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UN rights office reports on business activity in occupied Palestinian territory

55 points by salqadri 7y ago

rtkwe 7y ago
The actual report can be found at [0] (direct docx download). All the companies listed in this title were providing "The provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements, including transport;" and the two other companies from the US mentioned in the report were General Mills which is extracting unspecified natural resources from the land in question and Motorola Solutions which is providing basically security services of some sort (cameras, ID equipment, etc). Honestly I kind of despair for this ever reaching an amicable solution. [0] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session43/Documents/A_HRC_43_71.docx https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Sessio...
- luckylion 7y ago
  What does The provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements, including transport mean in that context. Airbnb allowing settlers to rent out rooms, or Airbnb allowing settlers to book trips via Airbnb?
  - rtkwe 7y ago
    It's a very broad category but 'services supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements' would definitely cover providing a way to make money off the homes/apartments in settlements like AirBnB and Booking does. It's providing a means of financial support to the people in the settlements. I'm a bit confused about TripAdvisor but I bet there's just some portion of their business I'm not familiar with. It seems like reviews etc of businesses and lodgings inside settlements wouldn't be enough to reach that category.
- salqadri 7y ago
  Also booking.com
  - NikolaeVarius 7y ago
    It's so weird that the title has only 3 companies from that entire list. And none of them are companies under Booking Holdings. Almost feels conspiratorial in some way.
- chvid 7y ago
  I don't quite understand this. Is the problem that you can book a hotel (or bnb) within the occupied territories? Or is it you can book a hotel at something which is an "illegal" (as set by the UN but not by Israel I assume) settlement? Does the UN want the booking services to check the ownership of the hotel to see if it is Jewish or Palestinian? Or just not have any hotel bookings there at all?
  - aptidude187 7y ago
    "Human Rights Watch said the list "should put all companies on notice: to do business with illegal settlements is to aid in the commission of war crimes."" Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51477231 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51477231
  - pjc50 7y ago
    Well, it's all stolen property in the common law sense; the owners were driven off at gunpoint in recent decades. In these settlements there won't be any Palestinians.
    - klipt 7y ago
      Do you have any citations for that? The answers to this Quota question: https://www.quora.com/Is-the-land-used-for-Israeli-settlements-bought-or-confiscated https://www.quora.com/Is-the-land-used-for-Israeli-settlemen... say all the land was bought from landlords (who of course may not have been the people living there) or was registered as public land under the Ottomans. Which is still an unfortunate situation for the tenants, much like being evicted in San Francisco after your landlord sells your apartment to someone else, but still different from outright theft.
      - aptidude187 7y ago
        Referencing a Quora statement from "Avinoam Ben Dor, lives in Israel,a Tour Guide"... You are pushing a false right wing zionist narrative, those settlements are illegal under international law. The documented history[0] is evidence of that. [0] https://youtu.be/BT5L4YU_Fl4 https://youtu.be/BT5L4YU_Fl4
duxup 7y ago
What exactly did those three companies do? I looked around the links on that page but I'm not getting a good feel for what happened.
- salqadri 7y ago
  This may help provide more context: BBC News - UN lists 112 businesses linked to Israeli settlements https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51477231 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51477231
  - duxup 7y ago
    So doing any businesses that do business in those areas would be "linked"? Like any hotel booking site that can book a hotel room that is located in the settlement?
starik36 7y ago
It's UN Human Rights Office, not UN itself. UNCHR is an odious organization that focuses on Israel to the exclusion of pretty much anything else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Human_Rights_Council#Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Human_Rights_Co...
- sgift 7y ago
  > The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC; French: Conseil des droits de l'homme des Nations unies,[2] CDH) is a United Nations body (...) I know some people dislike it, but lets stay with the facts here. It is "the UN" as much as the security council is "the UN". Both are relevant parts of it and if we choose and pick which ones we like things get very messy, very fast (even more than it is already).
  - starik36 7y ago
    Come on dude, at least read the linked wikipedia article. Quoting: "As of 2018, Israel has been condemned in 78 resolutions by the Council since its creation in 2006—the Council has resolved more resolutions condemning Israel than the rest of the world combined". Do you seriously believe that the rest of the world combined has less human rights issues than Israel. If you don't believe that then the only logical conclusion is that the organization is biased and I will always take anything they say with a massive grain of salt.
    - toyg 7y ago
      The difference is that most countries at least pretend to care about fixing issues, or deny they exist in the first place. With Israel the answer is typically a more blatant “we know and we don’t care”. This obviously attracts more condemnation, in a vicious circle, and enables people who oppose the existence of Israel on ideological grounds. I keep hoping that both sides of the Israel/Palestine issue will start boxing a bit smarter... but it never happens.
      - starik36 7y ago

55 points by salqadri 7y ago

The actual report can be found at [0] (direct docx download). All the companies listed in this title were providing "The provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements, including transport;" and the two other companies from the US mentioned in the report were General Mills which is extracting unspecified natural resources from the land in question and Motorola Solutions which is providing basically security services of some sort (cameras, ID equipment, etc). Honestly I kind of despair for this ever reaching an amicable solution. [0] https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Session43/Documents/A_HRC_43_71.docx https://www.ohchr.org/EN/HRBodies/HRC/RegularSessions/Sessio...

luckylion 7y ago
What does The provision of services and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements, including transport mean in that context. Airbnb allowing settlers to rent out rooms, or Airbnb allowing settlers to book trips via Airbnb?
- rtkwe 7y ago
  It's a very broad category but 'services supporting the maintenance and existence of settlements' would definitely cover providing a way to make money off the homes/apartments in settlements like AirBnB and Booking does. It's providing a means of financial support to the people in the settlements. I'm a bit confused about TripAdvisor but I bet there's just some portion of their business I'm not familiar with. It seems like reviews etc of businesses and lodgings inside settlements wouldn't be enough to reach that category.
salqadri 7y ago
Also booking.com
- NikolaeVarius 7y ago
  It's so weird that the title has only 3 companies from that entire list. And none of them are companies under Booking Holdings. Almost feels conspiratorial in some way.
chvid 7y ago
I don't quite understand this. Is the problem that you can book a hotel (or bnb) within the occupied territories? Or is it you can book a hotel at something which is an "illegal" (as set by the UN but not by Israel I assume) settlement? Does the UN want the booking services to check the ownership of the hotel to see if it is Jewish or Palestinian? Or just not have any hotel bookings there at all?
- aptidude187 7y ago
  "Human Rights Watch said the list "should put all companies on notice: to do business with illegal settlements is to aid in the commission of war crimes."" Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51477231 https://www.bbc.com/news/world-middle-east-51477231
- pjc50 7y ago
  Well, it's all stolen property in the common law sense; the owners were driven off at gunpoint in recent decades. In these settlements there won't be any Palestinians.
  - klipt 7y ago
    Do you have any citations for that? The answers to this Quota question: https://www.quora.com/Is-the-land-used-for-Israeli-settlements-bought-or-confiscated https://www.quora.com/Is-the-land-used-for-Israeli-settlemen... say all the land was bought from landlords (who of course may not have been the people living there) or was registered as public land under the Ottomans. Which is still an unfortunate situation for the tenants, much like being evicted in San Francisco after your landlord sells your apartment to someone else, but still different from outright theft.
    - aptidude187 7y ago
      Referencing a Quora statement from "Avinoam Ben Dor, lives in Israel,a Tour Guide"... You are pushing a false right wing zionist narrative, those settlements are illegal under international law. The documented history[0] is evidence of that. [0] https://youtu.be/BT5L4YU_Fl4 https://youtu.be/BT5L4YU_Fl4

duxup 7y ago

What exactly did those three companies do? I looked around the links on that page but I'm not getting a good feel for what happened.

salqadri 7y ago
This may help provide more context: BBC News - UN lists 112 businesses linked to Israeli settlements https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51477231 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-51477231
- duxup 7y ago
  So doing any businesses that do business in those areas would be "linked"? Like any hotel booking site that can book a hotel room that is located in the settlement?

starik36 7y ago

It's UN Human Rights Office, not UN itself. UNCHR is an odious organization that focuses on Israel to the exclusion of pretty much anything else. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Human_Rights_Council#Israel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Nations_Human_Rights_Co...

sgift 7y ago
> The United Nations Human Rights Council (UNHRC; French: Conseil des droits de l'homme des Nations unies,[2] CDH) is a United Nations body (...) I know some people dislike it, but lets stay with the facts here. It is "the UN" as much as the security council is "the UN". Both are relevant parts of it and if we choose and pick which ones we like things get very messy, very fast (even more than it is already).
- starik36 7y ago
  Come on dude, at least read the linked wikipedia article. Quoting: "As of 2018, Israel has been condemned in 78 resolutions by the Council since its creation in 2006—the Council has resolved more resolutions condemning Israel than the rest of the world combined". Do you seriously believe that the rest of the world combined has less human rights issues than Israel. If you don't believe that then the only logical conclusion is that the organization is biased and I will always take anything they say with a massive grain of salt.
  - toyg 7y ago
    The difference is that most countries at least pretend to care about fixing issues, or deny they exist in the first place. With Israel the answer is typically a more blatant “we know and we don’t care”. This obviously attracts more condemnation, in a vicious circle, and enables people who oppose the existence of Israel on ideological grounds. I keep hoping that both sides of the Israel/Palestine issue will start boxing a bit smarter... but it never happens.
    - starik36 7y ago