Protesting Leviev, From Here To Dubai

N.Y.-based Arab-Jewish group claims credit for UAE snub of diamond
merchant; Leviev spokesman says stores will open under his name.

Leviev already operates two jewelry stores in Dubai under the name
“Levant” through a Moroccan-Palestinian agent Arif Bin Khadra.

by Walter Ruby
Special To The Jewish Week

Israeli diamond producer and retailer Lev Leviev’s penchant for
flamboyantly branding his posh jewelery stores with his own name
appears to have gotten him into trouble again – this time with the
government of the glittery Arabian emirate of Dubai.

Leviev has been under siege from pro-Palestinian protestors who have
been picketing his posh diamond shops on Madison Avenue and London
for months. They are protesting the fact that subsidiary firms of
Leviev’s company Africa-Israel have been constructing Jewish
settlements in the West Bank.

The diamond producer suffered a new setback last week when a
high-ranking Dubai official last week stated that his opulent
city-state in the United Arab Emirates will not grant the
Uzbekistan-born magnate a trade license to open two new stores there

- at least not under the name “Leviev.”

But a Leviev spokesman insisted the 51-year-old billionaire will get
his way in the end and open “Leviev” stores in Dubai to add to those
already in existence in New York, London and Moscow.
Responding to a recent announcement by Leviev that he plans to open
new stores this fall in Dubai, Ali Ebrahim, deputy director general
for executive affairs in Dubai, said: “We are aware of these reports
and have not granted a trade license to any business of this name. If
such an application does come to us, we will deal with it
accordingly.”

According to Leviev, one of the new stores is slated for the Dubai
Mall, soon to be the world’s tallest building; the other is slated
for the Atlantis Hotel, on a recently constructed artificial island.

Ebrahim said Israeli citizens are not permitted to operate businesses
in Dubai. He added that such citizens would also be prevented from
operating through local partners, even though Leviev already operates
two jewellery stores in Dubai under the name “Levant” through a
Moroccan-Palestinian agent Arif Bin Khadra. According to media
reports, Israeli diamond traders have operated openly in Dubai for
years.

Ebrahim made his comments after Adalah-NY, a pro-Palestinian group
here that has been holding anti-Leviev demonstrations since last
November outside the magnate’s diamond shop on Madison Avenue,
strenuously protested to the Dubai government over Leviev’s plans to
open new diamond stores there.

Yet on May 4, Leviev spokesman Justin Blake told The Jewish Week
that, Ebrahim’s comments to the contrary, Leviev remains committed to
his goals for Dubai.

“The stores will be opening in Dubai under the Leviev name as
planned,” Blake said, declining to respond to questions as to how
Leviev will manage to open his stores in Dubai despite the stated
refusal of the authories there to allow him to do so.

Before Blake made his comments, observers in Dubai speculated that
Leviev, acting through Bin Khadra, would ultimately agree to open his
new stores there under the name “Levant” rather than his own name.

Yet Blake’s remarks indicate that Leviev may be planning to fight
Dubai’s decision not to allow him to brand the stores with his own
name, and will likely press the U.S. government to apply pressure on
Dubai to reverse its decision. Leviev has previously asserted that
attacks on his business activities by Adalah-NY and other groups are
“politically motivated” or impelled by anti-Semitism.

Ethan Heitner, a spokesman for Adalah-NY, which is composed almost
equally of Arabs and anti-Zionist Jews, claimed primary credit for
Dubai’s reversal of its earlier apparent willingness to allow Leviev
to open his stores there. “Working in conjunction with activists in
Dubai and Palestine, Adalah-NY sent out a press release calling for
Dubai to boycott Leviev on the basis of his violations of
international humanitarian law. … We’ve heard reports of UAE
papers and officials receiving our press release from multiple
sources and angry phone calls.”

Heitner said that even if Leviev ultimately succeeds in opening his
new stores in Dubai under the “Levant” name, Adalah-NY will still
have achieved a moral victory. “Before our boycott call … Leviev
was proudly planning to open an eponymous flagship boutique in the
tallest building in the world – a grand symbolic achievement for a
titan of global capitalism. Now, that’s not going to happen.”

Lev Leviev appears to believe otherwise.

This is this horrible person’s new house in London. And the people in Gaza are barely existing without fuel, food, water, power and sewage treatment.

Israeli jeweller has no trade licence to open shop in Dubai
By Abbas Al Lawati, Staff Reporter
Published: April 30, 2008, 00:14
Dubai: No trade licence has been granted to open Israeli jewellery store Leviev in Dubai contrary to claims by Leviev and its agent in Dubai, said a top official at the Department of Economic Development.

“We are aware of these reports and have not granted a trade licence to any business of this name. If such an application does come to us we will deal with it accordingly,” Ali Ebrahim, Deputy Director General for Executive Affairs in Dubai, told Gulf News.

Israeli diamond magnate Lev Leviev’s self-titled diamond boutique recently issued a press release announcing plans to open two stores in Dubai through its Moroccan-Palestinian agent Arif Bin Khadra.

Lev, an Uzbek-Israeli, is accused of profiteering from building Jewish colonies on occupied Palestinian land, illegal under international law.

Ebrahim said Israeli citizens were not allowed to operate in Dubai, adding that “precautionary measures” are taken to ensure that they do not. He added that Israeli businesses would be prevented from operating in Dubai through non-Israeli partners.

“There are no loopholes,” he said. “We check backgrounds of businesses that apply”.

Jewish and Palestinian advocacy groups have been campaigning against Leviev’s alleged plans to open in Dubai.

Jewish colony activities

Eisa Mikel, a spokesperson for The Coalition for Justice in the Middle East (Adalah), a Jewish-Palestinian advocacy group leading the campaign against Leviev, told Gulf News that Lev Leviev profits directly from the building of colonies on Palestinian land in the West Bank, where his companies are active in at least four colonies.

Dania Cebus, a subsidiary of Lev’s Africa-Israel Investments, is alleged to be involved in the construction of the colony of Har Homa between occupied Jerusalem and Bethlehem, Ma’ale Adumin, which surrounds occupied East Jerusalem, Zufim, built on the village of Jayyous, and Ariel, built in 1978 on a number of former Palestinian villages.

Adalah and New York-based Jews Against the Occupation issued a statement calling for the UAE to “join the growing international campaign to boycott Lev Leviev’s companies due to their construction of Israeli colonies”.

Mikel said the momentum against Leviev has been growing, citing a letter Adalah received from charity organisation Oxfam recently in which the group distanced itself from the Israeli businessman following media reports of donations made to the group by Lev.

Gulf News’ requests for an interview with a Leviev representative were unanswered by the time of going to print, but according to the Leviev press release, the boutiques will open in Dubai Mall and the Atlantis Hotel in Palm Jumeirah this year.

The Emaar Malls Group, which is developing the Dubai Mall, would not comment on the issue but a spokesperson from the Atlantis Hotel confirmed to Gulf News that the lobby of the hotel will include a Leviev boutique.

Leviev’s agent, Bin Khadra, first brought Leviev diamonds to the UAE in March this year with the opening of his store Levant Jewellery in the Mina Al Salam hotel. He told Gulf News that the franchise in the Dubai Mall and the Atlantis Hotel would be wholly owned by him.

Asked if he was aware of the activities of Lev Leviev’s companies in the West Bank, Bin Khadra said that he had heard of Leviev’s practices in the West Bank but had seen no proof of the allegations, adding that they were not a major concern because “such questions are not asked in the diamond business”.

Dubai, he said, was an apolitical and international city that needed global brands such as Leviev. “What we have learned here is that you don’t have to talk about politics or religion if you’re doing business,” he said.

Bin Khadra added that he knows of other major Dubai-based jewellers who were interested in bringing Leviev to the UAE. “If we hadn’t brought Leviev, someone else would have”.

Lev Leviev’s activities in one colony in particular have raised concerns from Palestinian activists. Ma’ale Adumin is the largest and most controversial of Israel’s 126 colonies in the West Bank.

The strategic colony of 33,000 Jewish residents has expanded deep into the occupied territory, in effect splitting the northern and southern West Bank into half, and encircling occupied East Jerusalem, which the Palestinians want as the capital of their future state.

Israel’s hold on and continuing expansion of Ma’ale Adumin is often cited by its critics as proof of the lack of a serious commitment to a settlement to the conflict on Israel’s part.

Ardent Zionist

Mikel noted that Lev’s activities in the colonies are driven by his ideological leanings.

Said to be an ardent Zionist, Lev told an Israeli paper recently that the status of occupied Jerusalem was non-negotiable.

“For me, Israel, [occupied] Jerusalem and Haifa are all the same. So are the [Syrian] Golan Heights,” he told the paper. “To decide the future of [occupied] Jerusalem? It belongs to the Jewish people. What is there to decide? [occupied] Jerusalem is not a topic for discussion.”

We are aware of these reports and have not granted a trade licence to any business of this name. If such an application does come to us we will deal with it accordingly.”

Who gives a rat’s ass about your comments, when evidently you can’t even make the fundamental distinction between the oppressor and the oppressed. ‘Both sides’ is not fairness, it is complicity. If you saw someone with their feet on another’s neck who is down on the floor, would you be speaking about the hatred of ‘both’? Or has no one ever taught you how to distinguish between cause and effect?

Haitham:

Having lived in Dubai, I wouldn’t be surprised in the least if this turned into a trendy shopping spot for that execrable noveau riche culture. In 2004 I had seen people step on each other’s heads to have their photos taken with Madeleine ‘worth it’ Albright. More recently, Blair was receiving royal treatment in Abu Dhabi, pocketing a handsome checque delivering his insufferable banalities. But the incident that really crystallized the contempt that I have for the place is the following:
http://fanonite.org/2007/05/30/gulf-arabs-sowing-catastrophe-reaping-tragedy/

“The government of Dubai recently allowed a major bankroller of Jewish settlement expansion in the West Bank to open at least two Jewelry stores in the Gulf emirate”…