Washington -
Human rights organizations have called on the electronic payment services company PayPal 9 - which is headquartered in San Jose, California - to end its "discriminatory" policy that prevents Palestinians from using its financial service in the occupied territories in the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.
In a letter to the company's director, a coalition of human rights groups, including the Palestine Solidarity Campaign and the Jewish Voice for Peace, called on the company not to contribute to human rights abuses against Palestinians by failing to provide its services to them.
More than 5 million Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza Strip cannot access PayPal, while all Israelis, even those residing in illegal settlements, have full access to it.
PayPal provides its services in 203 countries, including settlements, and excludes 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza Strip (Reuters)
Pressure campaign on the company
As of three o'clock in the afternoon, Washington time, 178,000 people signed an electronic petition asking the company to extend its services to the Palestinian territories. The signatories expressed their anger and accused the company of racism and human rights violations.
PayPal provides its main services represented in the electronic payment system via the Internet in 203 countries in the world, with the transfer of trade all over the world to online payment systems, and the exclusion of Palestinians from the company's services is greatly detrimental to them and contributes to paralyzing the Palestinian economy.
Recent reports issued by Palestinian digital rights organizations shed light on the failure of PayPal to work in Palestine and its repercussions on Palestinian companies, especially in the Palestinian technology sector.
The technology sector is one of the few industries that has the potential to grow in light of the Israeli occupation of Gaza and the West Bank.
The pressure campaigns adopted by the Palestinians contributed to pushing the technology giants to follow international laws in Palestine before.
Just a few months ago, Airbnb agreed to write off vacation rentals in Israeli settlements on occupied Palestinian territory.
Commitment from the company
Al Jazeera Net contacted PayPal, which confirmed that its services and products have not yet been provided in the Palestinian territories, and the company indicated that it does not currently provide its services and products in several countries in the world, including Palestine and Iran.
"We are constantly looking for ways to expand our products and services globally, and we hope to expand our presence to more countries; however, given the complexities of the global expansion process, we cannot give a timeline or conditions for this," the company said.
PayPal: We are constantly looking to expand our services (Reuters)
American law is not concerned with the case
A legal expert spoke to Al Jazeera Net, and admitted that the company is legally entitled to provide its services in certain countries, and not to provide them in other countries;
"As the company is a private company, and its management has the right to make decisions related to its geographical scope of work away from US laws that only limit the scope of work of private companies through Treasury Department sanctions on foreign countries and entities."
"But the decision is in essence economic, and it may have political consequences according to the preferences of the company's management," says the expert, who asked not to be named due to the sensitivity of the nature of her work. She added, "You can only pressure the company or follow a broad boycott policy to push it to change its positions."