Did your engagement ring help fund a genocide in Gaza? Quite possibly. Despite possessing no mines of their own, Israel is a major player in the world’s diamond business, buying up minerals across Africa and selling them to the West, netting billions in the process. Diamonds are Israel’s most important export, and directly bankroll the country’s ongoing genocide against the people of Gaza. MintPress explores the dark world of Israeli blood diamonds.
Any visitor walking through Tel Aviv’s exclusive Ramat Gan district will be struck by its wealth. Skyscrapers are everywhere, and expensive jewelry stores lines the streets. Ramat Gan is the center of the world’s diamond industry, with more than 15,000 people employed by the Israel Diamond Exchange in the business of cutting, polishing, importing, exporting, and marketing the stones.
Israel’s largest export is not tech industry or its food. Diamonds alone account for over 15% of all the country’s exports, with other jewelry also contributing significantly to its economy. Between 2018 and 2023, Israel exported over $60 billion dollars worth of precious stones.
Their number one customer is the United States. Historically, Israel has accounted for between one third and one half of all the diamonds sold across America, a growing market already worth $20 billion per year.
Unlike gold, diamonds are rarely hallmarked, meaning that few American brides know that their engagement and wedding rings were crafted and polished in Israel. Even fewer are aware that their purchase directly funds the slaughter in Gaza and Israel’s ongoing seizure of land in the West Bank, Lebanon, and Syria.
“Overall, the Israeli diamond industry contributes about $1 billion annually to the Israeli military and security industries … every time somebody buys a diamond that was exported from Israel, some of that money ends up in the Israeli military,” Israeli economist, Shir Hever, testified at the Russell Tribunal on Palestine in 2010. (more...)
Bloody Diamonds: How Your Engagement Ring Helps Fund a Genocide in Gaza
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