A decision to allow Israeli billionaire and diamond magnate Lev Leviev, notorious for funding settlement construction in the occupied Palestinian lands, to open jewelry stores in Dubai has shocked pro-Palestine advocates.
Dubai is known as both a wonderland of exuberance and a stopping point for tourists, travelers and international businessmen. Unimpressed by its display of wealth and luxury, activists are rallying against Dubai's decision to allow an Israeli businessman and active builder of Israeli settlements to set up shop there. He promotes Palestinian displacement. In a way, they charge, now Dubai dollars will too.
New York, NY, April 18 – New York human rights activists, and representatives of the West Bank Palestinian villages of Bil’in and Jayyous called on the government and the people of the United Arab Emirates to boycott the jewelry stores of Israeli billionaire and diamond magnate Lev Leviev over his companies’ construction of Israeli settlements. According to a flurry of recent media reports, Leviev is opening jewelry stores in Dubai during 2008.
“We call on the government and people of the United Arab Emirates to join the growing international campaign to boycott Lev Leviev’s companies due to their construction of Israeli colonial settlements, and their human rights violations in Angola,” declared Daniel Lang-Levitsky of Jews Against the Occupation-NYC. “A major Israeli violator of Palestinian rights and international law should not be opening jewelry stores in Dubai,” added Adalah-NY spokesperson Issa Ayoub. Adalah-NY has organized eight boycott protests outside Leviev’s new Madison Avenue jewelry store over the last five months.
New York human rights activists from Adalah-NY, and representatives of the West Bank Palestinian villages of Bil'in and Jayyous have called on the government and the people of the United Arab Emirates to boycott the jewellery stores of Israeli billionaire and diamond magnate Lev Leviev over allegations of his companies involvement in construction of Israeli settlements.
New York, NY – Forty New Yorkers commemorated the Palestinian national holiday Land Day Saturday with the eighth protest at the Madison Avenue jewelry store of Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev. The protest included songs, theater and testimonials from villages threatened by Leviev's settlements. Land Day marks Palestinians' ties to their land, in defiance of Israeli efforts to displace them.
"We targeted Leviev's New York store on Land Day because his companies have recently built Israeli settlements on Palestinian land in at least four different locations in the Israeli-occupied West Bank," said Issa Mikel, a spokesperson for Adalah-NY. "He has also financed the Land Redemption Fund, a settler organization accused of using fraud to secure Palestinian land for settlement construction."
New York, NY, March 29, 2008 – Today’s Land Day protest at the Madison Avenue jewelry store of Israeli billionaire and settlement mogul Lev Leviev highlights the 60 year Israeli campaign to displace Palestinians from their land, and Palestinian defiance and resistance – from the Nakbah, or Catastrophe, in 1948, when around 800,000 Palestinians were driven from their villages by Israeli forces to become refugees; to the original Land Day protests in 1976; to present day settlement construction by Israeli settlement builders like Lev Leviev in Bil’in, Jayyous, Jabel Abu Ghneim and Maale Adumim.
THIS LAND'S NOT LEV'S LAND (to the tune of This Land is Your Land)
On this year's land day, we want Lev to pay For all he's stolen, to make his millions From Angola's miners, to Bilin and Jayous We won't stop 'til everyone is free!
The Palestine Justice Players Present: “This Land Is My Land, This Land Is Your Land?” A History of Confiscated Land Told Through Theater, with Dabke, Music and Song
Protesting the Settlement Construction and Land Theft of Israeli Billionaire Lev Leviev
Saturday, March 29, 2008, 1-3 PM At Leviev's new jewelry store at 700 Madison Ave, between 62nd and 63rd DABKE Lessons at Noon at 62nd and Central Park East Boycott Leviev!
New York, NY, March 7 – In a rare interview in the March 7 English edition of the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz Daily, Israeli billionaire Lev Leviev responded to questions about recent protests and calls for a boycott of his companies in response to their settlement construction in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.
Issa Mikel, a spokesperson for Adalah-NY - the group that has organized eight protests outside Leviev’s Manhattan jewelry store since it opened last November - commented, “Leviev’s responses were disingenuous and troubling. Leviev neglected to mention that his company Leader is building the settlement of Zufim, that he is a major donor to a company that acquires Palestinian land for settlements, and that all Israeli settlements violate international law. Leviev also portrayed his company’s monopoly over Gaza’s fuel supply as somehow charitable. Finally, as independent human rights activists, we challenge Leviev to provide evidence to support the completely false accusation he made that we have any relationship with or are “funded by business competitors.”
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