Population control

https://whoprofits.org/involvement/control-of-population/

This category of involvement encompasses corporate involvement in Israel’s brutal, restrictive and increasingly institutionalized systems of control over Palestinian and Syrian communities.

Since its 1967 occupation of Palestinian and Syrian land, Israel developed an intricate system of oppression combining military force, technology, infrastructure and regulations to exert control over Palestinian and Syrian populations and further entrench control over land and resources. Populations living under Israel’s military rule are denied basic civil liberties and subject to arbitrary repressive violence by the Israeli military, police force and private security personnel.

In the occupied West Bank, around two and a half million Palestinians live within a complex mosaic of areas carved through the 1993 Oslo Accords. Under the Accords the West Bank was divided into three administrative areas (A, B, and C). Area A makes up 17% of the West Bank and is nominally under full Palestinian control. Area B, 22% of the West Bank, is under the full administrative control of the Palestinian Authority but under the military control of Israel. Area C, which comprises 61% of the West Bank, is under the full control of Israel through the Civil (Military) Administration in the West Bank.

These areas are separated and surrounded by a system of roadblocks, fences, walls and barriers, terminals and checkpoints, as well as Israeli settlements and roads designated for the exclusive use of Israelis. The movement of Palestinians between roadblocks and the separate areas is controlled by an elaborate permits regime. Further, Palestinians from the West Bank and Gaza require special permits to enter into areas annexed to Jerusalem and Jerusalem itself. Permits are allocated by the Israeli authorities according to secret security and economic considerations. Hundreds of thousands of Palestinians are blacklisted and cannot pass any checkpoints, including for travel inside their own enclave to the next town or to the surrounding area.

In the Gaza Strip, around two million people have been living under an Israeli imposed land, air, and sea siege since 2007. Movement of people, goods and services in or out of Gaza is almost completely blocked; on-going military attacks cause mounting casualties and infrastructure destruction. The United Nations declared that Gaza will be an ‘unlivable’ place by 2020 if the siege continues.

This control of population and arbitrary movement restrictions separates families, severely limit the Palestinians' access to health care, education and employment, and hinders Palestinian economic development.

Israel also utilizes its force and technology to survey and intimidate populations, as well as to quell any form of political activity and resistance, including the routine and officially sanctioned use of live fire on civilian demonstrators. Israeli military and police forces routinely raid homes looking to intimidate, arrest or assassinate activists and militants on both sides of the Green Line.

Collective punishments in the form of military assaults, house demolitions, curfews, closures and mass arrests are common. Presently, there are around 7,000 Palestinian political prisoners in Israeli incarceration centers. Hundreds are held under “administrative detention”, i.e., without having been charged, tried or sentenced.

Who Profits has identified three sub-categories of corporate involvement in Israel’s Population Control: Private Security and Surveillance Technology, which refers to corporate involvement in Israel’s growing Private Security and Surveillance Technology industries; The Wall and Checkpoints, which refers to Israel’s intricate mechanisms of control, physical segregation and restrictions on movement of Palestinians in the oPt; and, Specialized Equipment and Services, which refers to corporate involvement in the provision of services and equipment it the Israeli military and security apparatus