[GushShalom] British Airways to remove all billboards from settlements

[Gush Shalom (Israeli Peace Bloc)]

GUSH SHALOM  pob 3322, Tel-Aviv  61033 www.gush-shalom.org

[] British Airways removes  billboards from settlements, following 
international campaign
[] Supreme Court injunction re Aqaba house demolition
					*
[The information which follows is about the success which we had asking  
British Airways to avoid putting up billboards in settlements.  Meanwhile, 
this turned into another day of  death - a Palestinian woman blowing 
herself up amidst soldiers at the Erez Checkpoint, in this senseless cycle 
which can only be ended by ending the occupation. It's also the day that 
in London Tom Hurndall died, months after he was shot by an IDF sniper 
while trying, as ISM activist, to remove a Palestinian child from the 
shooting range.]
					*
[] British Airways removes  billboards from settlements, following 
international campaign

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This morning British Airways announced the removal of its advertising 
billboard placed at the entrance to the settlement of Ariel. 
These billboards had been at the focus of a short but intensive campaign. 
Gush Shalom (the Israeli Peace Bloc) had been alerted to the placing of the 
billboards by activists monitoring settlement activity. Thereupon, Gush 
Shalom sent a letter to the British Airways administration, asking for the 
billboards removal, and informing its network of international contacts of 
the addresses where they could add their voice.

Within hours, hundreds of messages reached the BA offices by phone, fax 
and email, several of them from long-time regular passengers and at least 
one from a British Airways shareholder, all reiterating the call for removal 
of the billboards -  with such arguments as:

- that  it is a cruel mockery to place, clearly visible to Palestinians who are 
subject to severe travel restrictions and hardly can't move from one village 
to another, billboards advertising cheap flights to London which are 
offered to the settlers living on these Palestinians' confiscated land. 

- that Ariel is an illegal settlement built on occupied Palestinian land in 
contravention of International Law; 

- that the desire to annex exactly the Ariel settlement it is one of the main 
reasons for erection of the "Separation Wall" which is soon coming up on 
the agenda of the International Court of Justice at the Hague. 

This morning, Gush Shalom Spokesperson Adam Keller got a phone call 
from David Tamir, director of the Tel-Aviv based Tamir-Cohen advertising 
agency which handles British Airways' Israeli advertising campaign. Tamir 
told that his employees had already been dispatched to remove the Ariel 
billboards. According to him, there had been no intention to advertise 
specifically at Ariel, and the billboards there had been part of 1,200 spread 
throughout the country, and that "the exact placing of billboards had been 
entrusted to a sub-contractor". 
Keller argued that his agency' advertising campaign had clearly been built 
on the assumption that Ariel is a normal Israeli town, to be included as a 
matter of course in any nation-wide advertising. "For us, this is an 
unacceptable assumption. Ariel is not part of Israel, either by International 
Law or by Israel's own law." Tamir stated that "We would have removed 
them immediately had you phoned us discreetly, without making such a 
fuss", and he promised to check whether any of his billboards had been 
placed at other settlements, and if so remove them as well. 

Gush Shalom had been maintaining an ongoing consumer boycott of 
products originating at settlements in the Occupied Territories, in which 
tens of thousands of Israeli families take part. The movement's aim is to 
make as clear and unmistakable a distinction as possible between Israel's 
internationally-recognized sovereign territory and the territories occupied 
in 1967 which are not part of Israel, which are subject to a more and more 
cruel occupation rule that must be terminated."

For more information:
Gush Shalom Spokesperson Adam Keller: 03-5565804 / 056-709603

[] Supreme Court injunction re Aqaba house demolition

Some weeks ago, a mass of activists all over the world heeded our call 
(which was joined by Jewish Voice for Peace in the US) and sent protest 
letters to the government of Israel about  the destruction of two houses 
and the threat to demolish another ten, at the quiet village of Aqaba, 
south-east of Jenin. The matter got some public attention due to the 
interest of Ha'aretz columnist Akiva Eldar, and also several Western 
embassies and consulates took it up with the Sharon government. For its 
part, the Israeli Teachers' Association expressed strong protest at the 
threat to demolish the village's only kindergarten.

Meanwhile ICAHD (Committee Against House Demolitions) engaged the 
services of Adv. Eli Tusya-Cohen, a well-known Jerusalem lawyer who 
specializes in land ownership issues and who had not been previously 
involved in matters concerning Palestinians under occupation. He brought 
to the case a lot of energy and some innovative legal arguments not 
previously used in cases of this kind. Earlier this week, an appeal was 
lodged at the Supreme Court in Jerusalem, which issued a temporary 
injunction forbidding any further demolitions pending substantive 
proceedings. 

So, all the efforts together seem to have bought some time for Aqaba, 
making it possible for a legal struggle to be effective.




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