Choosing not to buy settlement products is 'offensive'
Articles from Ynet, JPost and RT.
“Our conscience is clean! We neither buy products from the Israeli settlements nor invest in the settlement industry.”
Danish bus agency removes ad against Israeli settlements
Danish campaign dubbed ‘unnecessarily offensive’ by local authorities after bus company gets complaints from residents.
By Associated Press / Ynet news
May 04, 2015
Copenhagen’s public transport agency on Thursday ordered the immediate removal of posters opposing Israeli settlements on the capital’s city buses after getting “a considerable amount of complaints.”
Movia, owned by eastern Denmark local authorities, said the campaign by the Danish Palestinian Friendship Association was “unnecessarily offensive.”
“Our conscience is clear! We do not buy products from Israeli settlements or invest in settlement industry.” (Facebook)
The campaign that started Monday was calling for labels on goods produced in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
“Our conscience is clean. We neither buy products from the Israeli settlements nor invest in the occupation industry,” the advertisement text read next to photos of two women only identified by their first names.
The company that runs the bus routes must remove the advertisements immediately from the 35 vehicles that displayed the posters, said the agency that is in charge of buses in Copenhagen.
“We got somewhere between 75 and 100 complaints, most of them in English,” Movia spokeswoman Camilla Struckmann told The Associated Press.
Fathi El Abed, head of the association running the campaign, expressed dismay at the bus company’s decision.
“This is crazy,” he said. “This is a matter of freedom speech. We will talk to our lawyer about this.”
El Abed said the message expressed in the bus campaign was the same as the EU line on the Israeli settlements.
At the campaign’s Facebook page, opponents expressed their anger with the posters, saying they are part of a “lying campaign” and a “propaganda machine.”
Discussion between Fathi El Abed and Israeli ambassador to Denmark Dan Oryan, about Operation Cast Lead, in English after introduction.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsXzlfKf8jo
Danish-Palestinian group to continue campaign against settlements after ads removed from city buses
By JPost
May 05, 2015
Danish-Palestinian group promised to expand its campaign targeting products originating in Jewish settlements in the West Bank after its advertisements were dropped from Copenhagen buses, AFP reported Monday.
Fathi el-Abed, a spokesman for the Danish Palestinian Friendship Association, said that the move by the country’s bus operator, Mavia, was “a clear attempt to deny us our freedom of speech.”
The advertisements that were removed from 35 of the Danish capitol’s public buses featured two woman beside the quote: “Our conscience is clean! We neither buy products from the Israeli settlements nor invest in the settlement industry.”
Movia had removed the advertisements just four days after they stirred controversy. The company said that it had “received a significant number of inquiries regarding the Danish Palestinian Friendship Association’s campaign against Israeli settlements,” adding later that the ads themselves were ” “unnecessarily offensive.”
El-Abed suggested that “there is nothing whatsoever about this campaign that is harmful, discriminatory or hateful in any way” and suggested that the decision had only strengthened is group’s resolve.
“Our support has grown because of all this attention because people are outraged, even those who’ve never had anything to do with the Palestinian cause,” el-Abed said.
Danish anti-Israeli settlements bus ads halted
By RT
May 05, 2015
The Danish Palestinian Friendship Association said Monday it would expand its anti-settlement advertising campaign after Copenhagen bus operator Movia said it was dropping their ads from buses in the city.
The advertisements were put on 35 buses in the Danish capital and featured two women and the quote: “Our conscience is clean! We neither buy products from the Israeli settlements nor invest in the settlement industry.”
But Movia said they dropped them after four days because of the number of inquiries they received about what the Danish Palestinian Friendship Association stands for, AFP reports.
[We] “received a significant number of inquiries regarding the Danish Palestinian Friendship Association’s campaign against Israeli settlements.”
The company declined to comment but released a statement saying the ads were “unnecessarily offensive.”
Fathi El-Abed, the Chairman of the Danish Palestinian Friendship Association, however said that the ads were harmless.
“It’s a clear attempt to deny us our freedom of speech. There is nothing whatsoever about this campaign that is harmful, discriminatory or hateful in any way,” he told AFP.
Notes and links
See also Jews against Islamophobia UPDATE for Geller and Manhattan buses.
Danish Palestinian Friendship Association
About Danish Palestinian Friendship Association [Online translation Danish-English]
DPV has existed since 1988, and works to ensure that the Palestinian people today from 8 million to 9 million people have realized their right to self-determination and to form an independent state.
DPV working on the basis of United Nations resolutions, including Security Council resolutions on the establishment of a Palestinian state in the occupied territories as well as General Assembly Resolution on the right of refugees to return to the places there – or their families – fled or were expelled from.
DPV is a nationwide membership organization with Region Associations and local groups
DPV working through public meetings and other democratic activities to influence the Danish public and the Danish authorities for more efforts for the Palestinians’ right to self-determination. Participation in the public debate through letters, etc. is an ongoing activity that DPV would like to see that many members participate.
DPV working to support the Palestinians financially. It has previously done through fundraising and applications for funds. We have completed two Danida-funded development projects, “Mark Roads in Palestine”, where we supported the expansion of infrastructure in rural areas and “Strengthening Palestinian Women” where we supported Palestinian women in Gaza and the West Bank through the creation of women’s centers in rural areas.
DPV support right now – mainly with funds from Danida planting of fruit trees and democracy development through “Palestinian Agricultural Relief Committees” – a Palestinian agricultural organization. A project – supported through funds from the “Arab initiative” to combat violence against women – through the Rural Women Development Society – was completed in April 2010. DPV working on more projects.
Study tours, and to the occupied territories and to Israel, partly to refugee camps in Lebanon, arranged at intervals.
DPV has contact with a number of Palestinian organizations in the occupied territories and in Lebanon, where many Palestinian refugees live under extremely difficult and precarious conditions. In Israel, we have contact with peace and human rights organizations, and seeks to network with international organizations whose work and objectives similar to or compatible with ours.