Doing business with the Israeli settlements
Tuesday 7th May, 5pm-7pm, Grimond Room,
Portcullis House
Dear colleagues,
I am pleased to invite you to an event we are holding in
association with Amnesty International to discuss the issue of
doing business with Israeli settlements in the Occupied
Palestinian Territories.
Amnesty International recently published its briefing on doing
business with Israeli settlements. The briefing can be
found here. Businesses
operating in or with the Israeli settlements benefit from
discriminatory policies that have a direct negative impact on
Palestinians. Not only do businesses in these areas help the
Israeli government to maintain and expand the settlements, but
they directly profit off the discrimination that is at the heart
of those settlements.
The event will hear from representatives of several NGOs who are
experts on the issue of business with Israeli settlements.
Hopefully the meeting will also hear an update on the case of
Omar Shakir, the Director of Human Rights Watch in Israel and the
Occupied Palestinian Territories. The Israeli Government is
seeking to deport him in response to the work that Human Rights
Watch has done to highlight the impact that international
business dealings with illegal settlements have on the human
rights of Palestinians.
Peter Frankental is the
Economic Relations Programme Director of Amnesty International
UK. He previously worked in the private sector, the NHS and the
not-for-profit-sector. He has undertaken postgraduate studies at
the London School of Economics, the Institute of Latin American
Studies, and the Institute of Commonwealth Studies. Peter has
been an adviser to the International Commission of Jurists panel
on corporate complicity in international crimes and was on the
Steering Group of a three-year research project to develop a
methodology for human rights impact assessments and apply it to
five case studies of affected communities. He has served on
the Boards of several NGOs including the Corporate Responsibility
Coalition (CORE), the Business and Human Rights Resource Centre,
London Mining Network and Music in Detention, an organisation
that runs music workshops in Immigration Detention Centres.
Mark Dummett is a business and
human rights researcher with Amnesty International. He has led
Amnesty’s work on the impacts on the rights of Palestinians of
digital tourism promoting accommodation and activities in and
around Israeli settlements.
Tareq Shourou is the director
of Lawyers for Palestinian Human Rights (LPHR), a legal charity
in the UK that works on key projects to protect and promote
Palestinian human rights. Before becoming LPHR's first director
in 2013, Tareq was a human rights solicitor in London
acting for asylum claimants, unaccompanied children and survivors
of human trafficking, and co-managed the public advice service of
the human rights organisation, Liberty. He holds an LLM in Public
International Law from King's College London.
Ryvka Barnard is the Senior
Campaigns Officer for Militarism and Security at War on Want,
where she runs campaigns focused on human rights abuses
associated with the growing power of the military and security
industry, with a special focus on the UK’s arms trade. Ryvka has
a PhD in Middle Eastern Studies from New York
University.
For any queries or to RSVP, simply reply to me or alternatively
contact Sinéad Harrington in my office at sinead.harrington@parliament.uk or
on 0207 219 2318.
Best wishes,
MP
Chair, Britain-Palestine All Party Parliamentary Group
richard.burden.mp@parliament.uk
