Israeli officials are reportedly doing everything they can to prevent the publication of a UN database of companies doing business in Israel’s settlements on occupied Palestinian land.

Israel fears the list could have a major economic impact, prompting companies to pull out, deterring others from doing business with it and encouraging investors to dump shares.

Some 100 local companies operating in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, and about 50 more international firms – among them household brands such as Coca-Cola, Motorola and HP – have received UN warning letters that they may be mentioned in the database.

The diplomatic push by the US and Israel to stop the list’s publication may be succeeding. The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, the office mandated to compile the list, has reportedly pushed back publication from December to early next year.

Human Rights Watch appears worried enough that on Tuesday it reiterated the need for the database to be made public.

Israeli banks will undoubtedly appear in the database because they are instrumental to funding Israel’s settlements.

Settlement dump

International companies also play a key role in supporting Israeli firms that service the settlements. Waste management firm Elidori Green illustrates this dependence.

The company operates a dump near the Palestinian village of Kisan, southeast of Bethlehem, to dispose of construction waste from Jerusalem and from illegal settlements in the Gush Etzion bloc, including Efrat and Beitar Illit.

In recent years, Kisan has seen large tracts of its villagers’ land confiscated by Israel for the construction of the nearby settlement of Maaleh Amos, part of the Gush Etzion bloc, and for Israeli military installations.

According to a document published on Elidori Green’s Facebook page in 2015, Israel’s Jerusalem municipality authorized the company to dump up to 2,000 tons of waste at the Gush Etzion site daily.

Earlier this month, Dror Etkes, who has long monitored settlement activity, posted images on Twitter of the Elidori Green dump site near Kisan.

Elidori Green boasts on its website that it is able to crush construction waste into useful building materials using “advanced” machinery manufactured by the Canadian firm McCloskey International.

Photos posted on Elidori Green’s Facebook page show that the company also uses trucks made by Sweden’s Volvo to transport materials in and out of the occupied West Bank.

Firms must respect human rights

There’s a growing international consensus that multinational companies are not exempt from responsibility to respect human rights and international law in the places where they do business.

In a landmark 2004 ruling on Israel’s wall in the West Bank, the International Court of Justice in The Hague reaffirmed the illegality of Israel’s settlement construction, which includes establishing industrial sites in the settlements.

In 2013, a UN fact finding mission on Israeli settlements urged private companies to ensure their activities do not negatively impact the Palestinian people’s human rights, even if that means ending their business activities altogether.

More recently, international legal experts have concluded that trade with settlements is itself illegal and should be banned by governments.

Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have also called for an end to business in or with Israel’s settlements.

Israeli pressure

By definition, the companies that will be included in the UN database will have demonstrated utter disregard for the rights of the Palestinians.

A generation ago, similar UN databases proved to be effective tools for activists who supported the fight against South African apartheid.

That is why Israel is desperate to obstruct publication of the names of the settlement profiteers.

“We will do everything we can to ensure that this list does not see the light of day,” Israel’s UN ambassador, Danny Danon, told the Associated Press.

In March, similar pressure succeeded in bullying UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to suppress a landmark UN report on how Israel practices apartheid against the Palestinian people.

Now, Israel’s pressure on the UN and bullying of BDS – boycott, divestment and sanctions – activists aims to thwart efforts to hold complicit companies – and ultimately Israel itself – accountable.

UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein must not cave in and must ensure the database is published.

Tags

• settlement business
• UN database of settlement companies
• Zeid Ra'ad Al Hussein
• Human Rights Watch
• Sarah Leah Whitson
• Elidori Green
• Kisan
• Gush Etzion
• Maaleh Amos
• Efrat
• Beitar Illit
• Dror Etkes
• McCloskey International
• Volvo
• Amnesty International
• Danny Danon

• Adri Nieuwhof's blog

• Facebook
• Twitter

Comments

Israeli settlement's.

Permalink R Davis replied on Thu, 11/30/2017 - 00:56

To be able to borrow money ... one must have adequate security ... a bank or lending institution will not loan out monies without security ... LAND is the ideal security ... even better is developed land realizing profit ... realizing profit can be the continuous increase of the lands worth ... & more so when the land is developed ... or redeveloped as in the case of the stolen Palestinian land being redeveloped by Israel & utilized as security to borrow BILLIONS of monies.

It is the banks & money lenders that need to be held to account for participating in these illegal activities.
But ... the banks were not hauled over the coals after the 2008 GFC which decimated the global economy ... governments just bailed them out with monies from the public purse ... their good friends / their buddies ... the banks.

The banking sectors that hold the stolen Palestinian lands as borrowing securities have a vested interest in keeping Israel intact & performing ... and in taking over the nations of the Middle East ... it is not Donald Trump who is the faithful watchdog of Israel & it's ventures but the banks which rule the USA.
However poor old Donald Trump will be blamed as was Obama & every other banking organ grinders monkey

I would suggest that behind

Permalink R Davis replied on Thu, 11/30/2017 - 01:03

I would suggest that behind these companies that do business with Israel - is the clenched fist of the banking sector.
All business works within a borrowing system to survive ... this is how all business functions ... this means that all companies are in debt all the time ... all the banks need to do is to threaten to call in their loans & they are screwed ... on the door step of Insolvency & bankruptcy.