Diamond market heavily contaminated with Israeli blood diamonds

national | rights, freedoms and repression | press release

Thursday December 20, 2007 22:04

by IPSC - Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign

ipsclk at iolfree dot ie

Last weekend members of the Ireland-Paleatine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) were on the streets in Dublin, Galway and Limerick to inform shoppers about the likelihood of unwittingly supporting the apartheid regime in Israel if they purchase diamonds without knowing where they were crafted.

In the run up to Christmas the IPSC has stepped up its campaign to alert the public about the contamination of the diamond market with Israeli blood diamonds. Jewellers in Ireland (and elsewhere) are using their compliance with the UN Kimberly Process as a fig leaf to disguise the fact that they are selling diamonds crafted in apartheid Israel.

The problem for consumers at the moment is that unless a diamond has been branded by laser inscription it is impossible to distinguish a diamond crafted in Israel from a diamond crafted in a country that respects human rights and international law.

Jewellers claim that their diamonds are "conflict free" but fail to mention that the definition of conflict diamond includes only uncut or rough diamonds and disregards the much more lucrative trade in cut and polished diamonds from conflict zones. Israel is the world's leading producer of polished diamonds, a trade which accounts for 30% of Israel's total manufacturing exports.

The trade in polished diamonds from Israel helps fund genocide, ethnic cleansing and other human rights abuses being perpetrated daily against the Palestinian people. Diamonds crafted in Israel are de facto blood diamonds. Consumers should have the right to know where their diamonds were crafted and the right to choose Israel-free diamonds.

END

For comment contact: Sean Clinton – 087-2725300, 061-386203

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Comments (3 of 3)

Fine

by Ron

Tue Dec 25, 2007 19:46

But it shouldn't be "Diamond market heavily contaminated with Israeli blood diamonds", cause Israeli diamonds ain't blood diamonds. Blood diamonds is a totaly different thing. Say that you boycott Israeli diamonds the way you boycott Israeli potatoes or Israeli garden furniture. Don't use this "Blood Diamond" label, since it's not true.

last ...

by TD - IPSC

Sun Dec 23, 2007 14:07

One!

Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign : Campaign against Israeli Blood Diamonds continues in Galway

by TD - Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign

Sun Dec 23, 2007 14:04

When it comes to Palestine, do not allow your conscience to be poisoned and paralysed, in the snake pit that is Zionism? Resist ! Boycott !
As its contribution to the ongoing campaign against Israeli Blood Diamonds, Galway IPSC did an information stall outside Lynch's castle yesterday.

As its Xmas solidarity contribution to a people; "constantly preparing for dawn, in the darkness of cellars lit by our enemies" (Palestinian national poet Mahmoud Darwish) we did an eight hour one.
As gemstones crafted in Israel contribute heavily to its economy, accounting for 30% of its total manufacturing exports, they were the focus of our attention and, hopefully, coupled with effective boycotts of other Israeli exports will eventually force it to comply with international law and UN resolutions?.

As a result of Israel's domination of the diamond business, stones cut and crafted in Israel are on sale in all Irish jewellery shops with the likely consequence that buyers who are outraged at Israel's egregious crimes against humanity are unwittingly buttresing the economy of a rogue state that has to be brought to heel, as such, we had a petition calling on the Retail Jewellers of Ireland to request its members to identify the country which prepared them for market.

Sadly and predictably, a passing Israeli, indulging in Pavlovian response and projecting his unhealthy conscience, charged us with, yup, you've guessed it; "Anti-Semitism".