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Palestinians ask 50 countries to demand commercial sanctions on settlements
Companies should either freeze business dealing with settlements or withdraw investments entirely, Palestinian Ministry says in letters.
Haaretz, 25 October 2013
By Barak Ravid
           
In a new campaign aimed at promoting international support for a settlement boycott, the Palestinian Authority last month sent letters to 50 countries, urging them to clamp down on companies doing business with Jewish settlements in the West Bank and in East Jerusalem.

A senior Palestinian official told the Financial Times in a report published late Thursday that the Palestinian Foreign Ministry had requested that the governments addressed in the letters issue stringent guidelines to companies operating within their borders that conduct business with the settlements. The countries, it was stated, should instruct companies to either freeze their business dealings with the settlements or withdraw their investments altogether. Commercial activity in the settlements is illegal and constitutes a violation of international law, the letters said.

Examples of the companies targeted in the new Palestinian campaign are French environmental conglomerate Veolia Environment, which operates projects in East Jerusalem, and British-based global security giant G4S, which supplies equipment for Israeli roadblocks in the West Bank.

Dr. Muhammad Shtayyeh, the minister in charge of the Palestinian Economic Council for Development and Reconstruction , a member of the Fatah Central Committee and a senior negotiator in the current peace talks with Israel, told the Times that the campaign was also aimed at achieving the suspension or termination of business dealings with Israeli companies and financial institutions, such as Bank Hapoalim and Bank Leumi, that both operate in the West Bank and have overseas branches.

It was the role of every country, Shtayyeh emphasized, to make it clear to the companies operating within its borders that investments in West Bank settlements were illegal.

The letters were sent to countries in Latin America and Europe, as well as to South Africa, Australia, Japan and South Korea. Shtayyeh noted that letters had also been dispatched to Arab investors in companies that have business dealings with West Bank settlements.

The Palestinian official stated that the PA has also asked the 50 countries to strongly advise settlers who hold their citizenship that they were breaking the law, by continuing to reside in a West Bank settlement.

In recent months, a number of European Union member states, including the United Kingdom and the Netherlands, have begun to warn the companies located within their boundaries against investing in the settlements. A few weeks ago, Dutch infrastructure giant Royal HaskoningDHV announced that it had decided to withdraw from a wastewater treatment plant project in East Jerusalem, because it would be built beyond the Green Line (Israel’s pre-1967 border.) The planned plant would have been a partnership between the company and the Jerusalem municipality.

The new Palestinian campaign against the settlements comes in the wake of the EU’s announcement several months ago regarding the imposition of sanctions on Jewish settlements in the West Bank. Last July, the European Commission, the EU’s executive arm, published a directive that would prohibit funding, investing in or awarding grants and prizes to entities with activities in the settlements.

The EU is also promoting a procedure for labeling all products from West Bank settlements being sold by retail outlets in Europe.

While Israel is trying to thwart these measures and bring about a softening of anti-settlement sanctions, the Palestinians are moving ahead with their new campaign. Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas met with EU foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton in Brussels recently to discuss the issue. In the course of a state visit in Europe, Abbas proclaimed at every press conference he held that he was calling upon private companies in Europe to boycott West Bank settlements.