We ask People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals to change its consumer certification stamp on Ahava from 'Cruelty Free' to 'Not Tested on Animals' to ensure that no one purchases the illegal settlement product out of confusion.
1.
(Nancy's letter to Ingrid)
Sent: Monday, August 01, 2011 10:31 AM
To: Ingrid Newkirk
Subject: Cruelty-free certification
Dear Ingrid Newkirk,
It has been called to our attention that your organization
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals has certified
Ahava cosmetics as “cruelty free” and “vegan.”
We believe that Ahava does not test on animals, that
its new product line is vegan, and that it is paraben
free. But we do not believe that occupation profiteering
is “cruelty free.”
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 company's
main factory and its visitors' center are located
in the Israeli settlement of Mitzpe Shalem in the Occupied
Palestinian West Bank. Ahava products are labeled as
of 'Israeli origin,' but according to international
law, 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, a practice which is explicitly forbidden
by the fourth Geneva Convention. Ahava is co-owned by
two illegal settlements—Mitzpe Shalem, where the
plant is located and Kalia, which is where the mud excavation
site is located—and these two settlements are subsidized
by the company's profits.
In November 2009 the Dutch Foreign Minister initiated
an investigation into whether AHAVA violates European
Union rules, and in January 2010 a British Minister
of Parliament denounced AHAVA's fraudulent labeling
at a hearing in the House of Commons. In February 2010,
the European Union court in Luxembourg ruled that Israeli
settlement products manufactured in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories—including AHAVA—cannot be considered
products of Israel and are therefore not covered under
existing EU/Israeli customs agreements. Activists in
France have filed suit against Sephora for knowingly
trafficking in settlement goods, whose production flouts
international law. Activists in South Africa have filed
suit against Wellness Warehouse for the same reason.
A two-year bi-weekly protest outside Ahava's flagship
London store has resulted in Ahava's losing its
lease.
For more information on the 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/
If you want to publicize the fact that Ahava does not
test its products on animals, that is certainly your
choice. But to certify the company's occupation profiteering
as "cruelty free" is to use your group's good
name to promote dispossession and resource theft. We
appreciate your principled work on behalf of animals.
We hope that your concern extends also to the people
of Occupied Palestine.
All best,
Nancy Kricorian
Stolen Beauty Ahava Boycott Campaign Manager
2.
Ingrid's response
From: Ingrid Newkirk
Date: Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 12:30 PM
Subject: RE: Cruelty-free certification
To: Nancy Kricorian
Dear Nancy:
Thanks for your email. I was in Palestine a few Christmases
ago to give a talk about non-violent resistance to cruelty
and spoke up against the wall. My theme was “Respect
me, for I am a living being” and I abhor all manner
of exploitation and discrimination, prejudice and religious
intolerance. I am myself an atheist and my religion
is compassion.
The term “cruelty-free” applies only within
the context of testing on animals and the use of ingredients
from animals: it does not imply any other conduct. Please
understand that a manufacturer may beat his wife for
all we know. Our purview is limited by our charter to
whether or not the product is cruel to animals.
I wish you the very best in all your efforts for peace
and understanding.
Kind regards, IEN
3.
Nancy replies
From: Nancy Kricorian
Date: Mon, Aug 1, 2011 at 5:22 PM
Subject: Re: Cruelty-free certification
To: Ingrid Newkirk
Dear Ingrid,
I appreciate your prompt response to my letter about
PETA's having certified Ahava products as cruelty
free. One of our CODEPINK staff members had mentioned
to me that she interviewed you while you were in Palestine
during the visit you reference, and we assumed that
you were sympathetic to the struggle against the Annexation
wall and the ongoing land theft in the Occupied West
Bank.
While, technically, the absence of cruelty to animals
may be a sufficient reason to apply PETA's "cruelty-free"
label to a product according to the organization's
own dictates, the presence of flagrant and cruel human
rights violations in the very expropriation and manufacture
of a business' products is a NECESSARY reason to withhold
such praise. By your reasoning, PETA would have been
happy to have certified Belgium's Congo rubber plantations
or the IG Farben gas works in Germany as "cruelty-free.”
But when human beings see the label, they understand
it to be making ethical claims that, while specific
to animals, include in those claims, more than implicitly,
human animals too. PETA, in the case of Ahava, is now
knowingly lending its moral capital to an immoral and
cruel business, which is a position that must be challenged.
Sincerely,
Nancy K
Stolen Beauty Ahava Boycott Campaign Manager
4.
Kristen's letter to Ingrid (August 10, 2011)
Dear Ingrid,
I am a longtime supporter of your work on behalf of
animal rights. I may have been the sole person who was
beside myself with excitement when the Holy Land Trust
invited you to speak at our nonviolence conference in
Bethlehem a few years ago! But I write to you today
with a heavy heart.
I lived and worked in both the West Bank and Gaza Strip
for some 10 years, documenting Israeli abuses of Palestinian
human rights, among other horrors of occupation. I lived
under occupation, was stopped at checkpoints, was arrested,
had my hair pulled in order to humiliate me and so that
I would “remember my place” under the Israeli
soldiers. During that first decade of the new century
I also took instructions via telephone from my veterinarian
sister regarding care for the dozens of homeless dogs
I saw running in the fields and streets. I was somewhat
of an anomaly there: a vegan who clandestinely rescued
animals while struggling for Palestinian rights.
During my work in Palestine, I was both a journalist
and an activist for justice. When I sat down with you
for our interview in a hotel café next to the
Church of Nativity on the edge of Manger Square I was
wearing the hat of journalist, but my politics informed
our discussion. I understood that while ending the Israeli
occupation of Palestine was not your primary concern,
you considered it a clear issue of oppression that needed
to be addressed. The piece that I wrote after that interview
was entitled, “It's Difficult to Talk About
Peace with a Mouth Full of Blood”. It lasted on
a local English-language news site for about 15 minutes
before I was admonished for choosing such a “horrifying”
headline.
It is now a sad turn of events that leaves me shocked
that PETA has given Ahava its “cruelty free”
status. Ingrid, the occupation of Palestine is not “cruelty
free”. I understand that Ahava cosmetics are “not
tested on animals”, however they are incredibly,
deeply, horrifyingly cruel.
The occupation, as you know, ensures that Palestinians
are enslaved due to economic occupation and imprisoned
due to the siege on Gaza, the Wall in the West Bank,
checkpoints and Jewish-only settlements. Ahava is produced
in such a settlement. It is made with mud illegally
pillaged from the shores of the Dead Sea in occupied
territory – Palestinians are prevented access to
these very shores by machine-gun toting Israeli soldiers,
barbed wire and restricted roads.
I am horrified that PETA has certified Ahava as “Cruelty
Free”. Please write instead, “Not Tested on
Animals”. It is a matter of justice and compassion.
With respect,
Kristen Ess (Schurr)
kessschurr@gmail.com
213.479.8011
5.
Ingrid's response to Kristen
From: Ingrid Newkirk
Date: Wed, Aug 10, 2011 at 11:50 AM
Subject: RE: From Kristen Ess, Bethlehem Journalist
To: Kristen Ess Schurr
Dear Kristen:
I am baffled by this and the other email I received.
You don't have to point out to me what is going
on in Palestine as if I am oblivious about Palestine,
honestly. I am horrified by all violence, oppression,
injustice. You heard what I said that time and some
people opened their hearts, others did not. I have taken
a lot of flak galore for including in my “nonviolence
includes the animals” video and in talks a reference
to the wall as being wrong, which I believe with all
my heart, but I can do it and I will do it.
That list is ‘cruelty free” IN RELATION TO,
and ONLY in relation to, whether or not the product
is tested on animals. The owner of the company may beat
his wife, lock his children in the basement, oppress
human beings, eat other animals, keep a chained dog,
you name it. The label ONLY applies to whether or not
the product is tested on animals, not about anything
else at all. Everyone knows that.
I wish you well in your endeavors. I remember you as
a kind person, struggling with your paper.
Kind regards, and I hope to see you again one day.
IEN
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