The whole Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel is, at best, short-sighted and, at worst, hinders any possibility of the elusive "peace in the middle east."
Case in point: Oxfam's boycott of SodaStream.
Oxfam is upset because a formerly British company, now owned by Israelis, is situated in what a BBC employee termed an area that "Under most interpretations of international law - although not Israel's - building homes and businesses on such territory is illegal." Never mind that the statement is false; it's the BBC after all.
Oxfam insists - based on input from Palestine Solidarity Campaign , that SodaStream is treating its Palestinian employees badly, that the mere fact the company is located on land (a) originally on the Israeli side of the UN partition plan and (b) captured during Jordan's war of aggression in 1967.
Apparently it was inconvenient for Oxfam and the BBC to visit the SodaStream site in Ma'ale Adumim; perhaps they couldn’t get past the stop sign (see photograph from article, below).
Guess which buildings in the picture are "pre-49" and "post-49." Click on the photo to see a larger version.
The leed paragraph of a Judy Maltz article in the left-leaning Israeli newspaper HaAretz seems to portend a balanced presentation of the Oxfam-SodaStream issue. The reporter wrote:
"SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum on Sunday accused Oxfam of providing funding to the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) campaign against Israel and said that an invitation he recently issued to the president of the organization to visit the company’s West Bank factory had been “ignored.”"
Birnbaum suggested that the reason American actress Scarlett Johansson dumped Oxfam in favor of representing SodaStream was "perhaps because of financial motivations, they are prepared to sacrifice the jobs of 1,300 people, including 950 Palestinians and Arabs, and I cannot see, and she cannot see either, how that would advance peace and humanity in the region.”
The HaAretz article continued:
" In response to this charge, the Oxfam spokesman said: “Oxfam wants to see a just and lasting agreement that allows Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security. We support a two-state solution, and we believe that settlements in the West Bank are an obstacle to achieving that peace. Any company located in the settlements contributes to their viability and legitimizes them. This is not about labor practices or SodaStream in particular, but the bigger issue of settlements, which continue to take land and resources from Palestinian communities that we work with. Some Palestinians in the West Bank do find work in Israeli settlements, but this is often because they are restricted from pursuing other livelihoods and have little other choice. For example, Oxfam works in Palestinian farming communities – they have lost much of their land to settlements and they are rarely allowed to build new wells or get enough water. Unable to make a living, their only option is often found in settlement factories and farms, which receive government tax breaks, support, and don’t face any of the restrictions on building and development that Palestinian communities nearby do.” "
When reporters do visit
Unlike the BBC writers working from anti-Israel handouts, a Times of Israel article led off with:
MISHOR ADUMIM, Israel — The SodaStream factory, situated just off the highway leading down from Jerusalem to the Dead Sea, was abuzz on Sunday with journalists from across the globe trying to get a glimpse of the action.
"The tour of the carbonated beverage-maker plant was organized especially for curious foreign correspondents on the eve of the Super Bowl, which featured an ad starring its glamorous spokeswoman Scarlett Johansson. The factory, SodaStream’s charismatic US-born CEO Daniel Birnbaum proudly declared, used to produce munitions for the Israeli army. It was bought in 1996 by the fizzy drink start-up, seeking to better the world by doing away with polluting plastic bottles.
The article continues:
Today, the Mishor Adumim plant — the first of eight Israeli locations and 22 worldwide — employs 1,300 workers; 950 Arabs (450 Israeli and 500 Palestinian) and 350 Israeli Jews. Salaries and work benefits — management asserts and workers confirm — are equal for all workers in comparable jobs, regardless of ethnicity or citizenship. The factory secures Israeli work permits for its Palestinian employees as well as rides from their home and back, SodaStream’s Chief Operating Officer Yossi Azarzar told The Times of Israel.
Birnbaum, the CEO, was clearly cognizant of the dispute. He spoke of Jewish-Arab coexistence as he stood next to a veiled young Arab woman working on the assembly line across from an older woman with a black head covering who immigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union in 1993.
Zooming in on Birnbaum and the two women, the camera crews and microphone-holding reporters overlooked another young Palestinian woman standing nearby, fitting plastic valves into a large metal tray. Nahida Fares, 28, graduated Nablus’s A-Najjah University in primary school education. She began working for Israeli companies two years ago, when she could find no work in her field in Ramallah, where she lives with her husband and infant child.
“There are no job opportunities in the West Bank,” Fares told The Times of Israel. “Even the jobs that do exist pay no more than NIS 1,500-2,000 ($430-570) a month.” Fares now earns triple those sums. Fares’s husband, a first lieutenant in the Palestinians’ prestigious Preventive Security Force, earns NIS 2,000 ($570) per month after 10 years of service.
According to the "unbiased" BBC
The "unbiased" BBC's Middle East correspondent, Kevin Connolly, pretending to write a news article, slants the issues at once against SodaStream and Israel, quoting selected sources such as Sarah Colborne, campaign director for the Palestine Solidarity Campaign.
Connolly editorializes - writes sans attribution- that:
"The boycott movement is important.
"Supporters of the Palestinians have hit on a tactic that might encourage ordinary consumers to start differentiating products from the factories and farms of Israel on the one hand and Israeli settlements on the other.
"Israel is worried - especially at the prospect of the movement gathering pace if peace talks with the Palestinians collapse."
Possibly what bother's Mr. Connolly is the fact that SodaStream no longer is a English firm. In two of his editorial's opening paragraphs, he opines that:
"The company - now under Israeli ownership - likes to emphasise its green credentials, trading on the idea that making your own cola at home in a re-usable bottle saves plastic bottles and therefore, ultimately, saves the planet.
The SodaStream has always exhibited a Dr Who-style capacity for self-reinvention - it started out as a machine for producing fresh soda water in the homes of the wealthy and well-connected in Edwardian England."
Sources
Kevin Connolly/BBC editorial:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-25966781
Judy Miltz/HaAretz article:
http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.571986
Elhanan Miller/Times of Israel article:
http://www.timesofisrael.com/at-sodastream-palestinians-hope-their-bubble-wont-burst/?utm_source=Start-Up+Daily&utm_campaign=b736272ff2-2014_02_04_SUI2_4_2014&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_fb879fad58-b736272ff2-54610173
Stand With Us YouTube video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KDdH_7GjW40
