[News] Enjoy Your High, But Not at the Expense of Palestinian Human Rights

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://truthout.org/articles/enjoy-your-high-but-not-at-the-expense-of-palestinian-human-rights/ 



  Enjoy Your High, But Not at the Expense of Palestinian Human Rights

Ariel Gold - March 5, 2019
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Medical cannabis is considered the next up-and-coming miracle drug, with 
very few side effects. But with Israeli companies bursting onto the 
international market, medical cannabis exported from Israel may soon 
have to come with a new warning. Beware: purchase of this product may 
contribute to violations of Palestinian human rights.

The Israeli medical cannabis industry, as it is currently set up, 
whitewashes Israeli war crimes, provides legitimacy and profits for 
people responsible for past massacres in Gaza, and supports Israel’s 
illegal settlement, a direct cause of Palestinian suffering.

On December 28, the Israeli Knesset approved legislation for the legal 
export of medical cannabis. While the law still needs to be finalized — 
it needs the prime minister’s signature — exports are expected to begin 
by the end of 2019 
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/.premium-pot-luck-investing-in-israeli-medical-cannabis-stocks-is-guesswork-1.6941471>, 
and the Israeli cannabis industry is celebrating. Saul Kaye, CEO of 
iCAN, an Israeli venture fund and medical cannabis technology incubator, 
boasted 
<https://www.prnewswire.com/news-releases/ican-israel-cannabis-ceo-cannabis-to-become-as-important-to-israels-economy-as-high-tech-300770761.html>, 
“Israel, already the most advanced nation in cannabis R&D, will now be 
able to produce and market cannabis and cannabis-based products that 
will help millions of people.”

The global medical cannabis market 
<https://www.jpost.com/Israel-News/Senior-Thai-delegation-visits-Israel-to-cultivate-medical-cannabis-knowledge-579749> 
is expected to reach $28 billion by 2024 and Israel is already a big 
part of it. Thanks to a merger with Canada’s Aurora, the Israeli medical 
cannabis company Tikun Olam holds a value 
<https://en.globes.co.il/en/article-next-for-tikun-olam-a-cannabis-pharmacy-1001258106> 
of $400 million. Another company called Together Pharma, which has 
products for sale in Delaware and Washington State, and will soon sell 
medical marijuana in California and Florida, was valued 
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/what-is-an-israeli-cannabis-company-doing-in-uganda-the-answer-is-hazy-1.6548072> 
at 300 million shekels (around $83 million) as of October 2018. 
InterCure, an Israeli holding company for small medical cannabis firms, 
is valued 
<https://www.profitconfidential.com/stock/intercure-ltd-stock/intercure-stock-israeli-marijuana-stock/> 
at around $180 million. InterCure aims to produce 100 tons of medical 
cannabis by 2020.

In September 2018, InterCure, looking to further its enormous financial 
success, brought on former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak to be the 
company’s chairman. As chairman, Barak receives 
<https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/business/.premium-meet-israel-s-many-medical-marijuana-millionaires-including-former-prime-minister-1.6895423> 
a $10,000 monthly salary and has InterCure stock options worth more than 
$12.3 million.

While Barak may now be profiting off a company charged with the 
distribution and promotion of a fantastic and helpful product, Barak’s 
history toward one entire group of human beings — Palestinians — has 
been the opposite of healing.


    Securing Profits for Israeli War Criminals

Barak served 35 years in the Israeli military, rising to the rank of Rav 
Aluf (lieutenant-general), the highest possible rank, and was the 
Israeli military’s most decorated soldier. Between 1999 and 2001, he 
served as prime minister and then held the posts of minister of defense 
and deputy prime minister between 2009 and 2013.

During his military service, Barak led Israel’s December 2008-January 
2009 Operation Cast Lead war against Gaza, which killed 
<https://www.btselem.org/statistics/fatalities/during-cast-lead/by-date-of-event> 
almost 1,400 Palestinians, including 344 Palestinian minors killed in 
Gaza by the Israeli military. He was minister of defense during Israel’s 
2010-11 Pillar of Defense offensive on Gaza, killing 167 
<https://web.archive.org/web/20130607064406/http:/www.btselem.org/press_releases/20130509_pillar_of_defense_report> 
Palestinians (mostly civilians), and the Israeli Navy’s 2010 attack on 
the MV Mavi Marmara — a Turkish boat sailing as part of an international 
flotilla to break the siege on Gaza — where 10 unarmed activists were 
murdered.

In 2009, British lawyers petitioned 
<https://www.theguardian.com/world/2009/sep/29/ehud-barak-war-crimes-israel> 
a London court to arrest Ehud Barak on charges of war crimes and breach 
of the Geneva Convention. In 2010, lawyers in Belgium brought charges 
<https://www.haaretz.com/1.5138515> against him for war crimes, 
including the use of the chemical weapon white phosphorus during 
Operation Cast Lead. In 2015, Barak was sued in the United States for 
his role in the Mavi Marmara flotilla massacre. The lawsuit was filed 
<https://electronicintifada.net/content/ehud-barak-served-us-lawsuit-over-gaza-flotilla-slaying/14978> 
by the parents of Turkish-American citizen Furkan Doğan, who was shot 
multiple times at point-blank range during the raid. “If those who took 
part in the decision are not held to account, then … there is nothing to 
prevent the Israelis deciding to take such aggressive action in the 
future,” Doğan’s father said.

Barak, having largely managed to evade accountability, is now rebranding 
himself as a leader in medicinal cannabis healing.

While Barak’s InterCure may be the most obviously problematic Israeli 
cannabis company, it is not the only one entangled in occupation. The 
company Together Pharma lists 
<https://together-pharma.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/Together-Pharma-English-.pdf> 
Guy Atia, an “expert in the security field,” as co-director and 
controlling shareholder, and retired Brigadier General Meir Ben Yishai 
as being in charge of “defense and security.” While it isn’t clear 
exactly what roles these two men play in the company, usually in Israel, 
the terms “defense” and “security” have some link to Israel’s military 
occupation and settlement economy.

In September 2018, Together Pharma set up a joint subsidiary 
<https://www.calcalistech.com/ctech/articles/0,7340,L-3741933,00.html> 
with Dead Sea cosmetic company Premier, whose products are featured 
<https://corporateoccupation.wordpress.com/2010/05/06/kibbutz-kalia-part-1-a-holiday-in-israeli-apartheid/> 
at the Dead Sea resort of Kibbutz Kalia in an illegal Kalya, West Bank, 
settlement.

In January 2017, the first Israeli-recognized academic course 
<https://www.jpost.com/Business-and-Innovation/Health-and-Science/Israels-Ariel-University-opens-first-academic-course-on-medical-cannabis-477163> 
for medical cannabis began. Students in the course learn the history, 
legal background, regulation and current status of medical cannabis in 
Israel. They study cannabis’s active ingredients, farming, various 
technologies and innovative developments, and even “moral dilemmas” 
involved in the product. What isn’t addressed is that the course is held 
at Ariel University, located in the illegal settlement of Ariel, thereby 
directly contributing to Palestinian suffering and violations of 
international law.

Having Ehud Barak as lead in one of Israel’s largest medical cannabis 
companies sends a message to the world that there is no necessity in 
holding Israel accountable for massacres in Gaza. This applies not just 
to the past, to the war crimes Barak is guilty of, but clears the way 
for Israel to continue on an ongoing basis to commit such crimes. On 
February 28, 2019, the United Nations Human Rights Council released a 
statement 
<https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/world/middleeast/israel-crimes-against-humanity-gaza-un.html> 
that the actions Israel has been carrying out in Gaza over the past 11 
months may constitute crimes against humanity. Since March 30, 2018, 
Israel has shot more than 6,000 people with live ammunition, killing 
189, including 35 children, at protests near Israel’s fence around Gaza. 
The U.N. investigation stated there were “reasonable grounds to believe 
that Israeli snipers shot at journalists, health workers, children and 
persons with disabilities, knowing they were clearly recognizable as such.”

By welcoming into their community the man responsible for Israel’s 
2008-09 and 2010-11 assaults on Gaza, the Israeli cannabis industry is 
giving a stamp of approval for the continuation of such massacres.

Like Barak’s leadership, the Israeli cannabis industry’s involvement in 
settlements whitewashes and contributes to human rights abuses against 
Palestinians. The United Nations is unequivocal that such settlements 
are illegal, the Fourth Geneva Convention stating that an “Occupying 
Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population 
into the territory it occupies.” A January 2016 report 
<https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/01/19/occupation-inc/how-settlement-businesses-contribute-israels-violations-palestinian> 
by Human Rights Watch details how settlements businesses contribute 
directly to violations of Palestinian human rights and that businesses 
should immediately “cease carrying out activities inside or for the 
benefit of settlements.” Both Human Rights Watch 
<https://www.hrw.org/report/2018/11/20/bed-and-breakfast-stolen-land/tourist-rental-listings-west-bank-settlements> 
and Amnesty International 
<https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2019/01/israel-opt-tourism-companies-driving-settlement-expansion-profiting-from-war-crimes/> 
have specifically called for an end to settlement tourism, and certainly 
this should apply to academic courses in settlement universities as 
well. Vacation rental giant Airbnb heeded this advice in November 2018, 
announcing <https://press.airbnb.com/listings-in-disputed-regions/> the 
removal of West Bank settlement listing due to settlements being “at the 
core of the dispute between Israelis and Palestinians.”


    Medical Cannabis as a Socially Responsible Industry?

It isn’t just in Israel that the cannabis industry has veered away from 
its “one love” Bob Marley social justice roots. Spend more than a few 
minutes watching CNN and you will see a commercial 
<https://www.ispot.tv/ad/d8jG/2019-american-cannabis-summit-join-boehner-online> 
from former Speaker of the House John Boehner telling you that you, too, 
can benefit financially from the newly legalized cannabis industry. 
Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, meanwhile, recently spoke out 
about the U.S. cannabis industry’s failings to right the wrongs of the 
U.S. drug war: “Is this industry representative of the communities that 
have historically beared [sic] the greatest brunt of injustice based on 
the prohibition of marijuana?” Ocasio-Cortez asked 
<https://twitter.com/nowthisnews/status/1098005062012420096> in a 
congressional hearing. As she cited, in Colorado and Washington State, 
where cannabis is legal, 81 percent of cannabis executives are white, 73 
percent are male; while in Massachusetts, only 2.2 percent of cannabis 
businesses are owned by women and 3.1 percent are owned by people of color.

But American cannabis, even as it is being run by white men co-opted to 
fit with Republican-style winner-takes-all capitalism, doesn’t carry the 
same baggage as Israeli occupation.

Ever since I turned 40, I have suffered from insomnia. I fall asleep 
easily enough but then, around three or four in the morning, I wake up 
and can’t fall back asleep. I’ve found through trial-and-error, the most 
effective sleep aid is a light puff on a joint.

I’m a big fan of medical cannabis. Along with sleep disorders, cannabis 
has been proven effective in treating PTSD, cancer, epilepsy, 
Parkinson’s, multiple sclerosis, Alzheimer’s, Crohn’s disease, anorexia, 
glaucoma, schizophrenia, muscle spasms, nausea, pain, and more.

I have no need to purchase cannabis products from Israel. Plenty of 
local (non-John Boehner), organic, high-grade medical cannabis is grown 
and distributed throughout the United States, without the profits going 
to pay war criminals or whitewash Israel’s settlement economy. From 
small and large family farms in Northern California to personal 
cultivation in Washington, D.C., when I go into a dispensary to look for 
strains and methods of administration to help me sleep, I am able to 
shop locally and purchase from farmers and companies that guarantee such 
things as living wages and health benefits for their workers. Since I 
don’t want to contribute to Palestinian human rights abuses, I will now 
make sure I don’t purchase cannabis from InterCure or Together Pharma’s 
U.S. subsidy or any other Israeli-owned cannabis company. I hope the 
next time you go into a cannabis dispensary you, too, will make sure 
that your relief does not contribute to Israeli apartheid.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
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