UN Establishes Database of All Companies Implicated in Israel’s Illegal Settlements in Palestine
New UN database of companies complicit in Israel's occupation
April 30, 2016
The Hill - Last month, in a landmark decision, the United Nations Human Rights Council decided to establish a database of all companies implicated in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, including the city of East Jerusalem.
The Hill - Last month, in a landmark decision, the United Nations Human Rights Council decided to establish a database of all companies implicated in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, including the city of East Jerusalem.
Finally,
after years of toothless UN condemnations of settlements – which are a
flagrant violation of international law and a major obstacle to justice
and peace in the region - there will be an official UN list that names
and exposes businesses that have for decades enabled and profited from
Israel’s theft of Palestinian land and other human rights abuses.
Establishment
of such a UN database is long overdue. Already in the 1970s and 1980s,
the UN Security Council called on all states to not recognize or provide
assistance, economic or otherwise, to Israel’s illegal annexation and
settlement policy. In 1982 the General Assembly called for sanctions
against Israel for the same reason.
Legally
speaking, all UN-listed companies are to immediately stop their
dealings with Israeli settlements and member states are to ensure that
they do so. Additionally, investors and contractors, whether
governments, local authorities or private entities, have repeatedly been
urged by UN experts to avoid engagement with such companies until they
end their illegal business dealings in the Occupied Palestinian
Territory.
Companies
that will be listed in this UN database are not only those based or
operating inside Israeli settlements, but basically all companies doing
business with the state of Israel or private Israeli actors operating in
occupied Palestinian land, including East Jerusalem. This is because,
in the framework of the UN, “Israeli settlements” is shorthand for the
wide range of Israeli activities that contribute to the annexation and
exploitation of Palestinian land and natural resources, demographic
change through population transfer, and denial of the right to
self-determination of the Palestinian people, all of which contravene
international law. Companies will be listed if they provide equipment,
supplies, services or other support to any of these Israeli activities.
Israel’s
relentlessly expanding settlement enterprise has had an enormous
detrimental impact on the lives of millions of Palestinians. We have had
our land stolen, our homes and crops destroyed, and our towns and
villages cut off from one another and the outside world, turned into
easily-controlled Bantustans divided by Israeli settlements, military
bases, walls, and Israeli-only roads. In effect, Israel has created an
apartheid colonial regime where Palestinians under occupation have no
rights while Israeli settlers living nearby enjoy all the right and
privileges of Israeli citizenship. Action against the settlements is
imperative for this reason.
The
Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR) together with
the UN Working Group on Business and Human Rights will be tasked with
compiling the database of companies involved with the occupation, with a
first list to be presented in June 2016. Having abstained from the
decision, European states and the EU are unlikely to provide active
support to the work on the database. Thankfully, professional databases
of a large number of companies implicated in Israel’s occupation and
settlement activity have already been compiled by NGOs offering ethical
investing screens, such as Who Profits and the American Friends Service
Committee (AFSC).
The
U.S. opposed the list, though it is not currently on the Human Rights
Council. During his two terms in office, President Obama has repeatedly
made clear his belief that settlements are a major impediment to peace
and the two-state solution, while at the same time continuing America’s
virtually unconditional support for Israel and its settler-beholden
extreme right-wing government. Now in his final year, President Obama
should finally put his words into action and take concrete steps to stop
settlement expansion.
The
most important step towards halting and reversing Israel’s destructive
and illegal settlement enterprise that the US has done so much to
enable, would be for President Obama to suspend military aid to Israel
rather than negotiating an increase as he is reportedly doing, at least
until Israel abides by international law and longstanding US policy by
ending illegal settlement activity on occupied Palestinian land. This
would be in accordance with calls from human rights organizations such
as Amnesty International for an arms embargo against Israel until it
begins respecting international humanitarian law.
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