Categories: Consumer boycott
      Date: 12 02 2009
     Title: Feminists blockade Israeli state export company

Two days before Valentine's Day a group of 15 women have locked themselves to the gates of Israeli export company Carmel Agrexco to stop the delivery of Valentine's roses.

The flowers are grown in illegal settlements on Palestinian land and therefore constitute illegally traded goods. The women say that they will blockade Carmel Agrexco until they are cut from the gates and arrested.  Three women have already been violently arrested.

Emma Goldman, a member of the London Anarchafeminist Kollective, said

"Actions like this are a chance for us to show solidarity with the Palestinians who are suffering war crimes at the hands of the Israelis. This Valentines Day, women in Palestine will be struggling to piece their society together against the brute force of the occupation. The world did nothing as over 900 people were killed in Gaza last month. Carmel Agrexco, a state owned company, is at the heart of Israel's colonisation and exploitation of Palestinian land"

Carmel Agrexco is the largest importer of illegal settlement goods into the UK. The Valentines day period is one of their busiest as the company deals with large amounts of fresh flowers from Israel and the settlements.

In the UK Agrexco is known under the Carmel, Coral and Jaffa brands. The UK is the most important foreign market for Israeli fresh produce. Agrexco

exports a wide range of produce to the UK including peppers, tomatoes, strawberries, herbs, spices, flowers and avocados.

Agrexco is the largest exporter of settlement produce for sale overseas. Much of this produce comes from colonies in the Jordan Valley. Carmel Agrexco have had dealings with the colonies of Tomer, Mehola, Hamra, Ro'i, Massua, Patzael, Mekhora, Netiv Ha-Gdud and Bet Ha-Arava.

Previously there have been three blockades of this company stopping work at the factory. The company persistently refuses to press charges against

the activists because they are scared of having to prove the legality of their business in open court.

This follows from actions of 11th November 2004, when Palestine-Solidarity protesters from London and Brighton were arrested after taking part in

non-violent blockades outside the same company and 30 August 2006, when demonstrators blockaded the company for 11 hours and no arrests were made.

In September 2005, a Judge ruled that Agrexco (UK) must prove that their business is lawful. The acquittal of the seven activists before they were able to present their defence meant that the court did not have to rule on the legality of Agrexco-Carmel's involvement in the supply of produce from illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip.

 In September 2006 protesters blockaded the company again, Carmel refused to have demonstrators arrested because this would have lead to another

embarrassing court appearance where their business methods would have been investigated by a British court of law. Since then the depot in Middlesex has been the subject of sustained campaigning. This is the third Valentine's Day pickett of the premises.

The picket aims to expose this company's complicity in murder, theft and damage of occupied land, collective punishment, apartheid, ethnic cleansing, and other breaches of International Law to public scrutiny.