Investing in apartheid Israel: Ideology or economic interest? by Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC)

A few weeks ago, Intel’s Israeli VP Tzahi Weisfeld admitted convincing managers of huge multinationals to invest in Israel “because I’m a Zionist and a proud Israeli.” Many of those conglomerates had questioned, for obvious reasons, the wisdom of investing heavily in Israel. Intel has invested billions in Israel’s economy despite the exceptional risks involved. Its main factory is in Kiryat Gat, a settlement built on top of the Palestinian village of Iraq al Manshiya, ethnically cleansed by Israel after the 1948 Nakba. By doing so, Intel has exposed itself to possible lawsuits from Palestinian survivors of the Nakba on whose stolen land the company has built its factory. Kiryat Gat is also very close to the occupied Gaza Strip, where over 2 million Palestinians have suffered under Israel’s brutal siege conditions that constitute “incremental genocide,” in the words of progressive Israeli historian Ilan Pappe. A fund manager is obliged to “put personal interests or ideological commitments aside.”