The Palestine Solidarity Network has issued judicial
review proceedings to challenge the New Zealand
Superfund’s investments in companies helping to build or
maintain illegal Israeli settlements in the occupied
Palestinian Territories.
The case will be heard in the
Auckland High Court on 14/15 October. The named plaintiffs
are PSNA Co-Chairs, Maher Nazzal and John Minto, and Rawaa
Elhanafy. The lawyers taking the case are Rodney Harrison KC
and Frances Joychild KC.
Mahar Nazzal says the
Superfund has investments in companies identified by the
United Nations Human Rights Council as providing services
and utilities supporting the maintenance and existence of
illegal settlements on Palestinian land in the Occupied
Palestinian Territory.
The UN list was updated in 2023
and the updated database is here in a pdf.
Nazzal says
the recent report by Special Rapporteur for the occupied
Palestinian Territories, Francesca Albanese ‘From Economy
of Occupation to Economy of Genocide’ says when Israel is
committing genocide in Gaza many companies such Booking.Com
and AirBnB are profiting from “occupation tourism” in
Palestine.
“We look forward to the court having a
thorough look at the Superfund’s investments and whether
they are in line with their legal obligations”
Case
Summary
The New Zealand Superfund has investments in
four companies listed in June 2023 by the UN Office of the
High Commissioner for Human
Rights.
- AirBnB
- Booking.com
- Motorola
- Alstrom
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Each
of these companies is deeply embedded in Israel’s illegal
occupation. AirBnB and Booking.com are advertising homes for
rent in illegal Israeli settlements. This encourages
investors to purchase these properties and also encourages
the building and expansion of these illegal
settlements.
Motorola has a long lucrative history of
providing technology and infrastructure to enable Israel’s
mass surveillance of Palestinians across the Occupied
Palestinian Territory as well as involvement in providing
transport infrastructure which links the illegal settlements
via racially segregated roads.
Why does this matter
now?
In December 2022, Israel elected arguably its
most extreme ethno-nationalist government ever. It stepped
up the brutal repression of Palestinians and made clear it
would not countenance a meaningful peace plan or the
formation of a Palestinian state.
The new government
said its “top
priority” was to push ahead with more illegal Israeli
settlements on occupied Palestinian land.
In the last
week of June 2023, Israeli ministers announced plans to build
more than 5,000 additional houses in these illegal
settlements on Palestinian land. Further expansion
of these settlements in the Occupied West Bank is taking
place while the world is distracted with Israel’s ongoing
mass killing and mass starvation of Palestinians in
Gaza.
This “green light” to illegal Israeli
settlers has resulted in a massive
wave of settler attacks on Palestinians towns and
villages with pogroms against the Palestinian
populations – attacks which have been actively supported
and assisted by the Israeli Defence Forces.
A very
recent case was the
killing of Awdah Hathaleen who was involved in the
production of the Oscar Award winning documentary ‘No
Other Land’.
Within the last two weeks Israel’s
Minister of Finance Bezalel Smotrich has approved
plans for another illegal Israeli settlement which would
split occupied East Jerusalem from the occupied West Bank
– a move his office said would “bury” the idea of a
Palestinian state.
The case has taken on renewed
urgency with the July
2024 Advisory Opinion of the International Court of
Justice, which found Israel’s occupation of the land it
captured in the 1967 Six-day War is illegal and urged
signatory countries to withdraw all “aid or assistance”
to Israel in maintaining its illegal occupation.
On 18
September 2024 the United Nations General Assembly voted in
support of the ICJ ruling (New Zealand supported the
resolution) which includes the demand:
(c) To
implement sanctions, including travel bans and asset
freezes, against natural and legal persons engaged in the
maintenance of Israel’s unlawful presence in the Occupied
Palestinian Territory, including in relation to settler
violence;
A further United Nations General
Assembly resolution (Peaceful
settlement of the question of Palestine) was passed in
November 2024 which also called for states
“Not
to render aid or assistance to illegal settlement
activities”
