The Boycott Divestment and Sanctions Committee of Palestinian Citizens of Israel (BDS48) called Wednesday for boycotting Hyundai Heavy Industries (HHI) “until it ends its involvement in Israel’s violations of human rights particularly in Jerusalem and the Negev.”
BDS48 is launching this boycott campaign at this particular moment in light of the extensive use of Hyundai equipment by the Israeli authorities in the recent demolitions of many homes of Palestinian citizens of Israel in the Bedouin village of Umm al-Hiran in the Negev on 18 January 2017 and in Qalansawa further north on 10 January 2017 the BDS48 said in a statement issued earlier today.
Despite being faced with documented evidence of its persistent complicity in Israeli ethnic cleansing policies against Palestinians and Syrians in the territories occupied since 1967 Hyundai has failed to stop its business-as-usual involvement the statement reads.
It has thus forfeited its responsibilities as stated in the UN Global Compact and the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights according to the statement.
The statement affirmed that Hyundai one of the world’s largest automotive manufacturers that specializes in excavation and construction equipment sells its products to Israel with full knowledge that they are used in the demolition of Palestinian homes particularly in the occupied-Jerusalem neighborhoods of Silwan Beit Hanina Surbaher al-Issawiyya and at-Tur.
The BDS48 pointed out that numerous human rights defenders have documented Israel’s use of Hyundai equipment in the construction of Israel’s illegal settlements such as Halamish near Ramallah and the Barkan industrial zone in the northern West Bank.
This involvement by Hyundai is a flagrant form of complicity in Israel’s settlement policy which was recently condemned by the UNSC resolution 2334 and which constitutes a war crime according to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court the statement concluded.
