Scottish Government helped Israeli company deal with boycott "threatening future of Eden Springs UK"
Documents obtained by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign show how a subsidiary of an Israeli company operating in Britain turned successfully for help from the Scottish Government to deal with what the Israeli company called “a wave of protests...that is threatening the future of Eden Springs UK”. The contract cancellations had created a “pressing situation” for the subsidiary of the giant Israeli multinational water cooler company.
Documents obtained by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign show how a subsidiary of an Israeli company operating in Britain turned successfully for help from the Scottish Government to deal with what the Israeli company called “a wave of protests...that is threatening the future of Eden Springs UK”. The contract cancellations had created a “pressing situation” for the subsidiary of the giant Israeli multinational water cooler company.
The letter obtained under Freedom of Information legislation is from the Eden Springs’ Business Development Director to the Director of Scottish enterprise, and reveals a fear of the growing boycott of Eden Springs. The writer seeks a meeting with an official of Government-funded Scottish Enterprise to obtain “advice or assistance to stem undue harm” to the Israeli company, namely how to avoid further “termination of Eden Springs’ public sector contracts as a result of this boycott”. Read more
Over 1,000 Welcome to Palestine 2012 participants will try to travel to Palestine through Tel Aviv Airport on April 15th
UK citizens are sending this letter to their MP:
UK citizens are sending this letter to their MP:
"I am writing as a constituent to ask you to endorse the Welcome to Palestine 2012 peace initiative by a group of British citizens and other internationals who will attempt to travel to Occupied Palestine on April 15th to visit Palestinian civil society groups.
I will be supporting this peaceful initiative. Last July, by order of the Israeli Government, hundreds of people in European airports were prevented from embarking on their flights, and over 100 people were detained and imprisoned in Israel to prevent them travelling to Palestine.
A truly shocking letter from Ms Charmaine Farrow at the UK Foreign and Commonwealth Office advises the Welcome to Palestine 2012 organisers that the FCO ”are not able to approach the Israeli authorities to request that they do not hinder the passage of any British nationals wishing to travel to the OPTs” since “Israel immigration officials...have the right to refuse entry to anyone they wish. The UK's immigration is similarly protected.”
This is nothing less than a support of Israel’s right to blockade the West Bank, while it continues with its illegal settlement-building.
Only recently, (14 March) EU ambassadors in the West Bank reported a huge increase in attacks on Palestinians by Israeli settlers and the EU Observer reports that the “EU diplomats depicted settler attacks as part of a broader Israeli campaign to get rid of native Palestinians.” (http://bit.ly/w35HH1) This same conclusion was some time ago reached by Amnesty, Human Rights Watch, the UN’s Goldstone Report, and others.
It is surely unacceptable that the UK Government concede a right to Israel to isolate the people of the occupied West Bank from international links while Israel carries out its policy of dispossession and the introduction of Jewish-only settlements, in flagrant violation of any notion of justice, and the Fourth Geneva Convention.
The UK Government has a long history of violating Palestinian human rights, from British support for European Zionist colonisation from 1918 onwards, to our recent refusal to support Palestine’s successful UNESCO application.
Most voters across Europe and beyond hold negative views of Israel. (http://bit.ly/f2lm3i) Opinion in this constituency will not be different.
In giving their support to this initiative, the Palestinian Ambassador to the UK, Prof Manuel Hassassian, Archbishop Desmond Tutu and others write: “There is no way into Palestine other than through Israeli control points. Israel has turned Palestine into a giant prison, but prisoners have a right to receive visitors.” See http://www.welcometopalestine.info
Please:
1. support your constituents’ and other British citizens’ right to travel peacefully and openly to Palestine.
2. add your name to Archbishop Tutu and Ambassador Hassassian's appeal as a step to peace.
3. write to the Israeli Embassy asking that we be allowed to proceed peacefully from Tel Aviv airport to Palestine on April 15th.
1. support your constituents’ and other British citizens’ right to travel peacefully and openly to Palestine.
2. add your name to Archbishop Tutu and Ambassador Hassassian's appeal as a step to peace.
3. write to the Israeli Embassy asking that we be allowed to proceed peacefully from Tel Aviv airport to Palestine on April 15th.
You are very welcome to join us on one of the Welcome to Palestine 2012 groups flying to Tel Aviv on April 15 and asking to be allowed to proceed to Palestine.
Send letter from www.coordin8.org.uk
Send letter from www.coordin8.org.uk
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