Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign: Eden Springs in Scotland buckles under pressure

Worldwide Activism

Eden Springs in Scotland buckles under pressure
Worldwide Activism, Palestinian Grassroots Anti-Apartheid Wall Campaign, November 29th, 2008

As a result of an intensive boycott campaign, Israeli water cooler company Eden Springs has been forced to close its East of Scotland depot. According to an industry insider, in recent months the company has lost hundreds of contracts across Scotland, which is an anomaly in an industry that is generally expanding.

Among Eden Springs’ major losses are contracts with East Lothian and West Lothian Councils, Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and Caledonian MacBrayne Ferrries, which is the sole link between the mainland and Scotland’s many islands. Stevenson College, the Scottish Council of Voluntary Organisations, as well as a number of Scottish trade union and student bodies have all voted to boycott Eden springs explicitly on the grounds of their violations of international and human rights law.

Eden Springs operates in the occupied Golan Heights, removing water from the Salukia Spring and selling it around the world. The fact that the corporation exploits the resources of the occupied territory and sells it for profit puts it in direct violation of international law. Furthermore, this is practice is a part of a larger systemic pattern of water exploitation and unjust water distribution in Israel and Palestine, as the Occupation appropriates some 95% of the water available to itself and Palestine.

The closure of Eden Springs’ East of Scotland depot at Loanhead (Edinburgh) and the loss of so many contracts is widely seen as being the result of a determined publicity campaign by the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, who oppose the corporation’s violations of international and human rights law in the occupied Golan Heights.

Eden Springs has been keen to conceal its status as an-Israeli owned company. Another industry insider, who wished to remain anonymous, reports that Eden Springs manager, Graham Carruthers, has been canvassing customer responses to a name change as one way to limit the damage done by increasing association of the brand with the Occupation and its crimes.