By Haaretz – 23 May 2010
www.haaretz.com/news/international/two-italian-grocery-chains-to-boycott-israeli-produce-1.291772
Coop Italia and Nordiconad say they cannot differentiate between goods coming from settlements and inside the Green Line
Two Italian supermarkets have announced that they plan to stop selling all Israeli products as they could not differentiate whether they came form West Bank settlements or inside the Green Line.
Italian grocery chains Coop and Nordiconad will remove all Israeli products from their shelves by the end of the month, according to the Stop Carmel-Agrexco Web site – an Italian based coalition dedicated to the boycott of one of Israel’s top agricultural exporters.
Grocery chain Coop Italia issued a statement saying that they had a problem with “traceability, namely that the consumer is unable to verify whether or not the product in question comes from the occupied territories.”
The Coalition Web site added that this was “an important success for the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli apartheid.”
According to the Web site, the campaign to lobby Italian supermarkets was launched in January this year and has since been coordinated in both Italy and France.
The statement added that the coalition “has vowed to make sure that both chains follow through on their promises, and encourages everyone to participate in this struggle for respect for international law, and freedom and self-determination for the Palestinian people.”