The decision by French telecom group Orange to withdraw from Israel has stung Tel Aviv and for good reason. The global boycott effort which Israel is growing increasingly concerned about is working and the impact on its image abroad is taking its toll. However, it would have been better, politically speaking, had Orange made it clearer why it has decided to end its brand-licensing agreement with Partner, Israel's second-largest mobile operator. Stephane Richard, the chief executive of Orange, insists that the decision was not politically motivated, and that he was unaware of “a kind of international campaign regarding this”. But Richard and his aides must certainly have heard of illegal Jewish settlements on captured Palestinian territory. This is what this whole issue is about. What would make the French government, which partly controls Orange, put out a statement that the position of France and the European Union on settlements “is consistent and widely known" - that Israeli settlements in occupied territory are illegal – right after the Orange decision was announced? Surely, there must be a connection between the Orange decision and the settlements. And although the Orange boss did not directly refer to Jewish settlements, his decision came after the publication on May 6 of a report accusing the telecoms giant of indirectly supporting settlement activity through its relationship with Partner. Compiled by five mainly French NGOs and two trade unions, the report accuses Partner of building on confiscated Palestinian land, and urges Orange to cut business ties and publicly declare its desire to avoid contributing to the economic viability of the settlements. In addition, France in June 2014 issued a warning to French investors that investments in Israeli settlement areas carried legal risks. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and other Israeli officials are accusing Orange of folding to Palestinian pressure. That is good news for the Palestinians, particularly Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions because it means the movement is working. BDS is doing better than what was thought as the rising tide of sanctions sought by BDS is having an effect on Israel's relations with the world. Israel fears diplomatic and economic isolation because of the stagnation of talks on founding a Palestinian state in territories it occupies and settlement construction in those areas. These twin problems created by Israel will soon lead the European Union, for one example, to ask member states to clearly label goods produced in captured territories. Economic sanctions led by BDS are one of the few means to pressure Netanyahu to make territorial concessions to the Palestinians. It is true that the economic impact might be relatively small; it is the political implications that Israel fears most. Netanyahu is furious over the Orange decision, slamming it as "miserable", but by calling on the French government to publicly renounce the decision, he is also interfering in the affairs of the French government. As French Foreign Minister Laurent Fabius pointed out, Orange is free to define its own policy and it is for the president of the Orange group to determine the company's commercial strategy. In the end, we will take Orange's word that, citing its own brand development strategy, it did not wish to maintain a brand presence in countries in which it is not an operator, and that politics had nothing to do with its decision. However, the end result is the same. Partner, which is building infrastructure on confiscated Palestinian land and offers services to settlers and the Israeli army, has been hit, and so has Israel.
