Boycott Israel News: Protesting Hewlett Packard's complicity in Israel's war crimes, dungeons and torture dens

New campaign launched against Hewlett Packard for complicity in Israel's war crimes. HP implements and manages the server farm for the entire Israeli army and Ministry of Defense and provides Israeli prisons and interrogation centres the systems and servers needed to keep them operational.

For the past two years we have campaigned against G4S - picketing their G4S HQ in London, for its complicity with the Israeli occupation - in particular securing of Israel prisons and interrogation centres where torture of young children is rampant. In June 2014 G4S finally relented and announced it is to pull out of Israeli prisons completely when its existing contracts end within the next three years.

Whilst the G4S campaign continues until the day G4S actually ends all its contracts with the occupation, we are now extending the Palestinian Prisoners Campaign by opening a second front against another company complicit in the occupation and in particular in helping keep Israels Prisons operational - Hewlett-Packard. We launched the campaign with a picket of Hewlett-Packard's central offices in London at 88 Wood Street near St.Pauls on friday 26th September 2014.

The Protest

As the workers from the HP offices exited to go home we read out the charge sheet against HP and leafleted the workers. Most took the leaflet and folded it away for studying later. We did encounter a couple of zionists - one simply regurgitated standard hasbra lines parrot fashion. Whilst facing the photo of one year old Noha Mesleh in his burial shroud, who was murdered with 15 others when a UN school in Beit Hanoun was deliberately targeted by Israel just two months ago, this zionist had the audacity to say "what about the Hamas rockets?". Of course he was totally lost on anything outside his hasbra crib sheet. The other zionist was even more pathetic, he made sexual gestures with his hands and then took his wallet out and waved it at us as if to say 'this is my conscience'. It reminded me of the coal miners strike of the 1980's when Thatcher tried to starve the strikers by cutting all benefits and the police facing the picket line would shamefully take their wallets out and wave 20 pound notes at the miners to say 'whilst your children are starving, we are getting double overtime pay'.

Boycott Hewlett-Packard

HP is more than an office supplies and printers company, they are one of the top 20 defense contractors in the US with arms* sales worth $3 billion in 2011. They specialize in developing the IT infrastructure that is essential for the military to function.

Whilst Hewlett-Packard(HP) operates in 178 countries around the world in HP's own words "Israel is one of the few countries where HP has a massive presence.. In the past decade, HP has invested over $6 billion in the acquisition of Israeli companies, including the establishment of production plants.. HP is the second largest investor in Israeli IT."

HP provides IT backbone to Israeli Military

HP is more than an office supplies and printers company, they are one of the top 20 defense contractors in the US with arms sales worth $3 billion in 2011*. They specialize in developing the IT infrastructure that is essential for the military to function.

In 2011 HP won Israel's largest ever servers tender, worth an estimated $140 million. Under the tender HP implements and manages the entire server farm of the Ministry of Defense and the Israeli army for 5 years (contract ends in 2016). Those HP servers form the IT backbone of the entire Israeli war machine making HP complicit in Israel's war crimes.

HP has been equipping the Israeli military since 2006 when it was first contracted to provided the IT infrastructure for the Israeli navy, a “virtualization project” which was used by the Israeli military as a pilot for implementing the same system to the entire army. HP is thereby assisting the illegal naval blockade of Gaza which also began in 2006. In 2009 HP won the contract to supply all computer equipment to the Israeli military. In another contract HP supply configuration management database system for the Israeli Army's secret IT unit. Currently HP is implementing and assimilating an enterprise resource planning and management system for the Israeli Army (2011-2015).

HP helping Israels dungeons and torture dens to operate

Hewlett Packard is also providing essential IT services and infrastructural that enable the Israeli Prison Service (IPS)** to function.

Everyday Israel abducts and cages 2 children as young as 12 years old. Human rights groups have documented the brutal torture of children as standard practice during interrogations in order to coerce confessions, usually to stone throwing which carries a sentence of up to 20 years imprisonment. Today there are over 6000 Palestinian political prisoners, including women and children, imprisoned by the Israeli Prison Service - many locked up without even a charge let alone a trial. 72 Palestinian prisoners have been tortured to death in Israeli prisons since 1967. The latest being father of five young children, Raed Abdul-Salam al-Jabari, who was died following interrogation at Eshel prison on 9th Sep 2014. he had been arrested over a simple car accident involving an illegal Israeli settler. The IPS claimed he had comitted suicide by hanging himself in his cell but the autopsy revealed he had been savagely tortured with repeated blows to the head and face causing brain hemorrhage. His neck showed no signs of hanging.

In an ongoing contract (until 2016), worth millions of dollars, HP provides the Israeli prison service the systems and servers needed to keep it operational. In 2012 HP provided the central servers for the operational system of the IPS ("Tzohar") and its ongoing maintenance. In a contract worth $35 million, HP developed the Kidma information system for the IPS which includes the prisoners management system and intelligence subs systems, helping the occupation keep illegal records on Palestinians it has abducted and their families. HP has also executed a project for e-mail storage and archive for the IPS.

HP helping the occupation implement apartheid

HP has developed and maintained the Basel System - a biometric access control system with hand and facial recognition, which is used by Israel at illegal checkpoints deep inside occupied territory to restrict and control Palestinian freedom of movement in their own land. It forms part of the separation wall apparatus declared illegal by the International Court of Justice in 2004.

HP also provided services to the illegal settlements, in particular Modi'in Illit and Ariel. This includes a data storage system for the municipality of Ariel as part of the "Smart City" project.

*Arms sales defined as goods & services designed specifically for military purpose and doesn't include general purpose equipment like office computers. Figure may be underestimate as it doesn't include classified contracts. Src: Stockholm International Peace Research Institute

**We would especially like to thank WhoProfits.org for the research they have conducted on HP, in particular their freedom of information requests that have revealed the extent on HP's complicity with the Israeli Prison Service.

SPEECH: Hewlett-Packard Complicity in Israel's War Crimes

We are here today outside the London offices of Hewlett Packard to demand Hewlett Packard stop its complicity in Israel's war crimes.

Most people think of HP as an innocent office supplies and printer company, but the reality is far darker. HP is one of the top 20 arms companies in the US with arms sales worth $3 billion in 2011. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute has done the research and when they say arms sales they define that as goods & services designed specifically for military purpose and doesn't include general purpose equipment like office computers. They also state that the figure may be underestimate as it doesn't include classified contracts that HP might be involved in.

In HP's own words "Israel is one of the few countries where HP has a massive presence.. In the past decade, HP has invested over $6 billion in the acquisition of Israeli companies, including the establishment of production plants.. HP is the second largest investor in Israeli IT."

HP implements and manages the server farm for the entire Israeli army and Ministry of Defense - Israel's largest server tender worth $140 million . Those HP servers form the IT backbone of the entire Israeli war machine which has been found guilty of war crimes and possible crimes against humanity by the UN Human Rights Council.