Tell British companies on the UN Settlements Database: End your involvement in Israel's illegal settlements!

Yesterday the United Nations published the long awaited list of companies active in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.

The 112 companies on the list contribute to and support Israel's ever-expanding Jewish-only settlements. Every settlement amounts to a war crime under international law.

They displace entire Palestinian communities, steal their resources, and prevent them from exercising free movement with checkpoints and heavily armed soldiers.

Three of the companies on the database are British. JCB, Opodo, and Greenkote PLC.

These companies must now take immediate action to end all activity in illegal settlements.

JCB

Opodo

Greenkote PLC

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I have seen that your company is included in the United Nations mandated  report on businesses involved in activities relating to Israel’s illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. As this means that your company is involved with illegal entities, continuing to do business in the settlements exposes your company to considerable liability risk and reputational damage.  Your company must immediately withdraw from all activities in Israel’s settlements.
Every settlement in occupied territory amounts to a war crime under international law; the Fourth Geneva Convention expressly prohibits an occupying power from transferring its own civilian population into occupied territory, the confiscation or destruction of property by an occupying power, and appropriation of natural resources for any reason other than for the benefit of the local population.
“If you’re a company operating in the settlements, then you are involved in systematic injustice” - Peter Frankental, Amnesty International UK
Amnesty International UK <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/press-releases/uk-companies-warned-over-involvement-israeli-war-crimes-new-report">recently wrote</a> to all companies in the FTSE 100 warning that it is not possible to do business in or with settlements without contributing to violations of international humanitarian and human rights law. The UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights clearly state that companies have an obligation to take active steps to ‘avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impact’ and to ‘seek to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts’. This obligation exists independently of states’ abilities and willingness to fulfil their own human rights obligations. Your company’s inclusion in the UN database  is a clear indication of complicity in war crimes.
Israeli settlements have displaced entire Palestinian communities, who are then forcibly excluded, kept out by checkpoints and heavily armed soldiers, unable to access the valuable resources on which their communities previously relied. <a href="https://www.amnesty.org.uk/files/2019-03/Think%20Twice%20report.pdf?BrN9N0VX3RkzTJROuKYC46LE43hCPtTu=">Israel’s aggressive settlement expansion means illegal settlements and their infrastructure now make up over 60% of the occupied West Bank.</a>
Settlements drive other human rights abuses. Demonstrations by Palestinian civilians against settlement expansion are frequently met with violence by Israeli security forces, causing injuries and death. In addition, Palestinians arrested by Israeli forces in the West Bank are dealt with by Israel’s illegitimate military court system, under which civilians are denied their rights to fair trials, while Israeli settlers are dealt with by the civilian legal system. <a href="https://www.btselem.org/settler_violence">Further, violence is often perpetrated by Israeli settlers in an attempt to intimidate the Palestinian population.</a>
As Human Rights Watch has previously identified “<a href="https://www.hrw.org/report/2016/01/19/occupation-inc/how-settlement-businesses-contribute-israels-violations-palestinian">the context of human rights abuse to which settlement business activity contributes is so pervasive and severe that businesses should cease carrying out activities inside or for the benefit of settlements.”</a> 
The database has identified your activity as supporting Israel’s violations of international law, creating an imperative on you to act immediately. I call on you to immediately withdraw from all activities in illegal Israeli settlements, including supplying them with equipment and services.

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Tell British companies on the UN Settlements Database: End your involvement in Israel's illegal settlements!