Today, the Palestinian Youth Movement (PYM) announced the new transnational arms embargo campaign, ‘Mask Off Maersk’, targeting Maersk, the world’s largest integrated logistics and shipping company. Organisers aim to end Maersk’s pervasive role in the transportation and supply of weapons and weapons components used by Israel in its genocide against the Palestinian people in Gaza.
Since October, the Danish shipping and logistics giant has transported over $300 million in weapons components from around the world, including Europe, to U.S. arms manufacturers . This accounts for a full quarter of known U.S. shipments to Northrup Gruman, Woodward, RTX/Raytheon, and Lockheed Martin since the beginning of the current genocide in Gaza. With 68% of weapon sales to Israel coming from the U.S., Maersk is integral to the global flow of arms that sustains the Israeli occupation forces’ current bombardment of and ground operations in Gaza.
‘Although 68% of weapon sales to Israel come from the U.S., we know that the UK Government is complicit, with over £448 million worth of arms licenced to Israel since 2015. In addition, we know that critical components of the F-35 fighter jet that is currently being used to massacre Palestinians in Gaza are manufactured here in Britain,’ said PYM’s Nadya Tannous. She added that, ‘Maersk ships weapons and weapons components, meaning Maersk actively facilitates the flow of weapons to Israel. Maersk subsequently guarantees the consistent supply necessary for the destruction of Gaza’.
In the campaign announcement at the People’s Conference for Palestine in Detroit, Michigan, PYM highlighted the International Court of Justice (ICJ)’s injunction for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, which raises the issue of Maersk’s liability in flouting the order of a court that has binding jurisdiction over Denmark, the country where Maersk is headquartered. The legal consensus reached by the court, as well as the injunction itself, is binding upon all ICJ members, including Copenhagen: By continuing to circumvent the ICJ’s ruling through its shipment of weapons to Israel, Maersk is guilty under international law of aiding and abetting an occupying power that has been found to be actively engaged in the indiscriminate targeting of a besieged civilian population.
‘Arms manufacturers outsource the production of weapons components, like the wings for fighter jets, ammunition, and engines. These components are then placed on a shipping container and brought to weapons manufacturing facilities, where they are assembled then shipped to Israel to conduct the genocide of Palestinians. Logistics companies play an invisible but insidious and central role in making and profiting off the weapons that Israel uses to kill Palestinians. The mask is off. The people must demonstrate what the true cost is of supporting genocide’, said Tannous.
The international campaign will bring together labour unions, student movements, community-based organisations, legal organisations, and other pro-Palestinian and progressive organisations, to exert pressure on Maersk to end their complicity in the arms trade supply chain to Israel, which represent a small portion of their overall business portfolio. The campaign will take up a multi-tiered strategy against Maersk, including pension and endowment divestment, labour action, pickets and direct action, legal campaigns, and cancellation of existing city and campus collaborations.
The PYM invites organisations to endorse the Mask Off Maersk campaign, and individuals to sign the petition in support of the campaign’s demands:
- Ending the transportation of weapons and weapons components.
- Cutting all contracts that fuel the genocide of the Palestinian people.
- The implementation of an arms embargo to end the genocide.
