Download Targeting Israeli apartheid here

Order a copy

Taking its cue from the unified Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, Targeting Israeli Apartheid examines the Israeli economy and details the Israeli and international companies complicit in Israeli state repression. Based on original research in Palestine, the book shows how these companies can be targeted and provides the international BDS movement with the information necessary to bring the Palestinian struggle to the doorsteps of those who profit from Israeli apartheid. The book begins by examining the Israeli economy industry by industry and suggesting where the movement should focus its campaigning energy in order to be most effective. Part two contains five in-depth geographical case studies. The final section looks at how campaigners can bring the fight home to the UK. Targeting Israeli Apartheid picks out Barclays Bank as the British bank with the most substantial investments in Israeli companies, including companies based in Israeli settlements. The book goes on to examine the investments of several British universities and UK pension funds revealing investments in companies based in Israeli settlements and arms companies supplying weapons to the Israeli state. Finally, the book shows how charities registered in the UK donate to the Israeli army and settlements.

“Targeting Israeli Apartheid is the guide many of us in the movement have been waiting for. This forensic, clear and systematic account details the where, who, how and why of the flows of capital and contracts which enable the colonisation of Palestine to continue.”
- Ewa Jasiewicz – Coordinator of the Free Gaza movement

The rationale for this book is simple: information for action. Targeting Israeli Apartheid: a BDS Handbook provides the international BDS movement with the information necessary to bring the Palestinian struggle to the doorsteps of those profiting from Israeli apartheid. Click here to order a copy of Targeting Israeli Apartheid: a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Handbook

Talk and discussion to launch the new Corporate Watch book Targeting Israeli Apartheid: A Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Handbook

7.30pm Thurs 19th January

Friends Meeting House, Brighton

The book will be on sale for £7 on the night

In 2010 two researchers from the civil society organisation Corporate Watch spent several months in Palestine and Israel looking at the ways in which both Israeli and international companies profit from the occupation. Targeting Israeli Apartheid is the result of this research.

Taking its cue from the unified Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, the book is designed to facilitate action; to bring the Palestinian struggle to the doorsteps of those who profit from Israeli apartheid.

Through economic and geographical case studies, the authors show both the real impact the ‘corporate occupation’ has on Palestinians on the ground and highlights which companies to target from all Israeli economy sectors, from agriculture, diamond cutting and construction to pharmaceuticals, technology and arms sales. There is also a section on British companies aiding the Israeli economy, including supermarkets, universities, pension funds and banks.

The researchers’ talk will focus on ’information for action’ and will be followed by a discussion. Hopefully we will plan some action so feel free to prepare your own ideas, suggestions and BDS activities.

‘Targeting Israeli Apartheid is the guide many of us in the movement have been waiting for. This forensic, clear and systematic account details the where, who, how and why of the flows of capital and contracts which enable the colonisation of Palestine to continue.’ Ewa Jasiewicz – Coordinator of the Free Gaza movement

This meeting is being organised jointly by Brighton Jordan Valley Solidarity (www.brightonpalestine.org) and Brighton and Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign (www.brightonpalestinecampaign.org)

Misuse or proper use?

At least three of the 56 protesters who were killed during the latest wave of protests in Egypt in the last week of November are known to have died directly from tear gas inhalation. Many cases of unconsciousness and epileptic-like convulsions have also been reported. Demonstrators say cartridges retrieved from the scenes bore the name of Combined Systems Inc and its address in Jamestown, Pennsylvania.

Other cartridges carried the markings of US firm Federal Laboratories and British defence contractor Chemring Defence (formerly known as PW Defence). Numerous photographs and videos of the canisters have been posted on the internet.

Though the Egyptian and American authorities are saying the tear gas used in Cairo is ‘conventional’ CS gas, protesters say the gases they have encountered are more powerful than that used by Egyptian police at the start of the popular uprising in January. Many of those taken to the makeshift hospitals in Tahrir Square after inhaling the gases reported falling unconscious, unusual burning sensation in the lungs and skin, jerking spasms and a different smell to the usual tear gas (see here and here).

Experts say at least two other toxic gases have been used on demonstrators. Protesters have reported seeing canisters marked with the letters “CR”, while another set of canisters did not have any markings but are believed to be CN gas, which Combined Systems also makes.

CN gas was the crowd control gas used by the US police before CS was brought into use. CR gas is banned for military use under the 1993 Convention on Chemical Warfare but several governments reportedly still use it, including the US, Israel and Egypt. It was used by South African police during Apartheid in the 1980s and by the British army in Northern Ireland.

Some Egyptian media reports have also suggested that the smell and symptoms of these new gases resemble those of a tear gas used by Egyptian border guards on Palestinians who broke through the Rafah crossing in 2008 (see here).

Some tear gas canisters found on the streets of Cairo appear to have been beyond their expiry date by at least five years and a number of experts have suggested that the severe symptoms observed could be a result of using expired CS gas, or of overexposure in a confined space. According to the Independent, tear gas canisters made by Chemring Defence were found during recent protests, but the company insisted that the last time it sold tear gas to Egypt was in 1998 (see here). Methods previously used by protesters to mitigate the effects of tear gas do not seem to be working with some of the gases recently used in Tahrir Square. One Egyptian activist told Corporate Watch that protesters have been using a new ‘anti-teargas mix’, made up of water, yeast and antacid medicine (magnesium hydroxide and aluminium hydroxide, such as EpicoGel) in spray bottles, because coke or vinegar were “just not working”.

The US State Department has apparently launched an investigation into the Egyptian authorities’ “misuse” of tear gas. Meanwhile, a lawsuit has been filed in Cairo against Combined Systems and the Egyptian Ministry of Interior.

Egypt is the second-largest recipient of US military aid after Israel. However, the recent tear gas exports do not appear to fall within this category since they were sold to the Ministry of Interior rather than the army. The Central Security Forces (CSF), which is responsible for riot control, is a division within the Ministry of Interior, but is closely tied to the armed forces as its troops are conscripted through the military then transferred to CSF.

Block the shipments

On 26 November 2011, two days after the recent wave of repression began, seven tons of chemical irritants and other crowd-control weapons, including tear gas made by Combined Systems, arrived at the Egyptian port of Suez. This was one third of a planned shipment, which the Egyptian authorities claim was a “typical order”. The information came to light only because Egyptian customs workers at the port refused to sign for the shipment and allow it to unload. The workers were quickly summoned for an investigation and the shipment was released at the orders of the ruling Military Council.

According to documents seen by the workers and leaked to the media, the shipment left from the US port of Wilmington on 13th October. On the same day, another shipment, aboard the Danish ship “Danica”, which is owned by H. Folmer & Co, arrived at the port of Adabiya near Suez.

A recent Amnesty International report named Combined Systems Inc as one of two US companies that have shipped crowd control munitions and tear gas to Egypt since the Egyptian uprising began on 25 January 2011. According to the report, CSI has sent at least three arms deliveries to Egypt during this time. Two export licenses for “teargas and other non-lethal riot control agents” made by US companies were approved by the US State Department in July and arrived in Egypt in November. According to the commercial trade database Piers, the Wilmington shipment was listed under the product code of “bullets, cartridges and shells”, while another that left New York on 8th August was also described as “ammunition smoke”. In 2010, the US authorised the direct commercial sale of 94,384 items worth $1,748,743 to Egypt under the category of “toxic agents”, which includes tear gas. This was a significant increase on the 33,000 units of “tear gas and riot control agents”, worth $460,000, authorised in 2009. Egyptian activists have set up a blog (https://teargasid.wordpress.com) to collect images of tear gas canisters fired at protesters. The three most common types, all of which are included in a catalogue on CSI’s website, had the following serial numbers and catalogue descriptions:

#4230 – CS Smoke
#6230 – CS Smoke – marketed as an “outdoor grenade”
#3321 – Long-range CS Smoke – effective for 137 metres.

Another tear gas death in Palestine

Tear gas made by Combined Systems is known to have been used during the recent uprisings in Tunisia, Yemen, Bahrain and possibly Syria. But the biggest market for it remains Israel, where various types of Western-manufactured weapons have been ‘tested’ against Palestinian demonstrators for years. Some of the CSI-made canisters picked up by demonstrators in Tahrir Square had Hebrew markings, suggesting they may have come from, or were originally destined for, Israel.

On 9 December 2011, residents of the Palestinian village of Nabi Saleh held a demonstration against encroachment on their lands by the Israeli settlement of Halamish. Demonstrations have been held on a weekly basis for two years as part of the Palestinian popular struggle against the apartheid wall and the settlements.

As usual, the demonstrators were met by a barrage of tear gas fired by Israeli soldiers. 28-year-old Mustafa Tamimi was shot in the face, at close range, by a high-velocity gas canister and died from his wounds. Tamimi is the 21st protester to be killed since the popular struggle against the apartheid wall began.

It is likely that the high velocity canister that killed Tamimi was manufactured by Combined Systems. A similar canister – a Combined Systems Model 4431 CS Powder Barricade Penetrating Projectile high velocity shell – killed Bassem Abu Rahma at a demonstration in Bil’in in April 2009. Another critically injured Tristan Anderson, who was protesting against the wall in Nil’in in March of the same year.

The primary purpose of these canisters is to penetrate barriers, with a secondary function of releasing a chemical gas. They clearly should not be used for crowd dispersal. High-velocity gas canisters were briefly taken out of service by the Israeli military but were reinstated in July 2010 after complaints from military commanders.

Profiting from repression

In addition to military products, Combined Systems Inc boasts on its website of supplying so-called non-lethal crowd control devices to army and police forces around the world. Research by Corporate Watch in September 2011, using the Bureau Van Dijk’s Orbis database, shows that the company has nearly tripled its annual income in the last three years to almost $25 million dollars.

CSI’s director is Donald Smith and its vice president is Jacob Kravel. Shares in the company are held by Point Lookout Capital Partners and the Carlyle Group (see here). The Carlyle Group is a global asset management firm that invests heavily in the arms industry. Current and former directors include George Bush senior, James Baker (former US Secretary of State), John Major and Olivier Sarkozy, son of Nicholas Sarkozy (see here). It has an office in Berkeley Square, London. The company’s global offices can be found here.

As information about CSI tear gas being used in Cairo surfaced, a campaign to stop tear gas shipments to Egypt was started on Facebook. The statement, translated from Arabic, read: “The US government has given licenses to sell lethal gases and weapons to our brutal rulers year after year. Companies like Combined Tactical Systems are making huge profits from the suffocation and death of protesters in Egypt and elsewhere.”

See also:

Corporate complicity in Egyptian regime’s crimes – February 10, 2011

Syria CS gas may have been made in the UK – April 6, 2011

Deadly experiments: Israel’s murderous testing ground for ‘less-lethal’ weapons – January 5, 2011

The court verdict, in Mulhouse on 15 December, concerned Palestine solidarity protests that took place in September 2009 and May 2010 (see here for more details).

The case was brought by several prosecuting bodies including National Bureau of Vigilance Against Anti-Semitism (BNCVA), the France-Israel Chamber of Commerce and the (International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism) LICRA.

Earlier this year, another group of BDS activists won a similar case in Paris . There, the judge said: “Since the call for a boycott of Israeli products is formulated by a citizen for political motives and it is part of a political debate relating to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a debate concerned with a matter of general interest with international significance, the offence of provocation to discrimination, based on the fact of belonging to a Nation, is not constituted.”

The state has appealed the verdict in that case and another case is scheduled to take place in Pontoise, a suburb of Paris, in March 2012, when those involved in a mock-trial of BDS activists outside a Carrefour store will be tried.

These failed prosecutions of BDS activists are part of an international trend to use allegations of racism to try to criminalise BDS actions. In the UK, an activist accused of spraying BDS messages on a branch of Tesco in Swansea in 2009 was charged with racial abuse before the case was dropped.

Campaigners who disrupted an Israel Philharmonic Orchestra concert in Edinburgh, in 2009, were charged with “racially aggravated conduct” but the sheriff threw their case out of court saying: “if persons on a public march designed to protest against and publicise alleged crimes committed by a state and its army were afraid to name that state for fear of being charged with racially aggravated behaviour it would render their rights under the [European Human Rights] Convention worthless.” Their placards, he said, would have to read “Genocide in an unspecified part of the Middle East” or “Boycott an unspecified state in the Middle East”.

In Israel itself, the Knesset passed the “Bill for prevention of damage to the state of Israel through boycott” in July 2011. This new law penalises any person or organization that calls for an “economic, cultural or academic” boycott of “a person or other party” because of their relation to Israel, Israeli institutions or “any area under [Israel's] control”. This move by the Israeli state to repress its own citizens is another example of the threat the international BDS movement is seen as posing to Israeli apartheid and occupation.

In the UK, ITT has two arms manufacturing sites in Brighton and Basingstoke and both are now part of Exelis. The Brighton factory manufactures trigger mechanisms and ejector units for the bomb-racks of fighter aircraft for the US, UK and Israeli militaries. It has been the subject of a seven-year-long campaign of direct action by campaign group Smash EDO.

Since the formation of Exelis the company has laid off more than 200 employees at its Fort Wayne facility in Indiana. Job cuts have also been announced for 2012 at Exelis’ US plants in Roanoke County, Massachusetts and its factory in Thousand Oaks, California is set for closure. The job losses have been attributed to a loss of contracts owing to US troop withdrawals from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Smash EDO is planning a “Summer of Resistance” from Mayday 2012 onwards. The campaign is calling for groups to come to Brighton in May and June 2012 and take action against the factory. For more information see www.smashedo.org.uk

Order a copy

Taking its cue from the unified Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel, Targeting Israeli Apartheid examines the Israeli economy and details the Israeli and international companies complicit in Israeli state repression. Based on original research in Palestine, the book shows how these companies can be targeted and provides the international BDS movement with the information necessary to bring the Palestinian struggle to the doorsteps of those who profit from Israeli apartheid. The book begins by examining the Israeli economy industry by industry and suggesting where the movement should focus its campaigning energy in order to be most effective. Part two contains five in-depth geographical case studies. The final section looks at how campaigners can bring the fight home to the UK. Targeting Israeli Apartheid picks out Barclays Bank as the British bank with the most substantial investments in Israeli companies, including companies based in Israeli settlements. The book goes on to examine the investments of several British universities and UK pension funds revealing investments in companies based in Israeli settlements and arms companies supplying weapons to the Israeli state. Finally, the book shows how charities registered in the UK donate to the Israeli army and settlements.

“Targeting Israeli Apartheid is the guide many of us in the movement have been waiting for. This forensic, clear and systematic account details the where, who, how and why of the flows of capital and contracts which enable the colonisation of Palestine to continue.”
- Ewa Jasiewicz – Coordinator of the Free Gaza movement

The rationale for this book is simple: information for action. Targeting Israeli Apartheid: a BDS Handbook provides the international BDS movement with the information necessary to bring the Palestinian struggle to the doorsteps of those profiting from Israeli apartheid. Click here to order a copy of Targeting Israeli Apartheid: a Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Handbook

tel: 02074260005

Email: contact@corporatewatch.org

Corporate Watch has just released a book, Targeting Israeli Apartheid: A Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Handbook, encouraging campaigners to take direct action against the British companies complicit in Israeli apartheid, militarism and colonisation.

The book, based on extensive research in Palestine and the UK, and interviews with Palestinian and Israeli campaigners, takes its cue from the unified Palestinian call for Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS):

“We representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organizations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel, similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era.”
- Palestinian civil society call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, 2005.

The book begins by examining the Israeli economy industry by industry and suggesting where the movement should focus its campaigning energy in order to be most effective. Part two contains five in-depth geographical case studies. The final section looks at how campaigners can bring the fight home to the UK.

Targeting Israeli Apartheid picks out Barclays Bank as the British bank with the most substantial investments in Israeli companies, including companies with branches in illegal Israeli settlements. The book also examines several British university and pension fund investments and reveals financial support for companies based in Israeli settlements and arms companies supplying weapons to the Israeli state. The book goes on to show how charities registered in the UK donate to the Israeli army and settlements.

Targeting Israeli Apartheid is the guide many of us in the movement  have been waiting for. This forensic, clear and systematic account  details the where, who, how and why of the flows of capital and  contracts which enable the colonisation of Palestine to continue.”
- Ewa Jasiewicz – Coordinator of the Free Gaza movement.

The rationale for the book is to provide necessary information for campaigners to take action, allowing the international BDS movement to bring the Palestinian struggle to the doorsteps of those profiting from Israeli apartheid.

For more details, or to obtain a review copy of the book please contact Tom Anderson, tel: 02074260005, email: contact@corporatewatch.org, www.corporatewatch.org.

Notes for Journalists

Targeting Israeli Apartheid was written by Tom Anderson, Georgia Clough, Jack Curry, Pete Jones and Therezia Cooper. It was produced by Corporate Watch.

ISBN: 978-1-907738-04-3

About Corporate Watch

Corporate Watch is a research group exposing the environmentally destructive and socially divisive projects of corporations and dragging the corrupt links between business and power, economics and politics into the spotlight.

From Corporate Watch’s beginnings looking at PFI roadbuilding, we have broadened out to examine the oil industry, globalistion, genetic engineering, food, toxic chemicals, migration, privatisation and many other areas, to build a picture of almost every type of corporate crime and the nature and mechanisms of corporate power, both economic and political. We have worked with and provided information to people and groups including peace campaigners, environmentalists, and trade unionists, large NGOs and small autonomous groups, journalists, MPs and other members of the public.

Over nine years we have become a respected professional research and campaigning organisation, run as a workers’ co-operative. We are currently supported mainly by donations from individuals and those few independent trusts and foundations willing to support an organisation such as ours. We do not take money from corporations or governments.

Corporate Watch
c/o Freedom Press
Angel Alley
84b Whitechapel High Street
London, E1 7QX
t: +44 (0207 426 0005
e: contact[at]corporatewatch.org

In 2008 Corporate Watch decided to begin writing to companies with accusations levelled at them by grassroots campaigners, sometimes entering into lengthy discussions with them. Many of these communications were published as open letters on the Corporate Watch website, under the header Dear Corporation, along with the companies’ responses.
Examples of these open letters include ones to companies contracted by the Home Office to provide asylum accommodation, companies exporting goods from illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine, coach companies providing services to the fascist English Defence League and so on. Many of these companies’ immediate reaction was angry threats. The assumption seemed to be that, despite the fact that the information we had published was truthful, a mixture of obfuscation, downright lies and allusions to legal perils would result in their being retracted.

Denial

On 28th January 2010, Corporate Watch wrote to Cargoflora,[1] a freight company involved in the distribution of imported flowers to UK supermarkets. The company’s partner, J&E Distributors Ltd, based in the same office as Cargoflora, advertises that it imports flowers from Israel. Corporate Watch had received information from campaigners that Cargoflora was providing services to Carmel-Agrexco, which sources its cut flowers from Palestinian land illegally occupied by Israel. Agrexco, a company partially owned by the Israeli state, owns packing houses situated on illegal settlements in the West Bank, such as Tomer, Massua, Ro’i, Netiv Hagdud and Mehola. Our open letter to Cargoflora asked whether, in light of this, Cargoflora and J&E Page Distributors Ltd would cease providing services to Carmel-Agrexco.

The company replied with anger, saying “the J&E Page group does not import flowers nor any other product coming from Israel.”[2] This claim was bizarre, to say the least, as the front page of the company’s website (www.jepage.com) advertised that “J&E Page are importers of the finest fresh cut flowers from around the world, including Colombia, Ecuador, Israel, Florida and Malyasia.” Denying what was obviously the case was a typical corporate response to the publication of dissenting views, effectively saying ‘that may be what we say in public but that’s just advertising spin.’

Threats

Our Dear Corporation letters have also often provoked legal threats. After receiving our letters, Cargoflora, the Angel Group, EDOM UK and Fyffes all threatened to instigate legal actions against Corporate Watch if we did not remove the open letters from our website. In all these cases, the threats came to nothing. We often responded asking what exactly was the information that they deemed to be inaccurate or libellous and they backed off.

Obfuscation

When we wrote to Valley Grown Salads (VGS)[3] about it sister company EDOM UK’s export of goods from the illegal settlement of Tomer in the West Bank, the company director called us to protest that the claim was “completely untrue.” Our researchers spent literally hours on the phone to Jimmy Russo, before finding from a grower in Tomer, called Yair Azoulay, that EDOM UK had indeed exported produce from Tomer in 2009 and 2010.[4] Interestingly, it was the VGS director who had put us in touch with the grower. Russo’s motive in entering into protracted conversations with us can only have been in the hope that he would muddy the water enough to dissuade us from publishing a critical, but true, story about his company.

A compliant media

This confidence that offending, but nonetheless truthful, articles would be removed is the result of the majority of the mainstream media’s cowardice in the face of legal threats. For instance, during the 1980s and 1990s, McDonalds were able to achieve the removal of dozens of press stories criticising the company. McDonalds, and other companies, did this by using libel laws: Channel 4, The Guardian, the BBC and countless other media outlets withdrew claims critical of the company and apologised. It took two penniless and obstinate campaigners, Dave Morris and Helen Steele, who had distributed a leaflet accusing McDonalds of selling unhealthy food, perpetuating the abuse of animals, causing excess litter and exploiting workers, to refuse to back down and defend their claims in court. Helen Steele, one of the defendants, said of their decision to fight:

“When I was quite young, there was a boy at the end of our street that used to go around bullying everyone and bossing everyone around, and everyone used to go crying to their mums and dads. Eventually my mum got fed up with it and said ‘well, hit him back”, – so I did and after that he didn’t hassle me any more. Well, it’s the same with McDonalds really – If somebody’s trying to make you do something that you don’t believe in, then you have to stand up to them and say, I’m not going to do it, you know; I’m not going to give in to your intimidation and bullying.”[5]

However, the mainstream media, who have bank balances to protect and legal departments to keep them in check, don’t tend to see it that way and stories are withdrawn, often at the first grumble of complaint from corporate lawyers. Many more stories, even those which are factually correct and verifiable, never find their way into the mainstream because of edgy newspaper legal and advertising departments and the pressure put on them by corporations. In the last two years, Corporate Watch has handled media enquiries from dozens of investigative journalists writing for mainstream newspapers, who have meticulously researched stories criticising corporations. The vast majority of the time, these stories are pulled, usually with no explanation, but it is clear that the editors and legal departments have thought better of tickling a corporate monster.

Holding tactics

In 2008 Corporate Watch wrote to the Soil Association (SA) pointing out that some of the fresh goods that it certified were produced on illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank and that the Palestinian workers involved in their production were underpaid, not allowed to unionise and were often under 18. These were issues which had been brought to the Soil Association’s attention by consumers and campaigners over a number of years. However, the previous responses by the organic food certification charity had been to not take the issue seriously. When Corporate Watch wrote to the SA, it clearly took our approach more seriously, presumably because of the implicit threat of publication, and agreed to meet us.

A Corporate Watch researcher visited the SA in 2009 and met with an operations manager and a director of the organisation. The atmosphere was informal and the researcher was told that the SA was sympathetic to the concerns we had raised. At first the SA attempted to deny the claims, stating it could not be sure where the goods it certified came from, as it took the word of the Israeli certifier, Agrior, that the goods were organic. In the course of Corporate Watch’s engagement with the SA, which carried on for several months in the form of emails and phone calls, it became clear that the SA did certify Israeli settlement products as organic.

Secondly, the SA ignored the concerns raised relating to worker’s rights and repeatedly attempted to frame our concerns as being purely about the legality of the settlements. This tactic of honing in on one issue and ignoring all others can also be seen in the way corporations deflected criticism of GM (framing it as an environmental concern and ignoring the socio-economic issues) or of climate change (restricting the discourse to carbon footprints rather than the sustainability of economic growth).

Thirdly, the SA used the engagement with Corporate Watch as a holding tactic to delay dissent. During our talks with the SA, our researcher mentioned that there was a possibility that a legal opinion would be produced on the legality of selling settlement goods. In the event, such a legal opinion never appeared. The SA used the absence of this legal opinion as an excuse to justify carrying on business as normal, despite the concerns we had raised about child labour and non-payment of the minimum wage, contravening IFOAM’s organic standards, which should have given the SA reason enough to reassess its supply chains.

Corporate Watch’s engagement with the SA carried on until the Summer of 2009, during which time we sent them videos showing that child labour was used at an Israeli settlement, Tomer. The SA admitted that it had certified food grown in the settlement. In spite of this, in Summer 2009, despite the severity of the issues we were raising, our calls and emails ceased being answered. The SA has mentioned its discussions with Corporate Watch and others in its communications with consumers and clients, claiming that, due of the lack of the legal opinion, the information provided was not sufficient for it to change its practices. So our engagement, which was first used by the SA as a delaying tactic, has now been used as a tactic to effectively deflect dissent.

The rules of engagement

A few lessons can be learned from the engagements described above. Firstly, that corporations attempt to stymie criticism through legal threats and obfuscation, regardless of the veracity of the claims. Secondly, that engagement with campaigners may be used to delay dissent. The important thing to remember, as a grassroots campaigner engaging with corporations, is that action against a corporation should not stop while discussions are ongoing. It may be useful to have a channel of communication with a corporation but our power does not come from the persuasiveness of our argument or the efficacy of our negotiations on the company’s own territory. It comes, rather, from our ability to directly affect a company’s profits and reputation, which can only be achieved, we would argue, through action.

References
[1] www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=3515
[2] www.corporatewatch.org/?lid=3532
[3] http://corporateoccupation.wordpress.com/2010/04/29/dear-corporation-an-open-letter-to-valley-grown-salads/
[4] http://corporateoccupation.wordpress.com/2010/06/26/why-the-only-way-to-trade-ethically-is-to-divest-from-israel-%E2%80%93-an-update-on-edom-and-valley-grown-salads/
[5] For more info about the McDonalds Libel case, see www.mcspotlight.org/case/index.html. The quote from Helen Steele is taken from the film ‘Mclibel: Two people who wouldn’t say sorry’, Spanner Films (2005).

Taking its cue from the 2005 Palestinian call for ‘boycott, divestment and sanctions’ (BDS), the rationale behind the book is simple: to provide a tool and a compass for BDS campaigners by showing them information on Israeli and international companies complicit in Israeli apartheid, occupation and militarism. The book, provisionally titled Targeting Israeli Apartheid: A BDS Handbook, is divided into three parts. The first looks at each sector of the Israeli economy, its relative importance and its corporate protagonists. Part two provides detailed geographical case studies examining the effect of corporate activities in specific areas. The final section focuses on the UK companies complicit in Palestinian suffering, investments in British funds by these companies and those that provide services to universities and local councils. email contact@corporatewatch.org to order our BDS Handbook

Israeli apartheid is big business. Israeli and international arms companies profit not only from supplying the huge Israeli military machine but also by successfully marketing their products, having been used against Palestinians, as ‘battle-tested’. Meanwhile, massive state and private funding for the Israeli settler movement ensures that there is always money to be made from building and providing infrastructure and services to illegal, Jewish-only settlements in occupied Palestinian territory. International companies continue to expand into the Israeli market, despite its persistent violations of international law and subjugation of the indigenous Palestinian population.

One of the ways in which the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement has been targeting such companies and pressuring Israel and the international community to ensure the implementation of Palestinian rights, is with international divestment campaigns. Such campaigns typically target the Israeli companies and complicit international corporations that provide Israel with much-needed tax revenue and implicit political support by pressuring public bodies and private companies to sell their stake in them.

For instance, the Belgian-French financial group Dexia has been successfully targeted by a huge popular campaign that focused on the loans the group has provided to at least 51 illegal Israeli settlements to the tune of nearly 40m euros. Belgian activists picketed Dexia offices and branches, organised dozens of public meetings and ensured that more than 10,000 protest cards were sent to the corporation’s headquarters. Several creative actions were also held at Dexia AGMs. Having established a clear link between Dexia and the occupation, the campaign was able to mobilise the support of over 42 local councils – all Dexia shareholders – as well as Belgian parliamentarians and civil society groups in France, Luxembourg and Turkey, all key markets for Dexia. Following a two-year-long and highly visible campaign, Dexia announced in April 2011 that it had instructed a merchant bank to find a buyer for its Israeli subsidiary.

The efforts to persuade the Norwegian state pension fund to sell its shares in three Israeli companies took an entirely different form. Stop the Wall, the grassroots Palestinian anti-apartheid wall campaign, and Norwegian and Israeli organisations provided detailed research and held closed-door meetings with the Ethics Committee of the Norwegian Ministry of Finance about the role played by arms company Elbit Systems and settlement construction firms Africa Israel Investments and Danya Cebus. When the Norwegian government took the step to exclude Elbit Systems from its investment portfolio over the role the company has played in the construction of Israel’s illegal Apartheid Wall in 2009, it set the standard for state attitudes towards corporate complicity with Israel’s violations of international law. The subsequent exclusion of the two settlement construction companies provided additional momentum to popular campaigns in the UK targeting Africa Israel.

The campaign against the French multinational, Veolia, is perhaps the most visible and effective BDS initiative to involve divestment. Veolia is helping build and operate the Jerusalem Light Rail, which will link illegal settlements in occupied Palestinian territory with Israel when it opens later this year. The tramway is explicitly designed to cement Israel’s grip on the illegal settlements and tie them more firmly to the state of Israel. Veolia also provides transport and waste services to settlers in occupied territory. Careful and expert lobbying that made Veolia’s complicity clear led to pension funds in the Netherlands, Sweden and Denmark excluding Veolia from their investment portfolios. This, in turn, greatly strengthened the popular campaigns that have successfully pressured scores of local councils in the England, Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Australia and Sweden not to award Veolia service provision contracts.

The exclusions from pension funds and the more than 10bn euros that Veolia has lost due to lost local council contracts eventually forced Veolia to announce its intention to sell its stake in the Jerusalem Light Rail. Unable to find a similarly experienced buyer – and presumably because no other corporation wants to be targeted by a highly successful BDS campaign – Veolia has been forced to ask the Israeli government to allow it to sell its stake to a relatively small Israeli company, in contravention of the terms of the project contract, which stipulated that Veolia could only be replaced by a company of a similar size. Nevertheless, the campaign against Veolia will continue until it has completely ended its role in the Jerusalem Light Rail and all other projects in the Occupied West Bank, and until Veolia is forced to admit responsibility for its actions and is held accountable accordingly.

Activists are sometimes understandably sceptical about the utility of ‘appealing’ to the conscience of states or huge financial institutions. But by matching closed-door lobbying with popular campaigns and direct action, and making a tactical decision to focus on those companies that are most deeply complicit with Israel’s violations of international law, the BDS movement has been able to avoid the problems usually associated with divestment campaigns and to achieve concrete and significant victories. The BDS movement is showing corporations that there is a high price to pay for complicity with Israeli apartheid. Increasingly, it simply doesn’t make good business sense to support Israel’s oppression of Palestinian rights.

Most significantly, each campaign victory chips away at Israel’s carefully crafted image as a country like any other and exposes it as state that practises occupation, colonisation and apartheid. It also forces Israeli society to engage with issues relating to Palestinians being denied their basic rights. Divestment initiatives are likely to continue to be an important part of the Palestine solidarity movement until the demands of the Palestinian call for BDS are met: until Israel ends its occupation and dismantles its apartheid wall, until the Palestinian citizens of Israel enjoy full equal rights, and until the six million Palestinian refugees are able to return to their homes.