An economy of genocide: Israel and the Albanese Report

It makes for stark and dark reading.  The report for the UN Human Rights Council titled From economy of occupation to economy of genocide makes mention of “corporate entities” who have been enriched by “the Israeli economy of illegal occupation, apartheid and now genocide.” Authored by the relentless Francesca Albanese, the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories occupied since 1967, it is unflinching in its assessments and warnings to companies doing business with Israel.

What makes the investigative undertaking by Albanese useful is its examination of the corporate world and its links to the colonial, settler program of removing and displacing a pre-existing population.  The machinery of conquest of any state necessarily involves not only the desk job occupants in civilian bureaucracies and high-ranking military commanders, but those in the corporate sector, eager to make a profit.  “Colonial endeavours and associated genocides,” writes Albanese, “have historically been driven and enabled by the corporate sector.  Commercial interests have contributed to the dispossession of Indigenous peoples of their lands – a mode of domination known as ‘colonial racial capitalism’.”

Eight private sectors come in for scrutiny: arms manufacturers, tech firms, building and construction entities, those industries concerned with extraction and services, banks, pension funds, insurers, universities and charities.  “These entities enable the denial of self-determination and other structural violations in the occupied Palestinian territory, including occupation, annexation and crimes of apartheid and genocide, as well as a long list of ancillary crimes and human rights violations, from discrimination, wanton destruction, forced displacement and pillage to extrajudicial killing and starvation.”  

Central to the multifaceted economy of genocide, the report charges, is the military-industrial complex that forms “the economic backbone of the State.”  Albanese cites a stellar example: the F-35 fighter jet, developed by US-based Lockheed Martin, in collaboration with hundreds of other companies “including Italian manufacturer Leonardo S.p.A, and eight States.”  

Since October 2023, the process of colonisation and displacement has assumed an air of urgency, aided by the private sector.  In 2024, US$200 million was advanced for “colony construction”.  Between November 2023 and October 2024, 57 new colonies and outposts were established “with Israeli and international companies supplying machinery, raw materials and logistical support.”  Examples include the maintenance and expansion of the Jerusalem Light Rail Red Line, the construction of the new Green Line, encompassing 27 kilometres of new tracks and 50 stations in the West Bank.  The infrastructure has proven to be invaluable in linking the colonial project to West Jerusalem.  Despite some companies withdrawing from the project “owing to international pressure”, an entity such as the Spanish/Basque Construcciones y Auxiliar de Ferrocarriles has been a keen participant, along with suppliers of excavating machinery (South Korea’s Doosan and Sweden’s Volvo Group), and providers of materials for the light-rail bridge (Germany’s Heidelberg Materials AG).

Beyond the structural and physical program of construction and displacement, all designed to extinguish any semblance of self-determination on the part of the Palestinians, come other features of the colonial project.  A prominent feature of this, Albanese notes, is that of “surveillance and carcerality”.  Repressing Palestinians has become a “progressively automated” affair, with tech companies feeding Israel’s voracious security appetite with “unparalleled developments in carceral and surveillance devices”, some of which include closed-circuit television networks, biometric surveillance, advanced tech checkpoint networks, drone surveillance and cloud computing. 

Palantir Technologies Inc., a specialist in software platforms, comes in for a special mention.  “There are reasonable grounds to believe Palantir has provided automatic predictive policing technology, core defence infrastructure for rapid and scale-up construction and deployment of military software, and its Artificial Intelligence Platform, which allows real-time battlefield data integration for automated decision making.”

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With the report released, the dance of dissimulation began.  Lockheed Martin told the Middle East Eye that foreign military sales were not their preserve as far as accountability or cause of concern was, a lofty, business-like attitude unshackled from a moral compass.  Such sales took place between governments, meaning that the US government would be best placed to answer any questions.  Hand washing and deferrals of guilt is a private sector speciality after all.

In a more direct fashion, both Israel and the United States have continued their “Hate Albanese” campaign, boringly reiterating old accusations while adopting novel interpretations of international law.  Given the obvious loathing of international human rights conventions by Israeli officials and their US backers, this is decidedly rich, even more so given such jurisprudence as that of the International Court of Justice’s Advisory Opinion of July 2024, and the International Criminal Court arrest warrants for Israeli officials, including Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.  (These developments figure prominently in Albanese’s assessment.)  

According to the ICJ, all States were under an obligation to “cooperate with the United Nations” on ensuring “an end to Israel’s illegal presence in the Occupied Territory and the full realization of the right of the Palestinian people to self-determination”.  Israel’s continued presence in the OPT was illegal. “It is a wrongful act of a continuing character which has been brought about by Israel’s violations, through its policies and practices, of the prohibition on the acquisition of territory by force and the right to self-determination of the Palestinian people.”

From Israel came the view that the report was “legally groundless, defamatory and a flagrant abuse of [Albanese’s] office.”  A June 20 letter to UN Secretary-General António Guterres from the Trump administration obtained by The Washington Free Beacon took issue with Albanese’s supposed record of “virulent antisemitism and support for terrorism”, bitchily sniping at her legal qualifications.  Little is actually mentioned of international law in the bilious missive by US Ambassador Dorothy C. Shea, acting representative to the UN, other than a snotty dismissal of UN General Assembly resolutions and advisory opinions by the International Court of Justice as lacking any binding force “on either States or private actors”.  

Shea claims Albanese “misrepresented her qualifications for the role by claiming to be an international lawyer despite admitting publicly that she has not passed a legal bar examination or been licensed to practice law.”  A fabulous accusation, given the surfeit of allegedly qualified legal members working in the Israeli Defence Forces and other offices executing their program of displacement, starvation and killing.

The accusations against various corporate entities, notably over 20 US entities, were “riddled with inflammatory rhetoric and false accusations”, making such daring claims of “gross human rights violations”, “apartheid” and “genocide”.  These charges, ventured through letters of accusation, constituted “an unacceptable campaign of political and economic warfare against the American and worldwide economy.”

It comes as little surprise that the security rationale – one that says nothing of the Palestinian right to self-determination, let alone rights to life and necessaries – marks the entire complaint against Albanese’s apparent lack of impartiality.  “Business activities specifically targeted by Ms. Albanese contribute to and help strengthen national security, economic prosperity, and human welfare across the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe.”  Just don’t mention the Palestinians.

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