Tel-Aviv, June 12, 2005

To
Dame Anita Roddick,
Founder and Co-Chairperson
The Body Shop Global Headquarters
New City Court,
20 St. Thomas Street,
London SE1 9RG
UK

Dear Madam:

I am writing to you as the renowned founder of The Body Shop, who made a single shop in Brighton into a world-wide network which takes pride in its devotion to human rights, social responsibility and environmental protection. 

The specific reason for writing you this letter is a small news item by Arik Mirovski, published on June 10 in the business section of Ha'aretz newspaper and the Hebrew text is accessible at 

www.haaretz.co.il/hasite/pages/ShArtPE.jhtml . 

It says that The Body Shop has rented space at the Hapisga Shopping Mall located at Pisgat Ze'ev, north of Jerusalem in Palestinian territory which was captured by the Israeli armed forces in June 1967 and unilaterally annexed to Israel - an annexation which was never recognized by any other nation. Even if some countries contemplate the possibility of an eventual peace treaty which would leave part of the unilaterally- annexed territory under Israeli sovereignty, none of them accept the method of unilaterally creating facts. 

The Ha'aretz news item was quite specific, noting that The Body Shop had leased for two years a shop space measuring 52 square metres, at a monthly rate of 36 US Dollars, and that it reserved the right to extend the lease by a further three years. 

Presumably, the person responsible for making the lease and preparing to open an outlet of The Body Shop at this particular location thought of it as a business deal, pure and simple. But particularly in the case of a company like yours, with the outspoken principles and values which it espouses, attention should have been paid to the specific circumstances and avoiding the embarrassment of being found on disputable ground (to say the least) as far as international law is concerned.  

Pisgat Ze'ev (Ze'ev's Peak) was planned as a key part of the extensive campaign by successive Israeli governments to create "facts on the ground" in the Occupied Territories. The "Jewish Neighborhood of Pisgat Ze'ev" was created in the 1980's at the initiative of the late Prime Minster Menachem Begin and named for Begin's mentor, the radical nationalist agitator Vladimir-Ze'ev Jabotinsky. Begin, and his then Minister of housing Ariel Sharon, personally took care that a large tract of Palestinian land was confiscated and considerable government funds invested in the project.  

Both as intended by the planners and as actually built on the ground, Pisgat Ze'ev was conceived as a "broad Jewish wedge" thrusting far northwards into Palestinian- inhabited territory between the Shua'fat Refugee Camp to its south and the Palestinian neighborhoods of A-Ram to its north and Beit Hanina to the west, in accordance with the government's  guiding principle of "breaking up the Arab territorial continuity". An elaborate system of discriminatory legislation and bureaucratic practices was successfully deployed in order to ensure that only Jews could acquire housing in Pisgat Ze'ev and that all Palestinians - including the dispossessed owners of the land where it was constructed -be debarred from living there. Indeed, there are no Palestinians to be found among Pisgat Ze'ev's present 70,000 inhabitants, despite the fact that many government-subsidized apartments located there are empty while all around Pisgat Ze'ev the Palestinian neighborhoods are suffering from overcrowding and a severe lack of housing. 

In spite of the many empty houses, Pisgat Ze'ev is still in a process of extension, with hundreds of new housing units being now built and whole new streets being added - all on confiscated Palestinian land. Moreover, as noted on the official Pisgat Ze'ev website  ( www.pis.co.il/ ), the Pisgat Ze'ev Executive Committee has been in recent months "strongly urging" the state authorities to expedite the confiscation of additional land in the neighboring Palestinian community of Beit Hanina and the destruction of  Palestinian houses located on that land, in order to facilitate the creation of "a bypass road needed for the convenience of Pisgat Ze'ev inhabitants".       

Most of the streets in Pisgat Ze'ev are named for military leaders and military units. In the list of street names published on the aforementioned Pisgat Ze'ev website can be found such names as "General Moshe Dayan Boulevard", "General Haim Laskov Street", "Air Force Street", "Army Communications Corps Street", "Hermesh Battalion Street", "Egoz Commando Raiders Street", "Haruv Commando Raiders Street", "Duchifat Commando Raiders Street", "Jerusalem Tank Company Street", "Michmash Battalion Street", "Moriya Battalion Street", "Fifth  Battalion Street", "Golani Brigade Special Reconnaissance Unit Street" and many other similar ones. The website gives extensive details on the military record of each of the units named, with battles in which it participated and medals won by its soldiers "in order to educate our youths and make them proud". Of the many streets enumerated on the website, only four are called after a civilian person or institute. 

Late last year, when Pisgat Ze'ev intended to add a street named after the late General Matti Peled, the plan met a strong objection from the  family, with his daughter Nurit Peled-Elhanan writing: "After his retirement from the army, my father became a peace activist and a campaigner for Israeli-Palestinian peace. He would not have liked his name to be commemorated in a place created in Occupied Territory with the specific purpose of hampering the chances of peace". 

In another "street-naming incident", Pisgat Ze'ev carried out the ceremony of naming a new street after Paul Grueninger, a Swiss police officer who saved Jews during WWII - in spite of getting a specific letter of protest from the Swiss embassy, asking that their country's meritorious citizen not be commemorated at a location in occupied territory outside Israel's internationally-recognized boundaries. More information could be added, but the above seems quite sufficient to show that opening an outlet at Pisgat Ze'ev is highly incompatible with the praiseworthy values and principles enumerated on the Body Shop website, with your commitment to Human Rights in general and  specifically with the Right to Housing which was the subject for your 2002 Human Rights Award. 

In contravention with the letter and spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights (which the State of Israel signed soon after gaining its independence in 1948) places such as Pisgat Ze'ev are dedicated to the proposition that the right to housing is not free and equal to all, but rather should be granted to one ethnic group only at the expense of and to the exclusion of others. 

In light of all this, I call upon you to act according to your own stated policy as proudly proclaimed on your website: "The Body Shop believes that businesses, in particular, have a part to play in effecting social change. If more businesses demonstrated a social conscience and acted with social responsibility, governments would have to listen." 

In this particular case the only logical act would be to terminate forthwith the Pisgat Ze'ev deal and inform the government of Israel and the Israeli public of your reasons for doing so. 

Yours,
Adam Keller - Spokesperson
Gush Shalom (The Israeli Peace Bloc)
POB 3322, Tel-Aviv 61033
Phone +972-3-5565804, +972-506-709603
Fax +972-3-5590321
Email info (at) gush-shalom.org 

cc to The Guardian, The Independent, International Herald Tribune

We call upon you to write to one or more of the following contact addresses of The Body Shop, using either the text above (but with your own signature!) or whatever variation you prefer.

The Body Shop Human Rights Award
humanrightsaward (at) thebodyshop.com

Various Body Shop customer service and management emails:
ukcustomer.relations (at) the-body-shop.com
usa.info (at) the-body-shop.com 
investor.relations (at) the-body-shop.com
webmaster (at) the-body-shop.com
loveyourbody (at) bodyshop.com
tbs.athome (at) bodyshop.com
recruiter (at) bodyshop.com
katie.harris (at) the-body-shop.com
kecurran (at) unccvm.uncc.edu

Body Shop Headquarters fax
U.K. +44 1903 726250
USA + 1 919 554 4361

Worldwide list of Body Shop Emails
www.thebodyshopinternational.com/web/tbsgl/contact_email_list.jsp

Worldwide addresses, phone & fax numbers of local Body Shop headquarters
www.thebodyshopinternational.com/web/tbsgl/contact_email_list.jsp

For access to a lot of interesting material:
--The brochure Truth Against Truth (available in many languages)
--Boycott list of settlement products
--video footage of hot spots
--Archive of articles and documents

Go to:
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