Thread by @gaychelquacker

.@GeneralMills’ Pillsbury factory in the Atarot Industrial Zone, an illegal Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem, is displacing, exploiting & stifling Palestinians—making it complicit in Israel's occupation & annexation of the West Bank. INFO THREAD! #PillsburyOutOfPalestine
1/17

I’m tweeting this today to lift up the work of @BDSmovement, @jvplive, @afsc_org, @fosnalive & more who started the #BoycottPillsbury / #PillsburyOutOfPalestine campaign. They’re doing an action at Pillsbury HQ in Minneapolis in a few hours, so follow them for updates!
2/17

Atarot was founded in 1970 on land illegally occupied in the 1967 war & confiscated from Palestinians in the years after (& to this day). Under Israel's auspices, over 160 Israeli & int'l companies now abuse this formerly-agricultural terrain—and its inhabitants—for profit.
3/17

Pillsbury opened in Atarot in 2002, just after Israel built its apartheid wall around the whole zone. The wall & its checkpoints, visible from the 160 businesses they encircle, are a constant reminder of how Atarot helps Israel dominate Palestinian lives, livelihoods & land.
4/17

Shortly after its opening & again in 2010 & 2019, Pillsbury got multimillion dollar grants from the Israeli gov’t as an incentive to hire workers. In exchange, Israel got a place to employ Jewish settlers in Atarot & therefore a justification for relocating them to the area.
5/17

By employing settlers, industrial settlements sustain & grow residential settlements—and, by extension, enable Israel’s annexation of the West Bank. Israeli gov't rhetoric & policies explicitly emphasize the economic role of industrial zones in its annexation strategy.
6/17

In fact, earlier this year, Israel announced plans to build 9,000 new housing units for Jewish settlers in Atarot—on land that even *Trump's* "peace plan" designates for Palestinians. This project would require the demolition of at least 15 Palestinian homes.
7/17

Meanwhile, as in all of East Jerusalem, Palestinians can’t build anything of their own; Israel makes it tortuous & expensive for them to get construction permits. An Atarot resident said “We are not allowed to build on the land surrounding our house, even though we own it.”
8/17

The Pillsbury factory also employs Palestinians, a fact General Mills leaned on in its PR statement after the UN determined that the factory’s operations violate international law. But Palestinian settlement workers endure exceptional exploitation, precarity & restrictions.
9/17

Because the Atarot Industrial Zone ravaged & suppressed pre-existing Palestinian agriculture & small businesses, local Palestinian workers—often the immediate descendants of the rightful owners of the land—have no choice but to labor in factories like Pillsbury’s.
10/17

Palestinians' jobs can be grueling & unsafe—and, under Israel’s apartheid legal system, they often have fewer labor protections, lower wages & negligible benefits compared to Israelis in the same workplace. In an occupation-strangled economy, they accept this to survive.
11/17

The chasm between Palestinian & Israeli workers in Atarot has only widened during COVID-19. Ex: due to fear of checkpoint closures—and to union bust—a manager forced Palestinians to sleep in a trash-sorting plant in squalid & infectious conditions while Israelis went home.
12/17

Trash is a chronic hazard in Atarot. While Palestinian homes are surrounded by trash from Israeli & int'l factories and the city of Jerusalem, they're denied their own municipal waste service. A resident said her “70yo husband throws up from the smell” of trash everywhere.
13/17

Pillsbury increases Atarot’s heavy pollution, which exceeds “permissible levels” 2/3 of the year. Many Palestinian locals have respiratory issues from flour inhalation. One said “when they pour the flour [in outdoor mixers], the flour… overflow[s] into the house.”
14/17

Palestinians’ lives in Atarot are slated to worsen with the Jerusalem 5800 Plan, which by 2050 aims to overhaul Atarot into a “gigantic center of employment” for 400,000 people all over Israel. @GeneralMills can help stop this disaster by closing its Pillsbury factory now.
15/17

How can *you* help? #BoycottPillsbury and sign @jvplive’s petition to @GeneralMills at PillsburyOutOfPalestine.org. GM has endorsed—and violated, according to the UN itself—the UN Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights, so we have some leverage. Let’s use it!
16/17

Thanks to @alhaq_org & @afsc_org for providing the information & some of the photos I used in this thread. Check out Al-Haq’s report (alhaq.org/publications/1…) & AFSC’s primer (afsc.org/blogs/news-and…) for more.
17/17