Email Barclays to demand it stops facilitating Israeli apartheid

Israel is intensifying its brutal military invasions, assaults and assassinations against Palestinians. This year alone dozens of Palestinians have been killed in attacks Israeli forces, including at least 14 children.

Yet, Barclays continues to hold financial ties with companies whose weapons are used to perpetrate these attacks – which sustain Israel’s apartheid rule over Palestinians.

Write to Barclays' senior management to demand the bank severs all business relationships with companies supplying weapons and military technology to Israel used in attacks on Palestinians.

Chairman of Barclays Group Board

Barclays UK CEO

Barclays Group CEO

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Israel, led by the most far right, racist, homophobic and ultra-nationalist government in its history, is intensifying brutal military assaults on Palestinians. This year, dozens of Palestinians have been killed in attacks by Israeli forces, including at least 14 children.
I am extremely concerned that despite the intensification of Israel’s unlawful violence against Palestinians, Barclays continues to hold financial ties with companies whose weapons are used to perpetrate these attacks.
Research <a href="https://www.palestinecampaign.org/barclays-banking-on-apartheid/">released last year by</a> Palestine Solidarity Campaign, War on Want, and Campaign Against Arms Trade, identified that Barclays invests over £1 billion, and provides over £3 billion in loans and underwriting, to nine companies whose weapons, components, and military technology have been used in assaults on Palestinians.  
Since the research was released in July 2022, thousands across Britain have written to you, and protested outside Barclays branches, to demand action to end Barclays complicity in these human rights abuses – yet you have failed to respond or to act sever the bank’s unethical financial ties.
Barclays has a clear responsibility to ensure it is not complcit in Israel’s unlawful attacks against Palestinians. The <a href="https://www.ohchr.org/sites/default/files/documents/publications/guidingprinciplesbusinesshr_en.pdf">UN Guiding Principles of Business and Human Rights</a> are clear that businesses and financial institutions must take active steps to “avoid causing or contributing to adverse human rights impacts” through both their direct activity, and business relationships.
Barclays must adhere to its responsibilities under the UNGPs, and its existing policies on human rights and the defence sector, and publicly commit to end all business relationships with companies supplying weapons and military technology to Israel used in militarised attacks against Palestinians.  
Among the companies in which Barclays is invested is Elbit Systems. It supplies 85% of UAV’s (drones) used by the Israeli army, including in its indiscriminate attacks on the besieged Gaza strip. Alongside this, Elbit Systems Skylark UAVs have been utilised in Israel’s deadly military attacks in the occupied West Bank.
Because of its production and supply of weapons used to violate international law and its association with banned cluster munitions and other controversial weapons, Elbit Systems has been subject to exclusion and divestment by a range of financial institutions. This includes Norway’s largest pension scheme, KLP, which outlined that Barclays was to be excluded from its portfolio because “it is clear that the company produces cluster munitions.” Moreover, in January 2022, Australia’s Future Fund banned investment in Elbit Systems due to its involvement in the the production of weaponry used in violations of international law. 
Despite this, Barclays still continues to invest in Elbit Systems, and eight other companies supplying weapons and military technology to Israel, used in its violations of international law.
From 1970, Barclays became a key target of anti-South African apartheid campaigners because of its financial links with the apartheid regime. The bank faced long-term reputational damage due to its complicity in racist white minority rule.  Once again Barclays is choosing to facilitate and profit from the crime of apartheid.
Barclays must publicly commit to end its business relationships with all companies supplying weapons and military technology to Israel used in attacks on Palestinians.

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Email Barclays to demand it stops facilitating Israeli apartheid