For Immediate Release

New York, NY, May 8 – For the third year in a row, activists protested in front of Lev Leviev’s store on Madison Avenue the day before Mother’s Day to discourage shoppers from buying Lev diamonds.  The activists carried signs, chanted, sang songs and danced to raise awareness about Leviev’s illegal settlement construction in the West Bank.  Passerby were informed that as we are about to celebrate Mother’s Day here in the United States, thousands of Palestinian mothers in Bilin and Jayyous witness the devastation of their families as their lands are being confiscated to build settlements by Leviev’s companies Africa Israel and Leader.

Campaign for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel in New York City.

Shaya Boymelgreen and Lev Leviev:
destroying communities and violating laws in Palestine and New York City.

Summary

Israeli American real estate developer Shaya Boymelgreen and Israeli businessman Lev Leviev are building destructive projects in New York City and in the Occupied West Bank in Palestine. Leviev and Boymelgreen are building strategic settlements in the Occupied West Bank which violate international law and aim to ensure Israeli control over key areas in the West Bank, rendering peace between Israelis and Palestinians impossible. In Palestine and in New York City they are committing similar abuses: expelling low-income, local residents from their communities, violating laws, and exploiting laborers.

Leviev, one of Israel’s wealthiest businessmen, is building the Mattityahu East settlement on the lands of the village of Bil’in with partner Shaya Boymelgreen, the Zufim settlement on the lands of the village of Jayyous, and the strategic West Bank settlements of Har Homa and Maale Adumim around Jerusalem which divide the northern West Bank from the Southern West Bank. In Bil’in and Jayyous, Boymelgreen and Leviev are building settlements on village land despite intensive nonviolent protest campaigns mounted by the two Palestinian villages against the construction.

Leviev, a major diamond trader who mines diamonds in Africa and polishes them in Israel, uses some of these profits to help finance his illegal settlement construction. Shaya Boymelgreen, until recently Leviev’s partner in real estate development in New York City and still his partner in building Mattityahu East, has angered so many so many community members in New York City with his abusive developments that he has become the target of local organizing campaigns.

Zufim and Mattityahu East settlements, built by Leviev and Boymelgreen, are projects “that aimed both to establish enclaves in the Occupied Territories for wealthy, more ‘mainstream’ settlers, and to dissolve the Green Line (Israel’s pre-1967 border) by creating ‘facts on the ground’—linking the new settlements to communities inside the Line, while expanding the latter in the direction of the Territories.” – Israeli historian Gadi Algazi, July, 2006, Settlers on Israel’s Eastern Frontier, Le Monde Diplomatique.