#BDS: The MUJI Decided to Cancel its Plan to Open a Store in Israel

The First Victory of the BDS Campaign against Israel in Japan

On 1st December, the MUJI officially announced the cancellation of its plan of opening a store in Israel on their website. Since the MUJI released its plan on 12th April 2010, in order to respond to the BDS Campaign against Israel called upon the people in the world by Palestinians, we, Palestine Forum, had appealed to the MUJI to cancel the plan along with other civil organisations and individuals.

For over 7 months, various nationwide actions such as appeal actions in front of some of the MUJIbranches, constant appeal through websites or Twitter and sending message cards to the MUJI, had been addressed as the Stop MUJI Campaign. Additionally the appeal action in front of the MUJIbranch in Seoul, South Korea, was organised. Since the campaign was gradually growing into the international movement, the MUJI management finally had to cancel the plan.

According to the MUJI's announcement, the cancellation of its plan was made because of the "economic reason". However, when some members of the Palestine Forum made inquiries at theMUJI management in last August, they replied that it seemed hard to be understood its plan of supplying MUJI's brand goods into Israel by all the people, therefore, we had to say that our plan had been "undecided". So from this reply, we could substantially say that the final decision of the cancellation was made due to the request for cancellation by citizens of Japan.

The official announcement of the cancellation can be placed as the first historical victory of the BDS Campaign against Israel in Japan. We can also expect that this victory will bring big progress to the internationally expanding BDS Campaign in Asia. The Victory in this context means the first and certain step to change the international society which has kept silence against Israel's criminal act.

We also believe that this tiny victory is one of the examples of which people's anger against Israel's continued criminal act even after the Gaza Attack conducted from the end of 2008 to early 2009, such as blockade of Gaza or expanding settlements in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, and deep sympathies for solidarity to Palestinians moved the reality.

We, Palestine Forum, have a high opinion of the MUJI's sensible judgement that opening a store in Apartheid state Israel does not bring not only economic profit but also moral profit to the company. We request the MUJI to keep and raise its corporate ethics and business sense which do not slight the issue on human rights and racism from now on, too.

We, Palestine Forum, declare that we will continue urging Japanese corporations which benefit from Israel's human rights abuses and war crimes against Palestinians, such as retail shops selling cosmetic products of the settlement company "Ahaba" which extracts resources from occupied Palestinians' land. We also call upon many civil organisations and individuals for a joint struggle towards the next victory.

3rd December 2010,

Palestine Forum, Osaka, JAPAN