Israeli arms exports take dramatic hit amid growing boycott campaign 

The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has been running highly visible campaigns against military trade with Israel that have seen 12 banks and pension funds exclude Israeli arms company Elbit Systems from their investment portfolio. Israeli owned arms factories have been blockaded, and a growing number of political parties and trade unions have called for an end to military ties with Israel.

The governments of Norway and Turkey have both announced military embargo policies against Israel in recent years.

Mahmoud Nawajaa, general coordinator with the Palestinian BDS National Committee, the largest Palestinian civil society coalition that leads the BDS movement, said:

“Israeli military companies market their products on the basis of their successful use in Israel’s massacres of Palestinian and Lebanese civilians, yet it now seems that growing public awareness of and opposition to Israel’s war crimes are starting to hit Israel’s military exports.”  

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Also don't miss the new briefing published by the BDS Movement on military cooperation and trade of Israeli weapons, tools of repression against the ongoing Palestinian protests. The military trade is at the heart of Israeli oppression: find out more on the military companies and the complicit international institutions, and on the campaigns that work against these and the military aid to Israel.

Stop the Wall collects here the relevant documentation - including briefings, letters, parliamentary questions and answers from the EU - for the campaign "Stop Supporting Israeli Apartheid - EU Funding For Elbit Systems". The initiative, developed in cooperation with the BNC and ECCP, aims to stop funding to Elbit Systems and other Israeli companies involved in the military-industrial-scientific complex of Israel, a country that systematically commits war crimes and is in ongoing violation of the basic norms of international law and human rights.

Such funding violates not only the growing call for a military embargo on Israel but as well the EU’s obligations under international law.

The Case of Beit Jala: the Apartheid Wall in the Cremisan Valley.

Since the beginning of August 2015 the Israeli Occupation Forces started to position signs in many areas of the land of Bir 'Ona, neighborhood of the city of Beit Jala, north-west of Bethlehem, to resume the construction of the Apartheid Wall after the approved decision of the Israeli Supreme Court that came on the 6^th July 2015.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) has called for a campaign "Olympics without Apartheid". This campaign calls for ISDS and other companies complicit with Israeli apartheid to be banned from the Olympics, for pressure until the Olympics will be free of apartheid. See here the Stop the Wall factsheet on the background to the company and the campaign.

Elbit, one of the most iconic accomplices of Israeli violations of International law and a notorious war profiteer, has already applied with at least 6 projects to Horizon 2020. One of its aims is to develop is Laser Gated Imaging (LGI) technology, a dual-use technology employed in military applications, and is likely to be used in the maintenance of the Wall, settlements and/or military technology.

The Italian Coalition Against the Agreement with Mekorot (No Mekorot) published a video appeal from Palestine to Rome's mayor against the agreement between the city's public water company Acea and Mekorot. The videos were collected during a delegation of the Italian water movements last fall. In English, with some Arabic, and Italian subtitles. Click here or on the image on the left to access the video. 

The Land Defense Coalition, the popular movement to strengthen the resilience of the population in areas targeted by the Israeli Occupation Forces, and to build grassroots actions and international solidarity in order to confront the Israeli occupation, the settlement project and their implications, has prepared a small brochure. The brochure presents the Coalition, its member organizations, its work and political analysis.

"TIME FOR CONCRETE ACTION"

On July 9 2014, ten yers after the Advisory Opinion of the International Court on the Legal Consequences of the Construction of a Wall in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, 92 legal experts and 41 legal networks and organizations have issued a joined letter summarizing the legal significance of the Opinion and underlining the duties of third states and cooperations in front of Israel' ongoing violation of peremptory norms of international law. 

Elbit on the ground

The Gaza connection

Wandering Raven has published an excellent summary of the information publicly available on the use of drones – in particular Elbit drones Hermes 450 and Hermes 900 – during the Gaza massacre this July/August. The testimonies about use and development of drones include the Israeli defense minister, military commanders and news outlets.

The Civic Coalition for Palestinian Rights in Jerusalem (CCPRJ) and the Palestinian Human Rights Organisations Council (PHROC) have released a new policy paper on the  dangers of decontextualising East Jerusalem and urge the international community to address Israel's responsibility as an Occupying Power.

On 10th Anniversary of Historic ruling against Israel’s Wall, Israel bombs Gaza: at the UN, 86 top legal experts urge UN and third-state action, protests continue in Palestine, worldwide events to stop Israeli impunity.

See the letter in: English - Spanish - Portuguese.