Summary
Swedish company whose Mul-T-Lock door factory in the Barkan industrial zone, in the occupied West Bank, became a leading case in the settlement-products debate in Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights, PDF p.158, p.178-179).
Details
- Research by the Swedish NGO Diakonia on the Mul-T-Lock factory in the Barkan Industrial Park led to owner Assa Abloy’s October 2008 decision to divest from the company, as Chapter 11 reports it (PDF p.158).
- Chapter 13 gives the fuller account: in 2008 Assa Abloy heeded appeals from the Church of Sweden and other Swedish organizations and decided to move the Mul-T-Lock factory from the illegal colony of Barkan to an as yet unannounced location inside Israel; Diakonia, which led the civil society effort, had stated that CEOs can be held individually responsible for grave violations of international law, including war crimes (PDF p.178-179).
- Barghouti’s caution is over mistaking such moves for the goal: celebrating them is in order, but advocating a settlement-products boycott as the ultimate strategy “would be in direct contradiction with the stated objectives of the Palestinian boycott movement”; it should be “only a first, relatively easy step toward a full boycott of all Israeli products and services. It cannot be the final goal” (PDF p.178, p.183-184).
Related pages
Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights, BDS movement, Veolia