[News] BDS Movement Press Release: UN Settlement Database Significant Step Towards Holding Israel Accountable

[Anti-Imperialist News]

https://imemc.org/article/release-of-long-delayed-un-settlement-database-significant-step-towards-holding-israel-accountable/ 



  Release of Long-Delayed UN Settlement Database Significant Step
  Towards Holding Israel Accountable

February 13, 2020
------------------------------------------------------------------------

BDS Movement Press Release 
<https://bdsmovement.net/news/release-long-delayed-un-settlement-database-significant-step-towards-holding-israel-accountable>: 
We welcome this long-delayed UN list of complicit companies. Some major 
firms involved with illegal settlements are not in the database and must 
be added. All these companies must be held to account.

Palestinian civil society welcomes this long-awaited UN list of 
companies that are complicit in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise 
<https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session43/Documents/A_HRC_43_71.docx>, 
which constitutes a war crime under international law. We thank all 
human rights organizations that worked tirelessly for the release of 
such an important instrument of transparency and accountability.

Upholding international law is the one appropriate response to attempts 
by authoritarian and far-right regimes, led by the Trump White House and 
Israel’s extremist government, to undermine human rights and the rule of 
law and enforce domination by the most powerful instead.

Recognizing the important role that the UN played in ending apartheid in 
South Africa, we view the release of this database as a first 
significant and concrete step 
<https://bdsmovement.net/news/un-takes-first-concrete-step-hold-israel-accountable-violating-palestinian-human-rights> 
by any UN entity towards holding to account Israeli and international 
corporations that enable and profit from Israel’s grave violations of 
Palestinian rights.

Some notable mentions amongst the 112 complicit companies on the UN list 
of shame are the top five Israeli banks in which AXA invests 
<https://bdsmovement.net/axa-divest> (*Bank Hapoalim*, *Bank Leumi*, 
*First International Bank of Israel*, *Mizrahi Tefahot Bank* and *Israel 
Discount Bank*), *Delta Israel*, Puma 
<https://bdsmovement.net/boycott-puma>’s exclusive licensee in Israel, 
and *Shapir*, CAF’s partner for the development of the Jerusalem Light 
Rail. Also included are *Delek Group*, *Egged*, *General Mills*, 
*Motorola Solutions*, *JCB, Alstom*, Israeli national water company 
*Mekorot*, and travel companies *TripAdvisor*, *Airbnb*, *Booking.com*, 
*Edreams* and *Expedia*.

Nonetheless, numerous companies and banks involved in direct or indirect 
business activities in or with settlements are not yet included in the 
database. *G4S*, *Hewlett Packard* companies, *Elbit Systems*, 
*Caterpillar*, *Hyundai Heavy Industries*, *Volvo*, *Heidelberg Cement*, 
and *Cemex* are among many other high-profile companies that are 
irrefutably implicated in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise, as 
meticulously documented by human rights groups, the independent Israeli 
research group WhoProfits <http://www.whoprofits.org/> and the US 
project of the American Friends Service Committee Investigate 
<https://investigate.afsc.org/>. Yet they are missing from the UN list.

We call on continued grassroots and civil society pressure on OHCHR to 
comply with the Human Rights Council Resolution 31/36 by resisting 
political pressure, whether from the US, European states or Israel, and 
committing to constantly updating the public list.

No international or Israeli company that is complicit in /enabling/, 
/facilitating/ and /profiting/ from Israel’s regime of oppression should 
enjoy impunity.

*It is high time for all public institutions, city councils, churches, 
trade unions, cultural organizations, universities, investment funds, 
and others to stop contracting, procuring from or investing in any of 
the companies on the UN list of shame, to avoid complicity in Israel’s 
settlement enterprise.*

The BDS movement for Palestinian rights will continue our peaceful 
struggle, supported by people of conscience worldwide, for freedom, 
justice, equality and for ending all complicity in Israel’s decades-old 
regime of military occupation, settler-colonialism, and apartheid.

-- 
Freedom Archives 522 Valencia Street San Francisco, CA 94110 415 
863.9977 https://freedomarchives.org/
-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: <http://freedomarchives.org/pipermail/news_freedomarchives.org/attachments/20200213/e56034ed/attachment.htm>