Most moral and ethical people would recoil from the idea of profiting from someone else’s pain and suffering. How much more objectionable is it, then, when one is profiting from ongoing, systemic violations of human rights?
In its new 162-page report, “Occupation Inc.”: How Settlement Businesses Contribute to Israel’s Violations of Palestinian Rights,” the human rights group Human Rights Watch documents how settlement businesses facilitate the growth and operations of settlements. HRW explains, “These businesses depend on and contribute to the Israeli authorities’ unlawful confiscation of Palestinian land and other resources. They also benefit from these violations, as well as Israel’s discriminatory policies that provide privileges to settlements at the expense of Palestinians, such as access to land and water, government subsidies, and permits for developing land.” The report “calls for businesses to stop operating in, financing, servicing or trading with Israeli settlements in order to comply with their human rights responsibilities. Those activities contribute to and benefit from an inherently unlawful and abusive system that violates the rights of Palestinians.”