PA Demanding 50 Countries to Cut Business Ties with Settlements

Local Editor

The Palestinian Authority sent letters to 50 countries in September, urging them to clamp down on companies doing business with Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank and East al-Quds (Jerusalem).
In a report published late Thursday, a senior Palestinian official told the Financial Times that the Palestinian Foreign Ministry had requested that the governments addressed in the letters issue stringent guidelines to companies operating within their borders that conduct business with the settlements. The countries, it was stated, should instruct companies to either freeze their business dealings with the settlements or withdraw their investments altogether.
The senior Palestinian economic official and negotiator, Mohammad Shtayyeh told the Financial Times "We wrote letters to every single country that has national investments in settlements, or countries that have Israeli companies with business in settlements".

"If you have settlers with double nationality, the country that is issuing or has the nationality of these settlers should notify them to tell them ‘Your presence in that territory is illegal'," Shtayyeh told the Financial Times.
Commercial activity in the settlements is illegal and constitutes a violation of international law, the letters said according to Haaretz.
Examples of the companies targeted in the new Palestinian campaign are French environmental conglomerate Veolia Environment, which operates projects in occupied East Jerusalem, and British-based global security giant G4S, which supplies equipment for "Israeli" roadblocks in the West Bank.

The letters were sent to countries in Latin America and Europe, as well as to South Africa, Australia, Japan and South Korea. According to the source, the letter also been dispatched to Arab investors in companies that have business dealings with West Bank settlements.

Source: "Israeli" Media