• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
Brighton & Hove Palestine Campaign

Brighton & Hove Palestine Campaign

Supporting the struggle to achieve a just and lasting peace for Palestine

  • Home
  • Get involved with BHPSC
    • Our activities
    • Membership
    • Contact Us
    • Donate to BHPSC
    • Travel to Palestine information
    • Online stockist of Palestinian products
    • Privacy Policy
  • About Palestine
  • Campaigns
    • Hewlett-Packard
    • Sainsbury’s Campaign
    • Stop Arming Israel – Arms Embargo Now
    • EcoStream / SodaStream
    • Boycott
    • Water meters
    • Lobbying
    • Jordan Valley Solidarity
  • Upcoming Events
    • Upcoming Local Events
    • Other Upcoming Events
  • News & Reports
    • Local News & Reports
    • News & Reports from Palestine
    • Other News & Reports

Our campaign against Arad water meters reaches the Israeli press

From www.haaretz.com

BDS campaign in Britain nearing watershed moment

Supporters and opponents of the boycott movement against Israel are keeping a close eye on British water meters, of all things, to gauge the success of their efforts.

By Anshel Pfeffer | Aug. 21, 2013

 

LONDON – An ongoing campaign by supporters of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement against an Israeli water-management company working in Britain could prove a major test-case for the success of the boycott campaign in Britain.

Since early this year, the British branch of the movement that seeks to isolate Israel diplomatically and punish it economically over its policies toward the Palestinians has been trying to bolster opposition to a contract signed three years ago between Arad Technologies and the British water provider Southern Water. The 36 million pound (NIS 200 million) contract signed in 2010 for advanced digital water-management and monitoring systems also included 600,000 advanced water meters meant to be installed in Southern Water customer homes in southeast England.

The Israeli firm Arad was founded in 1941, before the state of Israel was established, by two northern kibbutzim. Today it is a publicly owned company that BDS activists have pilloried for selling equipment to Israeli settlers in the West Bank and to the state-owned water corporation Mekorot, which is accused of depriving Palestinian and Bedouin villages of sufficient water.

Like similar anti-Israel initiatives, this one remained a little-noticed post on a website for months, until one couple – Caroline and Edmond O’Reilly of Brighton, who support the local chapter of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign – successfully petitioned Southern Water to remove the Arad water meter from their home and replace it with a second-hand, non-Israeli meter.

Heavily invested in its contract with Arad, Southern Water must have hoped that by spending an estimated 200 pounds to accommodate the O’Reillys, the matter would have been put to rest. But when its technicians came to replace the meter, they were greeted by a small demonstration of pro-Palestinian protesters and journalists and, for a moment, it seemed the boycott campaign had scored a victory.

It is difficult to gauge the success of the BDS movement in actual economic damage to Israel. By almost all financial parameters, Israel’s trade with countries where the boycott movement is particularly active has been booming and growing annually. Israeli exports to Britain alone were up 55 percent in the first quarter of 2013. On the other hand, there is a strong argument to be made that the BDS campaign aims to harm Israel’s image more than its revenues. This is most often, and most effectively, achieved by urging famous singers not to perform in Israel, or imploring other high-profile personalities like Professor Stephen Hawking not to participate in Israeli conferences. In this case, however, the boycott supporters are trying to attack Israel’s “Startup Nation” image by targeting its technological companies.

So far the campaign against Arad in southern England has had mixed success. Southern Water has not been deterred, installing about half of the water meters it purchased in private households. Despite reports on the anti-Israel campaign in a number of regional and national newspapers, there doesn’t seem to have been a surge of customers in the area taking a cue from the O’Reillys and requesting their meters be replaced. On the other hand, the campaign has garnered support from at least one member of Parliament, Caroline Lucas, the Green Party’s only MP, who wrote to a constituent that choosing Arad came “at the expense of Palestinian human rights.” Lucas has been an outspoken critic of Israel for years, but she lacks any real political clout.

The true test of the campaign will come over the next few weeks, as the boycotters seek greater publicity for their cause, mainly through leaflets they plan to distribute. For the first time, ordinary citizens who have had the Arad meter installed in their homes will face a choice: to remove or not to remove the Israeli presence in their midst. The campaigners hope that thousands of requests for replacements would put a serious dent in Southern Water’s pocket, deterring it and other British water companies from doing business with Israelis in the future.

Pro-Israel groups will also be watching events closely, hoping to be able to announce another failure for BDS efforts. If this turns out to be the case, it may not be a sign of abundant philo-Zionism in Kent, Sussex and Hampshire, but rather a cost-effective measure that British households hope will keep their water bills to a minimum.

 

Primary Sidebar


twitter      facebook

Upcoming Events

  • See 'Our activities' for details of our weekly Saturday stall

Recent Posts

  • Video recordings of our series of online events ‘Brighton-Palestine Connect’ now available

    Video recordings of our series of online events ‘Brighton-Palestine Connect’ now available

  • Gaza in crisis – BHPSC has donated to MAP’s emergency appeal

    Gaza in crisis – BHPSC has donated to MAP’s emergency appeal

  • ‘How Brighton became Labour’s Israel-Palestine battleground’

    ‘How Brighton became Labour’s Israel-Palestine battleground’

  • Campaigners for Palestinian rights respond to City Council statement on racism and imperialism

    Campaigners for Palestinian rights respond to City Council statement on racism and imperialism

  • Trump’s so-called peace plan: write to the Foreign Office and your MP

    Trump’s so-called peace plan: write to the Foreign Office and your MP

Sign up below for periodic email updates. Better yet, become a member of BHPSC by clicking HERE

Copyright © 2021 Brighton & Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign
Contact Us

This site uses cookies to enhance your online experience and to better understand how our website is used. By using our website, you agree to our use of cookies.OkPrivacy policy & cookies