Saturday 8 July 2017

Hold HSBC to account.


The first week of July has seen lots of activities for the Stop Arming Israel campaign across the country, coinciding with the third anniversary of the brutal military assault on Gaza. In the summer of 2014, Israel carried out its deadliest ever massacre of Palestinians in Gaza, killing more than 2,300 people. Over 550 of these were children.
HSBC holds shares and provides loans to military and technology that sell weapons and equipment to Israel used in the abuse of Palestinians’ human rights,. HSBC’s complicity in Israel’s militarised oppression includes Elbit shares worth £3.64m and  holds £180m of shares in BAE Systems, a key company involved in manufacturing the F-16 fighter jets used by Israel to attack Palestinians in Gaza. HSBC also holds £102m of shares in Boeing, who have provided Hellfire missiles, F-15 Eagle fighter jets, MK84 2000-lb bombs and Apache helicopters used in Israel’s devastating attacks on Palestinian civilians in Gaza.
Since the summer of  2012, HSBC has also been involved in syndicates with other banks that have provided loans to arms companies supplying weapons to Israel worth around £19.3 billion.The bank was also involved in providing loans to Caterpillar, whose bulldozers are used to demolish Palestinian homes.
BDS campaigners said HSBC policy appears to state that the bank should not give financial support to the arms trade. Riya Hassan of the Palestinian BDS national committee said: “By investing in and providing loans to the arms companies that help Israel to oppress Palestinians, HSBC is lending its support to Israel’s violations of international law.“HSBC is profiting from the armed violence and repression that lies at the heart of Israel’s system of oppression over the Palestinian people.”
The anti-poverty charity’s senior militarism and security campaigner Ryvka Barnard said: “HSBC holds shares in, and arranges loans to, a number of companies that sell weapons and military technology to Israel, used in the abuse of Palestinians’ human rights, including war crimes.
“If HSBC is serious about a commitment to human rights, its first step must be to immediately end its business relationship with companies that sell weapons to Israel.”
Please keep  calling on HSBC to immediately end all forms of support for arms companies that help Israel to oppress Palestinians and violate international law. People will be taking further action in due course to pressure HSBC to end its complicity with the Israeli arms trade.
We must urge them to end its complicity in Israel’s systematic violation of Palestinian rights.
Do not let  HSBC and Elbit Systems look away from the consequences of their continued dealings with the Israeli military. Arming any country in my opinion in this unethical way, is simply wrong. 

https://secure.waronwant.org/page/11112/action/1?locale=en-GB

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