Israeli supermarkets boycott Turkish products

[Jigs]

http://www.hurriyetdailynews.com/n.php?n=israeli-supermarkets-boycott-turkish-products-2010-06-14

Monday, June 14, 2010
ISTANBUL - Hürriyet Daily News


As the rift between Turkey and Israel widens in the aftermath of the deadly Israeli assault that killed eight Turks and one Turkish American, several supermarket chains in Israel decide to boycott Turkish goods. The ‘Mega’ and ‘Rami Levy’ supermarkets announce they will stop using Turkish products in goods that bear their own private label


Several local supermarket chains in Israel have decided to boycott Turkish goods due to the growing rift between the two countries. The Blue Square firm, which operates the “Mega” supermarket chain in Israel, and Rami Levy, who owns an eponymous chain of stores, have decided to look elsewhere for pasta and flour products among others, reported Israel daily Haaretz on Monday.

The boycott comes after Israeli forces attacked a Turkish aid flotilla headed for the Gaza Strip, killing eight Turkish activists, another who was a U.S. citizen of Turkish decent and injuring dozens on May 31. Tens of thousands of Turkish citizens took to the streets to protest Israel, and government officials, including Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, have accused Israel of state-sponsored terrorism.

"For reasons of ideology and conscience, it would be unacceptable for us to do anything when the Turkish people behave this way. This is the minimum that we can do," Rami Levy was quoted by Haaretz.

May cost nearly $100 million

The decision to boycott Turkish goods is predicted to cost Turkish companies $93 million in sales, according to a report by Channel 10 news in Israel.

"When I see Turkey's behavior toward Israel this makes me oppose them. I want to give them a taste of their own medicine,” Levy was quoted as saying by Arutz Sheva news.

Supersol, currently the largest retail chain in Israel, said on Sunday that it is also evaluating its relationship with Turkish firms.

Blue Square said its business relationships with Turkish companies have been suffering for over a month. Both Blue Square and Rami Levy have said they would stop using Turkish products in goods they sell that bear their own private label.

"The Mega chain is heeding the voice of the public and has decided to stop importing pasta and flour products from Turkey under its own label and will seek alternative sources for its products," Blue Square announced.

However some Turkish products that are under their own brand name will remain on the shelves. This has drawn criticism from other supermarket chains.

"Rami Levy has many products on his shelves that are made in Turkey, under different brands. If he really is boycotting Turkish items, he should not only remove products from Turkey under his private label," Rafi Sheffer, the chief executive of Brand For You, a competitor of Levy, told Haaretz.

 

[Frankenstein]

What harm can that tiny terrorist State do by banning few goods, such little things can be neglected, but if Turkish Ban's Israeli Products then It will be a loss

 

[T-pain]

harm whether little or large is harm....

 

[TechLahore]

A tiny population of 4 or 5 million people not buying Turkish products pales in comparison to the benefits accruing to Turkey amongst a population of 1.5B people. Most of these 1.5B will now go out of their way to support Turkey or buy Turkish products. So the net effect is hugely positive for Turkey.

 

[Dr.Evil]

A tiny population of 4 or 5 million people not buying Turkish products pales in comparison to the benefits accruing to Turkey amongst a population of 1.5B people. Most of these 1.5B will now go out of their way to support Turkey or buy Turkish products. So the net effect is hugely positive for Turkey.

Most of the muslims going out of their way to buy turkish products is an exaggeration at the best.

It may hold emotional appeal to few people but praticality may be very low.

If the muslims were so bothered, why can't they buy products from palestine ( Eg. Dates & Olives )

 

[Old School]

I guess , Turkey knows exactly what they are up to. They have probably calculated their profit and loss before formulating the current foreign policy. To my little analytical mind , Turkey is being gradually made an alternative to Iran or Saudi Arabia to lead the Middle Eastern countries . The objective is to diminish the Iranian influence in the region . This is all happening with the active consent of the Israelis. After all , the Turkish military ( who control the key Turkish policies) is very secular , powerful and pro-Israel.

 

[Jigs]

It seems a total break down of relations will happen soon. Defense deals are breaking up and boycotts are now happening.

 

[r3alist]

turks should boycott jewish goods and companies, i think that will do the israeli's alot of harm

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

i hope israilys dont eat Godiva chocolate....coz Ulker bought it out

israil is such a tiny spec of dust on the map, the Turks are probably laughing since this will have negligible impact financially speaking

they boycott everything, even Arab products. And meanwhile israily have the nerve to say they invented hummous, baba ghannoush and other ''mezze''




bu şerefsizliği bitecek mi acaba

 

[Ahmad]

I never bought turkish products in the past, from now on i will buy them.

 

[graphican]

Shouldn't this be the other way around? Israelis are on the low side and they deserve to face a ban on their home-made products.

 

[Jigs]

Iskender Kebap anyone ?

 

[TechLahore]

Most of the muslims going out of their way to buy turkish products is an exaggeration at the best.

It may hold emotional appeal to few people but praticality may be very low.

If the muslims were so bothered, why can't they buy products from palestine ( Eg. Dates & Olives )

Who told you Muslims don't buy products from Palestine? Whatever that sieged populace is allowed to export by its tormentors, does make its way to Muslim markets. I only wish they were free to develop their economy fully. Palestinians are incredibly intelligent people. In a free country they would really work wonders for themselves.

And by the way, your cynicism re Muslims notwithstanding, I am indicating to you what I see myself and people around me doing in actuality. I don't even particularly like Baklava, but I went out this past weekend and bought a box just because it's Turkish.

I will also tell you that over the original Danish cartoon issue, there was a broad boycott of Danish products and it really did work. There was significant harm caused to Danish brands throughout the middle east.

 

[TechLahore]

i hope israilys dont eat Godiva chocolate....coz Ulker bought it out

I didn't know Godiva was owned by the Turks! I love it and will now stock up big time My taste buds and political preferences are in perfect alignment!

 

[Abu Zolfiqar]

If the muslims were so bothered, why can't they buy products from palestine ( Eg. Dates & Olives )

Where Burned and Bulldozed Olive Trees are Mourned​

A group of rabbis seek to show that Judaism should not be equated with the extreme right, writes MICHAEL JANSEN , Nablus, West Bank

OUR minibus speeds past the dusty, deserted Huwara checkpoint, south of the northern West Bank city of Nablus. Huwara used to be a major obstacle, jammed with cars and people; today neither a vehicle nor a person is in sight. The road between Ramallah, the Palestinian Authority’s administrative centre, and Nablus is open, except when Israeli troops decide to mount a flying checkpoint.

We turn east and make for the rolling hills clad in olive trees, their trunks dark and twisted, leaves green and silver. Most of the trees are young, perhaps half a century old, but here and there stands an ancient tree, planted hundreds of years ago, its trunk hollow, its branches bowed.

Palestinians compare themselves to the rooted and steadfast olive trees. When settlers burn or bulldoze them, Palestinians mourn olives as family members.

These sunny, apparently quiet hills are a theatre of war.

“Palestinian farmers have a lot of trouble with settlers in this area,” observes Rabbis for Human Rights director Arik Ascherman.

“We help the farmers plough their fields and pick their olives. Our legal department deals with expropriations. We also rebuild [Palestinian] homes that have been demolished and plant olive trees. [The fact that] we are rabbis sends a message [to the Palestinians] that they should not equate [the Jewish] religion with the violent extreme right” in Israel, Ascherman says.

He points out that after the Oslo accord was signed in 1993, Israel accelerated settlement construction. While Palestinians expected that the land Israel conquered in 1967 would be theirs, the Israelis planned to negotiate over this land and sought to lay claim to as much of it as possible. After the second intifada erupted in 2000, Israelis tried to “stop Palestinians from working their land so that after some years this could be claimed by settlers”, he says.

“Ours is the only rabbinic organisation in Israel dedicated exclusively to human rights. It was established in 1988, during the first [Palestinian] intifada . . . For the past seven or eight years Trócaire has supported our programmes.”

We wait in the countryside for Jamal, who bounces along the road on an elderly red tractor. “His own tractor was trashed by settlers,” asserts Ascherman, who has come to work out with Jamal when to send volunteers to accompany him when he ploughs two large fields covered in golden grasses which nod in the breeze.

By law Palestinians should have access to their land, and the army is supposed to protect them, but since settlers generally have a free hand, these rabbis act as human shields.

Upper Yanoun is a hillside hamlet with 200 inhabitants belonging to the same clan.

“In 2002 settlers came in the middle of the night and expelled the villagers,” says Ascherman.

“The settlers harass the villagers, burn their olives and wheat fields. The settlers enter the village constantly.”

After coffee with Rashed, the clan leader, we proceed to a house occupied by four Ecumenical Accompaniers who are based here to deter attacks and report them to the UN. Pat Devlin from the UK says: “A group of 19 settlers came into the village, took the cover off the well, climbed down and swam in it. The army said they were ‘brave youth’. . . They are taking land [that] villagers farm and use for grazing, driving down their capacity to earn an income,” she states.

Back on the flat on a narrow road running between the fields, we spot a herd of gazelle foraging in the tall grass.

“Palestinians say the only good thing about the settlers is they have stopped us from eating all the gazelle,” remarks Ascherman.

Where burned and bulldozed olive trees are mourned - The Irish Times - Thu, Jun 10, 2010

Israel continues its old-new policy to steal olive trees and replant them either inside its settlements in the Palestinian Territories or inside Israel. Such a policy started as early as 1967, following the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. The second half of the 1980s witnessed a marked increase in the implementation of this policy as Israel carried out a campaign against olive trees located in confiscated lands for the declared purpose of expanding its settlement area. Examples included what took place in the villages of Qattana and Kharrab Al Lahem to the northwest of Jerusalem city, where 3,000 olive trees were uprooted and in Al Madya village to the west of Ramallah city where 2,000 olive trees were uprooted. The uprooted trees from the 'Roman type' which lasts for hundreds of years.

The most revolting action taken by Israel in this regard was the uprooting of a large number of olive trees and then replanting them in a park near the Central railway Station in Tel Peut district of Jerusalem. The park was named after the legendary Dr. Martin Luther King. They wanted to pay tribute for this human rights advocate by planting stolen trees in his honor!

Olive tree stealing continues in villages of Beit Awwa, Sikka and Deir Samit in Hebron governorate

The Land Research Center's field worker visited the place of incident, where the Israeli Segregation Wall in the above-mentioned three villages is being constructed ( in the western side of the Governorate of Hebron). More than 3,000 olive trees were uprooted from these locations as the Israeli bulldozers are still working on the sites.

Description of the Stealing Process:

The first stage started by sawing branches of Olive trees by electrical saws in a way that allows new ones to grow.


An Israeli contractor sawing branches before uprooting









During the second stage, the Israeli Bulldozers uprooted the whole tree as the bulldozers planted their teeth beneath it and then uprooted it including the roots.



The third stage included the re-planting of the trees in some other places according to the Israeli need. Sometimes, Trees are planted immediately in the opposite side of the Green Line or to the west of the Wall after being uprooted from the land. Alternatively, the trees are transported to be replanted inside Israeli settlements established in the Occupied Territories or inside cities in the Israeli proper as to serve two goals:

The first; is for aesthetic purposes as to give an attractive feature to the place,

The second; is for economical reasons as such trees are used as source of income for the targeted settlements and/or cities. It has been reported, though, that stolen Olive trees were replanted temporarily in a nearby field located to the west of the Wall and then were uprooted again to be transported to somewhere else.
Such operations took place in front of the eyes of Palestinians landowners from Hebron Governorate who planted the trees and took care of them for the longest time just to witness the uprooting of their trees on the hands of the Israeli bulldozers.



At the time of preparing this study, 'olive tree stealing' is being carried out in the above-mentioned three villages at the high point of olive harvest season causing major losses to tree owners, especially that this season is relatively better than past seasons. The crop was lost for this year after the Israeli bulldozers ran over the mowed branches that were filled with ripe olives.

Stolen trees were temporarily replanted in a nearby field before transportation to some where else.



An Israeli bulldozer is immediately re-planting stolen trees in a Kibbutz



Olive oil losses during the season in just these three villages is estimated to be at thousands of Jordanian Dinars, not to mention the cost of years of care for each tree and the loss of the land atop, in which trees were planted. Such loss is immeasurable.

POICA-Israel's Olive theft policy is continued from the early days of occupation