Bethlehem / PNN/

The pro-Palestine Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement has launched a worldwide campaign for a mass consumer boycott of the France-based multinational retailer Carrefour Group.

In a Monday statement, the Palestinian National Committee to Boycott Israel, the largest coalition of Palestinian political parties leading the BDS movement, accused the company of being “deeply implicated in apartheid Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise, which constitutes a war crime under international law.”

Fiona Ben Chekroun, the Europe coordinator for the BDS movement, called for the escalation of campaigns to boycott the Israeli companies involved in settlement construction across the occupied West Bank.

“We are calling for a global boycott of Carrefour Group and for divestment from it until it ends this criminal partnership with these two complicit Israeli companies and stops all sales of products from illegal Israeli settlements in its supermarkets and convenience stores.”

The Carrefour Group has recently signed a franchise agreement with Israeli companies Electra Consumer Products and its subsidiary Yenot Bitan, both active in Israeli settlements.

“Carrefour’s decision to do business with Israel’s illegal settlement enterprise makes it complicit in war crimes committed by the Israeli regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid over the Indigenous Palestinian people,” Chekroun said.

As a multinational retailer, Carrefour Group has more than 3,400 stores worldwide.

Rita Ahmad, the BDS Arab World Campaigns Coordinator, said boycott can pressure the company to end this complicity.

“Israel can only maintain its regime of settler colonialism and apartheid over the Palestinian people through support from governments, companies and institutions that need to be held accountable for their role in entrenching a decades-old racist regime of injustice and oppression.”

“Carrefour relies on its image and reputation to win clients. Effective grassroots campaigning exposing Carrefour’s complicity in Israeli war crimes against Indigenous Palestinians can pressure the company to end this complicity.”

The BDS movement calls for people and groups across the world to cut economic, cultural and academic ties to Tel Aviv and help promote the Palestinian cause. Since 2005, the boycott campaign has sought to sanction all Israeli products made in the occupied Palestinian land. The movement has been so successful in causing economic damage to Israel that pro-Israel groups have labeled it “an existential threat.”