\u201cAfter tireless campaigning by members of PSC and other organizations, HSBC bank has announced that it has fully divested from Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit,\u201d the rights group said.<\/p>\n
According to PSC, more than 24,000 people sent emails to HSBC voicing concern over its investment in Israel\u2019s Elbit Systems and other firms known to supply weapons to Israel\u2019s military.<\/p>\n
Forty HSBC branches in different locations were picketed by activists for the same reason, the rights group said.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis announcement is proof positive that collective campaigning works,\u201d PSC Director Ben Jamal said in the statement.<\/p>\n
\u201cHundreds of people around the U.K., including many PSC members and branches, were involved in pushing HSBC to divest from Elbit,\u201d Jamal asserted.<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cHSBC\u2019s announcement demonstrates the effectiveness of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) as a tactic against Israel\u2019s continued flouting of international law and human rights.\u201d<\/p>\n
One of Israel\u2019s largest private weapons manufacturers, Elbit is known for selling \u201ctested\u201d weapons, i.e., weapons that have been \u201ctested\u201d on Palestinians.<\/p>\n
Elbit is known particularly for its armed pilotless drone aircraft, which it markets abroad as \u201ccombat proven\u201d.<\/p>\n
The company has also manufactured white phosphorous and artillery systems that can be used to deploy internationally-banned cluster munitions.<\/p>\n
Israeli media outlets have since confirmed HSBC\u2019s divestment announcement.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe bank has divested from Elbit, one of Israel\u2019s largest defense companies and developers of some of the Israeli Air Force\u2019s most advanced drones,\u201d the Jerusalem Post quoted one unnamed HSBC source as saying.<\/p>\n
According to the same source, the decision was \u201cframed\u2026 as a human rights issue\u201d.<\/p>\n
HSBC, the source added, \u201cstrongly supports compliance with international principles of human rights as they apply to business\u201d.<\/p>\n
According to the Jerusalem Post, HSBC — the world\u2019s seventh largest financial institution — has yet to announce when the divestiture will be carried out.<\/p>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Banking giant HSBC has announced plans to divest from a major Israeli arms manufacturer following pressure from pro-Palestine activists, the London-based Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) said in a Friday statement. \u201cAfter tireless campaigning by members of PSC and other organizations, HSBC bank has announced that it has fully divested from Israeli weapons manufacturer Elbit,\u201d the …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":62192,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[80,51,1,118],"tags":[775,13636],"class_list":["post-62191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-breaking-news","category-economy","category-general","category-hot","tag-hsbc","tag-israeli"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=62191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/62191\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/62192"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=62191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=62191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nationalturk.com\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=62191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}