Illinois First State to Boycott Companies Who Boycott Israel

[Little Tich]

Source: Haaretz, Mar 21, 2016

List includes 11 companies who have divested from operations within the West Bank.

An Illinois state agency named 11 companies barred from doing business with the state for boycotting Israel or its settlements, the first such designation by an official U.S. body.

A number of the entities on the list approved Friday by the Illinois Investment Policy board have pulled money from Israeli businesses that operate in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem, but have not boycotted Israel within its 1967 lines. At least two of the entities have said their disinvestment from Israel in recent years was based on commercial, not political, calculations.

The Illinois law passed last year explicitly bars dealing with companies that boycott Israeli operations in territories controlled by Israel.

“Today’s actions were truly historic and will lead the way for the dozens of other states following Illinois’ lead,” a senior official in the administration of Gov. Bruce Rauner, a Republican who championed the bipartisan legislation, told JTA on Friday.

Read more: http://www.haaretz.com/jewish/news/1.710126


List of the Companies targeted by the legislation:

ASN Bank

Cactus

Danske Bank

Dexia

FreedomCall UK

G4S

Kapitalforvaltning

Kommunal Landspensjonskasse

Karsten Farms

Nordea

The Co-operative Group

Source: http://www.illinois.gov/sites/iipb/Pages/ProhibitedInvestmentList.aspx

[onecaliberal]

1. I need to add IL to the list of states to avoid and buy no products from.

BDS!

[King_David]

2. Very useful

From tomorrow I too will divest from that list.

[Little Tich]

5. I didn't know you supported the settlements...

All the companies on that list have refrained from doing business with the settlements for various reasons. None of them have refrained from doing business with Israel.

[King_David]

6. Cactus supermarket for example won't sell Israeli goods

Not settlement goods but Israeli.
It has however been selling Sodastream - because its profitable to do so....

I never knew this before.

[Little Tich]

8. Cactus isn't selling Israeli fruits and vegetables unless there's confirmation they're not from the

settlements.(http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4755218,00.html)

SodaStream is 100% settlement free, thanks to BDS. So the list in the OP only deals with the companies not doing business with the settlements. I've tried to explain to you before that BDS is only about the settlements, not Israel.

[King_David]

9. According to you

But the actual BDS bigoted org. Goes after Jews ... Jews like half of us in this group , like 100 000 in Australia.

Minorities are easy targets for bigots.

[Little Tich]

7. Methodist Pension Fund Divests From Israeli Banks in Major BDS Win

Source: The Forward, January 13, 2016

The pension fund for the United Methodist Church, one of the largest Protestant denominations in the United States, has removed five Israeli banks from its investment portfolio.

The church’s General Board of Pension and Health Benefits said this week on its website that along with its Wespath Investment Management division, the fund was attempting to divest from “high-risk” countries and was “committed to protecting human rights.”

“Israel-Palestine” is one of the areas identified as “‘high-risk’ countries and areas that demonstrate a prolonged and systematic pattern of human rights abuses.” Other countries listed include North Korea, Syria, Sudan and Turkey-Northern Cyprus.

The five Israeli banks excluded are Bank Hapoalim, Bank Leumi, First International Bank of Israel, Israel Discount Bank and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank. The fund, which is worth more than $20 billion, reportedly sold off a few million dollars in the banks’ stocks. Elbit Systems, an Israeli international defense electronics company, also appears on the list, as does the Israeli real estate and construction company Shikun & Binui.

Read more: http://forward.com/news/breaking-news/329878/methodist-pension-fund-divests-from-israeli-banks-in-major-bds-win/

It seems as if Bank HaPoalim is an Apartheid enabler - that's not what I would call corporate and social responsibility...

[Little Tich]

12. Surely, supporting the illegal settlements is immoral under any circumstances?

If Hapoalim is financing illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories, they're encouraging the Apartheid system in the West Bank and the breaking of international law. While there might not be any good laws yet that target these human rights abusers and enablers, the settlements are illegal and should be legally treated as such.

While I'm not so sure that John Wesley was a an entirely good person, it's not certain that all methodists today share his beliefs about Jews. It's quite possible that the decision to divest from the settlements was sound and based on valid moral convictions only. I'll go for the latter unless you can prove otherwise.

[King_David]

11. Bernie Sanders on BDS :

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1134&pid=126436

[ericson00]

14. Bravo Illinois!

n/t