.
CODEPINK calls on all people of conscience
to join our boycott against Ahava.
The goals of CODEPINK's Stolen Beauty campaign
are to hold Ahava accountable for its profiteering and
breaching of international law, to educate our communities
about the ongoing occupation of Palestine, and to build
public support for a just and sustainable peace for
both Israelis and Palestinians. CODEPINK takes no position
on a one-state or two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian
conflict, and believes all parties should respect international
law, including relevant UN Security Council resolutions
and the Geneva Convention.
Background of the campaign
- In 2005 a broad group of Palestinian Civil Society
groups called for an international movement for Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) for Palestine and against
Israel's violations of Palestinian human rights
and international law.
- In 2009 a group of Jewish and Palestinian citizens
of Israel joined the movement by announcing they were
“supporting
the Palestinian BDS call from within” and
calling on people around the world to support the
BDS Movement as a way to pressure Israel into compliance
with international law.
- The Israeli
Coalition of Women for Peace, a coalition with
whom CODEPINK has partnered on a recent fact-finding
trip to Israel, has identified Ahava as a company
directly benefiting from the occupation of the Palestinian
West Bank, and whose practices are against international
law (see their Who
Profits website for more information.
- Boycotting Ahava offers CODEPINK a way to join the
International Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement
to make the illegal occupation of the Palestinian
territories less profitable.
- Worldwide support for the boycott movement is growing,
following Israel's brutal assault of Gaza in January
killed more than 1,300 Gazan civilians, injured 5,300,
destroyed approximately 4,000 homes and displaced
50,000 people into temporary U.N. shelters, creating
what UN officials called a "catastrophic situation."
- The boycott is more urgent than ever now, in the
face of Israel's 21-month ongoing blockade of Gazan
borders (which forbids most food, medicine, aid and
reconstruction materials from passing through), Israel's
continued demolition of Palestinian homes in East
Jerusalem, building of settlements in occupied lands,
and the land appropriations and violent repression
in the West Bank.
- Ahava products are widely stocked in cosmetics stores
and pharmacies and are very well known, making the
company an easy-to-recognize and influential target.
About Ahava:
- Ahava, formally Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories (www.ahava.co.il),
is a privately held Israeli cosmetics company that
manufactures products using minerals and mud from
the captured natural resources of the Dead Sea in
the occupied Palestinian territories.
- Ahava products are labeled as of 'Israeli origin,'
however the company's main factory and its visitors'
center are located in the Israeli settlement of Mitzpe
Shalem in the Occupied Territory of the Palestinian
West Bank.
- According to international public law, including
the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions, the
West Bank cannot be considered to be part of the State
of Israel. Thus, this labeling is false and illegal.
- This also means Ahava profits by stealing, manufacturing
and selling resources from Palestine: because it harvests
minerals from mud pulled from the Dead Sea, from the
Occupied West Bank (Palestinian) land, it is technically
stealing resources. The fourth Geneva Convention explicitly
forbids an occupying power from removing the captured
natural resources for its own use, and we see this
as another charge for which this company should be
held accountable.
Ahava's use of Sex in the City star Kristin
Davis as its spokeswoman makes its hypocrisy an even
more noteworthy target: Davis is also a spokeswoman
for Oxfam, which has repeatedly decried Israeli depredations
in Palestine and has been particularly vocal about the
fraudulent claims made by some Israeli companies that
their products are “Made in Israel” when they
are produced in Occupied Palestine.
For more information:
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