[News] Danish company Maersk exports cargo from illegal Israeli settlements to the U.S.

[Anti-Imperialist News]

mondoweiss.net
<https://mondoweiss.net/2025/01/report-danish-company-maersk-exports-cargo-from-illegal-israeli-settlements-to-the-u-s/>
Report: Danish company Maersk exports cargo from illegal Israeli
settlements to the U.S.
Michael Arria
January 23, 2025
------------------------------

A new report
<https://static1.squarespace.com/static/664aed65d320123f2b3ab647/t/6791e493ef0cd438e6e6b314/1737614484665/PYM-Maersk-SettlementExports-Report-01222025.pdf>
details a shipping and logistics giant’s role in sustaining illegal Israeli
settlements in occupied Palestine and Syrian territories.

A.P. Moller Maersk is a publicly traded Danish company that netted a
revenue of $51.1 billion in 2023. According to research compiled by the
Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) and its Mask off Maersk campaign, the
company has repeatedly facilitated shipments to the United States from
illegal settlements in the occupied
West Bank and the Syrian Golan Heights.

“The global structures of financialized capitalism, logistics and supply
chains play an outsize role in the maintenance of extraction and
accumulation. As one of the largest corporations that serves these
functions, Maersk helps both to arm the Israeli regime and export the
spoils of its colonial project,” PYM’s Kaleem Hawa told *Mondoweiss.*

This is the third report <https://www.maskoffmaersk.com/reports> on Maersk
that’s been released by the group, but the first to specifically focus on
the transport of goods* from* illegal settlements, along with its other
connections to Israeli apartheid.

In one section of the report, PYM documents multiple shipments that Maersk
made for companies that appear on the United Nations’s (UN) High
Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) database
<https://www.ohchr.org/en/business/bhr-database> as a result of their
connections to illegal Israeli settlements. These include businesses Extal
Ltd, a private aluminum company that partners with Israeli weapons
manufacturers and operates out of the illegal Ma’ale Adumim settlement in
the occupied West Bank. Another Maersk client is Comasco Ltd, a
construction company that maintains contracts with the Israeli Ministry of
Defense and has sold products used to demolish Palestinian homes.

Maersk has also shipped for companies that do not appear on the OHCHR
database, but are connected to Israeli apartheid and occupation. This
includes Elbit Systems Ltd, Israel’s largest private arms supplier.

The report notes that Elbit’s weapons have been used to attack people in
Gaza during the current genocide, including the seven aid workers
<https://www.instagram.com/mondoweiss/reel/C5i05ostt2e/> who were killed by
the Israeli army last April. Elbit has faced a wave of protests across the
world, which led to the French multinational insurance company AXA divesting
<https://mondoweiss.net/2024/08/bds-win-axa-divests-from-israeli-banks-and-elbit-systems/>
from the company in August 2024.

PYM’s investigation only covers shipments that were imported into the
United States between February 20, 2019, and November 8, 2024, meaning the
information is only a small sample of Maersk’s activity. “Rather than
serving as a comprehensive account, these findings should be viewed as an
indication of a broader pattern of Maersk’s involvement in the export of
goods for companies operating within illegal settlements,” notes the report.

The Mask Off Maersk <https://www.maskoffmaersk.com/> campaign was launched
last June, to raise awareness about the company’s connection to Israeli
apartheid and the genocide. “Maersk is one of the most profitable companies
on earth, with money soaked in the blood of over 40,000 Palestinian
martyrs. It is involved in all aspects of the supply chain of death –
bringing military cargo to arms companies for assembly and shipping cargo
to Israel from the US,” reads its website.

As a result of these efforts, Maersk ships have been blocked
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2024/11/09/spain-to-block-maersk-ships-bound-to-israel-after-pressure-from-activists/>
from docking in Algeciras, Spain. Maersk denied that the cargo included
military weapons or ammunition, but essentially confirmed that it was
headed to Israel. “It is our understanding that Spain has in its discretion
changed its criteria and is now rejecting vessels that carry anything
military-related going to, or from, Israel, notwithstanding such cargo
being legal,” said the company in a statement.

Hawa points out Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies could not be
maintained without companies like Maersk, including the Gaza genocide or
the current Israeli offensive taking place in the West Bank
<https://www.aljazeera.com/news/liveblog/2025/1/23/live-israeli-raid-forces-palestinians-to-flee-jenin-as-aid-flows-to-gaza>
.

“The current military campaign in the West Bank could not exist without a
stably-reproduced system for the transportation of goods produced on stolen
Palestinian land,” he told *Mondoweiss*. “With this report, we tried to
make it clear that Zionism depends on more than just weapons for its ethnic
cleansing, and that companies like Maersk will continue to violate
international law unless we stop them.”
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