THE DIAMOND INDUSTRY AND MULTINATIONALS ARE COMPLICIT IN ISRAEL’S GENOCIDE

Wed 04 December 2024:

As the peak Christmas diamond sales period approaches, the millions of people who have marched in city streets worldwide calling for an end to Israel’s genocide and apartheid should now call out the jewellery industry’s complicity in the genocide and demand reparations for its victims.

Multinational corporations with operations in Israel generate revenue that funds the genocidal Zionist regime and employs members of the Israeli military. According to the International Criminal Court, the Israeli army has committed war crimes and crimes against humanity to the extent that the International Court of Justice has deemed to be “plausible” genocide.

Leaders of corporations with operations or business partners in Israel must consider if their operations are contributing directly or indirectly to war crimes, crimes against humanity or genocide for which they can personally be held accountable.

A recent report by Israel Advanced Technology Industries reveals that the Israeli economy is reliant heavily on multinational corporations which employ approximately 86,000 people. The report confirms that most of them operating in Israel pay a significant amount of tax to the country through employee income tax, corporation tax and capital gains tax on acquisitions in the occupation state.

The Israeli military is guilty of grave human rights violations

In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu indicated that 88 per cent of Israel’s vast security budget, which funds its military, comes from the national economy. Companies that contribute to the Israeli economy are, therefore, helping to fund the Israeli military which is guilty of grave human rights violations.

The Business and Human Rights Resource Centre has outlined the corporate responsibility to avoid complicity in genocide in Gaza. Logistical supplies including arms, weapons, ammunition, vehicles and other military supplies are essential for the activities of the Israeli military, and make an essential contribution to violations of international humanitarian law in Gaza. The Israeli government uses tax revenue to purchase these supplies and pay the salaries of the soldiers, sailors and pilots committing war crimes and genocide.

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Following the commencement of the Israeli assault on Gaza in October 2023, some multinationals in Israel paid a war bonus to employees, thousands of whom were active members of the Israeli reserve forces taking part in the genocide in Gaza. Intel is reported to have provided a $5,000 bonus to each of its 12,000 workers in Israel. A significant amount of this money would end up in the coffers of the regime, funding its military and, by extension, genocide in Gaza.

A report published by the Israeli Democracy Institute indicates that the high-tech sector saw “a decline of 7 per cent in work hours due to the burden of [military] reserve duty.” If that figure is applied pro rata, then 720 of Intel’s employees may have been active members of the Israeli reserve armed forces.

According to the UN Guiding Principles (UNGPs), the responsibility to respect human rights requires that business enterprises, “Seek to prevent or mitigate adverse human rights impacts that are directly linked to their operations, products or services by their business relationships, even if they have not contributed to those impacts.”

A UN Report concerning Israeli practices affecting Palestinians calls on States as a matter of urgency to hold businesses accountable for complicity in violations of international law through “links to value chains that enable Israel’s ongoing onslaught in Gaza and apartheid system of injustice in the occupied West Bank, including East Jerusalem.”

The links between corporations with Israeli supply chains and grave human rights violations by the Israeli government are clear, especially so for the diamond industry, one of Israel’s most important export commodities.

Since 2019, Anglo American shareholders have been warning the Board of Directors about the risk to the De Beers and Forevermark brands and shareholders resulting from their diamond supply chain links to Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity.

According to Dr Irene Pietropaoli, Senior Fellow in Business and Human Rights, British Institute of International and Comparative Law, knowledge of foreseeable harmful effects would amount to intentional participation making persons directly complicit in Israel’s genocide. The CEO and Board of Anglo American cannot claim credibly that they were unaware of the risk of complicity in Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Just days after the 2024 AGM, Anglo American announced plans to divest or demerge from De Beers. As of the time of writing, Anglo American has failed to dispose of the company and the De Beers and Forevermark brands continue to purchase polished diamonds from companies in Israel.

De Beers Group continues to launder Israel’s blood diamonds

De Beers Group and the wider jewellery industry continue to launder Israel’s blood diamonds, showing no regard for the victims of the apartheid state’s daily massacres in Palestine and Lebanon or for their customers who they deceive with fraudulent claims that diamonds processed in Israel are conflict free.

De Beers Group, which claims De Beers and Forevermark diamonds are “100% conflict free”, is a major supplier of rough diamonds to companies in Israel and a buyer of polished diamonds from Israel. The role of the De Bees Group in supplying the Israeli diamond industry with rough diamonds has become even more critical now that Russian diamonds are sanctioned.

Anglo American Corporation, through its subsidiary De Beers Group, has considerable leverage to exert on the Israeli regime should it choose to use it.

The diamonds industry in Israel previously demonstrated its influence with authorities in Israel when it successfully persuaded authorities there to drop a major fraud investigation into the operation of an illegal bank in the Israeli Diamond Exchange without having to use “the direct close contacts that the industry management has with the most highly-ranked politicians.”

De Beers Group continues to gaslight consumers, claiming that they have a “commitment to the protection of human rights” when in reality they support a genocidal fascist regime that has slaughtered tens of thousands of Palestinians in the past 13 months alone.

Moreover, De Beers claims that their diamond sourcing standards are “fully aligned with the OECD Due Diligence Guidance, the UNGPs, the International Finance Corporation’s Performance Standards, International Labour Organisation Standards, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

In accordance with Annex II of the OECD Guidance, companies must “commit to refraining from any action which contributes to the financing of conflict.” Paragraph 1 of Annex II lists the following commitments regarding serious abuses associated with the extraction, transport or trade of minerals:

While sourcing from, or operating in, conflict-affected and high-risk areas, we will neither tolerate nor by any means profit from, contribute to, assist with or facilitate the commission by any party of:
i) any forms of torture, cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment;
iv) other gross human rights violations and abuses such as widespread sexual violence;
v) war crimes or other serious violations of international humanitarian law, crimes against humanity or genocide.

Regarding risk management of serious abuses:

We will immediately suspend or discontinue engagement with upstream suppliers where we identify a reasonable risk that they are sourcing from, or linked to, any party committing serious abuses as defined in paragraph 1.

De Beers Group is clearly in breach of these commitments.

The diamond industry uses the Kimberley Process (KP) diamond regulatory scheme to conceal the trade in cut and polished blood diamonds which continues unchecked outside of its remit. The KP Plenary meeting in Dubai between the 12 and 15 November failed once again to broaden the scope of KP regulations and ban the trade in diamonds that fund Israeli war crimes and crimes against humanity.

Listing administrative developments, the Chair of KP 2024, Ahmed Bin Sulayem, claimed to have fulfilled the objective of making it “a year of meaningful progress”, ignoring the complete lack of progress on the most important issue hounding the diamond industry since 2009 when diamonds linked to human rights violations by government forces came to public attention.

Roughly 20 per cent of the diamonds sold worldwide in value terms pass through Israel, generating about $1 billion per annum in funding for the Israeli military.

With over 17,000 children massacred in Gaza since 7 October 2023, the hypocrisy, duplicity and selfish greed of the vested interests in the diamond and jewellery industries should herald the demise of the blood-soaked diamond supply chain.

Keeping the trade in Israeli blood diamonds out of public view is essential to preserve the diamond brand image upon which the industry is entirely dependent. That image of love and romance would be ruined in an instant if buyers learned that the diamonds they purchase help fund massacres such as those witnessed daily for the past 13 months in occupied Palestine and Lebanon.

According to an article published on 25 November by Martin Rapaport, a towering figure in the diamond industry, “The KP is a highly politicised multinational government process that misrepresents itself as a certifier of ethical diamond sourcing while in fact supporting the certification of blood diamonds as legitimate.”

Diamonds that fund Israel’s genocide in Palestine remain outside the remit of the KP and are labelled “conflict free” by the most prestigious diamond brands including De Beers, Forevermark, Tiffany’s and Harry Winstons, to name just a few.

On 21 November, the International Criminal Court issued warrants for the arrest of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defence Minister Yoav Gallant for crimes against humanity and war crimes. Given the role of multinational corporations in the global diamond industry, which is a significant source of funding for the regime, it is arguable that similar warrants should be sought for complicit individuals and corporations.

The jewellery industry has weighed the reputational, legal and financial risk to their brands and shareholders and believe that they can continue to mislead the public by promoting the discredited Kimberley Process and a bogus System of Warranties that the industry established to conceal the severe limitations of the KP.

The farce is bolstered and accredited by the industry-established “Responsible Jewellery Council” which rubberstamps the “conflict free” charade.

Calls from Palestinian civil society for sanctions on diamonds from Israel fall on deaf ears.

The Kimberley Process Civil Society Coalition, which is supposed to represent communities impacted by the diamond industry, completely ignores the suffering of Palestinian victims of the diamond industry. The KPCSC remains silent on the issue of Israel’s ongoing diamond-funded genocide which murdered hundreds of Palestinians over the course of the four-day plenary. The coalition’s blind spot for the victims of Israel’s genocide is in stark contrast to its outspoken demands for sanctions on Russian diamonds.

Likewise, the EU has also been to the fore in pushing for sanctions on Russian diamonds without any mention of sanctions on Israeli diamonds which flood the EU market subsidised by EU taxpayers under the terms of the EU/Israel Euromed Agreement, the human rights clauses of which Israel has been in breach of since the day it was signed.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of Independent Press.

Author:

by Sean Clinton

Sean Clinton is a human rights activist from Ireland. He has written numerous articles critical of the double standards in the global jewellery industry which facilitates the trade in diamonds that are a major source of funding for rogue regimes guilty of grievous human rights violations.

-MEMO

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