Israel

INTERNATIONAL FELLOWSHIP OF RECONCILIATION (IFOR) and CONSCIENCE AND PEACE TAX INTERNATIONAL (CPTI)

Submission to the 105th Session of the Human Rights Committee for the attention of the Country Report Task Force on ISRAEL (Military service, conscientious objection and related issues) Prepared April 2012 by Derek Brett Summary A fourteen-page submission was made in the name of Conscience and Peace Tax International (CPTI) to the Human Rights Committee in advance of its consideration in July 2010 of Israel's Third Periodic Report under the Internatio

Allianz is a German multinational financial services company head-quartered in Munich, Germany. Its core business and focus is insurance. As of 2010, it was the world's 12th-largest financial services group and 23rd-largest company according to a composite measure by Forbes magazine.

A new report by Who Profits investigates the business and trade of Ahava – Dead Sea Laboratories, a private Israeli cosmetics corporation which operates from the occupied West Bank. Ahava is the only company which sells Dead Sea cosmetics and is located in the occupied area of the Dead Sea. The Ahava factory and visitors' center is located in the Mitzpe Shalem settlement, on the shore of the Dead Sea in the occupied part of the Jordan Valley and a large percentage of Ahava shares are held by two Israeli West Bank settlements.

“A true Israeli doesn't dodge draft!” [1] – this slogan stands at the centre of a large-scale publicity campaign in Israel. The campaign was not run by the Israeli military, and it was not aiming to add more soldiers to the dwindling ranks of the Israel Defence Forces (IDF). Israel has (at least de jure) universal conscription, for both men and women. But this slogan did express, and strengthen, how most Israelis understand the role of military service in the life of an Israeli – a true Israeli.

2011 will go down in memory as the year in which the Israeli Knesset has intensified its anti-democratic legislation, while the Israeli High Court of Justice validated once again the structural economic exploitation in the occupied Palestinian territories. On Monday, December 26 the Israeli High Court of Justice rejected a petition filed by the organization Yesh Din, which challenged the legality of the use of natural resources extracted by 11 companies quarrying and mining in the occupied West Bank.

On July 9, 2011 the BNC (BDS National Committee), the largest Palestinian civil society coalition, launched a call for a mandatory, comprehensive military embargo on Israel.

The BNC calls upon all people of conscience, movements and organisations worldwide to support the embargo and to pressure governments, multilateral bodies and the UN, as well as private and public companies and institutions, to:

Jørgen Johansen

The illegal blockade of Gaza has been condemned by most major international actors. The horrible consequences of this brutal violation of humanitarian law are unacceptable from every point of view. One and a half million people interned on the small strip (45 square km) between Israel, the Mediterranean, and Egypt. The blockade has reduced the transport of goods to and from Gaza by 80%.

A call for urgent international action

Occupied Palestine, 9 July 2011 – While the Arab Spring for freedom, democracy and social justice has exposed and challenged the collusion of world governments with autocratic and oppressive Arab regimes, many states and corporations continue their business-as-usual arms trade and military cooperation with Israel. Cooperation with Israel is maintained despite its systematic resort to massive violence against and killing of Palestinian and other Arab civilians, including school children and peaceful activists, and in spite of its increasingly brutal colonial policies against the Palestinian people and the persistent flouting of international law. Seven years after the International Court of Justice advisory opinion recommending international cooperation to ensure that Israel dismantles its illegal Wall in the occupied West Bank, and on the sixth anniversary of Palestinian civil society’s call for a broad campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law, the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) calls for immediate international action towards a mandatory comprehensive military embargo against Israel similar to that imposed against apartheid South Africa in the past.

By Sergeiy Sandler, assisted by Shir Givoni and Bar Rose, New Profile.

On 1 December 2009, hundreds of Israeli high school headteachers gathered for a special conference on “preparation for meaningful service in the Israel Defence Forces”, with the Chief of Staff of the Israeli military as the keynote speaker. Also present were Israel’s Minister of Education and many senior officials from the Ministries of Education and Defence and senior military officers.[1]

‘Neged Neshek’means ‘Against Arms’ in Hebrew. This website endeavours to be a valuable resource for news, data and analysis focusing on Israel’s arms industry with a secondary focus on militarism in Israeli culture, society and politics.

On February 11, 2011, a group of Belgian peace activists blocked the entrance of the Israeli company Agrexco’s distribution centre at Liège Airport. The activists protested against the import of agricultural goods from Israeli settlements in the occupied territories. The settlements are in violation of international humanitarian law. Agrexco facilitates the economical growth of the settlements by exporting their agricultural produce to the worlds markets.

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By Idan Halili, New Profile

The story of how I got discharged from army service ended in 2005, when I was 19 years old. In this chapter I try to describe the story of my refusal, the process I went through, and its implications.