Adalah-NY’s Boycott Leviev Campaign Dec. 22 & Feb 7
Small groups of RudeMos have joined Adalah-NY: The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East (www.adalahny.org) at several energetic holiday-themed demonstrations this winter outside the Leviev Diamonds flagship store on Madison Avenue. The shop’s owner, Lev Leviev, is a diamond tycoon who made his billions in apartheid-era South Africa, went on to become the richest man in Israel, and now divides his energy between building illegal Israeli settlements on the lands of Palestinian villages, pushing gentrificondo development in Brooklyn, operating hideously exploitative diamond mines in Angola and Namibia, and funding a religious-right effort to entice Jewish New Yorkers to flee the public school system for fundamentalist academies. In other words, an all-around winner.
Adalah-NY calls for a boycott of Leviev, to make New York inhospitable to his businesses until he ceases his participation in human rights abuses, from the Palestinian villages of Bil’in and Jayyous in the Occupied West Bank to the diamond mines of Southern Africa to the streets of Gowanus and Forest Hills.
We joined up with Adalah-NY on December 22, 2008 for a round of caroling at Leviev Diamonds to celebrate the victories of the past year: Oxfam and UNICEF publicly refusing Leviev’s donations as long as he remains part of the settlement-building machinery of the Israeli government’s war on Palestinians; enough notables disassociating themselves from Leviev for his website to completely eliminate its ‘Celebrities’ section; and protests against Leviev spreading to London and Dubai. RudeMos brought a solid rhythm section to tunes from “Leviev the Red-Faced Magnate” to “Buy Yourself a Merry Little Tchotchke”, but the crowd-pleaser was definitely the following:
We wish you a loss of business
we wish you a loss of business
we wish you a loss of business
and a poor fiscal year
Lev’s bling is a bit off-putting
Lev’s bling is a bit off-putting
Lev’s bling is a bit off-putting
made from Angolan tears
The worldwide financial crisis, as well as the effects of the boycott, make that wish more likely than many to come true.
Full coverage of the event is here: http://nyc.indymedia.org/or/2008/12/102389.html
We returned to Madison Avenue for Adalah-NY’s “Valentines for Palestine” picket on February 7, 2009. Accompanying chants and songs – “Diamonds Are a Crime’s Best Friend” most notably – we brought added energy to a demonstration that didn’t need our contribution to be lively and loud, but appreciated the flavor we brought nonetheless. The demonstration preceded by a few weeks the announcement by the government of the U.K. that it would honor the boycott and break its agreement to rent a new space for its embassy in Israel from a Leviev company.
A slideshow from the demonstration is here: http://adalahny.org/index.php/photo-galleries/286-leviev-valentines-day-2009
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