Anti-Israel activists recently pressured Lonely Planet to omit mention of Ahava’s factory and outlet store as part of a recommended stop on its Dead Sea itinerary. The popular guide to Israel, which has recently come out in a new edition, will no longer inform readers of Israel’s state of the art facility.
Pro-Palestinian activists claim that “Ahava is hiding the ugly truth – its products actually come from stolen Palestinian natural resources in the Occupied Territory of the Palestinian West Bank, and are produced in the illegal settlement of Mitzpei Shalem.” Moreover, they allege that when Ahava’s health-conscious products are bought, one helps “finance the destruction of hope for a peaceful and just future.”
Ahava is an Israeli cosmetics company that makes products out of the Dead Sea’s mud and minerals. Apart from Israel, the company maintains flagship stores in Germany, Korea and Singapore.
(YWN – Israel Desk, Jerusalem / Shurat HaDin Israel Law Center)
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3 Responses
The same thing happens to us Jews in the 1930 to boycot Jewish stores , now they clams that we have stolen land from the socalled palestinian land , then is was germany now the whole world show there
Lonely Planet did not remove Ahava Factory and Outlet Store as a result of the boycotting campaign. While we do forward on all reader feedback to our editors and authors, we did not instruct the author to remove the listing from the most current edition of the Israel and the Palestinian Territories guidebook.
The Ahava Factory and Outlet Store was omitted for reasons completely unrelated to the boycott campaign. Our authors consider the value of recommendations to the traveller and make decisions about what listings and information to include in a fair, balanced way, without political bias. In this case, the author updating the Israel and the Palestinian Territories guidebook decided that, within a limited page count, there were better places to recommend in the area and so chose not to include the store.
Our editorial guidelines clearly state that “Lonely Planet is independent of outside interests and arrangements that could undermine our editorial integrity. Travellers should be confident that our decisions are not influenced by outside political or commercial pressures, or any personal interests”. As we are committed to impartiality, our editorial is not influenced by lobbying groups or boycott campaigns.
Lonely, I think you should put it back just to show that you are not part of the boycott.. because as you can see it was seen that way.