On Saturday 30th October 2010 the Ireland-Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) held a nationwide awareness-raising day to expose the contamination of the global diamond market with Israeli “blood diamonds” ahead of the annual meeting of the Kimberley Process Certification Scheme (KP) in Jerusalem on November 1st. To launch the Boycott Israeli Blood Diamonds campaign activists from the IPSC in Cork, Galway, Limerick, Wexford and Waterford activists from the IPSC handed out thousands of leaflets and collected petition signatures to while in Dublin, a blood-stained Marilyn Monroe even turned up to endorse the campaign saying "the fact that Israeli diamonds are sold as 'conflict free' means that diamonds can no longer be considered a girl's best friend!"
Outlining the rationale for the actions, IPSC National Chairperson Freda Hughes said: “Israel is the world’s top diamond exporter with exports worth over $19 billion in 2008, accounting for over 30% of Israeli exports. Recent investigations by the UN have concluded that Israel committed war crimes in Gaza during Operation Cast Lead in 2008/09 and during the attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla earlier this year, while the brutal occupation of Palestinian land by Israel continues. The Israeli state which oversees these crimes and the military which carries them out are funded by revenue from these same diamond exports. In the view of the IPSC and the Palestinian Boycott National Committee (BNC) this Israeli diamonds should be unequivocally categorised as blood diamonds.”
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