Activism

New report documents ‘war crime of pillage’ by BDS target Ahava

Dead Sea by David Shankbone
Dead Sea (Photo: David Shankbone)

new report by Palestinian human rights organization Al-Haq accuses Israel of “encouraging and facilitating the exploitation of Palestinian natural resources and actively assisting their pillaging by private actors” in the Dead Sea region of the occupied West Bank.

ahavareport

By financially subsidizing the Mitzpe Shalem settlement and permitting the extraction of Dead Sea mud by Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories Ltd., Israel enables these “primary perpetrators of the war crime of pillage,” placing it “openly in violation of its obligations as an Occupying Power in the OPT,” the document says.

The report, which has already attracted attention from media including the GuardianInter Press Service, and Australia’s Fairfax Media conglomerate, follows a chain of victories for the Stolen Beauty campaign against Ahava, part of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement, this year.

Over the summer, the United Methodist Church, the Presbyterian Church USA, and the United Church of Canada all voted to boycott Israeli settlement products, with Ahava highlighted as a prime offender at each denomination’s conference.

In July, Abigail Disney , a Roy E. Disney heiress and partner in Shamrock Holdings, an 18.5% Ahava shareholder, denounced the company.

“I cannot in good conscience profit from what is technically the ‘plunder’ or ‘pillage’ of occupied natural resources and the company’s situating its factory in an Israeli settlement in the Occupied West Bank,” Disney said.

“Because of complicated legal and financial constraints I am unable to withdraw my investment at this time, but will donate the corpus of the investment as well as the profits accrued to me during the term of my involvement to organizations working to end this illegal exploitation.”

Earlier in the year, a distributor in Japan and retail chain in Norway bowed to public pressure and removed Ahava from their inventories.

Ahava also faced public protests from British scientists and filmmakers, as well as European academics, who signed statements opposing collaboration with it by the Natural History Museum in London, European governments and universities, and the European Union.

The Al-Haq report echoes a similar one released in May by Who Profits, which traced Ahava’s supply chain to the occupied shores of the Dead Sea – and its profits to illegal settlers.

For campaigners, both publications are worth reading. Al-Haq’s is particularly useful for its overview of international law as it pertains to occupation, settlement, and pillage. A sample offers a brief corporate profile of Ahava (with footnotes and much more at the link):

The Israeli cosmetic company Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories Ltd. is located in the settlement  of  ‘Mitzpe Shalem,’ on the western shore of the Dead Sea in the OPT, and utilises the natural resources of the occupied territory. It is the only cosmetics company licensed by the Israeli government to mine mud in this area and offers an infinite range of products manufactured from the minerals and mud taken from occupied Dead Sea land next to the settlement.

The company, founded in 1988, does not manufacture for other companies or markets utilising other brands, and it entirely owns three international subsidiary companies in Germany, United Kingdom and United States. In 2007, Ahava’s annual revenue was 142 million USD. As of 2011, about 60 per cent of Ahava’s revenues were driven from exports mainly to European countries and the United States and the remaining 40 per cent from the Israeli market and tourism in the Dead Sea area.

Ahava’s shareholders also include Hamashbir Holdings (the investment fund of B. Gaon Holdings and the Livnat family), Shamrock Holdings (the investment fund of the Roy E. Disney family), which have 37 and 18.5 per cent of the shares, respectively.

Shamrock Holdings is involved in profiting from the Annexation Wall and its checkpoints through Orad Group, which manufactures electronic detection systems installed in fences as part of the Wall. In addition, the company also supplies Siemens traffic control systems for roads in the OPT on which only Israelis are allowed to travel, and Orad Group’s CCTV systems monitor the Old City  in occupied East Jerusalem.

Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories Ltd. also runs a visitor centre for tourism and sales promotion in ‘Mitzpe Shalem.’ Ahava generates approximately five times more revenue than all comparable Jordanian companies producing and trading Dead Sea products.

The settlements of  ‘Mitzpe Shalem’  and  ‘Kalia’  directly benefit from the exploitation of Palestinian natural resources, holding 37 and 7.5 per cent of Ahava’s shares, respectively. Ahava receives numerous tax benefits from the Israeli government, as most of the companies located in settlements in the OPT, but the taxes and revenues paid by the company to Israel do not benefit the occupied Palestinian population.

Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories Ltd. invests considerably in research and development on the therapeutic effects of Dead Sea minerals and mud on human skin. The company is working in close cooperation with many scientific Israeli and European centres and taking part in numerous EU funded research projects. In 2011, the company received 1.13 million EUR as financial contributions for its participation in a number of projects sponsored by the European Seventh Framework Programme for Research and Development (FP7). 

Ahava is currently the coordinator of the ‘Skin Treat’ project for the development of customised skin treatments and services and partner in the ‘NanoReTox’ project studying the risks of nanoparticles to the environment and its effects on human health. In addition, Ahava has also joined in the ‘Nanother’ project, whose main objective is to develop and characterise a novel nanoparticle system that will be used as a therapeutic agent or diagnosis tool for certain types of cancer.

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Oh, please, you just don’t understand “realities on the ground” the way Israel’s Supreme Court does.
Such outlandish words like pillage and plunder belong to old world order, when now the new world order belongs to Israel and they decide what it is.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jan/03/israeli-companies-west-bank-resources

Here in the UK Ahava and the largest Corporation operating in OPT Sodastream Ahava would appear to be in breach of the Cosmetic products [safety] Regulations 2008 section 12 [1] that regulation reads ” No person shall supply a cosmetic product unless the container and packaging displays the following in indelible, easily legible and visible lettering — inter alia “Where the cosmetic product is manufactured outside the EEA, the country of origin must also be specified”. [ The EEA is the European Union Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein.] I’m not sure how many European countries use “must” in their transposed regulations since the original Euro directive only said “may” but starting on 11 July 2013 as per Regulation [EC] No 1223/2009 the European Parliament on Cosmetic products Regulation require all European Countries, quoting Article 19 [on labeling] which states inter alia ” The country of origin shall be specified for imported cosmetic products”; Because AhavaUK Ltd put “Made by Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories Ltd, Dead Sea, Israel”. on their products this would appear to be a clear case of false country of origin, they are also in breach of the Consumer Protection From Unfair Trading Regulations 2008 [CPUTR] Regulation 5[2][a] false country of origin. In the case of Sodastream Their Main manufacturing base which manufactures their carbonating devices is in Mishor Edomin in OPT, yet they put in Hebrew on their labels “Produced by Soda Club, Gilboa street, Airport City Ben Gurion Airport 70100, Israel”. Which is a false country of origin Under the rules of the European Community generalised system of preference {GSP] the EC determine where goods originate i,e, not where they have been shipped from, but where they are deemed to have been manufactured.This company was involved in the European Court of Justice case in 2010 Brita GmbH v Hauptzollamp Hamberg – Hafen, case No C-386/08 25:02:2010, the verdict was goods manufactured in the West Bank Settlements cannot be considered made in Israel. In my opinion both Companies are committing criminal offences every day, For my part I have had communications with various Trading standards teams and it is quite clear they do not know the law or more likely do not want to prosecute, fortunately in this instance they are not the only people who can prosecute I attended Wirral Magistrates court on the False country of origin claim by AhavaUK ltd [Gloucester] earlier in the year as a “Litigant in person” as I am able to under the Prosecution of offenders act 1985 section 6. this is on hold while I find out the definitive reasons why the relevant Trading Standards Teams will not prosecute , I am at present waiting for a reply from Gloucester Trading Standards Dept on their opinion on this regulation and whether they are going to enforce it, my local trading standards team had a guess here….”No doubt the company will argue that they believe themselves to be in Israel and have therefore satisfied the requirement, however as the territory is disputed the sensible course of action would be to refer to the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs guidance on voluntary labeling of produce”. Therefore they have decided to refer the matter to the Trading Standards Dept where the HQ of Ahava are located in Gloucester, in my opinion Gloucester TS had better come up with something better than that opinion, by the way the DEFRA said in 2010 “The Government considers that traders would be misleading consumers, and would therefore almost be certainly committing an offence, if they were to declare produce from the OPT [including from the West Bank] as “produce of Israel”, this would apply irrespective of whether the produce was from a Palestinian Producer or from an Israeli settlement in the OPT, this is because the area does not fall within the Internationally recognised borders of Israel [DEFRA guidelines 2010]. I await the reply from Gloucester

Shows how much “love” they have for the land. They have completely ruined the countryside and have plundered the natural resources for profit.

The Dead Sea itself is shrinking because of all the water Israel takes out of the Jordan river system.

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2009/08/090826-deadsea-video-ap.html

Would the Palestinians consider being pro-active instead of reactive for a change by establishing their own cosmetics business?The Jordanians have tried but don’t seem to have the nouse.