Yesterday, Sunday 16 November 2008, activists once again manifested their opposition to the activities of the Israeli agricultural export company Agrexco at their depot in Hayes, Middlesex. A truck load of horse manure was left at the front gate of the premises to symbolise growing discontent with the company’s intimate connection to violence against Palestinians living in the Israeli-occupied West Bank.

Agrexco, which’s leading fresh produce brand is Carmel, brings to the shelves of British supermarkets products grown on illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank, in contravention to British, EU, and international law. Agrexco handles the vast majority of settlement fresh produce exports (around seventy percent). According to the company’s own statements, Britain represents sixty percent of Agrexco’s sales abroad.

In recent months, settler violence against Palestinians in the West Banks has marked a steep increase. Representatives from the United Nations, but also from NGOs such as Oxfam have voiced their strong concern over the mounting settler violence against Palestinian civilians and the Israeli government’s failure to contain the attacks. The issue of the responsibility of companies selling and marketing goods from Israeli settlements in the West Bank towards Palestinians who suffer from such illegal and colonial activity has been raised in the British media in the past week. For all these reasons, yesterday's action was a timely reminder that Agrexco has ‘shit to deal with’ regarding the violation of Palestinians’ human and property rights.