A Financial Times report on Friday revealed that Amazon has been accused of discriminatory action against Palestinians by offering a promotional discount to Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
The e-commerce giant introduced the free shipping campaign soon after it began operations in Israel in November. The terms of the campaign allowed only customers with addresses in Israel and its settlements in the West Bank to receive deliveries free of charge for orders above $49. However, it left out customers who selected “Palestinian Territories” in their addresses and slapped them with shipping costs of around $24 for orders in the same area.
Amazon spokesperson Nick Caplin confirmed the allegations, saying that customers from the Palestinian Territories can avail the free shipping promotion if they select Israel as the country in their address. But Caplin also insisted that there is nothing deliberately prejudiced about the promotion and that the delivery costs on Palestinian shipments are merely logistical requirements due to the additional customs inspections at the Israel-controlled border.
This discrepancy in Amazon’s services has fuelled outrage that the firm is picking a side in a decades-long, extremely complex geopolitical issue. According to the pro-Palestine International Solidarity Movement, this is not the first time Amazon has supported Israel in the conflict.
Peace Now, a rights group, told FT that the division in Amazon’s services “adds to the overall picture of one group of people enjoying the privileges of citizenship while another people living in the same territory do not”, while a human rights lawyer said that the policy is tantamount to blatant discrimination of potential customers on the basis of their national identity.
This news also comes a few days after the United Nations published a list of 112 companies engaged in business activities with Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian land as a response to a 2016 OHCHR resolution that called for the creation of this database. The report listed American companies like Motorola, TripAdvisor, and Airbnb. Amazon, however, was not included.
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