This letter was received by a friend of Israellycool. It comes from the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) organisation WhoProfits:
Here’s the start:
1. “WhoProfits” is a research center dedicated to exposing the commercial involvement of companies in the continued Israeli control over Palestinian and Syrian land.
2. As part of the organization’s activities we publish information about commercial involvement in the territories occupied by Israel in 1967. Our website is open to the public and available at www.whoprofits.org.
3. We plan to include the following information about your company on our website and printed publications:
I do love their specific attention to detail regarding “Syrian land” because handing the Golan heights over to Islamic State would be a great option right now. I’m sure they’d continue the fine viniculture up there and carry on our important work of giving medical care to Syrians wounded in their war.
But I digress, the answer going back to this pernicious organisation is a great one:
Text from Galshan:
January 24, 2016
“The Who Profits Research Team”
P.O. Box 1084
Tel Aviv, 6101001To whom it may concern,
We received your letter dated January 5th, 2016 requesting a response regarding our company’s details and activities.
We find it disturbing that the letter was not signed by an individual but rather by “The Who Profits Research Team”, which leads us to think that you may be concerned that your activities may be illegal, hypocritical or morally bankrupt and thus you are ashamed to expose your real names. As a result, we deliberated whether to respond or not but decided that because we are proud of the work our company does and our loyal employees, Jews, Arabs and Druze among them, we would be honored to have our company listed on your website.
Galshan Shvakim is a privately owned company based in Jerusalem. It offers services in the fields of security, personnel and cleaning. We also employ women and thus would prefer not to be labeled by the antiquated, non-gender inclusive term, “manpower.”
Our company provides security and guarding services to the numerous communities and cities in the State of Israel including Jerusalem, Abu Ghosh, Bat Yam, Ma’ale Efraim, Mevaserret Zion, Beitar Illit, Modi’in Illit, Kiryat Arba, Givat Ze’ev and Hashmonaim and more.
Last year, the company even competed in a tender to provide guarding services to educational facilities in east Jerusalem. If we had won this contract, we would have been responsible for the safety of the Arab children in these facilities, many of whom you would probably define as palestinians. I wonder how your organization would characterize such activities. If we are protecting innocent Arab children is that also considered “profiting from the occupation?” or is it only when we protect Jewish children that we are worthy of inclusion on your website?
Just a few weeks ago, a guard employed by our company was injured in the course of duty while protecting the entrance to Beitar Illit. His quick response prevented an armed Arab terrorist from entering the town and attacking innocents. We hate to think what may have happened if the aforementioned terrorist had managed to enter a school or kindergarten. We are sure that you could agree that having a guard prevented this happening and we would like to believe that your organization is not in favor of children being knifed to death by terrorists.
We view ourselves, in a way, as a human-rights firm, protecting all individuals without regard to race, religion, gender or religion.
We thus do not regard our company, Galshan Shvakim, as profiting from the “occupation” – rather the fact is that in this region, unfortunately, there is a vehement hatred, fueled by incessant incitement and blatant anti-Semitism, that means that innocent men, women and children are the target of violence by terrorists and thus need protection.
This type of terror is not a result of the “occupation,” proof of this being evidenced by recent violent terror attacks events in locations that were not “occupied by Israel in 1967,” such as Tel Aviv and Ra’anana.
Ironically, as an organization that asks for and receives monetary donations, it seems that you are directly profiting from the “occupation” in a much more direct way than our company. We find this hypocrisy very disturbing as we find the whole concept of your organization.
Sincerely,
Moran Raz
Director-General
Just a little more on this organisation Whoprofits all from NGO Monitor. As you can see here they get a lot of money to spread this hate (₪1m is about $250k USD):
- Website: http://www.whoprofits.org; registered Israeli Amuta (non-profit organization) in 2007.
- Founded “as a research project of the Coalition of Women for Peace (CWP) – a feminist, Palestinian-Jewish organization devoted to the struggle against the occupation…” and “in response to the Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS)movement” against Israel.
- In 2013, “in light of the expansion of Who Profitsand its increasing professionalization as a research center, the project separated from CWP and became an independent organization. Who Profits and CWP continue to collaborate as sister organizations.”
- Co-founder Dalit Baum was a former board member of radical Israeli NGO Zochrot, which was established with the aim of “rais[ing] public awareness of the Palestinian Nakba” and “recognizing and materializing the right of return,” meaning the end of Israel as a Jewish state. Baum was also coordinator of the Middle East program of the American Friends Service Committee (AFSC), which actively promotes BDS, utilizes “apartheid” analogies, and advocates the so-called Palestinian right of return.
- Baum testified as an “expert” to the notorious “Russell Tribunal on Palestine,” a mock trial putting Israel and its Western allies “on trial” and promoting“existing legal actions and campaigns in the context of BDS to be stepped up and widened within the EU and globally” against Israel.
I also had a little look to see how much attention their website gets, the one where they will mark our friend’s company as “profiting from occupation”. The phrase “crickets” comes to mind. Using the Israeli company SimilarWeb (which I thoroughly recommend above non-Israeli competitors) I checked out how much traffic they receive:
Yup, 3,000 visits last month. Just incase you were wondering Israellycool is north of 240,000 visits last month.
