The automotive manufacturer Volvo writes on its website that is has the vision of being "the most desired and successful premium car brand by creating the safest and most exciting car experience," and "choosing a car is about the comfort and safety of your passengers, most especially your children." However, the Palestinian people in Israel, including the Bedouins, and the occupied territories might have another view on Volvo.

Home demolitions

According to a spokesperson from the Association of Forty, the unrecognized Bedouin Arab villages Atir and Um Hayran in the Naqab (Negev) were aggressively attacked on Monday morning, 25 June 2007 by more than 1,500 Israeli soldiers. They were accompanied by Jewish youth in orange shirts. Hussein al Rafay'a, head of the Regional Council for the Unrecognized Villages (RUCV) in the Naqab, was arrested because he tried to block the Israeli forces and machinery from approaching the villages and its inhabitants. His colleague managed to take pictures of the demolitions, showing how the big, powerful, yellow Volvo bulldozers razed the homes of the Bedouin villagers to the ground. At least twenty houses were demolished and properties were confiscated, leaving over 150 men, women and children homeless.

United Methodist Church urges for divestment

At its annual conference, 8 to 10 June this year, the New England United Methodist Church issued a report on companies which were identified as supporting the Israeli occupation of Palestine. The report is a product of a Divestment Task Force, consisting of eight clergy and lay members, which was created to implement the resolution on divestment as a peaceful way to work towards justice and peace in the Middle East, adopted at the annual conference of 2005....The automotive manufacturer Volvo writes on its website that is has the vision of being "the most desired and successful premium car brand by creating the safest and most exciting car experience," and "choosing a car is about the comfort and safety of your passengers, most especially your children." However, the Palestinian people in Israel, including the Bedouins, and the occupied territories might have another view on Volvo...

Adri Nieuwhof, The Electronic Intifada, 2 July 2007

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