ISRAEL PREFERRED THE BOMBERS:

Shades of Gandhi in Palestinian movement (IST, Jul 10, 2010)

Abu Mahmoud's storefront window, like thousands of others in the West Bank, is adorned with a yellow sticker that reads: "Your Conscience, Your Choice." It's part of an effort by the Palestinian Authority to boycott all goods made in Israeli West Bank settlements. Palestinians view the settlements as usurping their territory and much of the international community considers them illegal. And it's why Abu Mahmoud now exclusively carries Palestinian chocolate.

The movement is grassroots to the bone. Many Palestinians have been observing a boycott of settlement goods for years. The Palestinian Authority, however, formalised the boycott this year, decreeing punishments for those who stock settlement goods on their store shelves and, in the last few weeks, deploying a small army of volunteers to inspect shops across the territory. Five such volunteers recently showed up at Joe's supermarket in Ramallah to check for any outlawed goods. They didn't find any. "There were not too many goods from the settlements," said Yazan Tartir, who works at Joe's. Tartir noted that before the inspection, he only had to pull a few yoghurt and biscuit products from his shelves. [...]

Israel, for its part, has many means of economic retaliation at its disposal if the boycott threatens settlement economies. The Jewish state controls over 500 checkpoints in the West Bank, which it can shut down as it sees fit.