Advocates for Palestinian rights are calling for a boycott of Motorola phones.  The U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation, an advocacy group based in Washington, DC, urged its members to contact Motorola leaders about the company’s role in providing communications technology to Israeli occupation forces.  Motorola equipment has been used in Israel’s military operations in Palestinian areas, as well as in Lebanon.

The Arab American News joins the group in its protest at this facilitation of Israel’s  human rights abuses.

The group’s “Hanging Up On Motorola” campaign is asking people to pledge to not purchase Motorola phones until it ends its support for Israeli human rights abuses.  Cell phone dealers should also drop Motorola from their inventories.

Brown

The group is pressuring Motorola CEO, Greg Brown, and Vice President for Investor Relations, Dean Lindroth, to explain why the company is supporting apartheid policies in Israel.  According to the group’s website, “they have failed to give us a substantial answer and now it’s time to put our money where our mouths are.”

The call for boycott follows a year of “research and polite engagement.” Motorola, the campaign organizers charge, must stop profiting from Israeli apartheid policies. 

 

The group’s dossier on Motorola and its wholly owned subsidiary, Motorola Israel, show the company is directly involved in Israeli human rights abuses and provide key communications services that enable Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territory.  It has also provided technology that Israel used in its 2006 bombardment of Lebanon.

The company provided Israel the 980 Low Altitude Proximity Fuse for the MK-80 series of high-explosive bombs.  On July 30, 2006, during its war on Lebanon, the Israeli Air Force dropped an MK-84 high-explosive bomb on an apartment building in Qana, Lebanon. The bomb killed at least 28 civilians, many of whom were children, who had taken shelter in the basement of their apartment building.

Motorola is developing and supplying the Israeli military with the “Mountain Rose” secure cell phone communication system, which is the exclusive communications system in the Occupied Palestinian Territories.  This makes Motorola an accomplice in the Israeli occupation of the Palestinians. It enables the operations of the checkpoints, closures, Israeli-only bypass roads, and the many other ways Palestinian livelihood is constrained.

The company helped develop Israel’s Wide Area Surveillance System (WAAS) to monitor and maintain the illegal wall it has constructed in the Palestinian West Bank. Motorola Israel’s provision of the WAAS to Israel contradicts the International Court of Justice (ICJ) advisory opinion in July 2004 declaring the wall a violation of international law.

Motorola also bolsters the Israeli-only settlements built in the Palestinian territories.  It provided radar detection devices and thermal cameras for 47 illegal Israeli settlements on Palestinian land.  The settlements are an open violation of the Fourth Geneva Conventions, Article 49, which prohibit an occupying power from transferring its civilian population into occupied territories.

Israel’s belligerent actions against the Palestinians and Lebanon have been a major cause of suffering and oppression, according to the group. 

 

The U.S. Campaign is asking those opposed to Israeli policies towards its neighbors to stop buying or selling Motorola products.  However, they should contact the company so that Motorola knows why their products are being dropped.   Individuals can contact them through the group’s website: www.endtheoccupation.org.