Thousands pledge to boycott AXA over complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation
6,400 individuals and 300+ organizations have already pledged to boycott AXA, a French multinational insurance company, over its complicity in Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine and settlement enterprise.
A growing coalition of groups in Europe and worldwide has been campaigning since 2018 for AXA to divest from Israeli banks financing Israel’s illegal settlements and from Israeli arms manufacturer Elbit Systems.
The online action opposing AXA’s complicity comes as Israeli occupation is accelerating its seizure of Palestinian land and ethnic cleansing of Palestinian communities, and moving forward with construction of record numbers of illegal settlements on stolen Palestinian land.
AXA invests $7 million in three Israeli banks – Bank Leumi, Israeli Discount Bank and Mizrahi Tefahot Bank – that finance Israel’s illegal settlements.
All three are named in the UN database of companies that are complicit in Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise.
AXA also maintains a 9% stake in Equitable Holdings, a company which invests in these Israeli banks and in Elbit Systems, a leading Israeli arms manufacturer involved in Israeli war crimes against Palestinians.
By maintaining investments in Israeli banks and in Elbit Systems, campaigners say, AXA is also contradicting its stated commitments to corporate responsibility.
In June 2020, the Stop AXA Assistance to Israeli Apartheid Coalition learnt that AXA had tripled its investments in the three complicit Israeli banks reaching nearly $7M.
Already 6,400 individuals and 300+ organizations have pledged to boycott AXA, and many people have canceled their AXA insurance policies.
US scholar and activist Noam Chomsky is among those who sign the pledge and join the campaign “to boycott AXA by refusing to buy its insurance products “until AXA ends its support for Israeli apartheid against the Palestinian people.”
In the pledge to boycott AXA, Chomsky said, “Israeli settlement in the West Bank is a criminal enterprise, even apart from the daily severe abuses. Any support for it is participation in a major and ongoing criminal enterprise. Withdrawal of such support by boycott and divestment is the only honorable course.”
US academic and activist Noam Chomsky pledged to boycott @AXA due to its support for Israeli settlement, which he calls “a criminal enterprise.”
Join him and 12,000 other people pledged to #BoycottAXA until it ends complicity in apartheid ➡️ https://t.co/3XbJjxV8mc pic.twitter.com/aANEV4NLa5
— BDS movement (@BDSmovement) May 30, 2021
“We are close to reaching our first goal of 10,000 boycott pledges. We are also looking for more organizations that use insurance and are ready to commit not to use AXA’s services,” says the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) Movement, which leads the campaign.
