Disney Heiress Withdraws Investment from Israel

Abigail Disney

TIME TO BOYCOTT DISNEY, Folks!

Abigail Disney, Walt’s great-niece and heiress, has just withdrawn her 12 million dollar investment in the Israeli Company Ahava because, she says, it is “stealing minerals” from an “Occupied West Bank.” 

Ms. Disney believes this violates both the 1970 Hague Convention and the Geneva Convention “by exploiting natural resources in occupied territories.”

Well—not exactly, and not so fast.

Disney is not actually withdrawing a penny for “complicated financial reasons.” She has decided to “donate the profits, as well as funds equal to the value of her shares in the Dead Sea minerals cosmetics firm Ahava, to groups working to end this illegal exploitation."

Serious Israeli (and non-Israeli) legal experts view the territories as “disputed” not “occupied”—but let’s not quibble.

Ms. Disney may not know it, but she has now become an honorary member and poster child for the anti-peace women’s “peace” group: Code Pink. This is a group which supports the government of Iran, the Taliban, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Fort Hood shooter, and many other such “peaceful” groups and individuals. 

One of their more high-profile targets is Ahava Cosmetics.

Perhaps Ms. Disney does not fully understand who her new allies really are.

For at least six-seven years, the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment campaign has targeted Israel’s beauty and cosmetic line, Ahava. 

Code Pink jumped right in and launched many creative and obnoxious demonstrations. 

In 2009, Code Pink members demonstrated in the Ahava store in the Tel Aviv Hilton. They smeared mud on their chests and holding signs that read: Stolen Beauty and “There is Nothing Beautiful About Occupation.”

In 2011, Code Pink was successful in getting The Bay, a large Canadian chain of stores, to drop Ahava Products. Their campaign is global and ongoing, and often successful. 

Their first victory consisted of having Oxfam’s Goodwill Ambassador, Kristin Davis, (Sex and the City), suspend her publicity work for them given her affiliation with Ahava; they have gotten London to investigate the “legality” of Ahava’s labeling, blockaded Ahava’s flagship store in London more than five times; and convinced the Dutch Foreign Ministry to launch an investigation of Ahava’s “business methods.”

The ironic thing is that West Bank companies tend to employ Arabs (both Israeli citizens and Palestinians). When such firms are boycotted, their employees suffer.

Soda Stream, another Israeli company situated in the West Bank, employs 950 Arabs (450 Arab Israeli citizens, 500 Palestinians).

 In 2014, after protests about not being allowed to bring in their own food after Ramadan-- home-bought food is prohibited for everyone-- sixty of the 950 Arabs were fired.

I mention this because Israeli companies actually employ Arabs (Israeli citizens and West Bank Palestinians); and Israelis start successful companies (Yes, they are the descendants of Jews who cleared the swamps and build a modern nation out of sand and rock).

We all know what the Gazan Palestinians did to the greenhouses that Israel left standing when it pulled out of Gaza completely. They destroyed them. They did not continue to use them to supply food to their people or to export food for commercial gain.

I hope Ms. Disney changes her mind. In fact, I hope all Hollywood changes its mind about who the real “Nazis,” fascists, totalitarians, barbarians, misogynists, and racists really are today.

And it is not Israel.

Disney owner boycotts Israeli company Ahava

Remember this the next time you plan a trip to either Disney World or Disney Land

The boycott against Israeli companies reached a new high as American Disney owner announced a boycott against Ahava Products.

The campaign to boycott goods produced in settlements is gaining ground both among the Jews of America and in Israel, where thousands of people have joined Peace Now in a call to challenge a law prohibiting boycotts and avoid buying anything produced east of the Green Line.

Now, the campaign just got a little more lively: Abigail Disney, whose grandfather, Roy O., and uncle Walt Disney founded the entertainment giant that bears his name, has issued a statement this morning defending the boycott of skin care product maker Ahava. The Ahava factory and visitor center is located in Mitzpe Shalem, a settlement about a mile from the western shore of the Dead Sea.

The declaration of Disney, is far from theoretical: She is a principal investor and former vice chairman of the board of Shamrock Holdings Inc., the investment firm founded by her father, Roy E. Disney, which owns about 18.5 percent of Ahava. "Recent evidence from documents of the Israeli Civil Administration showed that Ahava Dead Sea Laboratories clay sources used in their products are from the shores of the Israeli controlled Dead Sea, which is in direct contravention of the provisions of the Hague Regulations and Geneva Conventions prohibiting the exploitation of natural resources from occupied territories, "Disney said in a statement.

"While I always keep my colleagues and co-workers in the highest sense, I cannot in good conscience keep of what is technically the 'looting' of the occupied natural resources and the company is placing a factory in an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. Due to the complicated legal and financial restrictions I cannot withdraw my investment at this time, but will donate the body of the

investment and profits accrued to me during the term of my participation of the organizations in working to end this illegal exploitation."

This marks the latest achievement of the global campaign against Ahava, entitled "Stealing Beauty".

Since the campaign began in 2009, Ahava was forced to close shop in Covent Garden in London, the loss of its distributor in Japan, was banned by a major retail chain in Norway, and was named specifically in the call conducted last week by the Presbyterian Church to boycott settlement products.