HRW urges businesses to obey human rights laws, cut ties with Israeli settlements

Human Rights Watch has issued a damning report on Israel’s illegal settlement activity in the occupied territories, urging businesses to comply with the international humanitarian law and stop any activity that violates Palestinians’ rights.
A report dubbed, Occupation, Inc., How Settlement Businesses Contribute to Israel’s violations of Palestinian Rights urges businesses to end their activities in the settlements and also calls on governments to withhold aid to Israel.

The report details how settlement businesses contribute to Israeli discrimination against Palestinians, while profiting from resources and land that has been taken from the Palestinians.

“In many cases, businesses are ‘settlers’ themselves,” the report says, urging states worldwide to “ensure that any import of settlement goods into their territory is consistent with their duty under international humanitarian law not to recognize Israeli sovereignty over the occupied Palestinian territories.”

This would include accurately labeling goods produced in settlements, as per EU latest regulations, criticized by Israel as discriminatory.

“From some 200 territorial disputes around the world the EU chooses to discriminate only against Israel. This outlook prevents the EU from being a fair partner in resolving the conflict,” the Israeli foreign ministry stated on Monday.

HRW recommend states to “avoid offsetting the costs of Israeli government expenditures on settlements by withholding funding given to the Israeli government in an amount equivalent to its expenditures on settlements and related infrastructure in the West Bank.”

Q&A: How Settlement Businesses Contribute to Israel’s Violations of Palestinian Rights https://t.co/VaGW6wWiDK pic.twitter.com/q9yUjloJmz

— Human Rights Watch (@hrw) 19 Січень 2016

Settlement businesses benefit from the confiscation of Palestinian land, and HRW believes they “contribute to the further confiscation of Palestinian land, restrictions on Palestinian access to their lands, and their forced displacement from these lands.”

Businesses also benefit from financial and regulatory incentives provided by the Israeli government and discriminatory granting of permits to settlement companies, but not for Palestinian businesses.

Buyer beware: Airbnb considers illegal West Bank settlements to be in Israel, gets backlash https://t.co/P5SSS0eKrs pic.twitter.com/4xTa9jaMj7

— RT (@RT_com) 13 Січень 2016

The report compares Israeli treatment of Jewish settlements to Palestinian ones, and details a “two-tiered system in the West Bank that provides preferential treatment to Jewish Israeli settlers while imposing harsh conditions on Palestinians.”