Activism

Boycott campaign pays off as Oxfam suspends TV star Kristin Davis

ahava

Another sign that the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions movement is biting.

A few weeks back Code Pink announced a boycott of beauty products made by Ahava in the occupied West Bank: "Stolen Beauty." Code Pink targeted an Ahava endorser Kristin Davis (left). Now several news organizations report that Oxfam International has dropped/suspended Davis, a star of Sex in the City, as a spokeswoman because she serves Ahava.

Code Pink’s Nancy Kricorian announced the "Stolen Beauty" boycott campaign in the spring:

Mitzpe Shalem, built on occupied land in 1970, is an illegal settlement, as are all Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Ahava’s capture of Palestinian natural resources from the Dead Sea is, according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, a patently illegal use by an occupying power of stolen resources for its own profit.  To add insult to injury, Ahava’s labels claim that the country of origin of its products is “The Dead Sea, Israel”—this type of labeling has been decried by Oxfam, among other human rights groups, as blatantly misleading. 

You may recall that when the Israeli consulate had a "beach party" for Israel in Central Park a few weeks back, dragging in truckloads of sand, Code Pink protesters showed up in bikinis with Ahava scrawled on their tummies with mud. Says the New York Post:

"This has been a huge thing," one source told us. "Ahava has factories on disputed land. From Ahava’s perspective, they are not doing anything wrong. From an Oxfam perspective, Ahava is a polarizing company and Kristin shouldn’t be involved with it."

JTA sniggers that Oxfam’s honorary president is Mary Robinson, the former Irish president and friend to the Palestinians whose receipt of a Presidential Medal of Honor has the lobby’s knickers in a twist. JTA seeks to blunt the BDS moment by saying it’s "a safe bet that Kristen Davis has nothing to do with where Ahava cosmetics are produced."

Amazing how much denial there is in our country about a simple issue: illegal colonization. Hopefully, Davis will now sever her relationship with the cosmetics-maker, regain her platform with Oxfam, and further politicize the dispossession of Palestinians.

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