Use our ten-step action guide below to expose the truth about Ahava's dirty secrets!
Find downloadable resources for your action in our Muddy Action Toolkit here.
Receive your FREE Organizing Toolkit from our partners at the US Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation! Kit will be mailed to you after you sign up and includes postcards, sign up sheets, flyers, stickers, and more!
Stolen Beauty Ahava Boycott 10-Step Action Guide
1. Learn about the Boycott Campaign
- Read the FAQ to understand how boycotts can be an
effective means of influencing politics for good.
- The goal of doing a local action is to highlight
the illegal occupation of Palestine and continue to
build public support in opposition to the blatantly
exploitative practices of Ahava. Read
our talking points here.
2. Find out where AHAVA is carried
in your city.
- Shortly after our Stolen Beauty campaign began, Ahava removed the listing of stores from their US site, email us at info@stolenbeauty.org for a listing of stores in your area. Please let us know what (if any) organization you are working with in your action, what city you live in, and provide your telephone number.
3. Ask the store to stop carrying
AHAVA.
- First, go to the store and ask to speak with the
manager; arrange a meeting if the manager is not available.
Tailor our manager letter
for the specific store and person you meet with, and
print. Plus, deliver our response letter to a letter sent to store managers by Ahava's CEO. At your meeting, give the manager the letter
and explain your concerns about carrying this product.
If you can't get a meeting with the manager, serve
the letter to a clerk or mail it. Negotiating for
change is an important step of this action.
- If the store honors your request, congratulations!
In discontinuing sales of this product, this store
is sending AHAVA a message that their business is
being threatened if they continue status quo. You
will want to thank the store and possibly draw public
attention to this brave stand.
- If the store refuses to honor your request within
the time given, or doesn't respond, it's time for
direct action. Read on.
4. Get a Team together.
- An ideal team has three or more participants. One
to take action, another to distract security or talk
to management, and a third person to document with
photographs or video. Of course, don't be limited
by the three people minimum! Watch
this great youtube from a group of dozens of activists
protesting AHAVA in a cosmetics store in France. You
may also want to invite ally peace groups to do an
outside vigil while the team inside creates a ruckus.
There may be a CODEPINK group in your area that wants
to help, email locals[at]codepinkalert.org
to find out or see our
online listing.
5. Scout the Location.
Check out the store, shelves, or section of the store
carrying AHAVA products. Scout for security, employees,
access to location, and amount of foot traffic.
6. Devise a plan.
- Who will be responsible for what part of the action?
What does the action look like? Who will carry in
which supplies? Who will negotiate with security if they show up?
Who will talk to media? Who will talk to employees,
security, or managers?
- Check out some of our previous actions for inspiration:
Las Vegas, New York, and Tel Aviv.
- For help planning your action contact us
at info@stolenbeauty.org
and Nancy at nancy[at]stolenbeauty.org.
- You can download our Action
Checklist for ease in action planning.
7. Create a Press Release and invite
the media. Download our sample press release here.
You can visit CODEPINK's Media Resources page for more help.
8. Get Ready
- Determine
the most effective actions for the location and what
you are comfortable doing:
- Attracting the attention of passersby - Holding Banners, Doing Chants, Wearing Mud & Bikinis or Bath Towels/Robes
- Leafletting - handing out information to consumers,
employees, etc.
- Singing songs, or holiday carols, outside the store
- Get creative!
- Print out our downloadable petition, 1/4 page flyers, songsheets, and other resources. Find resources in our Muddy Action Toolkit.
- Create banners and posters.
- Acquire mud, bathrobes, towels (as desired).
- Go over talking points again.
- Have camera battery charged
and camera tested ahead of time.
- If you are using mud as a visual you can put some on your hands (Hey, Ahava! You've got blood/mud on your hands!) or write "No
AHAVA" or another message with the mud on your body. Allow time
for drying.
- Mental preparation: Center yourself in the goal
of the action. Most likely, there will be some people
who vehemently disagree with this action, they may
even say you are anti-Semitic or evil. Be prepared
to face this kind of opposition peacefully and calmly,
and stay focused on your goals.
9. Take Action
- You've Scouted. You've Prepared. Now you are ready
to go!
10. Report Back
- When you are done, share it! We want to know how it went. Report your action to the Local
Spotlight on our website.
- Send a follow-up thank you email to everyone participated, and email your community with a report back about the action and how people can continue to be involved. Ask people to call the local stores and request they remove AHAVA products from their shelves.
- Send any photos, videos, news links and report back text to locals[at]codepinkalert.org to add to our website.
- Share your action with your friends on Facebook or Twitter. Include links to your photos or StolenBeauty.org.
- Follow up or contact local media.
- Keep up the pressure! A one-time action is great, and repeated actions are even better. Consider organizing a weekly vigil outside the store to hand out flyers; create a letter for customers going in to shop at the store to give over to the employees and keep track of how many you hand out; invite people in your community to call the store and ask them to stop carrying AHAVA (this is a simple action to do from home). Write letters to the editor of your local newspaper. Stay visible and focused on raising awareness about the illegality of Ahava products. Follow up with the corporate or head office of the store or chain about removing the products.
POSTER MESSAGES:
You can post the above web buttons on your
blog/website. (Click images to download enlarged versions)
Or make your own. Make sure to
include codepinkalert.org or
stolenbeauty.org on all your
posters!
- AHAVA: Stolen Beauty | Don't Buy Occupation
- AHAVA: There is No LOVE in Occupation
- AHAVA: There is nothing beautiful about Occupation
- AHAVA is a DIRTY business (with mud print
hands)
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Letter
Dear Store Manager,
Your store carries products made by Ahava Dead
Sea Laboraties, an Israeli company that is currently
the target of an international boycott because
it profits from the illegal occupation of the
Palestinian West Bank. This letter is a request
from CODEPINK Women for Peace (www.codepinkalert.org)
that you stop stocking these products.
Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories (www.ahava.co.il)
is a privately held Israeli cosmetics company
that manufactures products using minerals and
mud from the Dead Sea. The Hebrew word “Ahava”
means love, but there is nothing loving about
what the company is doing in the Occupied Palestinian
territory of the West Bank.
The company's main factory and its visitors'
center are located in the Israeli settlement of
Mitzpe Shalem in the Occupied West Bank. Ahava
products are labeled as of 'Israeli origin,'
but according to international law, including
the relevant UN Security Council Resolutions,
the West Bank cannot be considered to be part
of the State of Israel. Not only does Ahava profit
from the occupation by locating its main plant
and store in an illegal Israeli settlement, it
also uses in its products mud from the Dead Sea,
excavated in an occupied area, and thus it exploits
occupied natural resources for profit. The fourth
Geneva Convention explicitly forbids an occupying
power from removing the captured natural resources
for its own use, and we see this as another charge
for which this company should be held accountable.
In July 2005 a broad range of Palestinian Civil
Society organizations issued a call for Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions Against Israel as part
of a non-violent campaign to end the Israeli occupation
of the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. Individual
American consumers are showing their opposition
to Israel's occupation by participating in a consumer
boycott against Ahava products.
We hope that you will show your support for international
law and human rights by choosing to no longer
stock Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories products in
your store.
Thank you so much for your attention and consideration.
- For more information on our boycott campaign,
go to “Stolen Beauty” www.stolenbeauty.org
- For more information on the manufacturer and
its involvement in the occupation, go to “Who
Profits from the Occupation?” (a project
of The Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace)
www.whoprofits.org/Company%20Info.php?id=575
- For more information on the international
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Campaign,
go to Global BDS Movement for Palestine: www.bdsmovement.net/
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