Sound The Trumpet : Financial Giant Swift Rejects Israel Sanctions Call

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“Financial Giant Swift Rejects Israel Sanctions Call”
by Arutz Sheva
October 7th, 2014

Belgium-based financial transfer services giant 'regrets' international pressure put on it to boycott Israel, refuses to do so.

Anti-Israel boycott movement (file)

Reuters

SWIFT, the Belgium-based financial transfer services giant, announced on Monday that it has received calls to disconnect Israel from its network - calls by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement which it will ignore.

The massive system, whose name stands for the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication, and which connects over 10,500 banks, financial institutions and corporations in over 200 countries, addressed the issue in a statement on its website Monday.

"SWIFT and its stakeholders have received calls to disconnect institutions and entire countries from its network - most recently Israel and Russia," read the message.

The financial giant stated it "is a neutral global cooperative company set up under Belgian law," and therefore "will not make unilateral decisions to disconnect institutions from its network as a result of political pressure."

The statement added "SWIFT regrets the pressure, as well as the surrounding media speculation, both of which risk undermining the systemic character of the services that SWIFT provides... As a utility with a systemic global character, it has no authority to make sanctions decisions."

"SWIFT will not respond to individual calls and pressure to disconnect financial institutions from its network," emphasized the group.

BDS, as a global movement against Israel, has called far and wide for the cutting of all ties with the Jewish state, particularly in Judea and Samaria. That is despite the fact that Israel's presence in the area is legal under international law, and that even the Palestinian Authority (PA) has admitted Arab workers enjoy better pay and conditions under local Jewish businesses.

The statement added that as a service based in the European Union (EU), SWIFT's policy is compliant with European law, meaning that "any decision to impose sanctions on countries or individual entities rests solely with the competent government bodies and applicable legislators."

EU's policy led SWIFT to impose sanctions in the past, namely against Iran in March 2012, as part of the global sanctions pressure to encourage the Islamic regime to drop its nuclear program. That result has yet to be achieved, with talks continuing ahead of a November 24 deadline.

As for SWIFT's mention of Russia alongside Israel, that refers to calls to boycott the country which gained momentum in August as a means of imposing sanctions for Russian actions in Ukraine.

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