While doing research on the Global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement for Palestine, I came across the web site Who Profits, a project of the Israeli Coalition of Women for Peace. On that site I found a list of Israeli and international companies that are directly involved in and profit from the occupation of the Palestinian West Bank. It seemed strategically and morally important to select for our campaign a corporation whose practices were clearly in contravention to international law. Many of the corporations on the Who Profits list were either unfamiliar to me, discouragingly huge, or didn’t seem like obvious targets for a women’s peace group. But I saw one name that I recognized: Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories. In fact, I knew there was a plastic bottle of Ahava Eucalyptus Mineral Bath Salts sitting on the windowsill next to the tub in my bathroom.

If you take a look at Ahava’s web site, you can read about the company’s environmentally responsible practices: “Our manufacturing processes are non-polluting and environmentally conscious. No animals are involved in testing phases and all of our products are encased in recyclable tubes, bottles and jars.” Ahava’s spokeswoman is fresh-faced Sex & The City actress Kristin Davis, whose commitment to doing good is evidenced by her status as an Oxfam Goodwill Ambassador and her position on the advisory board of The Masai Wilderness Conservation Fund. On the Ahava site, Davis is quoted as saying, “My personal beliefs, which include treating both animals and the environment with respect, are equally important to AHAVA.”

If you navigate around the web site you will see pristine images of the Dead Sea, enticing products with beautifully designed labels, and a photo of a water lily leaf with the caption, “This leaf has nothing to hide.” But, unfortunately, Ahava does have something to hide—an ugly secret about its relationship to a brutal occupation. The Hebrew word “Ahava” means love, but there is nothing loving about what the company is doing in the Palestinian territory of the West Bank. Ahava is an Israeli profiteer exploiting the natural resources of occupied Palestine.

AHAVA Dead Sea Laboratories, an Israeli cosmetics company, has situated its main manufacturing plant and showroom at the Israeli Jewish settlement Mitzpe Shalem in the Occupied Palestinian West Bank near the shores of the Dead Sea. Mitzpe Shalem, built on occupied land in 1970, is an illegal settlement, as are all Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Ahava’s capture of Palestinian natural resources from the Dead Sea is, according to the Fourth Geneva Convention, a patently illegal use by an occupying power of stolen resources for its own profit.  To add insult to injury, Ahava’s labels claim that the country of origin of its products is “The Dead Sea, Israel”—this type of labeling has been decried by Oxfam, among other human rights groups, as blatantly misleading.

While we were working on putting together the new AHAVA boycott campaign we called STOLEN BEAUTY, CODEPINK led several delegations to Gaza, one of which never made it into the Strip because the Israeli government wouldn’t let them through the Erez crossing. Several CODEPINK activists decided to take a fact-finding mission to the Ahava plant in the West Bank, corroborating what we had read about the plant’s location and its practices. The women decided to seize the opportunity and—with the avid encouragement of the Israeli Jewish and Palestinian peace activists that they had met—they went to the Ahava store at the Hilton Hotel in Tel Aviv to stage a protest action. Some put on bikinis, wrote on their bodies with mud NO AHAVA/NO LOVE, while others carried signs with slogans such as “There is no love in occupation.” They chanted, sang and made the Israeli evening news.

About a week later, we heard that Kristin Davis was going to be at Lord & Taylor on Fifth Avenue promoting Ahava products and signing autographs. Two of us went to the store to deliver a letter to Davis, requesting she stop letting Ahava use her beautiful face and good name to cover up their crimes. She was less than receptive, and we were escorted out of the store. A week later, the CODEPINK bikini brigade showed up at the “Tel Aviv Beach Party”—part of the Israeli government’s multi-million dollar “Re-brand Israel” campaign—in New York’s Central Park. The bikinis and our anti-occupation message made Fox News.

We recently sent letters to Ahava’s headquarters in Holon, Israel, as well as to Ahava USA and Kristen Davis, giving them notice of our boycott. We sent copies of these letters to Shamrock Holdings, the investment company of the Roy E. Disney family, which owns 19% of Ahava’s shares. On Monday of this week, CODEPINK women showed up in bikinis and mud at the Cosmoprof North America Trade Show in Las Vegas to let Ahava representatives know we were launching our STOLEN BEAUTY campaign.

We have sent letters to over 100 retailers requesting that they stop stocking Ahava products because Ahava helps finance the destruction of hope for a peaceful and just future for both Israelis and Palestinians. In August we’ll be outside a drugstore, department store or mall near you, exposing Ahava’s dirty secrets and showing that real beauty is more than skin deep. You can go to www.stolenbeauty.org to find out how to join our campaign. And you don’t have to wear a bikini to do it.

(Also posted at AlterNet here)

*  President-Elect Obama, you were elected in large part because of your promise to end the War in Iraq.  Will you sit down with leaders of the peace movement to talk about bringing our troops home?

*  What will you do to find a viable, negotiated solution that ends the violence in Afghanistan and fosters sustainable economic development, women’s rights, healthcare, education and civil society in the region?

Here’s how you can vote:

1.  Go to the Change.gov Open for Questions page
2.  Sign In to your account
3.  Search for the questions using the keyword:  peacevoter
4.  Vote by hitting the checkmark next to each of the questions

After voting, you can also submit your own question for Obama.

Update:  Jodie Evans wrote a piece for Tikkun magazine today to President Obama calling for him to End War Altogether and meet with the peace community.  Check it out here.

WHAT: Press conference on tragic story of Queens resident Jocelyne Voltaire’s home foreclosure
WHEN: 12 p.m. Oct. 17
WHERE: Outside Queens County Courthouse, 88-11 Sutphin Boulevard, Jamaica, Queens

JAMAICA, QUEENS, N.Y. — Jocelyne Voltaire lost her son earlier this year in Iraq and is about to lose her Queens Village home.

Voltaire, who immigrated here 21 years ago, bought her white, two-story house and raised a family there, is one of thousands of Americans whose home is being foreclosed after being caught in a mortgage scam. (Read the New York Daily News story about her foreclosure here).

“I still have two children, ages 6 and 10, who need a roof over their heads,” Voltaire said. “I worked all my life, my son died for this country, and now the bank wants to take my home away? That’s just wrong. Washington needs to help us, the homeowners, not the banks and Wall Street.”

Members of the peace action group CODEPINK Women for Peace have visited Voltaire at her home and plan to be at the Queens County courthouse tomorrow to host a press conference protesting the foreclosure. It is a poster case for what is wrong with the $700 billion bailout of taxpayer money to Wall Street.

“Jocelyne’s case is symbolic of what is wrong with the $700 billion bailout of Wall Street and the banks — it’s bailing out the wrong people!” said Medea Benjamin, CODEPINK co-founder. “We’re determined to make sure Jocelyne stays in her home and that the government helps people like her, not rich financiers.”

It is getting major action on the blogs right now (from political blog Daily Kos to Huffington Post) after the American News Project did a story on her yesterday here in the lead-up to the presidential debate.
CODEPINK has created a web site for people to donate to a fund to pay Voltaire’s mortgage here

For more information, please call Medea Benjamin at 415-235-6517.

CODEPINK, founded in 2002, is a women-initiated grassroots peace and social justice movement working to end the war in Iraq, stop new wars, and redirect our resources into health care, education and other life-affirming activities. We reject the Bush administration’s fear-based politics that justify violence, and instead call for policies based on compassion, kindness and a commitment to international law. With an emphasis on joy and humor, CODEPINK women and men seek to activate, amplify and inspire a community of peacemakers through creative campaigns and a commitment to non-violence. www.codepinkalert.org.

A wonderful e-mail has been circulating today. It describes how Alice Paul, Lucy Burns and other women of the 1900s — two generations after Susan B. Anthony and Elizabeth Cady Stanton — were beaten, jailed, trashed in the newspapers and taunted by crowds when they snuck into private venues, stood in lines illegally, chained themselves to the White House, and more, all to get the right to vote. Now praised, then they were considered crazy, obnoxious, rude, loud, and weird. Why couldn’t they just be quiet? Why couldn’t they just politely voice their opinion through the (unjust, sexist) system? Hmm. Funny, CODEPINK women hear the exact same questions today!

Nearly each day, someone informs a CODEPINK member to her face, in an e-mail or by comment (cough cough), that our attempts to stop the war, to stop all future wars, to demand our great nation invest in diplomacy, health care, education and infrastructure rather than destruction are crazy. We are rude, we are weird, we are obnoxious. Sometimes — most times — these tauntings are laced with misogynstic, ageist and homophobic epithets — “old hags” “lesbians” (as if that’s a bad thing), “prudes” etc. And in places like the Democratic and Republican conventions, where free speech and dissent should be protected, we are locked out from public events, taunted by onlookers, pushed back by police and, sometimes, arrested.

It happened to our foremothers, the suffragettes, too. From this incredibly powerful e-mail:

“Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.

The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote…

It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave. That didn’t make her crazy.

The doctor admonished the men: ‘Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.’” (Read the rest, and see brilliant photos, here).

Peace work and activism is not easy. We face incredible systems of power, and all of those people benefitting from them, and everytime we threaten them, we face the tauntings. The arrests. The abuse. But Alice Paul and other women prevailed after nealy 100 years of work. Can we stand another 100 years of war?

CODEPINKer Liz Hourican, ever ready to draw attention to political ridiculousness, kneels in the protest zone with rollerskates and a bullhorn, clad in bright and shiny pink.

Even though Denver feels increasingly like a police state, and certainly becomes one every time we stage any sort of demonstration (like making out in a park?) and we’re surrounded by dozens, police have been relatively permissive (as they should be) and almost indifferent to us. Most of their behavior seems routine, as if they’re just doing their job, and frankly, officers are bored. (Two yesterday stationed by the Sheraton Hotel in full body armor said they’d wear a “Make Out Not War” sticker but couldn’t be caught taking one from me while on the job. “And I wouldn’t match my outfit,” one quipped). Denver officials trained them to respond to far much more than pink sashes, singing in the streets and umbrella-clad bicycles, so it seems anytime there’s even a hint of demonstrator unrest, they overreact. If and when officers slow down and consider their behavior, the morality or even legality of it, they leave us alone. The officer who struck Alicia will wish he did so.