Our Wednesday News Analysis | Israel’s genocide is big business – and the face of the future

Instead, the corporate sector – and Western governments – continue to deepen their involvement in Israel’s crimes.

It is not just arms manufacturers profiting from the genocidal levelling of Gaza and the occupations of the West Bank and East Jerusalem.

Big Tech, construction and materials firms, agribusiness, the tourism industry, the goods and services sector, and supply chains have also got in on the act.

And enabling it all is a finance sector – which includes banks, pension funds, universities, insurers, and charities – keen to continue investing
in this architecture of oppression.

Albanese describes the mosaic of companies partnering with Israel as “an eco-system sustaining this illegality”.

The Financial Times revealed this month that a cabal of Israeli investors, one of the world’s top business consulting groups, and a think-tank headed by former British prime minister Tony Blair had been secretly working on plans to exploit the ruins of Gaza as prime real estate.

The secret consortium appears to have been seeking practical ways to realise US President Donald Trump’s “vision” of Gaza as the “Riviera of the Middle East”: transforming the small coastal enclave into a playground for the rich and an enticing investment opportunity, once it can be ethnically cleansed of its Palestinian population.

Meanwhile, the UK government has declared Palestine Action a terrorist organisation – the first time in British history that a direct-action campaign group has been banned under Britain’s already draconian terrorism legislation.

Notably, the government of Keir Starmer took the decision to proscribe Palestine Action after lobbying from Elbit Systems, an Israeli weapons maker whose factories in the UK have been targeted by Palestine Action for disruption. Elbit supplies Israel with killer drones and other weapons central to Israel’s genocide in Gaza...

Read more: Israel’s genocide is big business – and the face of the future

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THE CORPORATE GIANTS FUELING ISRAEL’S WAR MACHINE

Source: Black Agenda Report
https://www.blackagendareport.com/corporate-giants-fueling-israels-war-machine

By Ramzy Baroud
Published July 16, 2025

Francesca Albanese’s new UN report doesn’t just document genocide, it indicts the corporate machine profiting from Palestinian blood.

Israeli army vehicles transport a group of soldiers and journalists along the Morag corridor in southern Gaza. (AP)

Francesca Albanese, the UN Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the occupied Palestine, stands as a testament to the notion of speaking truth to power. This “power” is not solely embodied by Israel or even the US, but by an international community whose collective relevance has tragically failed to stem the ongoing genocide in Gaza.

Her latest report, “From Economy of Occupation to Economy of Genocide,” submitted to the UN Human Rights Council last week, marks a seismic intervention.

It unflinchingly names and implicates companies that have not only allowed Israel to sustain its war and genocide against Palestinians, but also confront those who have remained silent in the face of this unfolding horror.

Albanese’s “Economy of Genocide” is far more than an academic exercise or a mere moral statement in a world whose collective conscience is being brutally tested in Gaza. The report is significant for multiple interlocking reasons. Crucially, it offers practical pathways to accountability that transcend diplomatic and legal rhetoric. It also presents a novel approach to international law, positioning it not as a delicate political balancing act, but as a potent tool to confront complicity in war crimes and expose the profound failures of the existing international mechanisms in Gaza.

There is vital context that is necessary to understand the significance of this report, which is considered a searing indictment of direct corporate involvement, not only in the ongoing Israeli genocide in Gaza but Israel’s overall settler-colonial project.

In February 2020, following years of delay, the UN Human Rights Council released a database that listed 112 companies involved in business activities within illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories. The database exposed several corporate giants for helping Israel maintain its military occupation and apartheid.

This was particularly earth-shattering considering the UN’s consistent failure to rein in Israel or hold accountable those who sustain its war crimes in Palestine. The publication of the database was an important step that allowed civil societies to mobilize around a specific set of priorities, thus pressuring corporations and individual governments to take morally guided positions. The effectiveness of that strategy was clearly detected through the exaggerated and angry reactions of the US and Israel. The US said it was an attempt by “the discredited” council “to fuel economic retaliation,” while Israel called it a “shameful capitulation” to pressure...

Read more: The corporate giants fueling Israel’s war machine
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APPEALS AND NEGOTIATIONS WON’T MAKE ISRAEL STOP STARVING GAZA

Source: Al-Jazeera
https://www.aljazeera.com/opinions/2025/7/20/appeals-and-negotiations-wont-make-israel-stop-starving-gaza

By Daoud Kuttab
Published July 20, 2025

Sanctions would.

From left, Greek Orthodox Patriarch of Jerusalem Theophilos III and Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem Pierbattista Pizzaballa visit the Church of the Holy Family in Gaza, which was bombed by the Israeli army on July 18, 2025 [Handout/Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem via Reuters]

Why must the delivery of food, water, and medicine
be “earned” through negotiation?

Why are basic rights enshrined in international law
subject to political bargaining?

On July 17, the Israeli army bombed the sole Catholic church in Gaza, killing three people and injuring at least 10. The parish priest, Gabriele Romanelli, who used to have almost daily calls with the late Pope Francis, was among the wounded.

After the attack, there were statements of condemnation. Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni called it “unacceptable”. Pope Leo said he was “deeply saddened” by it – a statement many saw as “vague” and “cowardly”.

The Israeli government was quick to declare it “regretted” the attack.

Amid the global outrage, the Latin Patriarchate of Jerusalem was able to negotiate for church officials to visit the Christian community, deliver limited food and medicine to both Christian and Muslim families, and evacuate some of the injured for treatment outside Gaza.

These humanitarian actions, while welcomed by those in dire need in Gaza, are yet another sign of international failure. Why must the delivery of food, water and medicine be “earned” through negotiation? Why are basic rights enshrined in international law subject to political bargaining?

Palestinians deeply appreciate the church leaders’ efforts. Their actions reflect compassion and moral clarity. But such steps should not be necessary. Under international humanitarian law, occupying powers have binding obligations to the people under their control. Securing access to food, water, medicine and critical services cannot be charitable favours – they are legal duties.

The 1949 Fourth Geneva Convention and the 1907 Hague Regulations clearly state that civilians in occupied territory must be protected and provided with essential services, especially when the occupying power controls access to borders, infrastructure and life-sustaining resources. Blocking or delaying aid isn’t just inhumane – it amounts to a war crime...

Read more: Appeals and negotiations won’t make Israel stop starving Gaza