We won’t accept PayPal’s discrimination against Palestinians!
PayPal refuses to offer its services to Palestinians living in the occupied Palestinian territories, while Israelis next door in illegal settlements have full access to PayPal’s international transactions. Join us today and tell PayPal to stop discriminating against Palestinians!
ActionAid has been raising our concerns with the CEO of PayPal since January 2017, but so far he hasn’t responded. PayPal hasn’t listened to the call of thousands of Palestinians to open up the company’s services to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.
ActionAid has been raising our concerns with the CEO of PayPal since January 2017, but so far he hasn’t responded. PayPal hasn’t listened to the call of thousands of Palestinians to open up the company’s services to Palestinians living under Israeli occupation.
We need your help to amplify our message. Here are two things you can do right now:
- Tell PayPal to stop discriminating against Palestinians. Sign our petition!
- Add your voice to the hundreds of thousands already calling for PayPal to make its services available to Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, and stop servicing companies and individuals in illegal Israeli settlements in Palestine. Amplify our message on social media using the hashtag #PayPal4Palestine.
Why Do We Want #PayPal4Palestine?
PayPal has become the default method of online payment for many people living in the 200+ jurisdictions where it does business. Among those is Israel – which PayPal considers to include the illegal Israeli settlements on the occupied Palestinian territories.
PayPal’s discriminatory practices prevent Palestinian businesses and individuals from processing payments through one of the most common payment methods, limiting their opportunities for economic growth. PayPal’s failure to provide services to Palestinians living under the occupation is having serious repercussions for Palestinian businesses and graduates looking for jobs.
Palestine has one of the highest youth unemployment rates in the world, and the tech sector is one of the few industries that is growing, even under Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza. But the industry’s growth is being obstructed, with Palestinian tech companies struggling to make or receive international online payments.
This puts the tech sector at a substantial disadvantage, leaving it unable to absorb the thousands of young Palestinian “techies” who graduate from university every year.
At the heart of this campaign, we want PayPal to respect the rights of Palestinians. Over 38% of people in Palestine are living in poverty, while prosperous Israeli settlements lie just meters from those struggling to survive. These settlements, built on stolen Palestinian land, are illegal under international law. They breach the fourth Geneva Convention, which prohibits an occupying power from moving its civilian population into a territory it occupies. This illegal status was reconfirmed in UN Security Council Resolution 2334 of December 23, 2016.
PayPal has a responsibility to respect human rights. It must address any adverse human rights impacts linked to their business practices in line with the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights (UNGP). PayPal shouldn’t be knowingly complicit in violations of international humanitarian law by servicing companies and individuals in the illegal settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.
PayPal has done the right thing in the past – and together we can push the company do the right thing again. In North Carolina, PayPal scrapped plans for a major operations center in protest of an unjust law that took away protections for the LGBTQ+ community. If we come together now, we can show PayPal that it can expand its market, help the 2,000 IT graduates Palestine produces every year to find work, and end the growing backlash among politicians, tech companies and concerned PayPal users like us.
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