9 corporate giants helping Israel massacre Gaza protesters
Oct 24, 2018 09:27 UTC
The illegal Zionist entity continues to kill at will the oppressed Palestinian people and because of the support for its crimes against humanity by the US, it is not brought to account and always gets the permission from Washington to commit more and more acts of state terrorism.
Now we have an article published by the MintPress titled “9 corporate giants helping Israel massacre Gaza protesters”, written by Joe Catron of New York who lived for several years in Gaza, and wrote frequently for Electronic Intifada and Middle East Eye. He co-edited the book “The prisoners’ diaries: Palestinian voices from the Israeli gulag”, which is an anthology of accounts by detainees freed in the 2011 prisoner exchange.
As Israeli soldiers gun down unarmed Palestinian demonstrators in the Great March of Return, their lethal operations depend on an array of contractors and suppliers, many of them companies based abroad.
Recently Tom Anderson, a researcher for Corporate Occupation, told MintPress News: “The Israeli military relies on a network of international companies, supplying everything from sniper rifles to tear gas, to carry out its massacres of protesters in Gaza. These companies are knowingly supporting war crimes, and are complicit in state-orchestrated murder.”
Yes, this is true and supported by the United Nations’ Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, which said on October 4: “Since the mobilization began on March 30, Israeli forces have killed 205 Palestinians in the Gaza Strip.”
To be precise about Palestinian casualties, there have been 21,288 injured, including 5,345 from live ammunition, resulting in 11,180 hospitalizations. Thirty-eight of the dead and 4,250 of the wounded were children.
A press release accompanying a September 25 report by the World Bank warned, “The economy in Gaza is collapsing,” adding that “the decade-long blockade is the core issue.”
Corporate Occupation and the American Friends Service Committee, the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, and the firm Who Profits, maintain comprehensive lists of corporations enabling Israel’s crimes against Palestinians.
Here are a few of them: Caterpillar, Inc.
Caterpillar is known internationally for Israel’s use of its bulldozers to demolish Palestinian homes in the occupied West Bank and inside the territories occupied in 1948, as well as for its role in the killing of Rachel Corrie, an International Solidarity Movement activist from the United States, who was crushed to death by one of the company’s Israel-operated machines in the southern Gaza Strip on March 16, 2003.
In Gaza, Caterpillar is notorious for Israel’s deployment of its equipment to reinforce a military barrier around the Strip, as well as to level Palestinian farmland inside it. These leveling operations both destroy Palestinian agriculture, keeping Gaza a captive market for Israeli producers, and maintain a clear line of fire for Israeli soldiers to shoot Palestinians.
The second Corporate Giant helping the Zionist entity suppress the Palestinians, is Combined Systems, Inc.
Combined Systems — a Jamestown, Pennsylvania-based manufacturer owned by Point Lookout Capital and the Carlyle Group — supplies light weaponry and security equipment, such as tear gas and flash grenades, to repressive regimes worldwide. In May, Corporate Occupation researchers spotted an Israeli vehicle, with police markings but obviously intended for military use, equipped with the company’s ‘Venom’ tear gas launcher next to the Gaza barrier.
The 3rd Corporate Giant helping Israel worsen the plight of the Palestinians is Ford Motor Company.
While other manufacturers, like General Motors, also provide vehicles used by the Israeli army to deploy its soldiers along the Gaza barrier, Ford’s are distinctive for their creative use. In 2003, Israeli vehicle manufacturer Hatehof began retrofitting Ford F550 trucks as armored personnel carriers. By 2016, Israel had moved on to F350s, modified by Israeli military electronics company Elbit Systems as autonomous unmanned vehicles capable of remotely controlled fire.
The 4th Corporate giant complicit in the crimes of the Zionists against Palestinians is Monsanto.
Along with herbicides from the Dow Chemical Company and ADAMA Agricultural Solutions, an Israeli unit of China’s state-owned National Chemical Corporation (ChemChina), Israel sprays Bayer subsidiary Monsanto’s notorious Glyphosate (marketed as Roundup), a known human carcinogen, on Palestinian fields across its military barrier with Gaza several times annually. As does its deployment of Caterpillar bulldozers to level the same fields, the aerial application, conducted by two civilian Israeli companies under contract to the army, serves both Israeli economic and military interests — preventing Palestinian self-sufficiency in agriculture, while allowing its forces to easily detect and fire upon Palestinian farmers and other civilians using their own land.
The 5th Corporate Giant aiding and abetting Israel’s state terrorism is G4S.
Formerly one of Israel’s biggest occupation contractors, G4S sold its major Israeli subsidiary, G4S Israel, in 2016, but kept a stake in the construction and operation of Policity, Israel’s privatized national police academy. Israel claims that its police enjoy civilian status, but routinely deploys them in military operations against Palestinians in both the West Bank and the Gaza Strip, including their use of both Combined System’s ‘Venon’ tear-gas launcher and weaponized drones to repress the Great March of Return. Hewlett Packard
Now three companies with interlocking operations — HP Inc., Hewlett Packard Enterprise (HPE), and DXC Technology — HP equips the Israeli military with computers and has undertaken contracts to “virtualize” Israeli army operations, starting in 2007 with a pilot program for the Israeli navy, which enforces the blockade of Gaza.
The 6th Corporate Giant involved in the suppression of the Palestinian people by the Zionist entity is HSBC Bank.
HSBC provides extensive financing to some of the most notorious military manufacturers in the world, several of them Israeli. Huda Ammori, campaigns officer for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, told MintPress” “HSBC holds over £800m worth of shares in, and is involved in syndicated loans worth over £19b to, companies that sell weapons and military equipment to Israel. These investments include Elbit Systems, Israel’s largest private security firm, which markets its weapons as ‘field-tested,’ due to them being tested on Palestinian civilians in Gaza.”
A leading drone manufacturer, Elbit has played a key role in aerial attacks on the Great March of Return.
The 7th Corporate Giant involved in Zionist crimes against the Palestinian people is Motorola Solutions Inc.
Motorola provides the encrypted smartphones the Israeli military uses to deploy soldiers, as well as radio and communications services for the Israeli police.
The 8th Corporate Giant at the service of Israel against Palestinians is Remington.
Among casualties of the Great March of Return, Amnesty International reports, some “wounds bear the hallmarks of U.S.-manufactured M24 Remington sniper rifles shooting 7.62mm hunting ammunition, which expand and mushroom inside the body,” along with others indicative of Israel Weapon Industries’ Tavor rifles. Brian Castner, a weapons specialist for the human-rights organization, said in April. “In the United States this is sold as a hunting rifle to kill deer,”
The 9th Corporate Giant complicit in the Zionist entity’s crimes is Sabra Dipping Company, LLC
The White Plains, New York-based food manufacturer, co-owned by PepsiCo and Israeli foodmaker Strauss, has donated food packages to the Israeli Army’s Golani Brigade, notorious for its human-rights abuses in both Gaza and the West Bank.
As the Great March of Return, now in its 29th week, continues, participants and supporters say targeting firms complicit in its repression is one of the most effective means of solidarity.
The BDS National Committee said in a statement on April 12: “We must channel our rage at Israel’s atrocities into effective actions to hold Israel accountable. Together, we can escalate Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaigns.”
Huda al-Ammori told MintPress: “Israel is meeting the Palestinian protesters with live fire, massacring over 190 Palestinians to date. Israel’s racist discrimination and brutal violence is evident, and the campaign to end complicity is vital.”
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