European Union (EU) guidelines on Israeli settlements have nixed the cosmetics company Ahava’s participation in a research project. The profitable Israeli firm will no longer receive EU funding because its main factory is located in an settlement near the Dead Sea. Ahava won’t obtain $8.25 million in EU cash it was expecting for a skin care project because of new rules on settlements scheduled to go into effect in 2014, according to a report by Bloomberg’s Jonathan Ferziger & David Wainer. The SuperFlex project was meant to create skin care products for the elderly, and two-thirds of the funding for the project came from the EU. It was set to begin next month. In July 2013, the European Union announced that “grants, prizes or financial instruments” will not be given to Israeli entities in the West Bank. The guidelines are only binding on the EU, though, and not on member states. While the economic impact of the rules are limited, and occupation critics point out that the whole ...

Israel is “pillaging” the natural resources of the Dead Sea which lie in occupied Palestinian territory in violation of international law, a report which singles out the cosmetics firm Ahava for criticism. According to the Palestinian human rights organisation al-Haq, the “appropriation and exploitation of Palestinian land and natural resources in the occupied Dead Sea area by Israeli settlers and companies … meet the requirements of the crime of pillage”. Its report, Pillage of the Dead Sea, says Israeli restrictions on planning and movement “have severely hampered the ability of Palestinians to use and access their land and other natural resources in the region. The presence of settlers who directly utilise and profit from the Dead Sea wealth has severely exacerbated this situation and contributed to the over-exploitation of the area, resulting in severe environmental damage.” Almost two-thirds of the western shore of the Dead Sea lies within the West Bank, which Israel has ...

(Photo: Boikott Israel-kampanjen i Bergen) Norwegian retail chain VITA made public on Friday their decision to stop all sales of products originating from settlements in occupied Palestine. VITA will therefore stop selling products from the cosmetics brand Ahava. VITA has been the main retailer of Ahava products in Norway, and this decision will be a serious blow to the sales of Ahava products in Norway. The principled decision by VITA not to buy products from Israeli settlements in the West Bank is based on a position of not wanting to contribute to violations of international law. This is also the position of Norgesgruppen, a company holding 49% of the shares in VITA. BAMA, another Norgesgruppen company has implemented the same policy regarding Israeli fruit and vegetables for several years already. more

DaitoCrea, Japanese agent of the Israeli cosmetics firm, AHAVA, announced on their Webpage that it has ended all sales of AHAVA products for what it attributed to “financial reasons”. Boycott movement said that decision is the outcome of direct action and protests. The company stopped all AHAVA sales starting on January 31, 2012. The victory was that of the persistent efforts of a 2-year campaign conducted by the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) that calls for boycotting all Israeli products made in Israel’s illegal settlements in occupied Palestine. The Forum added that its activists informed the firm, by direct action and advocacy, of the illegality of AHAVA goods and the suffering it inflicts on the Palestinian people. An Executive at the DaitoCrea told the Palestine-Forum campaign that the company had no idea about the background of AHAVA when they started dealing with them, and had no idea about the location where AHAVA products are made. AHAVA – Israel products are made in...

Fence around Mehola settlement (image from CorporateOccupation) A group of Israeli settlers from the Mehola settlement in the Jordan Valley, in the northeastern part of the West Bank, approached a Palestinian shepherd who was tending his sheep and beat him with sticks and clubs on Friday. Medical sources reported that 20-year old Mahdi Daraghma was admitted to the Jenin hospital with moderate injuries after he was severely beaten by a group of Israeli settlers. The settlement of Mehola is made up of a residential and an agricultural section, as well as a number of packaging plants in which Israeli settlement companies like Arava and Carmel prepare products for export. According to a 2011 report by CorporateOccupation , Palestinians from nearby villages are employed in the settlement and exploited: “Workers are paid from 60-80 shekels per day, half the Israeli minimum wage, and have no contracts or health insurance. There have been documented incidents of employers in Mehola falsifying...

The Natural History Museum is today accused by a coalition of prominent academics and cultural figures of helping to break international law by leading a research project which involves an Israeli cosmetics company based in an “illegal” settlement in the occupied West Bank. In a letter to The Independent, leading scientists and the film directors Mike Leigh and Ken Loach, condemn the London museum - which is the fourth most visited in Britain - for its research collaboration with Ahava - Dead Sea Laboratories (DSL), which sells beauty products based on minerals extracted from the Dead Sea. The museum, which has a substantial academic research team, is co-ordinating NANORETOX, a European Union-funded project looking at any risks to human health and the environment posed by so-called nanoparticles - microscopic engineered materials which scientists are developing for multiple uses from cancer treatment to double glazing. Ahava-DSL, which is one of a dozen institutions and companies invol...

Picket of Ahava store, Covent Garden, London. Ahava is an Israeli cosmetics firm that bases its operations around a settlement in the occupied territories. Round-up of boycott, divestment and sanctions action, posted on The Electronic Intifada. Holiday shopping-related actions took place around the world this past week as boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) activists encouraged shoppers not to buy Israeli products. And a group in California calls on the largest US pension fund to investigate its investment ties with Israeli companies and US companies that do business with the Israeli military. more

From the International Solidarity Movement 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 , 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” . The new findings prove that the company was given a license for excavating minerals in 2004 from the Israeli Civil Administration, which is the...

From BDS Movement On Wednesday, May 11 and Thursday, May 12, Ahava US, the U.S. arm of the Israeli cosmetics firm based in an illegal West Bank settlement, and @birchbox, an online cosmetics retailer, ran a marketing contest on the social media site Twitter using the hashtag #AhavaReborn, which is the slogan for Ahava’s current rebranding campaign. Members of the public were invited to submit beauty care questions with the lure of a prize of $300 worth of Ahava products for the best query. US group CODEPINK Women for Peace, which manages the Stolen Beauty Ahava Boycott campaign, alerted other BDS activists about the marketing campaign and suggested using the opportunity for a culture jam to subvert Ahava’s rebranding effort. What followed can only be described as a total disaster for Ahava. From early Wednesday European time and for the next 48 hours BDS campaigners flooded the twitter stream #AhavaReborn with hundreds of messages advocating the boycott of Ahava products. The BDS campa...

At the most recent protest against Ahava in Covent Garden, London, the zionist counter demonstrators were joined by the fascist, anti-Muslim, street fighting hooligans of the so-called English Defence League. Incredible but true. Thanks to Alex Seymour at palestinevideo for the video. In a victory for the BDS movement four protesters who were charged with trespass for entering an Ahava store have been found not guilty. See the story at the International Solidarity Movement

On the West Bank the Palestinian Authority has backed a campaign to drive settlement goods out of the West Bank and to discourage Palestinian labourers from working in these illegal factories. We can do our bit here in the UK. The ongoing campaign to shutdown Ahava is being stepped up: Join us this Saturday as we carry on with our campaign to shut down Ahava, a company based in an illegal settlement in the West Bank which sells its bloody products on our streets. Demonstrate this Saturday 3rd of July from 12pm to 2pm outside Ahava, 39 Monmouth Street, Covent Garden, London, bring some friends and help the movement for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions grow! blog: http://freepalestinefortnightlydemo.wordpress.com/ facebook event: http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=109200575795226&ref=ts

Video report by TheRealNews on Israeli cosmetics firm Ahava and the boycott campaign against them. After the Israeli attack on Gaza earlier this year, the international Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Campaign (BDS Movement) escalated all around the world. Now, activists are targeting AHAVA, an Israeli cosmetics company founded by and based in an Israeli settlement in the Occupied West Bank. The AHAVA company, as many others in Israel that are based in the Palestinian Territories or profit from their occupation are owned by the powerful Israel family - the Livnat family. The Real News investigates how the family's dynasty is invested in the economy of the occupation. J-BIG (Jews for Boycoting Israeli Goods) recently picketed the Ahava outlet in London's fashionable Covent Garden

This Saturday marks the start of the rolling programme of pickets outside the Israeli Ahava store in Covent Garden. Join Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG) at the first of a series of pickets/leafleting actions, planned by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions working group of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign , highlighting the sale of beauty products exploiting ingredients from the Dead Sea in Occupied Palestine. Other London-based PSC branches will mount pickets every Saturday for the next few months on a rota basis. Time: Noon until 3 p.m. Saturday March 7th, 2009 Location: 39 Monmouth Street, Covent Garden, London, WC2H 9DD Nearest station: Covent Garden, London Underground