Canadian retailer ‘The Bay’ drops Israeli cosmetic brand

Mondoweiss- ...And since when is it apolitical to support an occupation and the corporations that violate international law within it, and political to support human rights? It's a little too cozy for comfort that Hudson's Bay Company has saddled up with the buycott movement (http://www.cicweb.ca/) to put out their statement. Then again, Hudson's Bay Company is also best known for early colonization of Canada and at one point was the largest land owner in the world, controlling 15% of North American acreage. Bottom line: The boycott movement is gaining momentum and creating quite a stir in Canada and elsewhere.

...In January 2011, Canadians for Just Peace in the Middle East (CJPME, http://www.cjpme.org/) selected Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories settlement products as their consumer boycott target for the month. Previously Tadamon (http://www.tadamon.ca/) had organized protest actions against Ahava at The Bay in Montreal.

In response to the announced CJPME month-long boycott of Ahava, a local coalition calling itself “Buycott Israel” (http://buycottisrael.ca/alerts/actions/urgent-buycott-israel-alert-shop-ahava-at-the-bay/), apparently including such partners as the Canada-Israel Committee and The B’nai B’rith of Canada, called for January 11th to be a day on which its members would purchase Ahava products. When the “buycotters” arrived at The Bay’s retail outlets, they discovered that shelves were bare of Ahava.

...So what's wrong with Ahava products?

Ahava has been the subject of an international boycott campaign since June 2009 because the company manufactures its products in an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank. Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories is an Israeli cosmetics company that has its manufacturing plant and visitors center near the shores of the Dead Sea in the illegal Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Shalem in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank. All Israeli settlements in the West Bank are illegal under international law. The company is 44% owned by Mitzpe Shalem and another settlement, Kalia, so that the company’s profits are subsidizing these illegal colonies. Although its goods are manufactured in the West Bank, Ahava labels them as “products of Israel,” a practice that is illegal under European Union law and is currently being investigated in the UK and Holland. Read more