Al-Awda, the Palestine Right to Return Coalition, has called for protests and a worldwide boycott of Intel, the largest chip maker in the world, reinforcing the call from within Palestine for the Isolation of Apartheid Israel. The reason for this is Intelâs decision to invest some $4 billion in an extra facility in Kiryat Gat, which would employ some 2,000 workers. The Intel plant at Kiryat Gat is built on lands Zionist Israel confiscated in 1948 from the Palestinian villages of Iraq al Manshiya. Iraq al Manshiya was then a village of 2000 people with two mosques and one school. The original Palestinian inhabitants were terrorized out of the village and then the whole village was razed to the ground to prepare the way for the new Israeli settlement of Kiryat Gat. Today the remaining population from Iraq al Manshiya is still not allowed to return.
Intel has already significant presence in Apartheid Israel, employing 6,000 workers both in chip-making plants and in its research-and-development facilities. Intel is de facto today one of the biggest and oldest supporters of the Occupation. Their very first development centre outside the US was opened in Haifa in 1974. Supporting the Occupation has been so far a very interesting financial deal for Intel as, for instance, exports from their first Lachish-Qiryat Gat plant, opened in February 1999, total $ 3 million a day at peak capacity and approximately $ 1 billion a year.
The decision to build the new plant in Kiryat Gat came after the Zionist government decided to increase the state grant for the project from 12.5 percent of the total approved cost of the project (then set at $3.5 billion) to 15 percent, i.e., a state grant of $525 million. The total investment that the company will invest in Apartheid Israel is expected to reach almost $4.6 billion, taking into account a $660-million upgrading of its existing plant in Kiryat Gat. The investment is the largest ever single foreign investment.
Foreign investment and foreign aid are the pillars on which the survival of Apartheid Israel and its war economy is based. It is these inflows of foreign capital that make the Occupation of Palestine sustainable and enable ethnic cleansing to go on. Expulsions of Palestinian from their lands have been a continuous aspect of the zionist state from 1948 till today as the ongoing construction of the Wall is leading to massive confiscations of lands. But Palestinian will continue to fight to prevent a third nakbe.
The mechanisms of mutual support between Israel and its allies are explained by Andy Martin, a journalist and independent columnist based in Chicago, taking the case of Intel: âIsraeli strongman Ariel Sharon is demanding $2.5 billion dollars to fund his genocide against Palestinians after he ‘vacates’ the Gaza Strip. At the same time, his government has offered Intel $500 billion to build a plant on blood-soaked and disputed land.â
Intel products must not be bought any longer as such Intel investments allow the Occupation to have economic benefits from the illegal dispossession of Palestinians. Intel is since long an accomplice of racist Israel in denying Palestinian refugees their inalienable right to return to their lands and homes.
Palestinian people call upon all concerned citizens of the world to participate in the growing movement of boycotts against Israeli goods. By boycotting Israeli products and sponsors, all citizens help support the Palestinian people in their struggle for justice and liberation.
Since the initial call by Al-Awda for activists to contact Intel to protest their investments, over 2000 letters were sent to Intel and articles and opinion pieces on this have also been published in national and foreign newspapers. It is crucial that the âBoycott Intelâ call continues to grow worldwide. If corporations see consumers all around the world protest against the Occupation by rejecting Israeli goods, then those companies will feel the need to cut all ties with Apartheid Israel.