نعتذر! هذه الوحدة غير متوفرة كلياً باللغة العربية في الوقت الحالي. إن صندوق العدة أداة حية تتطور باستمرار. يمكنكم التواصل معنا لمساعدتنا في ترجمة هذه الوحدة.
باختصار
The Stolen Beauty boycott campaign targeted the Israeli cosmetics manufacturer Ahava, causing economic damage, a tarnished reputation, and ultimately, a promise to move the factory out of historic Palestine.
A group of women enter the Ahava (which means “love” in Hebrew) cosmetics shop in the Tel Aviv Hilton. Sporting bikinis, they smear mud on their bodies, scrawling the words “Stolen Beauty” and “No Love in Ahava.” Questions are asked, and a dialogue begins. A few weeks later at a “Tel Aviv Beach Party” in New York, another group of women in bikinis convey the same messages.
These actions were just the beginning of a multi-pronged international boycott campaign against Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories, an Israeli company located in an illegal settlement in the Occupied Palestinian Territories. The message is in the mud: there is nothing beautiful about occupation.
The message is in the mud: there is nothing beautiful about occupation.
Stolen Beauty seeks to educate consumers, store managers, CEOs, and the general public about Ahava’s illegal practices. The tactics range from guerrilla theatre to online culture jamming, and the target is Ahava — its location in an illegal settlement, its fraudulent labeling, and its illegal pillaging of mud from the shores of occupied and colonized lands. By drawing attention to Ahava’s violations of international law and human rights, the goal is to educate the American and global public on what is really happening in Palestine, and contribute to the much larger Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement demanding freedom and justice for the Palestinian people.
Soon after the launch of the campaign, it was discovered that “Sex and the City” star Kristin Davis was both Ahava’s spokesmodel and an Oxfam Goodwill Ambassador. Boycott supporters contacted Oxfam, which has an explicit policy against Israeli settlement products. Oxfam suspended Davis from publicity work for the duration of her Ahava contract. The story landed in the gossip column of the New York Post, which was terrible publicity for Ahava, but good for fans of justice and peace. Davis did not renew her contract with the company.
Following that, Ahava announced a Twitter contest for free products. In response, the Stolen Beauty campaign issued a call to tweet in messages like: “Does AHAVA offer a moisturizer to sooth my hands after so much ethnic cleansing?” We culture jammed their marketing contest, and turned it into a #socialmediafail.
Creative interventions continue to target key sale and marketing points that carry Ahava’s products (see: METHODOLOGY: Points of intervention). For instance, ten women wore pink bathrobes with matching towels wrapped around their heads and walked into stores, singing jingles about the ills of occupation. Protesters and other patrons asked the store to stop stocking Ahava cosmetics.
Ahava’s reputation as an international brand has been tarnished by the boycott campaign. For example, in 2010 Ahava was condemned as being complicit in Israel’s regime of occupation, colonization, and apartheid and its crimes at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, and its production and labeling practices have come under extensive scrutiny in Europe. Years of pressure and bad press eventually led to the company’s announcement in 2016 that Ahava plans to move its factory from the occupied West Bank to within Israel’s pre-1967 borders.
Originally published in Beautiful Trouble.
النظرية الأساسية
BDS activists challenge the economic manifestations of Israel’s colonial and apartheid regime in Palestine by targeting companies profiting from its crimes. This grassroots approach, which was launched in Palestine and has spread globally, contributes to the broader vision of reversing Israel’s territorial and economic exploitation of the indigenous Palestinian population and its land.
التكتيكات الأساسية
Stolen Beauty activists get attention and tell a story with outrageous costumes, direct action, and clever yet clear messaging. Stores that sell illegal settlement products come to a standstill when we enter singing in bathrobes, smeared with mud or performing marriage ceremonies pledging ourselves to the pursuit of Palestinian human rights.
Stolen Beauty has succeeded in getting a diverse set of tools into the hands of high numbers of activists to wage a multi-pronged, global campaign. The script and song sheets for actions like performing a marriage ceremony pledging to boycott Israeli products in front of the Bed, Bath & Beyond Bridal Registry are easily downloadable from the Stolen Beauty website. We provide Twitter suggestions via email for the lone wolf and tips for indoor Valentine’s Day parties when the weather is bad to clog the comment threads of beauty sites that sell Ahava.
المبادئ الأساسية
Occupation is illegal. It directly contravenes international law, the Geneva Conventions, and existing United Nations resolutions. Stolen Beauty puts the onus where it belongs: Israeli companies are breaking international law and profiting from the occupation, and should be held to account. While bringing attention to these facts, activists dressed in bathrobes, bikinis, or bridal wear risk arrest in order to creatively disrupt business as usual.
People shopping for high-end cosmetics, as well as passersby, store clerks and managers, are made aware of the Israeli occupation when they are exposed to Stolen Beauty’s actions. The campaign undermines the legitimacy of the “Made in Israel” stamp, and makes visible illegal profiteering from occupation.
Will activists stop Israel’s occupation and colonization of Palestine by boycotting a cosmetic company? No. But the campaign affects Ahava’s reputation and bottom line by exposing its ugly secrets, and supports the much larger BDS movement. Activists have convinced many local stores to stop carrying Ahava, and the BDS campaign in the UK was able to get the Ahava flagship store to close its Central London location in Covent Garden.
المنهجية الأساسية
Instead of choosing a general long-term vision such as “free Palestine,” the Stolen Beauty campaign identified a short-term objective through targeting and boycotting Ahava — one of many companies profiting from Israel’s crimes and violations. This allowed the campaign to be effective by having an objective that was specific, measurable, achievable, realistic, and time-bound.