ADEL, Palestine’s Fair Trade initiative

At the Beit Jala Saturday market with Eric Shehadeh

An organic Farmers’ Market in Beit Jala? With produce in Palestine grown locally and of such good taste and quality, it was quite a pleasant surprise to find out one takes place every Saturday in the Occupied West Bank city.

It is organized by the National Fair Trade Non-Profit Corporation “ADEL,” established in 2011. What better name than adel, which means fair in Arabic.

Although quite small in Beit Jala, it is bigger in Ramallah where it is held on Tuesdays.

Everyone in the Occupied Territories tries, as much as possible, to buy Palestinian or at least non-Israeli products. The ADEL market guarantees that.

Cucumbers, tomatoes, white cheese and olives from the market

Pickling organic cucumbers

Nablus soap

The most delicious raisins

On the two occasions we were able to visit the ADEL market in Beit Jala, we bought tomatoes, cucumbers, mint, parsley, bottled juices, mouloukhia and many other things that were all excellent. I am using the Nablus soap bar I got back with me and still regret not stocking up on raisins. They were so big and delicious.

ADEL Fair Trade is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that Catholic Relief Services (CRS Fair Trade) helped establish in Palestine to help vulnerable women and disadvantaged farmers produce healthy products at a fair price.

The ADEL market in Ramallah

While ADEL received CRS support over two years, it is now a self-sufficient Fair Trade business supporting its workers from the money generated from the sale of its products.

ADEL runs an Empowerment and Rehabilitation Program to build the producers’ capacities, empower them technically, administratively and financially and rehabilitate production centers, committed to general health conditions and food safety principles.

Palestinian ladies preparing Ma'amoul for the Goods Home Delivery Program

Its other programs are the Goods Home Delivery Program (for Ma’amoul, cheese, olive oil and grapes), the Support Local Products and Enjoy Healthy Life Program and the Occupation Products Boycott Program.

Apart from generating long-term income for marginalized families and tens of cooperatives, ADEL has been successful in providing a Palestinian replacement for Israeli strawberries and mushrooms, among other products. It is also building groups of Fair Trade ambassadors under Occupation.

ADEL encourages the purchase in Palestinian produce instead of Israeli products as per the global movement for a campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights. Initiated by Palestinian civil society in 2005 and coordinated by the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) established in 2007, BDS is a strategy that allows people of conscience to play an effective role in the Palestinian struggle for justice.

Success story

Dina al-Sharif at her exhibition in Ramalla

Dina al-Sharif, from a small village north of Nablus, is an example of ADEL’s success stories. She is one of the leading and creative disadvantaged producers who are working to increase their income and independence.

Dina, who is wheelchair-bound, was struggling to meet her basic needs. She felt marginalized and undervalued because she took longer to finish her knitting products. For example, she needed 10 days at a rate of eight hours a day to produce a wool jacket or quilt only to finally sell it at a low and unfair price.

Through ADEL, Dina received training in quality, packaging and transportation of her products. She is now one of the leading producers.

She received an incentive grant of $1,000 to buy a sewing machine and raw materials to improve her production and market her products at a fair price so as to meet her basic family and personal needs.

In March 2013, ADEL held the “First Solidarity Exhibition” in corporation with the Technical College for Girls in Ramallah dedicated to Dina’s handmade products. The exhibition was great success. She made more than $300 and got more exposure for her work.

Roger Waters to Robbie Williams: Don’t play in Tel Aviv

One UK superstar to another: If you take children and human rights seriously, please don't play Israel

Waters and Williams (Photo Credit: AP/Evan Agostini/Gero Breloer)

In a letter last week, Roger Waters explains to Robbie Williams why his decision to play in Tel Aviv tomorrow, May 2, “gives succor to [Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin] Netanyahu and his regime and endorses their deadly racist policies.”

The following is Waters’ letter published in Salon on April 28:

* * * *

Roger Waters to Robbie Williams: “Your decision to play in Tel Aviv gives succor to Netanyahu and his regime, and endorses their deadly racist policies”

ROGER WATERS

Robbie Williams:

One of the most horrifying incidents during Israel’s massive assault on Gaza last summer was the killing of four Palestinian boys playing soccer on a beach.  This war crime was meticulously documented by human rights organizations and by journalists on the scene at the Al-Deira Hotel. NBC correspondent Ayman Mohyeldin tweeted that just minutes prior he had joined the children in their soccer game.  War-hardened journalists tweeted their eyewitness distress.

Gaza beach last summer (Photo by Tyler Hicks, The New York Times)

I bring up this gruesome scene because popular UK entertainer Robbie Williams, soon to play a May 2 concert in Tel Aviv, is known to be a huge soccer fan.  He is also UNICEF’s UK ambassador and a declared supporter of its Children in Danger campaign. Yet, sadly, when it comes to Palestinian children, like those killed on that beach in Gaza that day, Williams is showing a chilling indifference to their well-being.

London Palestine Action has pointed to his hypocrisy in that he purports to represent UNICEF while preparing to play a gig in Tel Aviv: “We hope UNICEF will remain steadfast in defense of children’s rights, including Palestinian children, and ask Robb

UNICEF, as declared in its mission statement, insists that “the survival, protection and development of children are universal development imperatives that are integral to human progress.”

Dear Robbie, playing this concert on May 2 would be giving your tacit support to the deaths of over 500 Palestinian children last summer in Gaza, including the four soccer players on the beach in Gaza, and condoning the arrest and abuse of hundreds of Palestinian children each year living under Israeli occupation, as has been documented by UNICEF itself.

To declare my own history, I confess I myself played a gig in Israel in 2006 before I knew any better. At that time and afterward, moved as I was, I listened to voices from all sides and made it my business to learn as much as I could about the situation in Israel and Palestine. I traveled widely in Israel and the West Bank and now nine years later having done my research, I have come to the conclusion that BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) is the most viable, peaceful way to end the suffering of, and forge a better future for, all the people of the Holy Land. I encourage you, Robbie, and all other artists, not to play in Israel until Israel complies with international law and recognizes the basic human rights of all the people of the region, including the Palestinian people, which, Robbie, includes Palestinian children playing soccer.

Since my 2006 gig, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement has emerged as a dynamic force to be reckoned with. Covered heavily in mainstream media around the world, BDS has succeeded in publicizing the Palestinian people’s predicament, their lack of freedom, equality and access to justice.

Now, in 2015, there is really no excuse for musicians agreeing to play in Tel Aviv. The jury of world opinion is in; global civil society supports equal rights for all. We are approaching the same tipping point as when artists lent their support to the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa.

Those innocent soccer-playing children in Gaza were the victims of a violent indiscriminate Israeli attack.

That was more than nine months ago.  Since then, one of those kids, 12-year-old Montasser Abu Bakr, who was playing alongside his brother, and three friends, has attempted suicide and is regularly subject to uncontrollable fits of screaming and sobbing. This is one of the children whose “survival, protection and development” you, Robbie, have promised to uphold. Tragically, it is too late for Montasser’s dead brother and the other three children needlessly slain that day. But, Robbie, you can still stand up and send a powerful message as an individual and as a genuine human rights ambassador, that “business as usual” with Israel is unacceptable until such time as our Palestinian brothers and sisters are afforded equal human rights under international law and their children are not subject to this kind of obscene random slaughter.

As a UNICEF ambassador and a man of humanity and honor, you have, in my opinion, a duty to respect the picket line created by Palestinian civil society and a growing number of engaged musicians, artists and academics around the globe.  Not just Ken Loach and Stephen Hawking and Elvis Costello and Brian Eno and me, but all the other artists, thousands and counting, standing up for the oppressed and the occupied, those subjugated people that Israeli officials describe as needing to be made to “lose weight, but not to starve to death” or, worse, as grass to be mowed.

To be clear, Robbie, whether intended or not, your decision to play in Tel Aviv gives succor to Netanyahu and his regime, and endorses their exceptionalist and deadly racist policies.

So, I say, please, Robbie, look inside yourself and find the soccer fan, the man, the father who can feel another father’s loss.

If you cannot see yourself in the eyes of a Palestinian father, you should do the decent thing and resign from UNICEF, or failing that, UNICEF should let you go.

Love.

Roger Waters.

PS: To all of you reading this who care about children, thank you, we are bound together by the love we have for children, not just Montasser Abu Bakr, his brother and his friends, but the other children in Gaza and the West Bank and Israel and all the other children all over the world who should have the right to live and play in peace and safety. Our love and goodwill extends to each of them equally as we strive to encourage the creation of a Holy Land worthy of that name.

Roger Waters appeals to Rock 'n' Roll

Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters, has appealed to his colleagues in Rock and Roll to “join me and all our brothers and sisters in global civil society in proclaiming our rejection of Apartheid in Israel and occupied Palestine, by pledging not to perform or exhibit in Israel or accept any award or funding from any institution linked to the government of Israel, until such time as Israel complies with international law and universal principles of human rights.”

The co-founder of my favorite rock band, made the appeal in a letter published on August 18 on his Waters’ Facebook page.

Among Pink Floyd’s international successes are such albums as The Dark side of the Moon, Wish You Were Here, Animals, The Wall and The Final Cut. They have sold more than 250 million albums worldwide, including 74.5 million units sold in the United States as of 2013.

Waters appeals to his “brothers and sisters in the family of Rock and Roll, to join with me, and thousands of other artists around the world, to declare a cultural boycott on Israel, to shed light on these problems and also to support all our brothers and sisters in Palestine and Israel who are struggling to end all forms of Israeli oppression and who wish to live in peace, justice, equality and freedom.”

The letter reads:

A note from Roger Waters -- August 18, 2013, Warsaw

To My Colleagues in Rock and Roll

Nigel Kennedy, the virtuoso British violinist and violist, at The Recent Promenade Concerts at The Albert Hall in London, mentioned that Israel is apartheid. Nothing unusual there you might think. Then one Baroness Deech, (Nee Fraenkel) disputed the fact that Israel is an apartheid state and prevailed upon the BBC to censor Kennedy’s performance by removing his statement. Baroness Deech produced not one shred of evidence to support her claim and yet the BBC -- non-political, supposedly -- acting solely on Baroness Deech’s say so, suddenly went all 1984 on us.

Well!! Time to stick my head above the parapet again -- alongside my brother Nigel Kennedy -- where it belongs.  And by the way, Nigel, great respect man. So here follows a letter last re-drafted in July, 2013

To My Colleagues in Rock and Roll:

In the wake of the tragic shooting to death of unarmed teenager Travon Martin and the acquittal of his killer Zimmerman, yesterday, Stevie Wonder spoke at a gig declaring that he will not perform in the State of Florida until that state repeals its “Stand Your Ground” Law. In effect he has declared a boycott on grounds of conscience. I applaud his position and stand with him.

It has brought back to me a statement I made in a letter I wrote last February 14, to which I have referred but have never published.

The time has come, so here it is.

This letter has been simmering on the back burner of my conscience and consciousness for some time.

It is seven years since I joined BDS (Boycott Divestment and Sanctions), a nonviolent movement to oppose Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and violations of international law and Palestinian human rights. The aim of BDS is to bring international attention to these Israeli policies, and hopefully, to help bring them to an end. All the people of the region deserve better than this.

To cut to the chase, Israel has been found guilty, independently, by international human rights organizations, UN officials, and the International Court of Justice, of serious breaches of international law.  These include, and I will name only two:

The Crime of Apartheid:

The systematic oppression of one ethnic group by another. On 9 March 2012, for instance, the UN Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called on Israel to end its racist policies and laws that contravene the prohibition against racial segregation and apartheid.

The Crime of Ethnic Cleansing:

The forcible removable of indigenous peoples from their rightful land in order to settle an occupying population. For example, in East Jerusalem non-Jewish families are routinely physically evicted from their homes to make way for Jewish occupants.

There are others.

Waters performing "Comfortably Numb" in Kansas Ciy in 2010 (GabeMc)

Given the inability or unwillingness of our governments, or the United Nations Security Council to put pressure on Israel to cease these violations and make reparations to the victims, it falls to civil society and conscientious citizens of the world to dust off our consciences, shoulder our responsibilities and act.

I write to you now, my brothers and sisters in the family of Rock and Roll, to ask you to join with me, and thousands of other artists around the world, to declare a cultural boycott on Israel, to shed light on these problems and also to support all our brothers and sisters in Palestine and Israel who are struggling to end all forms of Israeli oppression and who wish to live in peace, justice, equality and freedom.

I am writing to you all now because of two recent events:

1. Stevie Wonder.

Word came to me, the first week of last December that Stevie Wonder had been booked to headline at a gala dinner for the Friends of The Israeli Defense Force in LA on 6 December 2012. An event to raise money for the Israeli armed forces, as if the $4.3,000,000,000 that we, the US tax payers, give them each year were not enough? This came right after The Israeli Defense Force had concluded yet another war on Gaza -- Operation Pillar of Defense -- according to Human Rights Watch, committing war crimes against the besieged 1.6 million Palestinians there.

Anyway, I wrote to Stevie to try to persuade him to cancel. My letter ran along these lines, “Would you have felt OK performing at the Policeman’s Ball in Johannesburg the night after the Sharpeville massacre in 1960 or in Birmingham, Alabama, to raise money for the Law Enforcement officers who clubbed, tear-gassed and water-cannoned those children trying to integrate in 1963?

Archbishop Desmond Tutu also wrote an impassioned plea to Stevie and 3,000 others appended their names to a change.org petition. Stevie, to his great credit, cancelled!

2. Earlier that week I delivered a speech at The United Nations. If you are interested you can find this speech on YouTube.

The interesting thing about these two stories is that there was NOT ONE mention of either story in the mainstream media in the United States.

The clear inference would be that the media in the USA is not interested in the predicament of the Palestinian people, or for that matter the predicament of the Israeli people. We can only hope they may become interested as they eventually did in the politics of apartheid South Africa.

Back in the days of Apartheid South Africa, at first it was a trickle of artists that refused to play there, a trickle that exercised a cultural boycott, then it became a stream, then a river, then a torrent and then a flood. (Remember Steve van Zant, Bruce and all the others? “We will not Play in Sun City?”) Why? Because, like the UN and the International Court of Justice they understood that Apartheid is wrong.

The sports community joined the battle -- no one would go and play cricket or rugby in South Africa -- and eventually the political community joined in as well. We all -- as a global, musical, sporting and political community -- raised our voices as one and the apartheid regime in South Africa fell.

Maybe we are at the tipping point now with Israel and Palestine. These are good people both and they deserve a just solution to their predicament. Each and every one of them deserves freedom, justice and equal rights. Just recently, the ANC, the ruling party of South Africa, has endorsed BDS. We are nearly there.

Please join me -- and all our brothers and sisters in global civil society -- in proclaiming our rejection of Apartheid in Israel and occupied Palestine, by pledging not to perform or exhibit in Israel or accept any award or funding from any institution linked to the government of Israel, until such time as Israel complies with international law and universal principles of human rights.

Roger Waters