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18 juin 2010

The Karama campaign

What if the peaceful economic resistance was the most effective and consensual weapon in the Middle East?

Karama campaign backed by Al Karameh (dignity) fund was recently launched to organize the boycott of products from illegal settlements in the Palestinian territories in order to avoid the economic development of these settlements.

This initiative reflects the spread of settlements, already numbering 126 in the West Bank in defiance of international treaties and resolutions of the Security Council of the United Nations. However, those settlements are wealthy, partly thanks to the Palestinians themselves. Indeed, some studies estimate that the amount of settlements’ products sold on the Palestinian market exceeds 500 million dollars.
Karama campaign stresses the importance of a daily, peaceful and practical embodiment of the Palestinian and international rejection of settlements. Concretely, the movement-largely led by young volunteers- is distributing flyers listing the products at stake and informing the public of the merits of Palestinian boycott measures as a barrier to the colonization of the West Bank.

This new initiative has been publicly backed by the Prime Minister of the Palestinian Authority, Mahmoud Abbas on May 22nd. The latest highlighted that the boycott does not concern Israeli products but only settlers’ products, whose trade is now banned by the Palestinian Authority. As expected, Israeli reactions have been unhesitating. Yesha, the largest organization of settlers considered the campaign as “terrorist” while the Israeli Minister of Finance Yuval Steinitz saw in Karama an obstruction to the peace process.
Karama initiative could well cause a stir when in Europe, some associations denounce the import of products from West Bank settlements under the name « made in Israel » and when some governments require the presence of labels indicating the origin of the products in case of settlements provenance. Moreover, some major European companies suddenly feeling concerned about their image after Cast Lead operation on Gaza, seem now reluctant to invest in Israel. For instance, Veolia may withdraw from the building of Jerusalem tramway and Dexia intends to cease lending to settlers. Besides, numerous withdrawals of European funds formerly operating with companies involved in the building of the separation wall are expected.
Let’s highlight that at a European level, the EU/ Israel Association Agreement (article number 83) excludes settlements’ products from the tax advantages enjoyed by the products coming from the Israeli territory. However, this exclusion can be solved by the payment of the tax to which the Israeli products are not submitted and the EU does not forbid the entry into its territory to products from the settlements. The road to coherence between its political statements and its commercial behaviour is still long for the EU.

Karama initiative coincides with a growing awareness of an obvious tie between economic practices and political positions. Furthermore, this campaign is part of a dynamic of peaceful civic accountability and involvement of the Palestinian civil society for the removal of settlements. Such an information and boycott process, based on the will of consistency with international law and Palestinian claims shows the Palestinian Territories in the light of a new civic maturity.

L. Ricard