This Ramadhan, DON'T break your fast with Israeli Dates!

Ramadhan is a time of year when we remember those who are less fortunate than ourselves. When we break our fasts with dates, it would be an affront to us all if these dates were the produce of illegal Israeli settlements built on land stolen from Palestinians.

Israeli produced MEDJOOL dates are grown in the Jordan Valley within illegal Israeli settlements. These dates are specific to that area. They form a large part of the agriculture from these settlements and they are exported all over the world. Purchasing these dates means that you are actually helping Israeli settlements to continue to exist. These dates are also supplied to supermarkets including Tesco, Sainsbury's and Waitrose. They are packaged in the Supermarkets own packaging - sometimes the logos of Hadiklaim and other Israeli companies can be seen embossed on the the reverse of the Packaging - see Tesco's Packaging example below.

Israelis will claim that the Palestinians are allowed to work on the land of these settlements and therefore they are provided with jobs and a boycott will harm them. In actual fact, these Palestinians are employed to paltry wages and they are required to do back-breaking work that Israeli settlers will not do themselves. This means that the Israeli settlers reap the rewards for the harvest while doing very little of the work themselves.

Palestinian children are employed by these settlers and they are forced to work long hours under a hot baking sun for small sums of money. This exploitation means that these children miss out on education.

Most of these dates are exported to Europe. They are labelled as produce of Israel or if 'The West Bank'. Palestinians in the West Bank are unable to produce these dates and export them to the international market, so all the dates labelled as produce of 'The West Bank' are from illegal settlements.

- Illegal Israeli settlements in the Jordan Valley are used to cultivate dates.
- These settlements are built on land stolen from Palestinians.
- The dates are sold to Muslim communities during Ramadhan, which generates income for the illegal settlements.

Meanwhile, Palestinians near the settlements live in abject poverty...


Do not support the occupation and oppression of the Palestinians.

* Dates were Israel's leading fruit export in 2005.
* Dates account for about 15% of the export from Israel into the EU.
* It is estimated that Israel produces over 10,000 tonnes of dates per year.
* The approximate price per kilo of dates is £8.
* The total income for Israel from dates in a year is approximately £80 million.

BOYCOTT DATES from :-
* ISRAEL
* WEST BANK
* JORDAN VALLEY