Jewish settlement in West Bank (Photo: Reuters)
According to int’l law – by which the State of Israel was established and recognized – the settlements are stolen lands, which is a war crime, and abetting war criminals, such as by financing them, is a crime, too.
By Jack Khoury | Haaretz.com
The boycott issue is once again in the headlines, and I wish to make a confession: I don’t buy products made in the settlements. This isn’t, heaven forbid, a boycott, and it obviously isn’t a call to others to boycott. It’s forbidden to boycott. There’s a law. And I’m a law-abiding citizen. Always. Even when I don’t like the laws.
And that’s precisely why I don’t buy products made over the Green Line: the law. Because in my view, international law is also law. And it, too, deserves to be obeyed, even if only because international law is the law by dint of which Israel was established and recognized as a state.
And according to international law – how very unfortunate – all settlements, from the first to the last, are a war crime. This is so according to Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention, and also according to Article 8(2)(b)(viii) of the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court.
Admittedly, the State of Israel has displayed an impressive ability to create legal nuances out of nothing to prove that international law doesn’t apply to the occupied territories, or that the territories aren’t occupied at all, or that the world is flat. But there’s not a single country in the entire world, or a single organization of all those responsible for upholding international law, that buys Israel’s legalistic sophistries.
Take, for instance, Israel’s claim that this isn’t “occupied territory.” Why? Because the territories “had no sovereign” when we conquered them. But Israel only invites ridicule with this hollow claim. The authorized agencies have declared again and again that this is an occupation in every respect, and that the question of who was previously sovereign in the occupied territory, or whether it had a sovereign at all, is completely irrelevant. “Occupied territory” is defined by law as follows: territory that was seized by military force and is held under military rule. Period.
And not only is transferring an occupying population into occupied territory (“the settlements”) a war crime, but expropriating occupied lands without an acceptable justification – for instance, expropriation for settlement purposes – is also defined as a war crime. Such lands, which were taken from their owners in violation of the law, are simply stolen property.
Consequently, it’s self-evident that anything produced on them by the thieves, whether industrial or agricultural produce, is presumed to be stolen goods. And a law-abiding person doesn’t buy stolen goods. It’s forbidden. A well-known aphorism admittedly holds that “one who steals from a thief isn’t liable,” but there’s no doubt that “one who buys from a thief is liable.”
Moreover, the money paid for stolen goods encourages and finances the criminals. And this, too, is forbidden. Article 25(3)(c) of the Rome Statute assigns criminal liability to anyone who abets war criminals in any way, including by encouraging or financing them.
What can you do? I don’t want to run afoul of international law. Don’t I have enough troubles? So I don’t buy.
All of the above, it’s important to stress once again, has nothing to do with boycotting! Only with obeying the law. And in order to help people obey this law, it’s also necessary to demand that all products of the settlements sold in Israel be immediately labeled, very clearly, so as not to put a stumbling block before the blind and not to embroil them, heaven forbid, in abetting war crimes.
In closing, one small clarification: As many will doubtless recall, in upholding the so-called “Boycott Law,” Supreme Court Justice Elyakim Rubinstein relied on a phrase from the Passover Haggadah, “In every generation they rise up to destroy us.” I wonder what the honored judge would permit if he continued reading the Haggadah and came to the words, “Pour out Your wrath upon the nations that do not acknowledge You … Pursue them with anger and destroy them from beneath the heavens of the Lord.”
If the honored judge indeed permits what I fear he would permit I’d like to make it clear right now: On this issue, don’t count on me. Because even when it comes to obeying the law, there are limits.
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Norwegian insurance giant divests from multinational firms operating in West Bank settlements
Companies excluded for exploiting resources in occupied territory, KLP says, in unusual ‘tertiary’ boycott; meanwhile, Orange CEO meets Netanyahu, apologizes for ‘misunderstanding.’
By Barak Ravid
Norwegian insurance giant KLP Kapitalforvaltning has excluded two multinational building material companies from its investment portfolio because of their operations in the West Bank.
“KLP is excluding Heidelberg Cement and Cemex on the grounds of their exploitation of natural resources in occupied territory on the West Bank,” the company announced Thursday. “In KLP’s opinion this activity constitutes an unacceptable risk of violating fundamental ethical norms.”
KLP divested of its shares in these companies effective June 1, citing international law as set in the Hague and Geneva conventions. The Norwegian firm insures all municipal workers in the Scandinavian nation and holds 35 billion dollars worth of assets.
The decision is relatively unusual for divesting from companies operating in the West Bank because it constitutes a tertiary boycott – not on acquiring a product made in the West Bank or from an Israeli company producing it but rather a multinational company involved in a financial relationship with an Israeli company operating over the Green Line.
Both Heidelberg Cement, a German company, and Cemex, a Mexican firm, acquired smaller companies with Israeli subsidiaries operating quarries in parts of the West Bank known as Area C, under complete Israeli civilian and military control as defined by the Oslo accords.
Earlier this month, KLP wrote that “no such agreement can override the rules relating to occupation set out in the Hague Regulations and the Fourth Geneva Convention.”
Heidelberg, one of the biggest construction material companies in the world, operating in over 40 countries bought British firm Hanson, which in turn owns Hanson Quarry Products Israel. Cemex, a Mexican company supplying construction materials to over 50 countries acquired in 2005 RMC Group, owner of Readymix Industries Israel.
“From the perspective of international law, an assessment of this case has proved more difficult than similar assessments with respect to Western Sahara,” said Jeanett Bergan, head of responsible investment at KLP, about its divestment from Heidelberg and Cemex. “Nevertheless, the international legal principle that occupation should be temporary has carried the most weight. New exploitation of natural resources in occupied territory offers a strong incentive to prolong a conflict.”
The United Nations has condemned Israel for “depleting natural resources” from the West Bank. KLP noted that the subsidiaries of Heidelberg and Cemex “pay license fees and royalties to the state of Israel,” and that the “products deriving from the quarries are sold primarily for use in Israel’s domestic construction market.”
The move is part of KLP’s half-yearly review of companies in its portfolio. KLP announced that it was excluding, effective June, eight other companies – five because of their income from coal-based operations, one for corruption, one for severe environmental damage and one for production of tobacco.
KLP said was in contact with the two companies and asked for clarifications about their West Bank operations. Heidelberg confirmed that one of its subsidiaries operated quarries in the West Bank and was aware of the criticism about this operation. The company stressed that it had no intention to stop operating in the West Bank and remarked that although Israel controlled the quarries, most of the workers in them were Palestinians.
Cemex asserted that most of the workers at its West Bank quarry were Palestinians, and that they received the same conditions as their Israeli colleagues. Cemex also asserted that its operation in the West Bank was legal because the Oslo Accords allow Israel to maintain full control of Area C pending a permanent settlement.
KLP rejected these arguments.
“KLP considers that the ethical arguments carry the heaviest weight in this case,” the company announced. “The extraction of non-renewable resources in occupied territory may weaken the future income potential of the local population, including the Palestinian residents. Moreover, when this is undertaken in a way that is difficult to justify within the requirements of the law of belligerent occupation, KLP considers that this activity represents an unacceptable risk of violating fundamental ethical norms.”
Orange apologizes
Meanwhile, the CEO of Orange met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to clarify his company’s position on Friday, after he made a controversial comment last week that he would drop his company’s relationship with an Israeli firm “tomorrow” if he could.
The comment caused an international storm.
Netanyahu met with Richard, who arrived in Israel on Thursday to smoothen relations and apologize for his remarks, at the Prime Minister’s Office in Jerusalem. The prime minister said at the opening of the meeting with Richard that many understood the latter’s comments as an attack on Israel.
“Your visit here is an opportunity to set the record straight,” Netanyahu said. “Israel is the one country in the Middle East that guarantees full civic rights, the one country in the Middle East where everyone is protected under the law equally.
“We seek a genuine and secure peace with our Palestinian neighbors, but that can only be achieved through direct negotiations between the parties without preconditions. It will not be achieved through boycotts and through threats of boycotts.”
Richard responded that his statements had been misunderstood, and that he regretted the controversy that was created.
“I regret deeply this controversy, and I want to make totally clear that Orange as a company has never supported and will never support any kind of boycott against Israel,” Mr. Richard told Mr. Netanyahu. “We are doing
We are doing business. We are doing communication. We are here to connect people, certainly not to participate in any kind of boycott.”