Wednesday, December 17, 2008

Settlement builder met with worldwide protests

Press release, Adalah-NY, 16 December 2008

"Signaling growing outrage at Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev's businesses' global rights abuses, on 12 and 13 December human rights advocates in Dubai, London and two West Bank Palestinian villages held protests against Leviev's settlement construction. According to Gulf News, the protest in Dubai, unprecedented in the United Arab Emirates, came after a screening at the Dubai International Film Festival of a documentary film about Palestinian hip-hop artists. Leviev's sale of his diamonds through Arif Bin Khadra's Levant jewelry stores in Dubai has stirred controversy there.

Dubai's Gulf News reported that on Friday, "Forty T-shirts and one hundred letters from the West Bank town of Jayyous were distributed to the audience at the screening of Slingshot Hip Hop." Gulf News continued, "The distributed T-shirts called on Dubai residents to boycott Leviev as well as Levant Jewellery, owned by Leviev's local agent, Palestinian-Moroccan Arif Bin Khadra. Meanwhile, activists campaigning against Leviev's activities have set up a Facebook group that is calling for a boycott of all Dubai venues that host stores selling Leviev diamonds. The group has gained almost 400 members in less than two weeks since its launch, according to group administrator Jabbar, a UAE-based Palestinian rapper." Jackie Salloum, the Arab American filmmaker who made Slingshot Hip Hop, has visited Jayyous, one of the West Bank villages where Leviev is building Israeli settlements. She described the situation there as "dire," saying that "the 'security barrier' and colonies being built by Israel there have robbed its residents of their livelihoods."....."

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