Supporting Palestinian Businesses in Jerusalem

"Buying from Israeli businesses supports the occupation"

After work on Tuesday, Muki and I hung around the office a little longer than usual connecting with an American who we had met briefly at the Prawer Plan protests (she used to work for PNN and had come by the office to help out with an article). 
Our boss came in saying the film crew was heading out to an awareness-raising campaign at the wall, and would we like to come. Muki looked at me, we shrugged and realized that in the first month of being somewhere new its important to say yes to (almost) everything. 

We drove to Aida Refugee Camp- somewhere we had been hoping to find- picked up some more people and headed to the checkpoint. When we arrived a woman handed out Palestinian flags, the PNN guys shouldered their cameras and I realized I wasn't quite sure what we were going to. Following along, waving my flag, I learned that the activists here were trying to raise awareness and encourage Palestinians visiting Jerusalem during Ramadan to support Palestinian businesses, not Israeli ones. 

The activists, part of a larger campaign called “Now I have a Permit, Where do I go?” handed out lists of Palestinian-owned stores in East Jerusalem and pasted the lists on the separation barrier, as Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) watched. Those who weren’t handing out papers waved Palestinian flags and held signs. 

Munther Amerah, an Activist in the Popular Committees to Resist Wall and Settlement said that those who obtained permits to enter Israel must support the Palestinians there, and foster communication between Palestinians living inside the Palestinian territories of 1948 and those living in the West Bank. He stressed the importance of supporting stores in East Jerusalem belonging to Palestinians over Israeli stores.

Amerah said, “We distributed flyers at the main entrance of Bethlehem checkpoint that had a list of names and maps of Palestinian stores and businesses within Israel.”This campaign was ignited because of the increased number of Palestinians in East Jerusalem during the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Throughout Ramadan the Israeli government grants permits to almost all Palestinians (except men under age 40) to cross the boarder. Many Muslim Palestinians travel to Al-Quds (Jerusalem) to pray at the Al-Aqsa Mosque (near the Dome of the Rock) in the Old City. (Someone laughingly told us that you get 'extra points' for praying there. It is the third holiest site in Islam.... now think about why control over Jerusalem is such a contentious part of the conflict.)

However, the Israeli government’s motivations for handing out so many permits during this particular month have been questioned. 

In the words of Mohammed Hirbawi, head of the Chamber of Commerce in Hebron, the holy month of Ramadan “is known for its shopping sprees… Palestinian shop-owners feel that the permits' purpose at this time is to benefit the Israeli economy, which consequently adversely affects our own."

The activists were gathered in front of the main gate that facilitates the movement of equipment from one side of the wall to the other. As local media representatives interviewed the activists, IOF forces opened the gate three times to move military and industrial vehicles, causing the interviews to be disrupted. Activists, journalists and supporters were obliged to disperse and regroup three times. I couldn't help but wonder if the movement of the vehicles had been absolutely necessary at that particular moment... it seemed to be more of an intimidation-fragmentation-disruption technique.


The Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement has gained a lot of traction internationally. Two instances are that the European Union announced a ban on further financial support of Israeli institutions operating beyond the 1967 Green Line and Stephen Hawking refused to speak at a conference in Israel. The action we were at was not directly linked to BDS, but it was certainly in a similar vein, if coming from more of a pro-Palestinian economy, than an anti-Israeli occupation.