European pension funds, Western universities, major labor unions, food coops, industrial companies, shopping malls… The boycott movement is growing every day in targeting the Israeli products that came from the Jewish communities of Judea and Samaria.
Literature distributed by the boycotters outrageously describes Yesha citizens as “parasites”. “Most of the settlers (nearly 60 percent) are not productive at all, that is how they could afford to participate in the endless demonstrations that led to the assassination of prime minister Rabin”, Gush Shalom intoned.
The leftist group has urged Israelis, the European Union, and anyone who will listen to boycott investments or products produced in any of the territory Israel won in the Six Day War.
Gush Shalom joined Quakers, European leftists, Jewish feminists, Arab-Americans, and even Israel’s old nemesis, the Arab League, in boycotting areas of Judea and Samaria under Jewish control.
It's because Yesha and Golan businesses are a respectable part of the Israeli economy with firms such as Oppenheimer and Ahvah, Super Class and Shamir Salads, Golan Heights Dairies, Ahava and Hlavin, Beitili and Barkan Brackets.
Most business is centered in Barkan (near Ariel), Mishor Adumim (east of Jerusalem), Atarot (northern Jerusalem) and Ma’aleh Efraim (Jordan Valley).
Barkan is now home to more than 100 factories, and this industrial zone is fully integrated with the Gush Dan economy, employing 4.000 Israelis who live in Petah Tikva and Herzliya as well as in Samaria (Barkan also provides jobs for several thousand Palestinians).
Shamir Salads are made in Barkan, Abadi cookies are made in Atarot, and Fried’s Blankets are manufactured in Ariel. Ahavah beauty products came from Mitzpe Shalom, Amgazit (gas equipment) from Kfar Etzion, Beigel & Beigel (pretzels) from Barkan, Har-Shefi (boxes) from Beit El, Palphot (photography products) from Karnei Shomron and many tefillin from Beit El.
The list includes Soda Club products made in Adumim, Hebron wines produced in Kiryat Arba, Achva Halva, Shamir Salads, Barkan wines and Rav Bariach products, all manufactured in Barkan.
Also on the list are products from the Golan Heights: Jordan and Golan wines, Eden mineral water, and Golan long-life milk.
A leading grower of organic food is in Itamar.
For a long time, the more than 100 businesses located in Barkan didn’t want to advertise the fact that they are located some 17 kilometers over the so called Green Line.
When Arab-American groups threatened to boycott Burger King because the U.S. fast-food chain opened a franchise in Maaleh Adumim, the Miami-based company quickly withdrew.
Now Barkan industrial park is Israel’s second largest. The park, which started in 1981, has been a popular spot for businesses and factories because it is off of Route 5 and centrally located to the rest of the country. Even on days when there were terror attacks, the park opened for business as usual.
In Kiryat Arba the Green Tech, whose motto is “Merging technology with nature”, invented microorganisms that eat iron filings, a chemical modifier that cuts and recycles rubber and a novel means of extracting the aroma from plants.
Another Kiryat Arba company which is considered a success story is Levgum Ltd. It has developed a means of recycling rubber tires and rubber waste using a chemical modifier.
The boycott has been an odious tool employed by anti-Semites against Jews throughout the ages. The targets are the Jewish people and nation, not the mere communities of Judea and Samaria.
Sabeel, the Palestinian Christian organization, sent around a list of Israeli products for the boycott. Their choice of companies to boycott reveals their extremism and hatred for the existence of the Jewish state in any borders.
They target L’Oreal, even though it is located in pre-1967 Israel in what has become known as the Israeli Silicon Valley, claiming it was built on the remains of an Arab village that was “ethnically cleansed in 1948”. They target Ahava products, claiming the company “steals” Dead Sea minerals, even though pre-1967 Israel included half of the Dead Sea’s western shoreline.
They target Teva, a company established in Jerusalem in 1901, 47 years before the re-establishment of Israel, only because today it is one of the world’s largest pharmaceutical companies.
They target Delta Galil Industries, located in pre-1967 Israel, and two associated companies, Sara Lee and Victoria’s Secret, only because Delta Galil is Israel’s largest textile manufacturer.
They target Sabra, only because it is Israel’s second-largest food company and supplies food for Israel’s army.
They target Intel, because its first development center outside the U.S. was in Israel, it employs thousands of Israelis, and its exports from Israel total over $1 billion a year.
“Every shekel to the settlements is a shekel against peace”, says a Gush Shalom’s slogan. Let’s overturn the saying: every shekel to the boycott is a shekel against the Jews.
The boycotters would like to see the entire Israel as the beautiful greenhouses of Gush Katif. Destroyed under dunes and hatred.