Skip to content or view mobile version

Home | Mobile | Editorial | Mission | Privacy | About | Contact | Help | Security | Support

A network of individuals, independent and alternative media activists and organisations, offering grassroots, non-corporate, non-commercial coverage of important social and political issues.

Profiting from the Occupation:corporate interests fuelling conflict in Palestine

Nick Dearden | 24.07.2006 12:25 | Lebanon War 2006 | Anti-militarism | Globalisation

What do Tesco, Waitrose, Connex and Caterpillar have in common? They are all profiting from Israel's occupation of Palestine.

We hear little from the Palestinian Occupied Territories other than endless death, destruction, poverty and despair. While living standards plummet and the death toll rockets, it’s difficult to imagine a less likely place to make a profit. But despite the humanitarian catastrophe unfolding, and the international attention it receives, names familiar on high streets across Europe and the US are actively supporting Israel’s Occupation of Palestine through their business practices – threatening to prolong the misery of the Palestinian people for many years to come.

US multinational construction company Caterpillar has already been singled out, supplying as it does militarised bulldozers to the Israeli Army through the US’s Foreign Military Sales programme. A recent War on Want fact-finding mission confirmed the opinion of an Israeli military Commander, who calls these monster machines the “key weapon” in the ever deepening colonisation of the West Bank. The litany of war crimes which these machines are used for is shocking – demolition of many thousands of Palestinian homes, sometimes on top of their residents; destruction of agricultural land, water supplies, olive and fruit trees; and the construction of the illegal Separation Wall currently encircling Palestinian towns, separating communities and turning the West Bank into a giant prison. All the more incredible then that Caterpillar’s Chief Executive Jim Owens can still claim that “Caterpillar does well by doing good around the world.”

The disinvestment campaign against Caterpillar has sparked debate about corporate complicity throughout many Christian Churches; not least in the Church of England where the General Synod has voted to begin a divestment process, while the Church Commissioners who hold the purse strings, have taken a different decision. In recent weeks the Methodist Church and the United Church of Toronto have voted to use the threat of divestment as a means of pressuring companies to stop aiding the Israeli Occupation.

But Caterpillar is not alone. Many people in the south-east of England will have fond memories (or otherwise) of French train operator Connex, which ran trains out of London for seven years before its franchise was terminated for poor financial management in 2003. Less well known is that one year earlier Connex, as the main partner in a consortium called CityPass, was awarded a $500 million contract to construct a light railway system connecting Jerusalem to illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem. Road works around Jerusalem’s Old City mark the beginning of the project which is planned for completion in 2020. Connex will run the operation of the line for the next 30 years, while another French partner, Alstrom, will provide the trains.

The problem is that East Jerusalem is not part of Israel. Indeed the Palestinians hope one day to have their capital here. But Israel’s illegal annexation of East Jerusalem threatens this dream. Israel has encouraged 200,000 settlers to move into East Jerusalem over the last 40 years, and is currently using these settlements, along with the Separation Wall, to cut off East Jerusalem, on which tens of thousands of Palestinians depend, from the rest of the West Bank. Israeli peace campaigner and Nobel peace prize nominee Jeff Halper told us that Israel’s current expansion programme around East Jerusalem will render any future Palestinian state “nothing more than a set of non-viable Indian reservations.”

The Israeli government has openly stated that the Connex train system is part of this same programme, to complete the annexation of East Jerusalem. During the contract signing ceremony in July 2005 then Prime Minister Ariel Sharon pointed out that this project would help “strengthen Jerusalem, construct it, expand it and sustain it for eternity as the capital of the Jewish people and the united capital of the State of Israel”. The implications of this project are not limited to the suffering being endured now, but effect the possibility of peace in the Middle East for many years to come.

Unless we live on a bus route in Wales, few of us are likely to run into Connex. Central to our lives, however, is the behaviour of high street supermarkets. Lack of control over what we eat is becoming an everyday concern for many. Here again, one look at the reality of Israel’s Occupation is enough to suggest that supermarkets aren’t telling the whole truth about their Israeli produce.

Israel’s settlements across the West Bank represent the physical reality of the Occupation for most Palestinians on a daily basis. These settlements violate the Geneva Conventions and their creation is a war crime according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court. Yet settlements increased at breakneck speed during the Oslo ‘Peace’ Process, stealing Palestinian land and resources, and fuelling Palestinian resentment and the ultimate breakdown of Oslo. Today there are 450,000 settlers who use, together with Israel proper, 83% of the West Bank’s water resources, travelling on racially segregated roads which link them to Israel. Across the West Bank cranes and bulldozers symbolise on-going settlement expansion today.

The Jordan Valley, along the eastern edge of the West Bank, is a particularly large-scale settlement production centre. While Palestinians are cramped into small villages surrounded by closed military zones, vast plantations of fruit and vegetables line the landscape. One million palm trees have been planted here, and the Israeli government plans another million in the next five years. The partially state-owned export company, Agrexco, is responsible for 60-70% of all produce exported from settlements, and business is booming, with a 72% increase in revenue in the last 3 years. 60% of all Israeli vegetables exported end up in the UK. We met one Palestinian farmer growing aubergines in his field, but they were dry and shrivelled compared to the well watered grapes that grow on the plantations which have been stolen from him. “The water these plants constantly get comes through my land”, he tells us, “yet I have no access to it.”

Despite the centrality of the settlements as an obstacle to peace, supermarkets like Tesco and Waitrose still stock products grown or manufactured in West Bank settlements, labelling them as ‘Made in Israel’. Although EU law requires settlement produce to be labelled for customs purposes, so as not to apply preferential tariffs to them, this information is not passed onto the customer, so settlement produce ends up mixed in with other Israeli fruit, vegetables and herbs.

Some products are easier to spot. Wine produced by Barkan is on sale in Tesco, Selfridges and Sainsbury’s, while snacks by Beigel & Beigel are sold in Tesco and Waitrose, skin care products by Ahava in Selfridges and soda stream products from Mishor Adumin in Argos. All of these products are manufactured wholly or largely in West Bank settlements. Wine from the Golan Heights, Syrian territory also occupied in 1967, is even more openly marketed in Tesco, Waitrose and Sainsbury’s.

Finally Caterpillar isn’t the only construction company involved in house demolitions. Though their operations are particularly egregious – given that they supply the Israeli Army with military equipment – we saw Volvo, Daewoo and JCB bulldozers or cranes being used, on a contractual basis, in the construction of the Separation Wall.

It is not sufficient for companies to live in a world of glowing corporate social responsibility reports, while shutting their eyes and ears to the actual impact of their operations. It is inconceivable that Connex and Caterpillar are unaware of the fact that their products and services are being used to implement war crimes. If Tesco and Waitrose are unaware of the origins of the products they sell as ‘Made in Israel’, it is because they haven’t asked the requisite questions of their suppliers. And if Volvo, Daewoo and JCB’s management don’t know that their bulldozers are being used in violation of international law, they cannot have spent even half a day in the Occupied Territories. In any case, they all know now.

It is up to all of us to use our power to pressure these companies to change the ways in which they operate. But ultimately the problem is not purely a corporate one. After the First World War the idea of war profiteers disgusted a generation scarred by the horror of conflict. Today wars happen a little further a field, but the consequences are no less devastating. Corporations continue to profit from this suffering in overt and subtle ways. To stop this we need to turn against the economic orthodoxy of our age – that the profit motive is the sole element on which social organisation should be based. Corporations do not need more freedom, but less.

Have a look at War on Want’s new Report Profiting from the Occupation: Corporate Complicity in Israel’s Occupation of Palestine. It covers this issue in more detail and is available on-line at www.waronwant.org




Nick Dearden

Upcoming Coverage
View and post events
Upcoming Events UK
24th October, London: 2015 London Anarchist Bookfair
2nd - 8th November: Wrexham, Wales, UK & Everywhere: Week of Action Against the North Wales Prison & the Prison Industrial Complex. Cymraeg: Wythnos o Weithredu yn Erbyn Carchar Gogledd Cymru

Ongoing UK
Every Tuesday 6pm-8pm, Yorkshire: Demo/vigil at NSA/NRO Menwith Hill US Spy Base More info: CAAB.

Every Tuesday, UK & worldwide: Counter Terror Tuesdays. Call the US Embassy nearest to you to protest Obama's Terror Tuesdays. More info here

Every day, London: Vigil for Julian Assange outside Ecuadorian Embassy

Parliament Sq Protest: see topic page
Ongoing Global
Rossport, Ireland: see topic page
Israel-Palestine: Israel Indymedia | Palestine Indymedia
Oaxaca: Chiapas Indymedia
Regions
All Regions
Birmingham
Cambridge
Liverpool
London
Oxford
Sheffield
South Coast
Wales
World
Other Local IMCs
Bristol/South West
Nottingham
Scotland
Social Media
You can follow @ukindymedia on indy.im and Twitter. We are working on a Twitter policy. We do not use Facebook, and advise you not to either.
Support Us
We need help paying the bills for hosting this site, please consider supporting us financially.
Other Media Projects
Schnews
Dissident Island Radio
Corporate Watch
Media Lens
VisionOnTV
Earth First! Action Update
Earth First! Action Reports
Topics
All Topics
Afghanistan
Analysis
Animal Liberation
Anti-Nuclear
Anti-militarism
Anti-racism
Bio-technology
Climate Chaos
Culture
Ecology
Education
Energy Crisis
Fracking
Free Spaces
Gender
Globalisation
Health
History
Indymedia
Iraq
Migration
Ocean Defence
Other Press
Palestine
Policing
Public sector cuts
Repression
Social Struggles
Technology
Terror War
Workers' Movements
Zapatista
Major Reports
NATO 2014
G8 2013
Workfare
2011 Census Resistance
Occupy Everywhere
August Riots
Dale Farm
J30 Strike
Flotilla to Gaza
Mayday 2010
Tar Sands
G20 London Summit
University Occupations for Gaza
Guantanamo
Indymedia Server Seizure
COP15 Climate Summit 2009
Carmel Agrexco
G8 Japan 2008
SHAC
Stop Sequani
Stop RWB
Climate Camp 2008
Oaxaca Uprising
Rossport Solidarity
Smash EDO
SOCPA
Past Major Reports
Encrypted Page
You are viewing this page using an encrypted connection. If you bookmark this page or send its address in an email you might want to use the un-encrypted address of this page.
If you recieved a warning about an untrusted root certificate please install the CAcert root certificate, for more information see the security page.

Global IMC Network


www.indymedia.org

Projects
print
radio
satellite tv
video

Africa

Europe
antwerpen
armenia
athens
austria
barcelona
belarus
belgium
belgrade
brussels
bulgaria
calabria
croatia
cyprus
emilia-romagna
estrecho / madiaq
galiza
germany
grenoble
hungary
ireland
istanbul
italy
la plana
liege
liguria
lille
linksunten
lombardia
madrid
malta
marseille
nantes
napoli
netherlands
northern england
nottingham imc
paris/île-de-france
patras
piemonte
poland
portugal
roma
romania
russia
sardegna
scotland
sverige
switzerland
torun
toscana
ukraine
united kingdom
valencia

Latin America
argentina
bolivia
chiapas
chile
chile sur
cmi brasil
cmi sucre
colombia
ecuador
mexico
peru
puerto rico
qollasuyu
rosario
santiago
tijuana
uruguay
valparaiso
venezuela

Oceania
aotearoa
brisbane
burma
darwin
jakarta
manila
melbourne
perth
qc
sydney

South Asia
india


United States
arizona
arkansas
asheville
atlanta
Austin
binghamton
boston
buffalo
chicago
cleveland
colorado
columbus
dc
hawaii
houston
hudson mohawk
kansas city
la
madison
maine
miami
michigan
milwaukee
minneapolis/st. paul
new hampshire
new jersey
new mexico
new orleans
north carolina
north texas
nyc
oklahoma
philadelphia
pittsburgh
portland
richmond
rochester
rogue valley
saint louis
san diego
san francisco
san francisco bay area
santa barbara
santa cruz, ca
sarasota
seattle
tampa bay
united states
urbana-champaign
vermont
western mass
worcester

West Asia
Armenia
Beirut
Israel
Palestine

Topics
biotech

Process
fbi/legal updates
mailing lists
process & imc docs
tech