Galway: The "Filthy Nine" peddling Israeli goods picketed, and told to clean up their act yesterday

galway | rights, freedoms and repression | news report Sunday January 18, 2009 16:32 by TD - Free Palestine Campaign

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To encourage people of good conscience to boycott Israeli goods and produce, yesterday, activists and supporters of the Free Palestine Campaign picketed nine of unethical companies profiteering from their sale of Israeli foodstuffs, goods and support of Zionism, distributed information leaflets, garnering warm public support and severly embarrassing the Filthy Nine in the process.

Within an easy walk of each other, the geographical siting of the eight retail stores and one fast food eatery; McShite’s, facilitated a flying picket - further out, more profiteering outfits such as B&Q in the Galway West Retail Park, Atantic Homecare in the Wellpark Business park and Supervalue in Fr. Griffin Road will be graced and then shamed with our flying picket once transport becomes available; Grafton Group plc, through its Atlantic Homecare and Woodies DIY outlets, is one of the largest stockists in Ireland of goods manufactured in Israel. Dead Sea cosmetics, besides the Israelis peddling these products outside the entrance to Penneys Store in the Eyre Square Shopping Center, Galway are promoted and sold in Debenhams. http://www.ipsc.ie/campaigns_graftongroup.php

Contrary to recent mischief making that Lidl and Aldi were sending their revenues to Israel, along with other supermarkets Tesco, Marks & Spencer, Dunnes Stores, Supervalue, etc, they stock fruit and vegetables stolen from the Palestinian occupied territories which are exported under the Israeli label Carmel Agrexco.

There is no photo posted of the picket outside Aldi’s in the Galway Retail Park, Headford Road, as we suspended the picket when, through a security person, they informed us that the offending Israeli produce had been removed for sale and they did not intend to restock it – unfortunately, we couldn’t verify, on the face of it, this commendable act of conscience afterwards, as courtesy of the fierce storm that battered the streets, we were all water logged and a change of clothing was a more pressing concern.

It is not just “Anti-Semitic” groups (as the Zionists, pathetically, mindlessly tag them), that are calling for boycott/sanctions or at least selective sanctions of Apartheid Israel but a plethora of Jewish groups worldwide such as the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions (ICAHD) “a multi-tiered campaign of sanctions against Israel until the Occupation ends" (Jeff Halper, An Israeli in Palestine), the US based Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), European Jews for a Just Peace (a coalition of 16 Jewish groups from eight European countries), New Profile (Israel), Not in My Name (US), Matzpun (Israel/International), Jews Against the Occupation (NYC chapter), The petition of South African government minister Ronnie Kasrils and legislator Max Ozinski, which has gathered more than 500 signatories from South African Jews, Jewish Voices Against the Occupation, Jewish Women for Justice in Israel and Palestine (US), Gush Shalom, Jews for Global Justice (US), Visions of Peace With Justice (US), among others, Neturei Karta.

For more information, see http://www.boycottisraeligoods.org/

The youth (dressed in black/grey on the road) braced against the wind gives a good indication what Galway endured yesterday

Two filthy birds with the one picket

Another two dirty birds, contaminated by their profiteering of Israeli goods