Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Human Rights Watch Calls on Businesses to Withdraw from Israeli
Settlements
________________________________________
Human Rights Watch Calls on Businesses to Withdraw from Israeli Settlements
By Ali Gharib [1] / The Nation [2]
January 21, 2016
For almost a half a century, Israeli settlements in the Palestinian
territories occupied during the Six Day War have grown, imposing a
two-tiered system-one that not only discriminates against Palestinians, but
deprives them of basic rights and adversely impacts their society's economic
viability. Proponents of a two-state solution have watched with dismay as
every new apartment and settlement erected in occupied territory created new
stumbling blocks on the path to peace and ending the conflict. And yet
Israel has faced few consequences. On Tuesday morning, however, New
York-based Human Rights Watch released a report calling for an end to this
impunity, at least where the international business community is concerned.
The new 162-page report, "Occupation, Inc.: How Settlement Businesses
Contribute to Israel's Violations of Palestinian Rights," calls for
businesses operating in and dealing directly with Israeli settlements to end
their endeavors there. "In Human Rights Watch's view, the context of human
rights abuse to which settlement business activity contributes is so
pervasive and severe that businesses should cease carrying out activities
inside or for the benefit of settlements," the report says. "They should
also stop financing, administering, trading with or otherwise supporting
settlements or settlement-related activities and infrastructure."
The report coincides with recognition from an unlikely place of just how bad
Israeli discriminations and rights abuses have gotten. On Monday, US
Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, a fluent Hebrew speaker who is well liked
in the Jewish state, told an audience in Tel Aviv that "at times it seems
Israel has two standards of adherence to rule of law in the West Bank: one
for Jews and one for Palestinians." Though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu decried Shapiro's statement as "unacceptable and untrue," the
settlement enterprise-which is illegal under international humanitarian
law-patently imposes different standards on many aspects of life in the West
Bank.
"Occupation, Inc." leverages case studies to demonstrate just how businesses
contribute to discrimination, rights abuses, and violations of humanitarian
law. It divides businesses into two broad categories: those that directly
contribute to supporting settlements-such as construction of settlements and
the infrastructure needed to establish and maintain them-and those that are
based in settlements, which don't necessarily directly bolster the
inherently rights abusive enterprises, but nonetheless provide benefits to
exclusive Jewish Israeli communities in Palestinian territories.
"We're trying to be very strongly based in law," says Sari Bashi, HRW's
Israel-Palestine country director. "Under international law, businesses have
responsibilities. Our position is doing business in the settlements is
inconsistent with those responsibilities."
The move will no doubt be seen as controversial. "Israel is not going to
care about this distinction that Human Rights Watch is making," said Ali
Abunimah, an activist and journalist who advocates for boycotting Israel.
"As far as Israel is concerned, it's a call for a boycott."
The Israelis are almost certain to view the report as part of the growing
movement to Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Israel, known by its initials BDS.
As BDS has gained traction, it has been met by increasingly fierce
resistance from the Israeli government and many pro-Israel groups in the US.
In his 2014 speech to the most influential American pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC,
Netanyahu focused on the fight against the movement, but said it was doomed
to fail. By last summer, Israeli rhetoric against BDS grew more intense and
the government poured $25 million into anti-BDS efforts. "We are in the
midst of a great struggle being waged against the state of Israel, an
international campaign to blacken its name," said Netanyahu. The issue has
even percolated into American presidential politics: In a letter to
megadonor Haim Saban, an Israeli-American businessman, Democratic
frontrunner Hillary Clinton pledged to "make countering BDS a priority."
Even while BDS most often targets Israel as a whole, some peace activists,
both from the pro-Palestinian and liberal pro-Israel camps, prefer to single
out settlements. Not only is the occupation viewed as a humanitarian and
human rights disaster, but settlements impede chances for a two-state
solution, the thinking goes. Calls outside the BDS movement for boycotting
settlements have even caused rifts among liberal pro-Israel groups: Some,
like Americans for Peace Now, support settlement boycotts while others, such
as J Street, oppose settlements but don't call on their membership to
boycott.
Nonetheless, such distinctions are lost on Israel's right-wing government,
where settlers rule the roost. Netanyahu has overseen a massive boom in
settlement growth, and his government coalition is populated by
pro-settlement parties and even many politicians who disavow the two-state
solution altogether. Over the holidays, Israel's Ambassador in Washington
gave gifts produced in settlements to foreign officials, ironically
mimicking the erasure of the Green Line that hardcore BDS activists push
for.
Those BDS activists, for their part, welcome the Human Rights Watch report.
Omar Barghouti, a founding member of the BDS movement, calls the report
"ground-breaking-even courageous, given the current environment of increased
repression and McCarthyism in the US." Abunimah, also a strong supporter of
BDS, says it was "a very good step in the right direction," adding, "This
report will be a really useful tool for BDS activists."
The report calls on third-party states to deny settlement products the
benefits afforded by trade agreements to Israeli products, therefore
subjecting those goods to full tariffs. In accordance with that, HRW calls
on countries to impose strict protocols for labeling the origins of
settlement products as such. The European Union is working through its own
origin labeling regulations with regards to the settlements and, on Monday,
stated that any EU deals with Israel must exclude the occupied territories,
a move Israel opposed. Israel reportedly softened the language from European
foreign ministers, an outcome one activist, who works on EU and
Israeli-Palestinian issues and asked to remain anonymous, says that an
earlier release of the HRW report could perhaps have forestalled.
Abunimah, the pro-Palestinian activist, also lauds HRW for having made "a
big shift form their previous position and accept(ing) that any and all
business is abusive and helps Israel in grave violations of Palestinian
rights and international law."
In 2010, Human Rights Watch released a report on discrimination against
Palestinians in the West Bank that called on businesses to "to prevent and
mitigate any corporate involvement" in rights abuses, only cutting off
business entirely when the activities were inextricable from abuses. The
shift occurred in part because the new report and the recommendations it
makes to businesses active in the settlements, Israel, and third-party
states relies heavily on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business
and Human Rights, which was not adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in
June 2011, says Arvind Ganesan, who directs the Business and Human Rights
division at HRW. "It's very clear that if a company is contributing to
violations or operating in a place where there is a high risk of
exacerbating or contributing to violations, you shouldn't do that," says
Ganesan. "The whole nature of settlements and way land is seized and the
nature of who benefits makes it hard to see how you can operate there."
"Occupation, Inc." makes this case through meticulous research and careful
attention to the consequences of Israel's illegal actions in the West Bank.
One particularly strong section deals with one of the most common pro-Israel
defenses of settlement business: that it supports Palestinian economic life.
Settlement businesses claim to bring jobs for Palestinians, but HRW's report
shows that the discriminatory legal system makes labor abuses possible. And,
as the report and countless others have pointed out, the World Bank has
estimated that with an end to restrictions on Palestinian economic activity
in Area C (some 60 percent of the West Bank that is controlled exclusively
by Israel), the Palestinian GDP could jump by more than a third, making way
for more Palestinians to be employed by Palestinian companies.
"There is an ongoing and concerted Israeli pushback against the compelling
logic of acting on the illegality of settlements and the illegality of
Israeli actions beyond the Green Line by way of more than rhetorical
condemnation," says Daniel Levy, the head of the European Council on Foreign
Relations' Middle East and North Africa program. "That Israeli pushback
rests on very weak legal and substantive grounds. The flimsiness of those
grounds is being further exposed by this Human Rights Watch report."
Ultimately, settlements and settlement business don't account for a huge
portion of Israeli economic activity, but liberals like Levy who work on
Israel-Palestine issues welcome the renewed focus. Levy says the "the major
propelling factor for the status quo, the impunity that Israel feels in the
face of its actions toward to the Palestinians" needs to give way to "the
obvious consequences that have been called for by this Human Rights Watch
report."
"We're a long way from that being addressed," he adds, "but this takes us in
the right direction for those who want to see peace between Israel and
Palestine."
Share on Facebook Share
Share on Twitter Tweet
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [3]
[4]
________________________________________
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/world/human-rights-watch-calls-businesses-withdraw-i
sraeli-settlements
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/ali-gharib
[2] http://www.thenation.com
[3] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Human Rights Watch Calls
on Businesses to Withdraw from Israeli Settlements
[4] http://www.alternet.org/
[5] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
Published on Alternet (http://www.alternet.org)
Home > Human Rights Watch Calls on Businesses to Withdraw from Israeli
Settlements
Human Rights Watch Calls on Businesses to Withdraw from Israeli Settlements
By Ali Gharib [1] / The Nation [2]
January 21, 2016
For almost a half a century, Israeli settlements in the Palestinian
territories occupied during the Six Day War have grown, imposing a
two-tiered system-one that not only discriminates against Palestinians, but
deprives them of basic rights and adversely impacts their society's economic
viability. Proponents of a two-state solution have watched with dismay as
every new apartment and settlement erected in occupied territory created new
stumbling blocks on the path to peace and ending the conflict. And yet
Israel has faced few consequences. On Tuesday morning, however, New
York-based Human Rights Watch released a report calling for an end to this
impunity, at least where the international business community is concerned.
The new 162-page report, "Occupation, Inc.: How Settlement Businesses
Contribute to Israel's Violations of Palestinian Rights," calls for
businesses operating in and dealing directly with Israeli settlements to end
their endeavors there. "In Human Rights Watch's view, the context of human
rights abuse to which settlement business activity contributes is so
pervasive and severe that businesses should cease carrying out activities
inside or for the benefit of settlements," the report says. "They should
also stop financing, administering, trading with or otherwise supporting
settlements or settlement-related activities and infrastructure."
The report coincides with recognition from an unlikely place of just how bad
Israeli discriminations and rights abuses have gotten. On Monday, US
Ambassador to Israel Dan Shapiro, a fluent Hebrew speaker who is well liked
in the Jewish state, told an audience in Tel Aviv that "at times it seems
Israel has two standards of adherence to rule of law in the West Bank: one
for Jews and one for Palestinians." Though Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu decried Shapiro's statement as "unacceptable and untrue," the
settlement enterprise-which is illegal under international humanitarian
law-patently imposes different standards on many aspects of life in the West
Bank.
"Occupation, Inc." leverages case studies to demonstrate just how businesses
contribute to discrimination, rights abuses, and violations of humanitarian
law. It divides businesses into two broad categories: those that directly
contribute to supporting settlements-such as construction of settlements and
the infrastructure needed to establish and maintain them-and those that are
based in settlements, which don't necessarily directly bolster the
inherently rights abusive enterprises, but nonetheless provide benefits to
exclusive Jewish Israeli communities in Palestinian territories.
"We're trying to be very strongly based in law," says Sari Bashi, HRW's
Israel-Palestine country director. "Under international law, businesses have
responsibilities. Our position is doing business in the settlements is
inconsistent with those responsibilities."
The move will no doubt be seen as controversial. "Israel is not going to
care about this distinction that Human Rights Watch is making," said Ali
Abunimah, an activist and journalist who advocates for boycotting Israel.
"As far as Israel is concerned, it's a call for a boycott."
The Israelis are almost certain to view the report as part of the growing
movement to Boycott, Divest, and Sanction Israel, known by its initials BDS.
As BDS has gained traction, it has been met by increasingly fierce
resistance from the Israeli government and many pro-Israel groups in the US.
In his 2014 speech to the most influential American pro-Israel lobby, AIPAC,
Netanyahu focused on the fight against the movement, but said it was doomed
to fail. By last summer, Israeli rhetoric against BDS grew more intense and
the government poured $25 million into anti-BDS efforts. "We are in the
midst of a great struggle being waged against the state of Israel, an
international campaign to blacken its name," said Netanyahu. The issue has
even percolated into American presidential politics: In a letter to
megadonor Haim Saban, an Israeli-American businessman, Democratic
frontrunner Hillary Clinton pledged to "make countering BDS a priority."
Even while BDS most often targets Israel as a whole, some peace activists,
both from the pro-Palestinian and liberal pro-Israel camps, prefer to single
out settlements. Not only is the occupation viewed as a humanitarian and
human rights disaster, but settlements impede chances for a two-state
solution, the thinking goes. Calls outside the BDS movement for boycotting
settlements have even caused rifts among liberal pro-Israel groups: Some,
like Americans for Peace Now, support settlement boycotts while others, such
as J Street, oppose settlements but don't call on their membership to
boycott.
Nonetheless, such distinctions are lost on Israel's right-wing government,
where settlers rule the roost. Netanyahu has overseen a massive boom in
settlement growth, and his government coalition is populated by
pro-settlement parties and even many politicians who disavow the two-state
solution altogether. Over the holidays, Israel's Ambassador in Washington
gave gifts produced in settlements to foreign officials, ironically
mimicking the erasure of the Green Line that hardcore BDS activists push
for.
Those BDS activists, for their part, welcome the Human Rights Watch report.
Omar Barghouti, a founding member of the BDS movement, calls the report
"ground-breaking-even courageous, given the current environment of increased
repression and McCarthyism in the US." Abunimah, also a strong supporter of
BDS, says it was "a very good step in the right direction," adding, "This
report will be a really useful tool for BDS activists."
The report calls on third-party states to deny settlement products the
benefits afforded by trade agreements to Israeli products, therefore
subjecting those goods to full tariffs. In accordance with that, HRW calls
on countries to impose strict protocols for labeling the origins of
settlement products as such. The European Union is working through its own
origin labeling regulations with regards to the settlements and, on Monday,
stated that any EU deals with Israel must exclude the occupied territories,
a move Israel opposed. Israel reportedly softened the language from European
foreign ministers, an outcome one activist, who works on EU and
Israeli-Palestinian issues and asked to remain anonymous, says that an
earlier release of the HRW report could perhaps have forestalled.
Abunimah, the pro-Palestinian activist, also lauds HRW for having made "a
big shift form their previous position and accept(ing) that any and all
business is abusive and helps Israel in grave violations of Palestinian
rights and international law."
In 2010, Human Rights Watch released a report on discrimination against
Palestinians in the West Bank that called on businesses to "to prevent and
mitigate any corporate involvement" in rights abuses, only cutting off
business entirely when the activities were inextricable from abuses. The
shift occurred in part because the new report and the recommendations it
makes to businesses active in the settlements, Israel, and third-party
states relies heavily on the United Nations Guiding Principles on Business
and Human Rights, which was not adopted by the UN Human Rights Council in
June 2011, says Arvind Ganesan, who directs the Business and Human Rights
division at HRW. "It's very clear that if a company is contributing to
violations or operating in a place where there is a high risk of
exacerbating or contributing to violations, you shouldn't do that," says
Ganesan. "The whole nature of settlements and way land is seized and the
nature of who benefits makes it hard to see how you can operate there."
"Occupation, Inc." makes this case through meticulous research and careful
attention to the consequences of Israel's illegal actions in the West Bank.
One particularly strong section deals with one of the most common pro-Israel
defenses of settlement business: that it supports Palestinian economic life.
Settlement businesses claim to bring jobs for Palestinians, but HRW's report
shows that the discriminatory legal system makes labor abuses possible. And,
as the report and countless others have pointed out, the World Bank has
estimated that with an end to restrictions on Palestinian economic activity
in Area C (some 60 percent of the West Bank that is controlled exclusively
by Israel), the Palestinian GDP could jump by more than a third, making way
for more Palestinians to be employed by Palestinian companies.
"There is an ongoing and concerted Israeli pushback against the compelling
logic of acting on the illegality of settlements and the illegality of
Israeli actions beyond the Green Line by way of more than rhetorical
condemnation," says Daniel Levy, the head of the European Council on Foreign
Relations' Middle East and North Africa program. "That Israeli pushback
rests on very weak legal and substantive grounds. The flimsiness of those
grounds is being further exposed by this Human Rights Watch report."
Ultimately, settlements and settlement business don't account for a huge
portion of Israeli economic activity, but liberals like Levy who work on
Israel-Palestine issues welcome the renewed focus. Levy says the "the major
propelling factor for the status quo, the impunity that Israel feels in the
face of its actions toward to the Palestinians" needs to give way to "the
obvious consequences that have been called for by this Human Rights Watch
report."
"We're a long way from that being addressed," he adds, "but this takes us in
the right direction for those who want to see peace between Israel and
Palestine."
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.
Report typos and corrections to 'corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx'. [3]
Error! Hyperlink reference not valid.[4]
Source URL:
http://www.alternet.org/world/human-rights-watch-calls-businesses-withdraw-i
sraeli-settlements
Links:
[1] http://www.alternet.org/authors/ali-gharib
[2] http://www.thenation.com
[3] mailto:corrections@xxxxxxxxxxxx?Subject=Typo on Human Rights Watch Calls
on Businesses to Withdraw from Israeli Settlements
[4] http://www.alternet.org/
[5] http://www.alternet.org/%2Bnew_src%2B
