Tonight: New Yorkers Protest Leviev Diamonds’ Funding of Illegal Settlements in Palestine

WHAT: Picket at opening of diamond mogul Lev Leviev’s Manhattan jewelry store

WHEN: Tuesday, November 13 at 7:00 PM

WHERE: 700 Madison Avenue (at 62nd Street

[New York, New York] New York City human rights advocates will picket in front of Leviev New York at the grand opening gala for Lev Leviev’s first US jewelry store, protesting its sale of conflict diamonds, and owner Lev Leviev's violations of international law in Palestine. Leviev built his enormous fortune trading in diamonds with Apartheid-era South Africa. His company now buys diamonds from the repressive Angolan government. Leviev uses profits from diamond sales to fuel the conflict in Palestine and Israel by funding the construction of suburban developments for Israeli settlers on occupied Palestinian land in the West Bank, undermining the prospects for Middle East peace, and threatening farmers' ability to survive and remain in their homes. Leviev’s diamonds are “conflict diamonds” in a broad sense of the term, funding repression in Angola and violations of international law in Palestine.

Leviev is one of Israel’s richest men. His real estate empire in Israel is building homes for Israelis in the West Bank settlements of Mattityahu East and Zufim, according to Gadi Algazi in Le Monde Diplomatique, and in Maale Adumim and Har Homa, according to The Jerusalem Post. All the settlements in which Leviev has built homes seize vital Palestinian water and agricultural resources and carve the West Bank into disconnected Bantustans, destroying hopes for a viable Palestinian state. All Israeli settlements built in the Occupied Palestinian Territories violate international law.

Leviev has also invested $1 billion in real estate in New York City over the last year. In New York City, Leviev and his former partner Shaya Boymelgreen have employed underpaid, non-union workers in hazardous conditions and violated housing codes to construct luxury apartments that displace low-income and moderate-income residents in Brooklyn, provoking local branches of the Laborer's International Union and ACORN to launch a campaign against their abuses.

Commenting on today’s protest, the Popular Committee Against the Wall and Settlements from the West Bank village of Bil’in issued a statement saying that, "Lev Leviev and his partner Shaya Boymelgreen are building homes in the illegal Israeli settlement of Mattityahu East on the land of our village Bil'in. Bil'in has been nonviolently resisting the theft of our agricultural land for three years. We welcome campaigns in New York City and around the world to support our efforts to stop the seizure of our land and the construction of these illegal settlements by Leviev and Boymelgreen."

The Israeli newspaper Yedioth Ahronoth has also reported that Leviev is a primary donor to the Israeli organization the Land Redemption Fund, which uses fraud and intimidation to extort land from Palestinian farmers for Israeli settlement. While Leviev donates to UNICEF and OXFAM, 50% of families in the farming village of Jayyous are now on food aid, according to the Financial Times, because they are being choked by Leviev’s expansion of the all-Jewish settlement of Zufim.

"Leviev's new Manhattan store hides the devastating use of its owner's fortune underneath shimmering facets of polished diamonds. As long as Lev Leviev violates international law by building settlements in the West Bank and attacks New York's communities with invasive luxury development, there can be no business as usual for him," said Daniel Lang/Levitsky of Jews Against the Occupation/NYC.

Adalah-NY will hold a second protest at Leviev’s Madison Avenue jewelry store on Tuesday November 20 from 4:30 – 6:00 PM.