Boycott Israeli Dates
It is very important that Israeli dates are avoided this Ramadan and every Ramadan that follows.
This Ramadhan , DON’T break your fast with Israeli Dates.
Ramadan 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 Medjoul dates are grown in the Jordan Valley within Illegal Israeli settlements. 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.
Israelis will claim that 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 for paltry wages, and they are required to do the back-breaking work that the Israeli settlers will not do themselves. This means the Israeli settlers reap the rewards for the harvests 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 an education.
Most of these dates are exported to Europe. They are labelled as produce of ISRAEL or WESTBANK
Palestinian produced medjool dates are available from Zaytoun – a Fairtrade supplier (www.zaytoun.org).
