Editorial Note: The following news reports are summaries from original sources. They may also include corrections of Arabic names and political terminology. Comments are in parentheses. Share the link of this article with your facebook friends

 

Unite, UK's 2nd Largest Union, joins Boycott of HP for its support of the Israeli occupation forces and the apartheid Israeli regime

July 14, 2019 

Editor's Note:

While brutal force has been used to create Zionist Israel and sustain it thus far, Zionist claims to Palestine are false. Actually, from the five thousand years of known written history, there has been a continuous Palestinian-Canaanite presence in the Holy Land. Despite the Zionist false claims, the ancient Israelites ruled part of the land for only 85 years (during the reign of David, Solomon, and Solomon's son).

 After that, the Egyptians conquered Palestine-Canaan in 925 BC, followed by Assyrians, Babylonians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans, before the Arab Muslim rule, starting from 636 AD.

By the Time Jesus started his mission, the three population groups of Canaanites, Palestinians, and Israelites were melted together in religion and language. Most of them became Christians when Constantine converted in 313 AD. Then, most of them became Muslims in the 7th and 8th centuries AD.

So, Palestinian Muslims, Christians, and Jews are the ones who have the right to claim descent from ancient Israelites, Palestinians, and Canaanites, not Zionists from other continents.

The following news stories are just examples of the Israeli occupation government violations of Palestinian human rights, on daily basis.

More detailed news stories can be found at the following sources: https://english.palinfo.com/, http://imemc.org/, https://paltoday.ps/ar/

 

 

Unite, UK's 2nd Largest Union, joins Boycott of HP for its support of the Israeli occupation forces and the apartheid Israeli regime

IMEMC, July 13, 2019 / Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) / UK

In a major victory for the Boycott HP campaign, the second largest British and Irish trade union, with 1.2 million members, Unite the Union, joined the campaign. Unite joins Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging (FNV), the Netherland’s largest trade union, with 1.1 million members, which dropped HP as a partner in their offers to their members in April. The Boycott HP campaign and the trade unions concerns’ focus on HP and HPE’s provision of equipment and technology for Israel’s army and police, and for the population database that Israel uses to enforce its system of racial segregation.

Unite, in its Executive Council meeting in June, passed a resolution to end buying of HP products and replace existing ones. Unite the Union noted this as a step in the direction of setting their standards for solidarity to global campaigns for justice and support for all workers.

Joseph Bleach, a member of Unite the Union, said:

Solidarity with the Palestinian freedom struggle is an essential part of building a just world. While Israel escalates its occupation, apartheid and colonisation against the Palestinian people, Hewlett Packard companies profiteer from this grave violation of international law and Palestinian human rights.

Until HP companies end all such involvement in serious human rights violations, we shall continue to exclude them. Our trade union will continue to stand in solidarity with workers and struggles for justice in Palestine and globally.

Apoorva PG, coordinator with the Palestinian BDS National Committee, which leads the campaign, said:

Palestinians, especially workers, are deeply grateful for this latest expression of Unite the Union’s solidarity with our struggle for justice and liberation.

HP companies have long enabled Israel’s apartheid and criminal policies, and they need to be held accountable for this. HPE provides the database for Israel’s population registry, the very instrument that enforces apartheid and racial segregation upon Palestinian citizens of Israel and ‘residents’ of occupied Palestinian East Jerusalem. It also maintains the database for illegal Israeli settlers in the occupied West Bank.

HP Inc provides computers to the Israeli army. HP-branded companies must immediately and unequivocally end these and any other existing complicities in serious violations of international law, and they must pay reparations to their Palestinian victims.

From 10-15 July, the Boycott HP campaign is observing its Global Week of Action. Groups from all over the world are holding actions and sending messages to the HP companies calling on them to fulfil their ethical and legal obligations. Unite the Union’s recent endorsement of the campaign further strengthens this demand.

Trade union solidarity has been at the forefront of the Boycott HP campaign. Unite and FNV are among the growing number of Trade Unions joining the Boycott HP campaign, along with student organizations and churches.

In April 2018, Dublin City Council became the first European capital to endorse BDS and to promise to end its contracts with HP companies and DXC Technology, an HP spin-off.

Boycott HP is one campaign in the growing, Palestinian-led, global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which was inspired by the global movement against apartheid in South Africa.

***

Victory for Boycott HP Campaign: Netherlands Trade Union FNV Drops HP as Partner for its Member Offers

April 18, 2019 / By Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) /

 Marking a significant victory for the Boycott HP campaign and the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, Federatie Nederlandse Vakbeweging (FNV), the largest trade union of the Netherlands, with 1.1 million members, has dropped HP as a partner in their offers to their members. The union said in its communication, “as long as we do not know for certain that HP is not complicit in human rights abuses, we will no longer include them as an offer in FNV Membership Offers”.

Sue Blackwell, member of FNV and Boycott HP campaigner, talking about the details of the victory, noted:

Previously the union was regularly offering a 15% discount on HP products: this will now cease.This goes on to show that even if HP-branded companies try to evade responsibility by hiding under their new identities, we will hold them accountable for facilitating the violation of Palestinian human rights until they end their ties of complicity. Profiteering from apartheid and occupation is unacceptable and will be resisted.

Mahmoud Nawaja’a, general coordinator for the BDS National Committee in Palestine said:

We thank the members of FNV, and the FNV staff responsible for selecting partners in its membership offers, for taking this important step in holding HP responsible for its profit-making from Israel’s repression of Palestinian rights. HP-branded companies are facilitating Israel’s apartheid, occupation by providing the Israeli government with the servers that house its notorious population registry and by selling computers to the Israeli military.  Its spin-off, DXC Technology, supports Israel’s settler-colonialism by maintaining a facility in an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank. We demand HP to end all of these tie-ups that entrench the denial of Palestinian human rights.

In the past, HP has provided services to Israeli Navy that maintains the inhuman blockade of Gaza, has maintained the Basel system, the biometric access control system used to racially profile Palestinians at Israeli checkpoints, and has also maintained record systems for Israeli prisons. We demand reparations for these past contracts that facilitated Israel’s inhuman violations and crimes. HP split into HP Inc and HPE, and went on to build other spin-offs, but despite repeated demands for clarification, HP-branded companies have not provided any evidence that these corporate restructuring processes would have ended the involvement of the HP branded corporates in violation of International Humanitarian Law and Palestinian human rights. Civil society organizations from across the world have urged HP-branded companies to end their ties with Israel, and have stated that the onus lies on the companies to prove that they are no longer profiteering from being complicit.

Over 30 churches in the United States are now HP-free, and many have divested from it. In June last year, the biggest students organization in India, Students Federation of India, with over 4 million members, passed a resolution in solidarity with Great Return March, joining the Boycott HP campaign and endorsing BDS. In April 2018, Dublin City Council became the first European capital to endorse BDS and promised to end its contracts with HP companies and DXC Technology.

The Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) is the largest coalition in Palestinian civil society. It leads and supports the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement for Palestinian rights.

boycott hp 3 narrower.png

***

Share the link of this article with your facebook friends