Where are your Valentine's Day flowers grown?

V-Day is also a very important day for Israeli exports because many of the flowers sold in (British) supermarkets and corner shops come from Israel and the Occupied Territories. Maybe it's the same where you live?

If you care about Israeli war crimes in Gaza, if you disagree with Israeli policies in the Occupied Territories, if you wish to live in a world without Apartheid... refuse to buy Israeli flowers on St. Valentine's Day.

When it comes to flowers, it isn't enough just to check for a Produce of Israel label or a barcode starting '7 29'. Israel sends many of its flowers to Holland for repackaging and relabelling. Support your local producers... buy locally-grown flowers.

The demonstration shown in this video took place last Saturday outside the premises of Carmel Agrexco. Carmel Agrexco is a 50%-state owned Israeli company at the heart of Israel's colonisation and exploitation of Palestinian land. It exports fresh fruit, vegetables and herbs from Israel and the Occupied Territories and accounts for 70% of exports of fresh produce from occupied Palestine. Britain takes 60% of its exports to Europe and Agrexco is the largest importer of illegal settlement goods into the UK, where it trades under the Carmel, Coral and Jaffa brand names.

Flowers exported by Agrexco are grown in illegal settlements on Palestinian land and so constitute illegally traded goods. Many Palestinians refuse to work with Agrexco. Thousands of others, though, are compelled by the complete strangulation of Palestinian agriculture resulting from the Israeli occupation to work packing goods for export in packing houses on land forcibly taken from their communities by Israeli settlers. They are paid as little as 30 shekels (£4) a day and have no sickpay, holiday pay, rights to unionise or contracts. Children are often employed on these settlements. Many of these Palestinian workers have called on the international community to boycott and campaign against Carmel Agrexco.

A regular picket is to be found outside Agrexco's premises in the UK. The aim of the picket is to expose its complicity in murder, theft and damage of occupied land, collective punishment, Apartheid, ethnic cleansing and other breaches of International Law to public scrutiny. A group of 15 women locked themselves to the gates of Carmel Agrexco to stop a delivery of Valentine's roses.

For the video:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/ectomorfo/3274316685/