Group To Teach Icelanders How To Boycott Goods From Israel

A group of Icelanders hopes to educate the general public on how to avoid buying products from Israel.

DV reports that the group, called BDS Ísland, hopes to bring to light which Icelandic companies are importing and selling Israeli goods. The “BDS” in the group’s name stands for “Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions”.

The movement is an extension of the Facebook group “We don’t buy products from Israel”, wherein Icelanders post Israeli goods that they find on store shelves here in Iceland. Sema Erla Serdar, the chairperson of BDS Ísland, hopes to assemble and organise this information, and then make it more accessible to the public.

“We’ve been compiling a lot of Israeli brands,” she told reporters. “There are some big name products, like Soda Stream, Moroccan Oil, lots of Dead Sea cosmetics and the Viber smartphone app, and so of course a lot of food products. For example, dates, avocados, garlic and herbs from [the store] Náttúra.”

Sema adds that those wishing to boycott Israeli products can do so most easily by looking for bar codes that begin with the numbers 729, indicating that the country of origin is Israel. However, she says, this code is not present on all Israeli products, hence the necessity of a list.