Hadiklaim is an Israeli date growers cooperative which deals with several major supermarkets in the UK, including Sainsburys, Marks and Spencer, Tesco and Waitrose (although the Co Op and Marks and Spencer maintain that they only stock Hadiklaim products from 1948 Israel). The company boasts that it exports to 30 countries (see http://www.hadiklaim.com/company_customers.asp). Tesco and Marks and Spencer branded dates are Hadiklaim produce.
The Hadiklaim cooperative includes date growers from 1948 Israel, mostly the South, and from the settlements in the occupied Jordan Valley. Hadiklaim’s website portrays the company as one which deals only with 1948 Israel; listing growers in Beit Shean, the Kinneret, the Arava, Eilat and (ambiguosly)’the Dead Sea region’. However, the company also exports from the Israels settlements in the Jordan Valley. Hadiklaim’s statements in the Israeli Hebrew language media are markedly different – the companies CEO has stated in YNet that the occupied Jordan Valley is an important area for Hadiklaim.

Hadiklaim exports under the ‘King Solomon Dates’ and ‘Jordan River’ brandnames.Their products are exported by the Israeli company, Almog Tradex Ltd, which claims to export 10 000 tonnes of Israeli fruits annually.

Hadiklaim boasts that “Hadiklaim growers and packing houses have approvals from international standard setting bodies – ISO, BRC, EUREP GAP, Bio USDA and IFOAM – as well as the Israeli Ministry of Agriculture and the Israeli Bio-Organic Agriculture Association”. Their produce is often certified as organic on the UK market.
Hadiklaim signage is displayed on packing houses in the settlements of Beit Ha’Arava, close to the Dead Sea Coast, and Tomer, close to the Palestinian village of Fasayil. There is evidence, however, to suggest that Hadiklaim dates are packaged in packing houses used primarily by Carmel-Agrexco or other exporters.
In October 2007, a group of campaigners from the Brighton Tubas Friendship and Solidarity Group (www.brightonpalestine.org) entered Tomer settlement in the occupied Jordan Valley and photographed Hadiklaim medjoul dates, packaged by Carmel Agrexco, labelled ‘Made in Israel’ and marked as bound for Tesco stores. Products exported as ‘Made in Israel’ benefit from the preferential trade terms of the EU-Israel Association Agreement, which came into effect in 2000. Settlement products, however, are excluded from the beneficial terms of the EU-IAA. When ITN screened an expose in 2007 accusing supermarkets of misleading British consumers, Tesco admitted it had acted “in error” and stated that Israeli dates “originating solely in the West Bank will [in the future] be labelled as such.” The controversy from this debacle spurred the 2009 DEFRA advice (see http://www.defra.gov.uk/foodfarm/food/pdf/labelling-palestine.pdf) on the labelling of settlement goods.
Date picking in the Jordan Valley is a hazardous business. Workers are hoisted into the trees with a cherry picker and are often left to work on a platform high above the ground for the duration of the working day without meal or toilet breaks. The majority of workers are Palestinian or Thai migrants – who are uniformly paid below the minimum wage. For more info on labour conditions for date pickers in the Jordan Valley see Kav’La Oved and UNISON’s 2009 film, Bitter Dates at http://www.leedspsc.org.uk/?p=1671.
Hadiklaim specialise in Medjoul dates – the type of date Muslims traditionally use to break their fast at Ramadan. Over the past years British mosques have often bought Israeli dates to break the fast because they are cheaper than their counterparts from North Africa. Ramadan is the second biggest time of year for Israeli date exporters (after Christmas). Israeli Medjoul dates can only be grown in the Jordan Valley and a few other regions of Southern Israel. Palestine Solidarity Campaign are running a campaign to highlight the issue of Israeli dates being bought for Ramadan – see http://www.palestinecampaign.org/index7b-2.asp?m_id=1&l1_id=3&l2_id=19&content_ID=1365for more details
The fact that companies such as the Co Op, who have taken an ethical stance against settlement produce, and Marks and Spencers, who have also agreed not to sell goods from the settlements, stock products from Hadiklaim highlights the fact that selective boycotts of settlement goods fail, even on their own terms. The Co Op’s stance against settlement produce is cheapened by the fact that they continue to deal with companies like Hadiklaim and Agrexco who provide vital business to Israel’s illegal settlements. Trade from the Co Op, and other British supermarkets, helps to perpetuate Israel’s colonial policies through promoting settler business.
Of course, any boycott which singles out Israel’s settlements is not going far enough.  The Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (see http://bdsmovement.net/?q=node/52) calls for a boyycott of all Israeli goods until Israel complies with international humanitarian law.
Hadiklaim ‘s address is:
6 Harutz Street
Tel Aviv 67060
Israel
Tel: +972-3-6389555
Fax: +972-3-6885999
Website: www.hadiklaim.com


7 Comments

Tarud · 4th December 2011 at 12:21 pm

Anti-israelsk og antijødisk hatpropaganda hjelper ikke palestinerne.
Jordan dalen var et ørkenområde før jødene har begynte å dyrke jordet der. Det er ikke palestinske bosettinger der og den jødisk jordbruk gir arbeidsplasser til mange palestinere som ellers lever i fred med sine jødiske naboer i området.
Hvis dere vil hjelpe palestinere må dere kanskje begynne med holdningen palestinere/arabere har til jøder.

    tomandersoncw · 9th January 2012 at 11:32 am

    Och vilken del av bloggen tycker du ar anti judisk hat propaganda? Jag kan garantera att det inte ar sant. Om du laser flera av bloggarna pa den har sidan sa finns det manga exempel pa hur bosattaromradena paverkar Palestinierna i omradet. For mer information om Jordandalen och verkligheten for Palestinierna dar see http://www.jordanvalleysolidarity.org . For en artikel pa Svenska se http://www.lasarnasfria.nu/Artikel/8998

Maymoona · 22nd July 2012 at 4:46 pm

Real disgrace! Wish the world would wake up to Israel’s dehumanising practises!

Ryland-Jones · 21st January 2014 at 4:17 pm

The land you call illegal settlement land belongs to God. He has given it to His people Israel as promissed land for eternity. The so called Palestinians are welcome to live in peace within greater Israel, the only Jewish state in the entire world, but they refuse. The muslim Arabs of Israel don’t want peace and only know how to make war, because war (Islam) is their religion, and war is all that their leaders live for. I pity them more than any other people group in the world right now because they are kept in ignorance and hatred by the Arab nations around them who, by refusing to take them in when they were made refugees as a result of the wars which they have always started, keep them in abject poverty in sqalid camps for their own sick political ends and propoganda. Please get a bit more informed before calling for a boycott on Israeli produce. Look at the video links below to get you started:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O7ByJb7QQ9U
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uIEeiDjdUuU

    tomandersoncw · 6th March 2014 at 2:41 pm

    Hi
    I think this comment is a good example of the motivations behind some of those pushing for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinian land.
    However, the Palestinians living within Israel’s borders are not able to live in peace. They encounter systematic racial discrimination on a daily basis. Just look at the recently shelved Prawer Plan that aimed to ethnically cleanse Palestinian bedouin communities from the Naqab (Negev).
    Saying Arab nations should take in Palestinians is a spurious racist argument implying that all Arabs are the same. Why should the Palestinians settle for anything less than staying on their land?
    regards
    Tom Anderson

Opting for Boycott : Adapting Advice and Counsel Memoranda from the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy – by the Editors of Unbound: An Interactive Journal of Christian Social Justice | Ecclesio.com · 13th June 2012 at 4:33 am

[…] Date picking in the Jordan Valley is a hazardous business. Workers are hoisted into the trees with a cherry picker and are often left to work on a platform high above the ground for the duration of the working day without meal or toilet breaks. The majority of workers are Palestinian or Thai migrants—who are uniformly paid below the minimum wage. (http://corporateoccupation.wordpress.com/2010/08/12/hadiklaim-in-the-jordan-valley/) […]

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