• Intel succumbs to pressures and halts factory investment but reaffirms commitment to Israelis
• Huge win for BDS movement owing to Intel’s misfortunes
In what must be the “biggest win” for the Boycott Divestment Strategy (BDS) movement, one of the largest and most prolific chip manufacturers – Intel has postponed the construction of a $25 billion semi-conductor chip manufacturing plant.
The intel coming through on Intel is that this was not a gesture out of kindness but rather the fact that Intel is in a lot of trouble and appears afraid of what’s coming, in what was supposed to be a make-or-break year for them.
Genocide Enablers and Historical Negationists
Despite the halt to construction, Intel remains the largest investor in the Israeli economy. They have even reaffirmed this by highlighting Intel’s deep ties and past investments with the Israelis while stating that they remain committed to the illegal Israeli occupiers. The BDS movement recognised this and has also said; “Intel still remains deeply complicit in feeding Israel’s genocidal war chest.”
The plant was to be built by Intel on a previously identified site in Kiryat Gat, where construction had already started near their original chip manufacturing plant. This main site was built on the ruins of a Palestinian village where the inhabitants were forced to move during the first Nakba. Intel moved there in the 1970s and decided that almost 30 years was enough time for people to get over a genocide.
Intel’s original chip manufacturing plant in Kiryat Gat is 15 miles from Gaza and built over a Palestinian village
Intel’s Next Moves and Reaction
Sicho Infrastructure Company who were managing the project said they’d received instructions from Intel regarding halting and delaying work on the site’s expansion where millions had already been spent on the construction till now. The plant (called ‘Fab 38’) was scheduled to open in 2028 and operate until 2035 but has now been abandoned.
Intel explained that “projects of this scope have many dependencies that delay work”. In other words, the project had been halted.
The $25 billion Fab 38 site which Intel has shut down.
Intel went on to say:
"Israel continues to be one of our key global manufacturing and R&D sites and we remain fully committed to the region. As we've previously noted, the scope and pace of Intel's manufacturing expansion at our sites around the world depends heavily on various factors."
"Managing large-scale projects, especially in our industry, often involves adapting to changing timelines. Our decisions are based on business conditions, market dynamics and responsible capital management."
This news will irk and rightly embarrass the Israeli government, especially as it was only in December 2023 when Intel received £3.2 billion from them as a grant to help subsidise the costs involved with the plant’s construction.
The decision to cancel this project was not taken lightly either as up to April 30th of this year Intel were very much committed to seeing the project through as per their ‘2023-24 Corporate Responsibility Report’ which does not once directly mention anything about the Palestinians. It does however talk about how to:
“apply our learnings from over a decade and work with the electronics industry to broaden and accelerate the creation of sourcing standards for a much wider set of minerals across additional conflict-affected and high-risk areas”
This is clearly so that they can extract more minerals and make money without having to feel guilty when walking over the decaying bodies of dead Palestinians. However, a humanitarian report released recently is looking to stop this.
Other Dead Intel Projects
This is also not the first time that Intel has backed away from a project with the Israeli government. In 2022 Intel cancelled plans to construct a £200m development centre. The plans consisted of offices so that Intel’s Israeli workers could relax and fair to say was a sort of vanity project.
Dr Irene Pietropaoli
Intel has spent almost 50 years on illegally occupied land since the 1970’s employing nearly 12,000 Israelis. They have buildings sitting onactual land belonging to Palestinians who were ethnically cleansedduring Nakba, and then never recognised their own complicity in overlooking the genocide.
It shows that Palestinians never mattered while colonial capitalism reigned supreme unless people step forward now and do their part to help justice prevail. Dr Irene Pietropaoli is looking to be such a person who is trying to define the complicity of organisations in the genocide of Gaza. She is a Senior Fellow in Business and Human Rights, British Institute of International and Comparative Law (BIICL).
Her report which is titled Obligations of Third States and Corporations to Prevent and Punish Genocide in Gaza identifies areas where organisations such as Intel could be classed as genocide enablers. Only by looking at some of the criteria in the report do we see how well this label fits. If adopted by the UN it can land Intel with serious lawsuits.
Class Action Lawsuit
Intel was lumbered with a class-action lawsuit earlier today in which investors were seeking damages for being misled by Intel over considerable operational losses; the reported low revenue achieved; and a resulting decline in profit.
The slump Intel is facing is not without irony, where when Palestinians suffered they did not care and now when they are on a downward spiral – no one cares.
