#PayPal4Palestine

A massive campaign has been making the rounds on social media calling on the global online payments system PayPal to offer its services to Palestinians in the Occupied West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

To work around the physical barriers and trade restrictions imposed as a result of the occupation and the Israeli siege on Gaza, Palestinians in the occupied territories have turned to the internet and entrepreneurial ventures as a means of conducting business and making a living.

Palestine’s growing tech sector, however, is placed at a significant disadvantage by having no access to PayPal.

The backlash against PayPal comes because, while PayPal currently does not work for Palestinians in the West Bank or Gaza, it does work for Israelis living in Israeli settlements in the West Bank which are deemed illegal under international law.

PayPal also operates in 203 countries, including countries riddled with war and corruption and considered far less stable than Palestine, such as war-torn Yemen and Somalia, where warring factions having been running amok for years.

https://twitter.com/ggreenwald/status/864567870793154560

.@AskPayPal @PayPal @Wences @Pierre: You serve illegal Israeli settlers but not the Palestinians they live among! Why? #PayPal4Palestine pic.twitter.com/xaFfRsxty6

— Palestine Legal (@pal_legal) May 16, 2017

#PayPal4Palestine Shekels are shekels. Why don't you accept them from #Palestine when you accept them from illegal #Settlements? pic.twitter.com/Ep5vPKgo37

— JVP-New Haven (@jvpnewhaven) May 16, 2017

A twitter storm took place on Tuesday using the hashtag #PayPal4Palestine demanding that the firm allows Palestinians living in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip to open accounts and be able to use the service.

#Paypal4Palestine Twitter storm has reached more than 4.9 million people pic.twitter.com/4Mssg3zUZC

— Ali Dahmash (@AliDahmash) May 17, 2017

Palestine produces roughly 2,000 IT graduates per year. Dalia Shurrab, a Palestinian entrepreneur and social media coordinator at Gaza’s only start-up accelerator Gaza Sky Geeks, was among those who shared their concerns over not having access to an online payment gateway such as PayPal.

I want to start my own startup in social media and content creation but I'm afraid of loosing money because we don't have #paypal4palestine

— Dalia Shurrab (@DaliaMSh) May 16, 2017

It's not fair for any freelancer or entrepreneur to keep suffering because we don't have online payment gateways!#PayPal4Palestine

— Dalia Shurrab (@DaliaMSh) May 16, 2017

I waited for 3 months to get payed for the 1st month of my work with a startup in KSA then I quieted because we don't have #PayPal4Palestine

— Dalia Shurrab (@DaliaMSh) May 16, 2017

The hashtag #PayPal4Palestine first made waves on social media in September last year, when some 43 companies and organisations in Palestine published an open letter to PayPal asking CEO Daniel Shulman for the payment platform to work there. This came after PayPal ignored their requests for a formal meeting.

Some 40 British MPs then signed a motion demanding the global payments service stop singling out Palestinians but, since then, nothing has changed for Palestine.

A petition sponsored by international campaigning organisation SumOfUs and supported by Jewish Voice for Peace and US Campaign for Palestinian Rights has now garnered more than 180,000 signatures.

Activists from the human rights organisations gathered outside PayPal’s headquarters in San José, California, on Tuesday to deliver the petition and tell PayPal to “do the right thing”.

We are over 180,000 strong letting @PayPal know it's unfair to let Settlers use PayPal while Palestinians cannot. #paypal4palestine pic.twitter.com/WNnTEXxNKT

— Jewish Voice for Peace (@jvplive) May 16, 2017

“I can tell you guys we are assessing the business opportunities there, and it is something that we’re looking at,” a PayPal representative told the activists.

As you guys well know, it is a complex issue from a compliance and regulatory standpoint, but that’s not to say that we’re not serious about our business and democratising the financial services for the people all around the world, not just Palestine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ro2MuP15J8A

Given the lack of commitment to tackling the issue, activists promised more actions to come.

@PayPal gave us more lame excuses, we handed them 180,000 signatures. More actions to come. #Paypal4Palestine pic.twitter.com/xC1JlVZg6Z

— Nicolatte Abed (@NicolatteAbed) May 17, 2017