Another BDS Victory: French Telecommunication Orange To Cut Ties With Israeli Company

Jerusalem, 3 Rabi’ul Akhir 1437/13 January 2015 (MINA) –  French telecommunications giant Orange aims to end its ties with Israel’s second-largest mobile company Partner Communications.

The move, which will be enforced in February, brings an end to a licensing agreement that the BDS movement claimed was a direct result of their campaigning, Palestine News Network (PNN) quoted by Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA) as reporting.

According to a Newsweek magazine report, the BDS movement alleges that Partner provided telecoms and fee waivers to Israeli soldiers during 2014’s 50-day Gaza conflict.

Partner owns the license to use Orange’s brand name for its products in Israel.

The company provides its services to illegal Israeli settlements in occupied east Jerusalem and in the occupied West Bank.

For the European Union, Israel’s occupation of these areas is not recognized as well as their settlements, which are illegal under international law.

Members of the BDS movement’s leadership say the deal’s conclusion was the result of a six-year grassroots campaign by unions and pressure groups in France, Egypt, Tunisia and Morocco.

One of the key turning points in the campaign, BDS says, was when the movement’s Egyptian arm called for a boycott against Orange’s subsidiary in the country, Mobinil, which had 33.7 million subscribers as of December 2014.

A leaked Israeli government report estimates that BDS could cost Israel’s economy $1.4bn a year, while a study by the Rand Corporation states that BDS could cost Israel between 1 and 2 per cent annually over 10 years.

Israeli officials view the growing BDS movement as a major “strategic threat” to its apartheid settler colonial regime – so much so that it has created a ministry to fight the campaign, and poured millions of dollars into its propaganda and sabotage efforts.(T/P008/R07)

Mi’raj Islamic News Agency (MINA)