{"id":4534,"date":"2008-12-01T19:29:00","date_gmt":"2008-12-01T17:29:00","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2024-12-14T19:07:35","modified_gmt":"2024-12-14T17:07:35","slug":"epalestine-blogspot-com-20","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/2008\/12\/epalestine-blogspot-com-20\/","title":{"rendered":"[ePalestine] Guardian: Unilever to sell stake in plant based in West Bank settlement (CORRECTED)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Hi friends,   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Do you all remember the "Public Brainstorming" post from several months back?  Well, here are the results, thus far. Hat’s off to all.  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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If it’s not economic, it’s ineffective,<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

Sam  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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—  <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Unilever to sell stake in plant based in West Bank settlement   <\/strong><\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Toni O’Loughlin in Jerusalem<\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

The Guardian, Monday December 1 2008   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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The food and soap manufacturing multinational Unilever has announced that it will divest from an Israeli factory in a Jewish settlement illegally built on land confiscated from Palestinians.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Unilever, which makes household staples such as Sunsilk shampoo, Surf washing powder and Vaseline, said it would sell its 51% stake in the Beigel & Beigel factory in the West Bank settlement of Ariel.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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The UK and Dutch-owned multinational has followed Harrods department store – which cleared its shelves of Beigel & Beigel products, such as pretzels, in August – and a campaign by Britain to crack down on Israeli settlement businesses that are allegedly dodging EU import taxes.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Unilever’s announcement also came ahead of a report on its investment in the occupied territories by United Civilians for Peace, a Dutch human rights group.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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UCP said the decision of Unilever, which defied the international boycott against South Africa during the apartheid era, showed that the firm was "serious" about international law and social responsibility.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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But Unilever Israel, which bought half of Beigel & Beigel in 2001, said the move was strategic, not ethical.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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"This decision has been taken with reluctance after a long period of analysis and review," it said.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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"Following the divestment in recent years of a number of non-core businesses … the decision has been reached to divest of its interests in the bakery business and will therefore seek to find a buyer for Unilever’s share in the Beigel & Beigel partnership," the company said in a statement.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Ariel is one of three large Israeli settlement blocs that penetrate and separate northern and southern parts of the West Bank. It is surrounded by a network of roads that Palestinians are forbidden to use without special permission.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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The settlement is built on land that Israel conquered in the 1967 Six Day war. According to UCP, the land for the Beigel & Beigel factory, in Ariel’s Barkan industrial estate, was confiscated from the surrounding Palestinian villages in 1981 by a Israeli military order.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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"International law prohibits the confiscation of occupied land not for military purposes," the UCP report says.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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It also claims that Unilever is in effect supporting Ariel because it pays taxes to the Shomron regional council, which provides services such as rubbish disposal to Barkan. In return, Unilever receives, via Beigel & Beigel, some of the "generous" subsidies that Israel pays companies to produce in settlements.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Companies that operate in settlements also benefit from employing cheap Palestinian labour, the report says.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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At Beigel & Beigel, 45% of the 140 workers are Palestinians from the surrounding villages whose land was confiscated for the construction. Most of them work on the assembly line operating machines and contrary to Unilever’s own labour standards, they are not paid the Israeli minimum wage, the report claims.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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Many workers are paid to work 46.5 hours a week but they often work 50 hours with no compensation. One worker, who must pass through a checkpoint gate to go home after work, told UCP that he is often unable to return to his village.   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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* Letters for publication should be sent to: letters@guardian.co.uk   <\/span><\/font><\/p>\n

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http:\/\/www.guardian.co.uk\/world\/2008\/dec\/01\/israel-palestine-unilever<\/u> <\/span> <\/font> <\/a><\/p>\n

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 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hi friends,   Do you all remember the "Public Brainstorming" post from several months back?  Well, here are the results, thus far. Hat’s off to all.  If it’s not economic, it’s ineffective, Sam  —  Unilever to sell stake in plant based in West Bank settlement   Toni O’Loughlin in Jerusalem The Guardian, Monday December 1 2008   The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":"","_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"ppma_author":[936],"class_list":["post-4534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"authors":[{"term_id":936,"user_id":4,"is_guest":0,"slug":"sambahour","display_name":"Sam Bahour","avatar_url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/bca109c333bf6d8ae807746dd512adde46265d37c923f6cd0fc4aab437f8e9aa?s=96&d=mm&r=g","author_category":"1","first_name":"Sam","last_name":"Bahour","user_url":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour","job_title":"","description":"

Sam Bahour<\/strong> is a Palestinian-American business consultant, writer, and commentator based in Al-Bireh\/Ramallah, Palestine. He is the principal of Applied Information Management (AIM)<\/a>, a consultancy specializing in business development and startup advisory services.<\/p>\r\n

Bahour played a foundational role in establishing two of Palestine\u2019s publicly traded companies: the Palestine Telecommunications Company (PALTEL) and the Arab Palestinian Shopping Centers (APSC). He co-founded Americans for a Vibrant Palestinian Economy (A4VPE), of which he is now an emeritus member, and served as an independent director on the board of Arab Islamic Bank P.L.C. from 2004 to 2025. He currently serves on the board of Just Vision<\/a> and The Palestine Economic Policy Research Institute (MAS)<\/a>.<\/p>\r\n

He frequently gives talks to delegations visiting Palestine on the subjects of Palestine\u2019s political economy, Palestinian Politics 101, and a general orientation to the state of affairs under Israeli military occupation.<\/p>\r\n

A prolific writer on Palestinian affairs, Bahour has been published in major international outlets including The New York Times, The Guardian, Haaretz, The Washington Post, The Boston Globe, the Los Angeles Times, Al Jazeera America, Le Monde diplomatique, Al-Monitor, +972 Magazine, The Hill, and Arab News. He has appeared as a commentator on NPR, CNN, BBC, and other broadcast media.<\/p>\r\n

Bahour is the co-editor of Homeland: Oral Histories of Palestine and Palestinians<\/a><\/em> (Olive Branch Press, 1993) and was profiled in the bestselling anthology Kingdom of Olives and Ash<\/a><\/em>, edited by Michael Chabon and Ayelet Waldman, in a chapter authored by Chabon titled \u201cThe Tallest Man in Ramallah<\/a>.\u201d He holds an Associate\u2019s and Bachelor\u2019s degree in Computer Technology from Youngstown State University, and a Kellogg-Recanati International Executive MBA \u2014 a joint program of the Kellogg School of Management at Northwestern University and the Recanati Business School at Tel Aviv University.<\/p>\r\n

He tweets at @SamBahour<\/a>, blogs at www.epalestine.ps<\/a>, and may be reached at sbahour[AT]gmail[DOT]com.<\/p>"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4534"},{"taxonomy":"author","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/epalestine.ps\/sambahour\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/ppma_author?post=4534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}