As we boycott animal-based products and advocate for the divestment from, and sanctions of corporations and institutions that abuse and slaughter animals, out of a deep belief in justice for all living things and desire to avoid participation and complicity in violence and abuse; It is the same belief in justice and resistance to violence and abuse that lead us to take action against the institutions and corporations that bear a financial, legal, and moral responsibility for Israel's criminal apartheid system, military occupation, and ethnic cleansing of the indigenous Palestinian people.

As Israeli animal liberation advocates, at a time when our own government systematically oppresses the indigenous Palestinian people, we refuse to stay silent on either issue. It is twice as disheartening when one struggle for liberation is exploited to erase the other. We write to you to ask that you cancel your participation in Vegan Friendly's Vegan Health Conference. Please allow us to explain.

Each and every one of the sponsors of this conference is complicit in Israel's brutal military occupation and settler colonialism in one way or another; selling its products in supermarkets in Israeli settlements in the Palestinian occupied territories (OPT), operating its own supermarkets in the OPT, obtaining its produce- animal or otherwise- from farms in the OPT, producing products in Israeli factories in the OPT, selling its products to a captive Palestinian market, providing services to Israel's occupying army, and some companies even being owned by Israeli settlements:

1. Tnuva https://whoprofits.org/company/tnuva-group/
2. Shufersal https://whoprofits.org/company/shufersal/
3. Mashu Mashu https://www.facebook.com/mashumashuvegan/posts/741480969313054/ (this list in Hebrew of the company's product distribution and includes a dozen settlements.)
4. Ecossup https://www.ecosupp.co.il/%d7%91%d7%aa%d7%99-%d7%98%d7%91%d7%a2/ (you can see clearly in this map how the company's products are distributed in Israel's settlements inside the occupied West Bank)
5. Soglowek https://he.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D7%96%D7%95%D7%92%D7%9C%D7%95%D7%91%D7%A7#%D7%97%D7%98%D7%99%D7%91%D7%AA_%D7%94%D7%A9%D7%95%D7%A7_%D7%94%D7%9E%D7%A7%D7%A6%D7%95%D7%A2%D7%99 (A Hebrew Wikipedia article specifying the company's services to Israeli military bases)
6. Wyler Farm - Rural health Ltd. (The company works with Strauss (Hebrew), which is also complicit in Israel's settlement industries. They also work with Nizat Haduvdevan (Hebrew), who have branches in several settlements (Hebrew))

There is strong evidence to suggest that Israel's colonial projects are increasing animal product consumption in the area. Israel is the second largest meat consuming country in the Middle East (second only to Kuwait), and the first in the OECD, and greatly influences local markets, land uses, and the workforce of the captive Palestinian economy.

We, as activists involved in the intersectional struggles of animal and human liberation, ask that vegans boycott corporations complicit in Israel's war crimes, so they may not be exploited for the purpose of whitewashing Israel's violations of indigenous, civil, and human rights of the Palestinian people.
      
While Israeli vegans enjoy the privilege of your wisdom, Palestinian vegans are under Israel's brutalities, and are prevented from attending your talks. As moral role models of ethical choice making, we hope you rethink your participation in this conference.