Original article at IslamOnline.
As their army is continuing its deadly blitz in the bombed-out Gaza Strip, Israeli farmers are reporting a wide-scale boycott of their produce by Arab and European countries over the Israeli onslaught in Gaza.
“We export persimmons, and because of the fighting a number of countries and distributors are canceling orders,” Giora Almagor, a fruit grower, told the Yediot Aharonot on Friday, January 16.
He said that many fruits shipments to Jordan have been cancelled.
“The produce stays packed in warehouses, and this is causing us massive losses.
“The longer the fruit waits in storage after sorting, the more its quality decreases. We also have to pay for cooling the merchandise that should have already left, and the cost in considerable.”
Many Scandinavian countries have also cancelled fruit shipments from Israel over the ongoing attacks in Gaza.
“It’s mostly Sweden, Norway, and Denmark,” said Ilan Eshel, director of the Organization of Fruit Growers in Israel.
“In Scandinavia the tendency is general, and it may come to include all of the chains.”
A number of British companies have also halted prospective deals with Israeli firms.
“There have been two or three small information technology companies who refused proposals by Israeli companies to do business,” Gil Erez, the Israeli commercial attaché in Britain, said Thursday.
British writers have also run articles calling for a boycott of Israeli products over attacks in Gaza.
In Turkey, the union of Turkish cooperatives has announced an embargo on financing purchases from Israel.
Malaysian traders have also spearheaded a campaign to boycott American and Israeli products.
It’s Gaza
Israeli farmers blame the world boycott of the Israeli products on the deadly Israeli attacks in Gaza.
“Until the operation began we had excellent business,” said Almagor, the fruit grower.
At least 1,143 Palestinians, including 355 children, have been killed and 5,130 wounded in a three-week Israeli onslaught in Gaza.
A 14-year-old Palestinian boy was killed early Friday and several people were wounded in an Israeli air strike on the Shabura refugee camp in southern Gaza.
Israeli planes also attacked 40 targets across the densely-populated strip on Friday.
Israeli tanks withdrew from the Gaza City neighborhood of Tal Al-Hawa, where clashes leveled parts of the residential area and set a hospital ablaze.
At least 23 bodies were pulled from the rubble in Tal Al-Hawa and elsewhere.
Israeli farmers warn that more world countries will boycott Israeli products as long as Israeli attacks in Gaza continue.
“It’s getting worse, and more voices can be heard calling to boycott Israeli merchandise,” said Almagor.
And the Palestine Chronicle reports that academics and artists are signing their opposition to Israel’s genocidal invasion.
By UK Academics – London
The massacres in Gaza are the latest phase of a war that Israel has been waging against the people of Palestine for more than 60 years. The goal of this war has never changed: to use overwhelming military power to eradicate the Palestinians as a political force, one capable of resisting Israel’s ongoing appropriation of their land and resources. Israel’s war against the Palestinians has turned Gaza and the West Bank into a pair of gigantic political prisons. There is nothing symmetrical about this war in terms of principles, tactics or consequences. Israel is responsible for launching and intensifying it, and for ending the most recent lull in hostilities.
Israel must lose. It is not enough to call for another ceasefire, or more humanitarian assistance. It is not enough to urge the renewal of dialogue and to acknowledge the concerns and suffering of both sides. If we believe in the principle of democratic self-determination, if we affirm the right to resist military aggression and colonial occupation, then we are obliged to take sides… against Israel, and with the people of Gaza and the West Bank.
We must do what we can to stop Israel from winning its war. Israel must accept that its security depends on justice and peaceful coexistence with its neighbours, and not upon the criminal use of force.
We believe Israel should immediately and unconditionally end its assault on Gaza, end the occupation of the West Bank, and abandon all claims to possess or control territory beyond its 1967 borders. We call on the British government and the British people to take all feasible steps to oblige Israel to comply with these demands, starting with a programme of boycott, divestment and sanctions.
By Artists Around the World
We regard Israel’s indiscriminate killing in Gaza as a crime against humanity. We protest against Israel’s exterminating tactics and offer our wholehearted support to the people of Gaza.
