Israeli peace group launches boycott, defying ban

Jul 12, 2011, 16:12 GMT

Tel Aviv - An Israeli peace group launched a boycott of products from Jewish settlements Tuesday - in the wake of a controversial Israeli law banning such actions.

A coalition of allied groups also said they would ask Israel's supreme court to overturn the law, passed by the country's parliament in a 47-38 vote late Monday after hours of debate.

The law makes calling for a boycott against Israel a civil offence.

Settlers can now demand damages from anyone who makes a public call for a boycott against buying their products.

Peace Now responded Tuesday with a boycott against a series of items, including wine from the Psagot settlement near Ramallah, mushrooms from the Tkoa settlement near Bethlehem, and olive oil from an unauthorized outpost.

It was the first time in the Israeli peace movement's 33-year-history. Peace Now has previously refrained from launching boycotts of settlement products, to avoid alienating the Israeli public.

Peace Now set up a Facebook group under 'So Sue Me, I'm Boycotting the Settlements,' with almost 4,000 likes in 12 hours.

'We've never done a boycott of settlements. We are doing this now because of the boycott law,' Etai Mizrav, an organizer of the Peace Now campaign, told the German Press Agency dpa.

'The moment they decided to shut mouths, we decided it is time to tell the Israeli public, that whoever supports settlements, supports Israel's isolation and harms the state.'

A few dozen leftwing Israeli activists gathered in front of Tel Aviv's District Court to announce the boycott. A handful of notable Israelis, including former education minister Yossi Sarid of the left-liberal Meretz party, signed the public boycott call, despite the risk of law suits by settlement companies.

Physicians for Human Rights Israel, the Adalah Legal Centre for Arab Minority Rights, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI), the Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI) and Coalition of Women for Peace earlier said they would submit a petition to the supreme court in Jerusalem against the 'unconstitutional' law in the coming days.

Idan Ring, a spokesman,said the law violated the rights especially of Palestinian residents of East Jerusalem, as it in essence compelled them to 'cooperate' with the Israeli occupation.

Israel annexed East Jerusalem following the 1967 war in which it captured the West Bank from Jordan and the Gaza Strip from Egypt. More than a decade later, it extended Israeli law over it, meaning residents of the city's eastern part are bound by it. By contrast, Israeli law does not apply to Palestinians living in the West Bank.

'It is really absurd that victims of the occupation' should be paying damages to the occupiers, if they organize a boycott of settlement products, Ring told dpa.

Some 35 members of the 120-seat Knesset abstained or were absent for the vote on Monday, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and nine ministers of his 30-member cabinet.

The five-seat Independence faction of Defence Minister Ehud Barak, who insisted the law was 'worthy' but warned it would harm Israel, also abstained.

Kadima, the largest opposition party with 28 seats, opposed, with centrist opposition leader Tzipi Livni blasting the 'bad' law as 'unjust,unconstitutional' and hushing up 'a legitimate debate in Israel.'

But many of Netanyahu's nationalist, 27-member Likud party voted in favour.

The bill was passed despite a warning by the chamber's legal adviser about it being unconstitutional because it violates freedom of expression.

Israel's attorney general, by contrast, insisted the law was constitutional.

Lawmaker Otniel Schneller, from a settlement outside Jerusalem, defended the law, although he abstained.