Partner CEO threatens Orange over ending link to Israel remarks

The CEO of Israel’s Partner Communications Haim Romano, which operates under the Orange brand name responded to remarks by Orange CEO saying that Orange would pay dearly if it went ahead with its plans to withdraw from Israel.

Orange CEO Stephane Richard said on Wednesday that his company would end its contract “tomorrow” with Partner Communications over its activities in Israeli settlements, except in the face of legal and financial penalties.

Partner said in response that it regrets Richard’s comments.

“We wish to highlight that Partner Communications is an Israeli company owned by Saban Capital Group, which is owned by Haim Saban and not by France Telecom (Orange). The company has held the Orange brand name since 1998 and the only connection between us and France Telecom is the brand name.”

“I am proud to be the controlling shareholder of the Partner company, which is an Israeli owned company that under the Orange brand name. I won’t be deterred by threats. I will continue to operate in Israel and lead the international struggle for Israel,” Haim Saban said in response.

Israeli politicians hurried to attack Richard. The Israeli Minister of Science, Technology and Space Danny Danon said that: “it is our duty to fight a daily war in order to maintain Israel’s national interests and not to apologise for wanting to preserve the security of our citizens.”

Meanwhile, the head of Yesh Atid party Yair Lapid described Richard’s remarks as “hypocrisy of the highest level”, adding that “the State of Israel is an island of rationality in a difficult neighbourhood in the world and of course we’re not ready to receive moral sermons from Europeans. I call on the French government, which controls a large part of Orange shares, to distance itself from his remarks.”

Speaking at a news conference in Cairo, Richard said his company intends to withdraw the Orange brand from Israel as soon as possible, but that the move would take time.

“I am ready to abandon this tomorrow morning but the point is that I want to secure the legal risk for the company. I want to terminate this, once again, but I don’t want to expose Orange to a level of risk and of penalties that could be really sizeable for the company.”

“Sorry to say, but a dispute with Partner when you have zero legal position in Israeli courts is not something that I would recommend for my company. I am not going to pay hundreds of millions of euros only because I would have [to] take a risk, a huge risk, in terms of the penalties that we could have if we entered into this kind of brutal process,” he added.

French human rights organisation demanded in a statement issued on 27 May that their government, which owns a quarter share in Orange, to “terminate its contract with Partner Communications Ltd. over its activities in the Israeli settlements.”

Partner has also been the target of international protests over its sponsorship of Israeli military units that took part in last year’s Gaza war.

Richard pointed out that the contract with Partner Communications was concluded “in the late 1990s before France Telecom bought Orange and is therefore “inherited”.

He added that the brand fees from the contract with Partner were too low compared to the size of Orange, saying that “the interest for us is certainly not a financial interest”.