Brighton & Hove Palestine Campaign

Supporting the struggle to achieve a just and lasting peace for Palestine

Other News & Reports

BDS victory: HSBC divests from Israeli arms giant Elbit Systems following sustained grassroots campaign

HSBC Bank has notified campaigners that they have decided to end their business dealings with Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest arms manufacturer. This follows 18 months of sustained campaigning by PSC branches and other local groups around the country, as part of the wider STOP ARMING ISRAEL campaign. And over 24,000 people wrote to the company, complaining about their unethical practice. HSBC has been persuaded that their business dealings with Elbit are inconsistent with their so-called ethical banking policies. This is a major victory for the BDS movement. 

Brighton & Hove PSC has played a significant part in the national campaign, with monthly pickets outside the main HSBC branch in Brighton, and ‘pop-up’ pickets once a week. We know that every time we appear at the local branch they inform head office, and local HSBC customers have been horrified to discover the truth about their so-called ethical bank. And the pressure has intensified over the months, with dozens of groups around the country picketing HSBC branches. It looks like the bank has finally recognised that the contradictions between their professed ‘values’ and their actual practice cannot be sustained. 

You can find out more by following these links:
War on Want’s PRESS RELEASE (illustrated with Brighton’s 17-metre banner outside the bank’s AGM last April!)
PSC’s PRESS RELEASE
Coverage by ALJAZEERA
Coverage by ELECTRONIC INTIFADA (with a photo of Brighton action!)
Coverage by MIDDLE EAST EYE
Coverage by Israeli newspaper HA’ARETZ
Coverage by TIMES OF ISRAEL

But the campaign continues
HSBC’s decision leaves intact their loans and share-dealings with UK arms manufacturers that sell to the Israeli military. These include such household names as BAe Systems, Raytheon, Caterpillar and Boeing. HSBC has refused to answer the obvious question: if their business dealings with Elbit fall short of their threshold for ethical banking, how is it ok to continue doing business with these other bad boys? The bank continues to be complicit in Israel’s war crimes and must not be let off the hook.

If you bank with the Co-op it’s time to switch

 

logosay-no-to croppedETHICAL BANKING

The Co-operative Bank has closed the bank accounts of more than 25 community groups campaigning for human rights.

Yes, the so-called ‘ethical’ Co-op Bank has closed the accounts of more than 25 Palestine-related groups, including national PSC, the Boycott Israel Network, Friends of Al Aqsa, and a number of local PSC branches.​

Boycott_Coop_BankBut the Bank’s Ethical Banking Policy states that “PROMOTING HUMAN RIGHTS AND EQUALITY IS ONE OF THE PILLARS OF OUR ETHICAL VALUES”. How can it have it both ways?

The Co-op Bank did not discuss their decision with any of these groups before telling them that their accounts had been closed. They have told these groups that their bank accounts are “too risky”. But no other bank has acted in this way.

National PSC has started legal proceedings against the Co-op Bank. You can read their press release here.

We say that this behaviour is outrageous, and exposes the Co-op Bank’s Ethical Banking Policy as WINDOW DRESSING.

We call on all our members and supporters who have accounts at the Co-op Bank to close their account and – most importantly – to tell the Branch Manager why you have done so, in protest at this overtly political and targeted action.

SIGN THE PETITION: Benjamin Netanyahu should be arrested for war crimes when he arrives in the UK in September

The number of signatures has now exceeded the target of 100,000!
But please sign the petition if you haven’t signed already.
The UK parliament is now ‘obliged’ to debate the issue, so we need to apply even more pressure.

ALSO: You can read the government’s ‘response’ to the petition by clicking through to the petition website using the link below.

cameron&netanyahuHow do you feel about war criminals getting the red carpet treatment here? Hate preachers should be arrested, but surely we should also arrest people who have been directly responsible for the killing of thousands of innocents?

Our government is readying the red carpet for Benjamin Netanyahu, a man responsible for immense racial hatred, and who pulled the trigger on the slaughter of over 2000 civilians in Gaza last year. He continues to defy international human rights law with a siege that is maintaining over a third of a million children in trauma.

He should not get the red carpet. He should get handcuffs and be sent to a war crimes tribunal. Sign this petition to let our government know.

The petition is receiving attention from commentators around the world, including in Israel (see below). The petition received its first 10,000 signatures within a few days of its appearance. This means that the UK government is already obliged to respond to the petition (this applies to all petitions that receive over 10,000 signatures). You can read the government’s largely pro-israel response on the petition web page via the above link. Now that the number of signatures has exceeded 100,000 the UK Parliament is obliged to debate it. On this last point, we can predict strenuous resistance to this obligation on the part of the UK government (and indeed the ‘opposition’). If you sign the petition, pleased be prepared to take action to hold Parliament to account.

Ma’an News Agency

Albawaba News
Arutz Sheva
Press TV
Jerusalem Post
Mint Press News
RT
Newsweek

Second UK-based Israeli drone factory shut down by occupation

17 February 2015

elbit1Instro Precision, an arms company near Broadstairs (Kent), was occupied at 5am this morning to protest its sales to both Israel and Afghanistan. Four people are on the roof with banners to shut the factory down, with ten more on the ground, one of whom is locked to the fence.

A wide range of groups came together to make this happen, including: Brighton BDS, Brighton Palestine Action, Smash EDO, Stop NATO Cymru, Anarchist Action Network, East Kent CAAT, Swansea Action for Palestine (with a bit of support from us too).

elbit2Instro is owned by Israeli arms company Elbit Systems, who make drones that are used to kill Palestinian civilians in Gaza. Optical and camera systems like those made at the Instro factory are also supplied by Elbit for use in drones flown over Afghanistan, as well as in Israel’s apartheid wall.

Elbit Hermes drones have been flown over Afghanistan and the new Watchkeeper drone, based on the Hermes, was deployed by the MOD last year. Although the Watchkeeper is ostensibly a surveillance drone, it has been displayed with missiles under its wings at the DSEi arms fair in London.

During last Summer’s ‘Operation Protective Edge’ attack last Summer, armed drones killed 830 Palestinians in Gaza. 85% of the drones used by the Israeli military are supplied by Elbit. Elbit’€™s share price rose in July off the back of the extensive use of its technology during Israel’s massacre,and the company recently reported a backlog in orders worth $6.2 billion. Elbit advertises its products as ‘€œcombat proven’€, by which they mean their products are tested on the bodies of Palestinian civilians.

This is the second UK-based Elbit factory to be targeted by activists, after the successful occupation last summer of a drone engine factory near Birmingham.

One of the activists, Tom Anderson, a researcher from the UK research group Corporate Watch said: “œWe are here because we want to stop Elbit from supplying weapons which are used to massacre people in Gaza and Afghanistan. In 2013 I visited Gaza and spoke to the survivors of Israeli drone strikes. They told me that they wanted people to take action to prevent the companies that manufactured the drones that killed their loved ones from making equipment that will cause others to suffer the way they have.”

Rida Abu Zneid, a young woman from Gaza who saw her sister ripped apart in front of her by a missile from an Israeli drone told Corporate Watch: “Why should they manufacture these weapons to kill innocent people? They should stop and close those factories. They only do it for the money. They get money and they cost our lives. If they only thought for a second about what these weapons can do they would stop. What do they feel when they see killed people on the TV? If they came over here and lived just one day in this area, and heard the bombing and the drones, what would they feel? I think they should live our experience.”

Elbit’s electronics are used in Israel’s apartheid wall, which stretches for hundreds of miles across the West Bank separating people from their loved ones, farmers from their fields and is intended to colonise more land for Israel and its settlements.

Lucy Marshall, another of the protesters said: “Optical and camera systems like those manufactured at Instro Precision are supplied by Elbit for use on drones and also for camera systems on the apartheid wall. We are here to take action to prevent Israel from continuing its oppression and apartheid against the Palestinians.”

Palestinians have called on governments to impose an arms embargo on Israel, and not to buy arms from Israeli companies like Elbit. Abdulrahman Abunahel from the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement said: “We call on governments around the world to do the very least they can to stop Israel from carrying out more massacres of our people by imposing a military embargo on Israel. Such steps would be in line with growing public support for our struggle and for the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) campaign”.

See press coverage at:

The Independent

The Electronic Intifada

RT (Russia Today)

Kent Online

 

Palestine Solidarity Campaign issues statement about deaths of three Israelis

The Palestine Solidarity Campaign issued the following statement from its UK headquarters in London:

July 1, 2014

Kamel Hawwash, Vice-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said:

‘I am saddened to hear of the death of the three missing Israelis whose bodies were found near Hebron. It is time violence ended and a genuine drive for a just peace started.

Over 1500 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli forces since 2000.

Israel regularly abducts Palestinian children, beats them, humiliates them and brings them to military courts in shackles. In 2012, a Foreign Office-commissioned report confirmed that Israel treated Palestinian children as adults at 16 while Jewish Israelis were legally not considered adults until 18.

Israel missed the opportunity to show a genuine desire for peace in the recent peace talks, choosing to build illegal settlements instead. I fear that rather than conduct a proper investigation into the deaths, Israel will collectively punish Palestinians. It has done this since the three went missing, arresting hundreds and killing at least five Palestinians. An enlightened Israeli leadership would want to end the conflict and move to end the occupation of Palestine. I fear it will choose violence.’

Professor Kamel Hawwash, Vice-chair, Palestine Solidarity Campaign