British retailer stops settlement trade

The fifth largest food retailer in Britain announced it would end trade with four Israeli companies who supply produce from disputed West Bank settlements. The Co-operative Group announced it was "no longer engaging with any supplier of produce known to be source from Israeli settlements," a statement issued by the supermarket group said, the British daily The Observer said Sunday. Palestinian human rights campaigners welcomed the decision saying it was the first time a supermarket anywhere in the West took such a position, the daily said. The Co-operative Group "has taken the lead internationally in this historic decision to hold corporations to account for complicity in Israel's violations of Palestinian human rights," Hillary Smith a campaigner coordinator for the Boycott Israel Network told the paper. The decision will affect four Israeli companies and contracts worth some $569,000, the newspaper said. The four Israeli companies are Agrexco, Arava Export Growers, Adafresh and Mehadrin, Israel's largest agricultural export company. The Co-operative Group said it did not view the decision as a boycott of Israeli goods, and said contracts will go to other Israeli companies that can guarantee they won't export produce from illegal settlements, the paper said.