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Website Exposes Companies that Profit from Israeli Occupation of Palestinian Land

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Posted Dec. 28, 2011

Interview with Rona Moran, researcher with WhoProfits.org, conducted by Melinda Tuhus

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From a small office on a busy street In Tel Aviv, Israel, a trio of women produce the influential website Who Profits? It's a project of the Women's Coalition for Peace that investigates companies that profit from the Israeli occupation of the West Bank, part of the Palestinian occupied territories. They research global companies involved in construction, communication, and in some cases, exploitation of Palestinian resources for export.

Rona Moran, one of the Israeli women researchers, explains that the project was born out of a heated debate about whether the Women's Coalition should support the call by many Palestinian civil society groups for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel, known as BDS. Researching the companies that profit was a compromise position, a way of collecting more information, but it has also become an invaluable tool for solidarity activists all over the world. In exposing companies and corporations involved in the occupation, the group hopes to promote a change in public opinion and corporate policies, leading to an end to the occupation.

The fact that one of the researchers is a Palestinian-Israeli citizen means she can visit parts of the West Bank for her research that the other two women are barred from. On a recent visit to Israel and the West Bank, Between The Lines’ Melinda Tuhus spoke with Rona Moran, who talks about the effectiveness of their project in exposing companies that profit from the Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

RONA MORAN: What we are doing, we are an information center for calls and for questions from all over the world from activists that are asking, "What is the situation? Is this company involved in activity in the West Bank?" And we can say, "This is the situation right now: they withdrew...they closed their factory; they invested in this company." And the fact that we are able to read in Hebrew and to check and monitor the activities of these companies allows us to spread this information for a very vast community of activists all over the world. So our function in this system is to provide the most accurate and updated information we can find.

BETWEEN THE LINES: Can you tell me about any particular information that you found through your research that turned out to be particularly useful for folks who are interested in this issue?

RONA MORAN: For example, last week we had some French activists over here and they asked about French companies, and I told them about the involvement of Veolia in the Occupied Territories.

BETWEEN THE LINES: What is it – Veolia?

RONA MORAN: Veolia, yeah. It's a huge French company that's involved in infrastructure projects, usually working on transportation, water, garbage disposal, things like that. They are heavily involved in the building and operating of the light rail train in Jerusalem, which is a massive project that was built in order to connect the settlement in the east side of Jerusalem to the west side of the city. So they practically built it and there was a very intense international campaign against it. But during the research, at the beginning we only knew about the light rail, but as we checked all the subsidiaries of the company, we discovered that they have a landfill in the Jordan Valley, and that they transfer any waste from inside Israel into the Occupied Territories to that landfill. And we discovered that they operate a transportation unit in a subsidiary called Connix a few bus lines that go on apartheid roads from Mod'in Illit to Jerusalem and (unintelligible) area and Palestinians are not allowed to use these roads. So, the deeper you go, the more things come up. For example, the information about the landfill was received from a request for information that we filed for the Civil Administrations in the Ministry of Security. So we received the information and two days later it was spread too...so it's important to us that we will be able to provide information in real time. Sometimes we have delays.

BETWEEN THE LINES: In the U.S., we have a law called the Freedom of Information Act that allows reporters, or anyone, to seek information from government sources. Sometimes it's slow, or you have to pay a lot per page, or there's a lot of cross-outs when it comes, but it's a good way to get information. Does Israel have a similar law?

RONA MORAN: Usually, we work with information the companies publish themselves – on their websites, on marketing materials, in reports they file for the state or for financial use. Their annual reports is one of the best information sources there are. And some of it we ask from the state, from the Ministry of Defense, from different governmental or companies and organizations. It depends; sometimes you get all the information and you get it fast; sometimes security issues do come up and then we have to apply to the Supreme Court on several occasions.

BETWEEN THE LINES: And have you succeeded when you've done that?

RONA MORAN: There is one appeal right now; it was established on information that we did get from the Civil Administration regarding mining companies that are working in the West Bank.

BETWEEN THE LINES: We just spoke to someone who works on the BDS campaign and he says it's been very successful, in the six years since it's started it's really kind of taken off and there is some awareness around the world about it. How do you view it? Do you think it's a successful campaign, and if so, how do you judge that?

RONA MORAN: I can say it only as a fellow activist, and not as part of the project. I think the economic pressure is heavily felt, by Israeli companies and by the Israeli government who fear this campaign greatly. And you can see it in the hysterical reactions of diplomatic Israeli representatives all over the world when they have to address the boycott. And I think we are only getting started. This is only the beginning. The more information that we'll have on this issue and the more successful campaigns we will have, I believe that international companies will find it a lot more complicated to be involved in this activity. I think the most important thing that we can say about the project is that it reveals something that people usually don't understand. When you speak about economic activity in the Occupied Territories, people think about settlement products. Settlement products are almost insignificant; they are such a small portion of the economic activity that is going on in the West Bank that dealing with it, it's like peanuts. The involvement of Israeli companies...the entire Israeli economic system in the West Bank is massive. It's undeniable and it involves banks and construction companies and law firms and every sector of the Israeli market is there. The fact that Israeli companies use the Palestinian market as a captive market – it's such an enormous advantage for them. So in many ways we want to show the wider picture, and to show that the involvement doesn't stop at the Green Line. You don't have to have a factory in a settlement in order to be involved over there. So this is the main thing.

For more information, visit WhoProfits.org.

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