"Ahava's theft of Palestinian resources"
jay cannon
Stolen Beauty, May 18, 2012
Ahava’s Theft of Occupied
Natural Resources Finally Exposed
http://www.stolenbeauty.org/article.php?id=5831
After years of strenuous denial, Ahava
Dead Sea Laboratories, an Israeli cosmetics firm with its main manufacturing
plant in an illegal West Bank settlement, is
proven by documentary evidence to be in violation of international law through
its theft of Palestinian resources. This evidence was recently discovered by
Who Profits (www.whoprofits.org), a
research project of the Israeli Coalition for Peace, which documents corporate
activity in the Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Syrian territory.
Prior to this finding representatives of Ahava repeatedly claimed that the
company does not make use of natural resources from the West
Bank: "the mud and materials used in Ahava cosmetics products
are not excavated in an occupied area. The mud is mined in the Israeli part of
the Dead Sea, which is undisputed internationally".[1] The new findings
prove that the company was given a license for excavating minerals in 2004 from
the Israeli Civil Administration, which is the representative of the Israeli
government in the Occupied West Bank, and that the excavation site on the
occupied shores of the Northern Dead Sea is currently active. By making use of
mud that is excavated in the occupied area the company is violating international
humanitarian law (the laws of occupation), which prohibits the plundering of
natural resources from the occupied territory. Merav Amir, Coordinator of Who
Profits, said, "Ahava can no longer continue misleading consumers about
where they get the mud used in their products. This mud is from the Occupied
West Bank and is stolen from the Palestinian people."
Nancy Kricorian, the manager for CODEPINK's Stolen Beauty Ahava Boycott (www.stolenbeauty.org), an international
campaign against the company’s violations of international law, said,
"Ahava's CEO has been circulating a letter to retailers that we thought
was filled with lies, and now Who Profits has provided us with the evidence to
prove it."
The company is still reeling from the public relations setback of an explosive
new report [2] issued on May 5th by B’tselem, a leading Israeli human
rights group, which calls Ahava out by name as an occupation profiteer. Ahava
representatives have yet to respond to B’tselem’s report, and the
company’s reputation is now further tarnished by this just discovered
documentary proof of its violations of international law.
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[1]
http://www.jpost.com/International/Article.aspx?id=182493. See also:
http://www.codepinkalert.org/article.php?id=5548
[2] Dispossession and Exploitation: Israel’s
Policy in the Jordan Valley and Northern Dead Sea
http://www.btselem.org/English/Publications/Summaries/201105_Dispossession_and_Exploitation.asp
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