Week 42: Profiting from Occupation Online Gathering

On Tuesday, October 19th we learned about the commercialization and corporatization of the occupation of Palestine and how international companies are profiting on Palestinian suffering. Our guest was Riya al-Sanah from the Who Profits Research Center.

More about our guest:

Riya al-Sanah is the research coordinator for Who Profits Research Center.

Who Profits from the Occupation is an independent research center dedicated to exposing the commercial involvement of Israeli and international corporations in the ongoing Israeli occupation of Palestinian and Syrian lands.

Who Profits was founded in 2007 as a project of the Coalition of Women for Peace, and became an independent Research Center in 2013. Our work addresses the economy of the Israeli occupation through three areas of activity: we maintain an online database of complicit corporations; we operate a free online information center; and we publish regular reports and updates on the corporate aspect of the occupation. Through these, we shed light on the role of the private sector in the Israeli settlement enterprise, in economic exploitation of Palestinian and Syrian land, labor and resources, and in the apparatus of control over the occupied population.

The verified and reliable information presented by Who Profits helps grassroots activists, civil society organizations and policymakers to stimulate a candid public conversation regarding the occupation economy and the global and local economic interests that play a critical role in sustaining Israeli control over occupied Palestinian and Syrian land.

If you want to learn more about specific aspects of the occupation and who profits, we suggest looking at their in-depth reports https://whoprofits.org/publications/?in-depth-reports and searching the database https://whoprofits.org. And if you think a company should be added to their database, there is a form you can fill out. https://whoprofits.org/report-a-company/

You can find Who Profits on their website and follow them on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.

Activism Time

Kumi Action is at:
https://kuminow.com/profitingfromoccupation/#kumiaction

HP means something different for Palestinians living under occupation. Use #HP and play with the letters ‘H’ and ‘P’ to send a creative message, illustrating one of HP’s many possible meanings. For example, #HP – How Pathetic, Help Palestine, Hear Please the cry of Palestinians, How have People wronged the Palestinians, or How is Peace possible with companies profiting from the occupation. Use one of these messages or get creative and make your own meaning for HP!

Of course, as you can see from the ‘Just the Facts’ page, Hewlett Packard is hardly the only corporation profiting from the occupation of Palestine. Feel free to adapt this action to whichever company is closest to home for you.

Include a link to this page of the Kumi Now website along with the hashtags #HPFree, #KumiNow and #Kumi42.

From the Presentation/Chat

Coming after the session.