American Muslims for Palestine organizes boycott of Israeli Dates
As the holy month of Ramadan nears, American Muslims for Palestine (AMP) relaunched a national boycott of Israeli dates sold in US markets. AMP calls on all Americans and American Muslims to boycott date brands known explicitly to operate in illegal Israeli settlements and to exploit Palestinian labor and natural resources.
Taher Herzallah, AMP’s Grassroots Organizing Director, stated: “We have seen a marked decrease in imports of Israeli dates to the US market over the past few years. This is partly due to our boycott efforts on a national level. Consumers across the country are refusing to purchase dates that have been grown withIsrael’s exploitation of Palestinian land, labor and natural resources.”
The date boycott kicked off in New Jersey, Minnesota, Illinois, Texas and California, where major concentrations of the Palestinian-American community live. The boycott will continue throughout the holy month of Ramadan which begins on April 13th.
Herzallah continued: “We encourage our community members to check the label and make sure that dates branded as Hadiklaim, Jordan River, King Solomon, Delilah, Carmel Agrexco and Mehadrin are neither bought by consumers nor sold by stores in the community. American Muslims and Palestinian-Americans should not have to break their fasts with apartheid dates.”
AMP has released a full report on the subject that can be found here and a video detailing the injustices committed by Israel’s date companies against the occupied Palestinian people.
More information about AMP’s date boycott campaign can be found here: https://www.ampalestine.org/dateboycott
For more information, or to schedule an interview with an AMP spokesperson, please contact Media Coordinator Malak Shalabi at +1(888) AMP-1948.
Ray Hanania is an award winning political and humor columnist who analyzes American and Middle East politics, and life in general. He is an author of several books.
Hanania covered Chicago Politics and Chicago City Hall from 1976 through 1992 at the Daily Southtown and the Chicago Sun-Times. He began writing in 1975 publishing The Middle Eastern Voice newspaper in Chicago (1975-1977). He later published “The National Arab American Times” newspaper (2004-2007).
Hanania writes weekly columns on Middle East and American Arab issues as Special US Correspondent for the Arab News ArabNews.com, at TheArabDailyNews.com, and at SuburbanChicagoland.com. He has published weekly columns in the Jerusalem Post newspaper, YNetNews.com, Newsday, the Orlando Sentinel, Houston Chronical, and Arlington Heights Daily Herald.
Hanania is the recipient of four (4) Chicago Headline Club “Peter Lisagor Awards” for Column writing. In November 2006, he was named “Best Ethnic American Columnist” by the New American Media. In 2009, Hanania received the prestigious Sigma Delta Chi Award for Writing from the Society of Professional Journalists. He is the recipient of the MT Mehdi Courage in Journalism Award. He was honored for his writing skills with two (2) Chicago Stick-o-Type awards from the Chicago Newspaper Guild. In 1990, Hanania was nominated by the Chicago Sun-Times editors for a Pulitzer Prize for his four-part series on the Palestinian Intifada.
His writings have also been honored by two national Awards from ADC for his writing, and from the National Arab American Journalists Association.
Hanania is the US Special Correspondent for the Arab News Newspaper, covering Middle East and Arab American issues. He writes for the Southwest News newspaper group writing on mainstream American issues.
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