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May 1, 2002
Jacques Ranciere
Prisoners of the Infinite
April 30, 2002
Mike Leon
Chomsky,
Letters to the Writer and the Peace Movement
Dave Marsh
The FBI and the Music
Industry: Paying the Cost to Feed the Boss
Steen
Sohn
Something
Rotten in Denmark:
New Danish Government's Alliance with Far Right
Desmond Tutu
Apartheid in the Holy Land
Christopher
Reilly
Kissinger:
the Wanted Man
April 29, 2002
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At the Church of the Nativity
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The
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CounterPunch Wire
Bank Robs Publisher,
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So
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April 28, 2002
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The Jewish Left and Palestine
April 27, 2002
Dr. Susan
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Adelphia
Going Down:
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Jordy Cummings
Stuck Inside the Journalism School
Pyramid
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Set
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April 26, 2002
Tom Turnipseed
Act
Now to Stop the Killing
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Mokhiber
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Anti-Bribery
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Tariq Ali
Letter to a Young Muslim
April 25, 2002
Francis
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Home
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Adam Federman
"And the Earth Wept"
Bush at Saranac Lake
Stanton
and Madsen
US
Media Interests:
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Aaron Hawley
Cop a Buzz Day in Vermont:
Education v. Incarceration
David
Vest
Code
Red: Politics and Wordplay at the Vatican
Bernard Weiner
Time Out! A Pause for Longer-Range
Thinking
Rep. Dennis
Kucinich
Standing
with the Peace Movement
April 24, 2002
David Vest
State of Politics in France:
Code Bleu
Jean Fallow
A20
in Seattle:
Cops Get Rough, Again
Kevin Alexander Gray
Help Save the Life of an Innocent Man:
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Tanya
Reinhart
Jenin,
the Propaganda Battle
Todd May
Drowning Children, Palestinians and American
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Alexander
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The
Loneliest Road
Nir Rosen
The Broken Home:
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A
Big Blow to Big Tobacco
April 23, 2002
Brian Wood
Where Is the Aid for the Victims in
Jenin?
John Chuckman
I,
George:
Gomer as Claudius
Norman Madarasz
French Presidential Elections
Absenteeism and Le Pen
Dr. Susan
Block
Bernard
Parks, Goodbye:
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Joan Smith
Who Will Rid Us of
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April 22, 2002
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DeskScan: What's Playing
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A20
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An Open Letter to
Israeli Soldiers
Irit Katriel
Word
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Rep. Cynthia McKinney
We Come for Peace
Daniel
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Is
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Occupation, Terror
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David Wilson
A Week of Coups, But Now
The Freedom Train Hits Town
Shaik
Ubaid
Today
I Was a Palestinian
April 21, 2002
Michelle Campos
Suckered Again in Israel
Mike Leon
200,000
in DC Protest Say:
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C.G. Estabrook
Sex and Power in Catholicism
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Gimme
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A Walk Through Jenin
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May
Day, 2002
Corporate America and the Israeli
Occupation of Palestine
by Sam Bahour
Corporate America and corporate boardrooms across
the globe wield enormous political influence. It may in fact
be argued that in today's material world corporate interests
are the primary motivating factors for political action. In
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that power, for a multitude
of reasons, has been unjustly mobilized to help sustain 35
years of an illegal Israeli military and economic domination
of the Palestinian people.
In light of this and the deteriorating
situation in the Middle East the time has come for corporate
boardrooms of companies involved in that region to reassess
their role, even if that role has been to remain silent for
all these years. The corporate world must channel its influence
to end the Israeli occupation. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict
has reached a dangerous point that has the potential to disrupt
business activity, especially U.S. business interests throughout
the Middle East. Long-term U.S. national strategic interests
in the region are also at risk, namely the cost and uninterrupted
flow of oil. Millions of U.S. corporate and citizen tax dollars
spent on building the Palestinian economy were lost in this
latest Israeli offensive against the Palestinian civil and national
infrastructure. It would be negligent for corporate America
to remain silent while its government recommits yet more tax
dollars to the region without addressing the source of the
conflict. Ending Israeli occupation is the only solution that
will put the region back on track.
While earning my MBA degree at Tel Aviv
and Northwestern Universities, Professor of Leadership and Ethics,
David Messick, assigned two readings to the class. One, by Milton
Friedman, argued that corporate executives do not have a social
responsibility but they must conform to the "basic rules
of the society, both those embodied in law and those embodied
in ethical custom." The second reading by Kenneth Goodpaster
argued that corporate managers had a "dual role" in
their capacities: to make decisions that were best for their
corporations and to have an eye focused on how their business
decisions affected the environment external to their firms.
Both of these writers, although presenting conflicting viewpoints,
are good reference points for the argument that corporations
around the world have a role to play to help end Israeli occupation.
Whether one solely relies on taking decisions that are legal
or instead has a greater awareness of his or her corporate social
responsibility, the result is the same - be aware how your
actions may support the oppression of others.
For corporate executives less inclined
to be socially responsible, U.S. laws that govern U.S. foreign
trade must be the guiding light. There exist a number of laws
that U.S. corporations are legally bound by, such as the U.S.
Foreign Assistance and Arms Export Control Acts. United States
law stipulates, inter alia, that any defense articles and defense
services to any country shall be furnished "solely for
internal security, [or] for legitimate self-defense" (<22U.S.C>.
2302 and 2754). Israel's excessive and disproportionate use
of force to suppress the Palestinian people and its recent offensive
against Palestinian cities with <U.S.-supplied> weaponry
clearly exceeds the bounds of what could be considered legitimate
self-defense and therefore is in violation of U.S. law. Corporations
would be ill advised to continue ignoring this fact in the hope
that those persons that are being damaged by their business
decisions will not take legal action in the future. Legal ghosts
have haunted many firms, especially in Europe, many years after
their neglect of humanitarian law. Pro-active decision-making
today that aligns a firm squarely against Israeli occupation
will spare it the potential agony of facing criminal charges
in the future.
Furthermore, according to U.S. law, "no
security assistance may be provided to any country the government
of which engages in a consistent pattern of gross violations
of internationally recognized human rights" (<22U.S.C>.
2304). The U.S. State Department has repeatedly documented in
its annual reports that Israel engages in "torture or cruel,
inhuman, or degrading treatment of punishment, prolonged detention
without charges and trial, causing the disappearance of persons
by the abduction and clandestine detention of those persons,
and other flagrant denials of the right to life, liberty, or
the security of people." The time is long overdue for corporate
America to take note and act accordingly.
Additionally, there is a multitude of
U.S. policies and government decisions that should ethically
guide corporations in this conflict. For instance, consider
the illegal Israeli settlements that continue to be built across
Palestinian lands in the West Bank, Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem.
Successive U.S. administrations have stated that these settlements
are either, "illegal", "obstacles to peace",
"unhelpful", "provocative" or "impediments"
to peace. The time has come for corporate executives from firms
like Caterpillar, whose equipment is used in building these
settlements, to understand the negative contributions they
make to Middle East peace by not heeding their own government's
warnings over many years. These negative contributions are above
and beyond their potential violation of U.S. law. The separation
of the executive, legislative and judicial branches of government,
coupled with short-term goals of powerful interest groups, may
complicate or delay legal action against those corporations
that support Israeli occupation, but one should not be fooled
into thinking that such a delay will last forever.
U.S. military-related corporations support
Israeli occupation by way of an institutionalized mechanism
provided for by Congress. Congress has stipulated that seventy-five
percent of U.S. foreign military aid to Israel, which amounts
to over $2 billion annually, must be spent buying U.S. products
and services. Firms like Lockheed, Boeing, United Technologies,
Raytheon, ExxonMobil, Northrop, Pgsus, General Dynamics and
Oshkosh among others are directly contributing to the tools
that Israel uses to violate international and humanitarian law.
The following are some specific cases:
* U.S. weapons manufacture Lockheed Martin
Aeronautics Company, which provides the fighter jets that have
been used by Israel to bomb Palestinian cities that have been
under military closure for 18 months, proudly announced on
September 5, 2001 from Fort Worth, Texas that Israel had decided
to purchase 52 more Lockheed Martin F-16 fighter jets. The contract
value was reported approximately $1.3 billion for only the aircraft.
* Sikorsky Aircraft Corporation, a subsidiary
of United Technologies Corporation, sells Israel U.S. armaments
used to destroy Palestinian cities and perform political assassinations
of Palestinian civilians from the sky. "Our company's relationship
of more than 40 years with Israel is a source of pride,"
said Sikorsky President Dean Borgman in a February 1, 2001 press
release while announcing his firm was awarded a $211.8 million
contract for 24 additional Black Hawk helicopters to serve the
Israeli Air Force.
* Other less visible military suppliers
are those like Federal Laboratories in Saltsburg Pennsylvania,
which provides CS tear gas to the Israeli military. During the
first Palestinian Intifada (Uprising) in 1988, Federal Laboratories
witnessed civil disobedience actions at their plant gate in
Saltsburg and a lawsuit in U.S. courts after Israel misused
their lethal tear gas by firing it into closed areas that resulted
in the killing of many Palestinians. Federal Laboratories stopped
exporting the gas for six months in 1988 and sent a fact- finding
team to Israel before resuming sales.
Corporate America's support of Israeli
occupation is not confined to military equipment suppliers.
In fall 1999, Burger King opened a franchise restaurant in an
illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank, only to be forced
by its customers to close down the store to avoid a worldwide
boycott.
This month alone three U.S. firms have
been lured into collaboration with Israel's illegal occupation.
This week, Fifth Third Bank Northeastern Ohio purchased $500,000
worth of bonds from Israel. Robert King, president and chief
executive of the Cleveland affiliate of Fifth Third Bancorp
in Cincinnati proudly stated in a press release saying that,
"This year is the state of Israel's 50th anniversary, and
now more than ever, it is poised to continue its growth as
an industrial world leader." No mention was made by Mr.
King that such growth comes at the cost of systematic gross
violations of human rights by Israel. I suspect a closer look
at these Israeli bonds will find that they are part of the portfolio
of hundreds of public and private pension funds across America.
Pension fund managers and their beneficiaries can take an active
part in ending Israeli occupation by immediately divesting their
portfolios of these bonds.
And earlier this month, Microsoft Israel
put company executives in Redmond, Seattle in an awkward position
when they sponsored two large billboards on a main Israeli
highway saluting Israel's armed forces at the same time the
Israeli military was indiscriminately bombing the Jenin refugee
camp into what is rapidly amounting to war crimes. Only days
after a grassroots letter writing campaign, partly led by the
Israeli peace group Gush-Shalom, Microsoft executives announced
that Microsoft Israel had acted alone and was instructed to
take down the billboards, which they promptly did. Israel is
the largest research and development site for Microsoft outside
of the U.S. Bill Gates would serve world peace well by continuing
his involvement and requesting Israel to end the occupation
in order to qualify for continued commercial opportunities.
The same can be said for Intel Corporation, which has the largest
production facilities outside of the U.S. located in Israel.
Divesting in countries that are in blatant
violation of international and humanitarian law is not new.
The divestment campaign that targeted apartheid in South Africa
is a case in point. When South African business leaders saw
that apartheid was jeopardizing their own business interests
they played an important role in convincing their government
to fall in line with international law, which led to the ending
of apartheid. One might argue that no grassroots commercial
divestment in Israel can be large enough to convince the Israeli
government to change paths. This is debatable. However, it is
clear that such a campaign would send the right signals that
the time has come for Israel to join the world community by
ending its oppression of Palestinians. (It is interesting to
note that Israel was one of the closet allies to the South African
apartheid government.)
Corporate responsibility is difficult
to gauge. Most serious business decisions take place behind
closed doors, outside of public view. As executives struggle
to climb the corporate ladder they are loathe to offer any comments
that may "rock the boat" with regard to Israel. Nevertheless,
standing on the right side of history with regard to the occupation
is what will set apart the leaders in corporate America. The
separation of personal convictions from corporate policy is
a must and is always in the best interest of the firm. Otherwise,
an ill- founded personal conviction may unnecessarily put the
corporation on the front lines of a future legal battle that
it does not desire. Today many European firms are learning this
lesson the hard way after it was proved they supported discrimination
and atrocities against Jews in Europe during WWII. To this date,
many are still paying the price both morally and financially.
Israel has been able to sustain its illegal
occupation largely for two reasons. First, the U.S. government,
shackled by the special interest groups such as the pro-Israel
lobby AIPAC, has continuously provided Israel with unfaltering
political, economic and diplomatic cover. Even though this is
the case, U.S. administrations have systematically provided
the world with signals (SOS's if I may) that wrong is being
done. This can be seen in the repeated statements regarding
Israeli settlements and in the State Department's Country Reports
on Human Rights Practices. The U.S. government needs corporate
America's help to realign its policy in the Israeli- Palestinian
conflict. After all these years, corporate America should be
hearing these signals and acting accordingly.
Secondly, and equally important, the
Palestinians have failed so far to translate their struggle
into a sustainable grassroots strategy that seriously engages
the millions around the world who are in support of their cause.
Grassroots activism played a significant role in the success
of the South African movement against apartheid and creating
such a comprehensive grassroots campaign will remain a burden
that the Palestinian leadership must carry. It is not enough
to have a just cause; you must also have a realistic strategy
and campaigns that serve that strategy. Given the unrelenting
Israeli campaign against Palestinians, we cannot let a lack
of such a strategy be an excuse for U.S. companies to continue
breaking U.S. law or for international venues to be intimidated
to delay overdue justice.
Corporate boardrooms in America and around
the world are positioned to contribute to ending Israel's occupation.
Not only is it part of their moral and legal obligation to do
so, in the end it will make good business sense.
Sam Bahour
is a Palestinian-American businessman living in the besieged
Palestinian City of Al-Bireh/Ramallah in the West Bank and can
be reached at sbahour@palnet.com
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