Ahed Tamimi Exposes the Refusal of Western Feminism to Come to Terms with Zionism and Imperialism

Aren’t Ahed and Nariman Tamimi women too?

A few weeks ago I wrote an article Feminist silence over Ahed Tamimi exposes the racist consensus at the heart of western feminism.  Little did I realise when I wrote it that it would be the most popular post in the decade since this blog began.  It has received, as of today, nearly 105,000 hits compared to 51,000 for the second most popular post Israeli Shop Sodastream (Ecostream) Opens in Brighton to Large Picket on the beginnings of the successful Brighton campaign to close 
Sodastream.  

Why is this so?  Perhaps it is the guilty conscience of many western feminists who understand their own oppression as women but fail to see the interconnections with the oppression of other women for whom gender oppression is not the totality of their oppression.  Today this is often called 'intersectionality'.  

Western feminism operates on the basis that there is an all-encompassing system of oppression called patriarchy, an  oppression of women by men.  By definition it fails to account for the division of women by class, race, ethnicity, colour etc. Women living under the heel of imperialism or colonialism are thus not only oppressed as women but as racial or ethnic minorities.

The article that caused a split in the British women's movement between supporters and opponents of imperialism

For women such as Ahed Tamimi or her mother Nariman, the primary oppression they experience is not that from the males in their family circle but from Israeli soldiers, regardless of their sex. 

Spare Rib and associated controversies in British Feminism

Who for example could doubt that for Rohinga women the experience of being driven out of Burma, often with Israeli arms, is more immediate than their relationships with men?  One is literally a matter of life and death.  Or for example that the primary experience of Jewish women in the camps of Nazi Germany was not the oppression of Jewish men but the Nazi state and its guards, regardless of their sex?  There is no evidence I have seen that female Nazi guards shared any sisterhood with Jewish women.

The relationship between feminism, racism and imperialism has been a vexed one for over 30 years.  When the issue of Zionism first manifested itself in the pages of Spare Rib, the magazine of Women's Liberation, at the time of the invasion of Lebanon in 1982, it split the editorial collective in two. An article ‘Women Speak Out Against Zionism’ caused an explosion of fury amongst Zionist feminists who asserted that support for the Palestinians and Lebanese was ‘anti-Semitism’ (shades of the Labour Party today!). 

The issue of Spare Rib that led to a debate that divided the British feminist movement

Outwrite - the paper of Women of Colour was formed in response to the racism of the majority of the Spare Rib collective

Roisin, an Irish Republican woman, interviewed 3 women for the article – an Israeli anti-Zionist, a Palestinian and Lebanese. 

On one side of the Spare Rib debate there were virtually all the white members of the collective, bar Roisin Boyd, the sole Irish member of the collective, and on the other side the Women of Colour.  The divide in Spare Rib led to the founding in 1982 of Outwrite a paper for Women of Colour which lasted until 1988.  A good history of this conflict is Bernice Hausman’s Anti-Semitism in Feminism:  Rethinking Identity Politics:

The debate has not gone away and never will go away for the simple reason that not only do different women experience different forms of oppression as women but women too are the oppressors of women by virtue of their race and class.  On a simple level think of Harriet Harman, the quintessential Labour Party feminist MP.  It was Harman who, when New Labour won in 1997 was  appointed Secretary of State for Social Security.  What was Harman's first act?  To cut single parent's benefit which was paid primarily to women.  Labour feminists like for example Caroline Flint and Jess Phillips are noted for their hostility to working class women.  Class for them trumps sex.

Whilst gender oppression will be felt most acutely by women who are least oppressed by virtue of class or race, it is just an additional burden for women for whom their status as an ethnic or racial minority in a colonial situation is primary.

The last issue of Outwrite

Can anyone doubt that in Israel, like Apartheid South Africa, Israeli Jewish women identify first and foremost with the system of racial oppression they were born into, that is Apartheid and Zionism?  Racial oppression cuts across gender.  Thus for example in the United States a majority of White women voted for Donald Trump despite his overt misogyny.  They identified with his attacks on Mexicans and Latinos over and above his overt sexism.  Indeed it was only among white college graduates and above that there was a majority for the arch-imperialist Clinton.  Admittedly it wasn't much of a choice!

Below is an excellent article from Mondoweiss on some of the issues that have been raised in the United States by the imprisonment of Ahed and Nariman Tamimi.  Imperialism and racism has clearly split the women's movement, a movement which is essentially concerned with democratic rights for women within capitalism.  It is a divide between those who understand the interconnections between women’s oppression, race and class, with all that that entails and those who wish to confine women’s issues to those within western capitalism – be it child care, sexuality, abortion or inter-personal relationships.

Although the womens movement has been absent from demonstrations in support of Ahed Tamimi, the Palestine solidarity campaign has taken it up

Typical of some of the comments my previous article attracted were those of Marian:

The movement for Palestinian rights is led by men, as are all social justice movements. A young female celebrity making a political stance is not feminism. She is a humane person challenging occupation and imperialism. She is not making a feminist decision.

Apart from dismissing the contribution of women and girls like Ahed to the Palestinian struggle, Ahed was just a ‘female celebrity’  Marian argued that someone challenging the occupation and imperialism ‘is not making a feminist decision’ thus begging the question – what is a feminist decision? Does feminism have any connection with wider oppressions or is it solely concerned with inter-personal oppression and related issues?

Marian went on to state that ‘Feminism does not exist to fight imperialism or occupation.’ thus demonstrating how narrow is the remit of western feminism.  Marian elaborated on this by saying that ‘The specific ways that colonialism bears down on women are feminist issues, but NOT colonialism itself.   So a system of oppression which has killed millions of women (& of course men and children) is apparently not a women's issue.  The fact that Israel's system of apartheid and occupation is the main form of oppression for Palestinian women is irrelevant.  Of course, as a consequence of Israeli rule, the oppression of Palestinian men is also reinforced because imperialism and colonialism has always reinforced patriarchy, often consciously.

The argument of Marian, which is not atypical is not going to be resolved easily because under capitalism the oppression of women as women takes different forms and depends on other variables.  

Tony Greenstein

Aren’t Ahed and Nariman Tamimi women too?

Marchers in the Women's March in New York City on January 21st, 2017. (Photo: Karla Cote/Flickr)

Nada Elia on January 19, 2018

As thousands of women, and men, dust off their pink pussy hats ahead of this weekend’s anniversary Women’s March, we are seeing many of the divisions that riddled last year’s rallies surface again. Thankfully, we are also witnessing the emergence of a solid alternative to the shortcomings of imperial feminism.

This is most obvious in Los Angeles, where Scarlett Johansson is scheduled to be a featured speaker.  In 2014, Johansson stepped down from her role as an ambassador for the global charity organization Oxfam, which she had represented for eight years, so she would keep endorsing SodaStream, the Israeli sparkling water company with a  factory in an illegal West Bank settlement.  Johansson, who says she does not regret her decision, had also spoken at last year’s march, in DC, but her presence at this year’s rally, in Los Angeles, is being challenged more vigorously.  An Open Letter and petition asking the organizing committee to engage in genuine intersectionality and not erase Palestinian women’s experience has gathered thousands of signatures at the time of this writing and is still going strong as a number of progressive organizations, including the southern California-based PAWA, (the Palestinian American Women’s Association), Jewish Voice for Peace,  Code Pink, and al-Awda: the Palestine Right of Return Organization have endorsed it.  The Open Letter invites marchers interested in featuring Palestinian women’s oppression to join the anti-colonial, anti-imperialist, anti-Zionist International Women’s Strike, scheduled in March on International Women’s Day. PAWA, which had been invited to speak at the Los Angeles march, later issued its own statement explaining that it “cannot in good conscience partner itself with an organization that fails to genuinely and thoughtfully recognize when their speaker selection contradicts their message” of inclusivity “focused on marginalized voices.”

The argument that you can be a supporter of Zionism, racism and feminism has resounded over the past 35 years and shows no signs of going away - it is an argument of class and in particular the privileged position of middle-class Jewish women

The 2018 Women’s march in Los Angeles has received sponsorship from the National Jewish Women’s Council, whose chief executive officer, Nancy Kaufman, had declared last year she was satisfied with “assurances the [2017] march is not anti-Trump and not anti-Israel.”

Kaufman’s comments are puzzling, to say the least, since the march was certainly meant as a protest against Trump’s overt misogyny—that was the very impetus behind the march, which was timed one day after his inauguration.   As to the concern that the march would be anti-Israel, it expresses the awareness, amongst Zionists, that progressives are finally moving away from the unquestioning embrace of the Zionist narrative.  (The NWJC identifies “Israel advocacy” as one of its priorities).  Ironically, Kaufman is certainly correct in linking opposition to Trump with opposition to Israel, as white supremacy indeed goes hand in hand with Zionism.

The American Zioness movement, formed to defend the position of women who proclaim their own oppression whilst celebrating that of Palestinian women.  Ironically the woman second from the left, was lifted from another publication and 'whitened' - presumably Zionesses don't come in any colour but White

The original image which was a bit too Black was Whitened to be acceptable to the 'progressive' Zionesses

Another organizational participant in the march is the “Zioness Movement,” which formed shortly after last January's Women’s March on Washington and the following June's Slutwalk in Chicago where women took exception to the participation of racist and Zionist women.  In short the Zioness group was formed primarily in response to the challenge, by many feminists, of the inclusion of Zionism in progressive circles. [see A Zioness Battle For The Soul Of The Left]

The Black South African rapper whose image was appropriated by the Zionesses dissociates herself from these American racists

The Israeli Embassy sponsored Zionesses 'explain' that the images they appropriated were only 'representational' - presumably the image of a Black woman didn't represent them!

A “Zioness“, according to the group's website, is someone who is proud, progressive, and “stands for justice and fights against all forms of oppression”.  Obviously, Zionesses do not view Israel’s seventy years of the violation of Palestinian human rights as a form of oppression.

To Zionist feminists the heroes in this picture are the Black and Misrahi women who are Ahed's gaolers, whereas to them Ahed is White.  This demonstrates that colour is an indicator, a symbol not something inherent in itself

Indeed, with the rapidly growing global denunciations of Israel’s abuses, the Zioness Movement seems like a desperate attempt throwback, an attempt to hold on to the glory days, when Zionism went mostly unquestioned as a progressive redemptive movement, and when Feminism (with a capital F) was predominantly about middle class white woman’s concerns.  And yet women of color feminism, a fully developed parallel discourse, has always existed alongside Feminism, asking that troublesome question, “Ain’t I a woman?” Today, the question seems to be “and aren’t Ahed and Nariman Tamimi women?” In this light, Zionists who insist that they are feminists are reactionary, holding on to privileges they wish would not be questioned, disrupted by a counter-narrative they had hitherto kept at bay.

See A Zioness Battle For The Soul Of The Left 

“It is both unsurprising and immensely disappointing that the organizers of the women’s march have decided to cover up Israeli apartheid with the banner of women’s liberation,” Tithi Bhattacharya, National Organizer for the International Women’s Strike, wrote me in a private email.

“It is unsurprising because Scarlett Johansson was a speaker for the women’s march last year when millions of people had come out to resist the Trump presidency.  In other words, the politics of the organizers have not changed. It is disappointing because nearly 4 million people marched on the historic women’s day march in 2017.  I am absolutely sure that the vast majority of them did not march to support Israel’s brutal colonial regime, or to suppress the brilliant history of Palestinian resistance,” Bhattacharya added.

Yet that “brilliant history” is indeed being suppressed, when the oppression of Palestinian women and children is not foregrounded in discussions of systematic abuses by socio-political structures of misogyny.  And the fact that Zionists, despite the #MeToo movement and national conversation it has opened up, still cannot acknowledge Israel’s assault on Palestinian women and children—indeed, on the entire Palestinian people–is yet further proof that Zionism and feminism are incompatible.  Just as white feminists of the 1950s believed a job outside the house would offer them the fulfillment they lacked, and were oblivious to the misery of women of color who juggled two jobs and could not make ends meet, today’s “Zionist feminists” are utterly oblivious to the oppression of Palestinian women, incapable of comprehending that Zionism hinges on the violently-maintained disenfranchisement of another people.

Ma'ariv columnist Ben Caspit, a Zionist 'liberal', who wrote inviting the rape and sexual attack on Ahed Tamimi:  “In the case of the girls, we should exact a price at some other opportunity, in the dark, without witnesses and cameras” 

Amani Al-Khatahtbeh, author of the MuslimGirl blog, described the erasure of Palestinian women’s experiences in an Open Letter explaining why she was declining Revlon’s “changemaker award,” which celebrates Israeli actor Gal Gadot’s “live boldly” campaign. Accepting the award, Al-Khatahtbeh writes, “would have been turning a blind eye to the plight of women and girls like Ahed. I’m writing this because I want to make it clear that this is not about you or me. This is about the moral obligation of privileged women like ourselves to rise to the moment of demanding freedom for Ahed and that of countless other girls like her.

“I believe that there are a few things we should all be able to agree on, and standing against the mass incarceration of children feels like it should be an easy one. Regardless of whatever political convictions you may hold, I have to believe that every woman, especially the current face of Wonder Woman, can agree that Israel must free a 16-year-old girl from its prison system and military courts. There must be some lines drawn upon which our humanity can collectively agree,” Al-Khatahtbeh explains.

Gadot, who is proud of her service in the Israeli military, and has expressed support for the Israeli army during its 2014 assault on Gaza, is viewed by mainstream feminists as a role model for many. As Bhattacharya put it:  “We need to break this chilling yoking of Zionism with Feminism.  Violence, apartheid, the brutalization of women and children—the hallmarks of Zionism—have no space in the feminist movement.  If we are to fight for women’s rights we cannot do it selectively so that our politics of liberation stops at the apartheid wall of the West Bank. Indeed, when we organized the International Women’s strike last year, a few weeks after the women’s march, we received tremendous popular support even though we had the decolonization of Palestine as one of our central demands,” Bhattacharya added.

Palestinian women and our allies have long pointed out the erasure of our oppression from mainstream feminist discourse.  Hopefully 2018, and the grassroots insistence that Palestine must be included in intersectional struggles for justice, will put an end to that.

About Nada Elia

Nada Elia is a Palestinian scholar-activist, writer, and grassroots organizer, currently completing a book on Palestinian Diaspora activism

[I have added some information to the article by way of background to the Zioness group - Tony Greenstein]  People can see the original on Mondoweiss]

Brighton’s Pride of Place in Israeli Embassy’s War-plan

Israeli Embassy targets ‘Enemy Territory’ in Britain on giant Map

Brighton's Sodastream - a shop that existed without any customers!

Sodastream attempted to catch on to  Brighton's green reputation - but people weren't so easily fooled!  They even called their shop 'Ecostream'!

Even Scarlett Johansson couldn't prettify Apartheid

In a report Grim days mapped out for the arrival of Israeli mouthpiece Regev in the Middle East Monitor  we learn of a giant map in the Israeli Embassy, a kind of war-plan, in which ‘enemy territory’ is staked out.  Pride of place goes to Scotland but Brighton gets an honourable mention in dispatches.  The article states that:

The mass pickets outside Sodastream convinced it that Brighton wasn't such a good place to do apartheid business

John Lewis stopped selling Sodastream stuff as a result of the campaign

Another hotspot on the embassy map is Brighton, where pro-Palestine activists are well-known supporters of BDS. Back in 2012, the then settlement-based company SodaStream failed in its attempt to open and run a flagship store – EcoStream – in the seaside town to sell home carbonated drinks machines and accessories. This was targeted immediately by activists from Brighton and Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) who staged noisy protests every Saturday outside the shop, running a gauntlet of Sussex area pro-Israel activists to do so. EcoStream soon closed and its demise was followed by an announcement from one of Britain’s biggest retail stores, the John Lewis Partnership, that it would remove SodaStream products from its shelves.

One of the Zionists not so luvvable Christian fundamentalists

Brighton's Sodastream Shop is Forced to Close

A Magnificent Victory for BDS

When Israel’s Sodastream decided to set up shop in Brighton, in an attempt to exploit our Green credentials, the local Palestine Solidarity Campaign took up the challenge and began a weekly picket with others on week days. Local Zionist and Kach/EDL thug, Simon Cobbs, vowed that this would not be another Ahava. Ahava was the Israeli ‘beauty shop’ in London’s Covent Garden which we closed down two years ago.

Picture from the early days of demonstrations

From the early days

At the beginning the Zionists confined themselves to the opposite side.  When they mixed it with us, they managed to successfully deter any doubting shoppers

Sodastream – a toxic brand – sees profits slump

Scarlett Johanssen doesn’t sell

Sodastream must rue the day that they opened what was going to be their first shop in Brighton.  It’s what’s called a loss leader.  No one goes in to buy their toxic drinks and the Zionist counter-demonstrators have done a good job in keeping the public away!

As usual an empty shop and a bored security guard

Sodastream is paying a high price for establishing a factory in the West Bank settlement of Mishor Adumim.

Palestinian demonstrators

Daniel Birnbaum, Sodastream's CEO, has engaged in non-stop PR to try and reverse the Boycott Sodastream campaign.  All he’s done is to dig a deeper hole into which his profits have flowed.
The big idea, buying Scarlett Johanssen, as a brand name has backfired.  She has shown how Hollywood stars place career and money in front of their human rights work.  In Johanssen’s case, it was just naked greed that was obvious to all.

the empty shop that adds to Sodastream's profit woes

Below are just some of the stories about their financial worries in mainstream and financial journals:

Now their profits have slumped and financial investors see it as irreversible.

SodaStream keeps the fizz going despite squeezed margins

BRENDA BOUW
Special to The Globe and Mail
Published Tuesday, Feb. 04 2014

Shareholders in carbonated drink machine company SodaStream International Ltd. are looking for less controversy and more profit to prevent the stock from going flat.

James - one of the fundamental Christians who wanted to hasten the Rapture

SodaStream shares have fizzled out since the Israel-based company issued a profit warning last month that also coincided with a backlash for its decision to operate a factory in an Israeli settlement on the West Bank.  
Reality and my take: The Soda story has lost its fizz and is unlikely to get it back.
-- Written by Herb Greenberg in San Diego

Bubble trouble: SodaStream shares fizzle on profit warning

“We expected some weakness in U.S. sales but are surprised by the magnitude of the company’s gross margin and earnings miss,” Jim Chartier, an analyst at Monness Crespi Hardt & Company, said in a report cited by Bloomberg News yesterday.

 A clear message Occupation is not Green

He downgraded the stock to Neutral from Buy. “While we continue to believe in the story longer term, we are moving to the sidelines until we have greater clarity on the company’s gross margin issues,” Chartier said.

Sodastream issues FY profits warning

SodaStream's NASDAQ shares plunged 25% yesterday after news of the profits warning. The stocks had dropped about 20% in the preceding three months.

SodaStream announces profit warning after 'challenging' Christmas

SodaStream loses fizz as forecasts are cut

Rising production costs and a poor festive season have seen profits slump

The Guardian, Monday 13 January 2014

a new Zionist who believes that the holocaust justifies Israeli racism

Shares of SodaStream International Ltd were down 21% at $38.96, at midday on Monday, in New York.

Palestinian supporter and a Fundie Christian behind him

These are just some samples of the depth of the crisis facing Sodastream.  Brighton, the place where the Boycott of Sodastream took off (or its opportunistically named ‘Ecostream’) had made the campaign a national priority for Palestine activists.

Below there are photos of the Brighton Sodastream demonstrations for the last couple of weeks.

Picketing Sodastream

A few Zionists, weirdos and thugs, coupled with a few Christian Fundamentalists, the most dedicated of the lot, who would like to see all Jews perish in the battle of Armageddon to hasten Jesus’ return, are doing a good job in putting the people of Brighton off.  We gave in a petition of over 1,500 names to the local MP Caroline Lucas (who has been subject to some vile sexist abuse on leader Simon Cobb’s twitter a/c) – it was rapidly deleted but we got a screen print.

Shaker Rozanski, a lunatic Israeli, with the smiling fool beside him

When I come along, usually I can give only about ½ an hour because of health reasons, I get abuse of the ‘traitor’ ‘self-hater’ variety.  As I’ve pointed out to these dim Zionists, it was the Nazis who accused German anti-fascists of being ‘traitors’ and ‘self-haters’ because they literally hated their nation and race.  Once again Zionist bigots demonstrate that they have much in common with the Nazis,

Scarlett adds her voice to the Boycott

Cobbs called me a ‘kapos’ and self-hater a few weeks ago and when I responded he recorded the response only, since which time has made a complaint to the Police.  However the Police don’t seem that interested as I did get a request to be interviewed but after my solicitor intervened it seems to have been postponed sine die.

Another Zionist who made a complaint against me is an Israeli nutcase, Shaker Rozanski, who picks on one theme (‘traitor’, Syria etc.) and repeats it ad nauseum.  A few weeks ago I called him a Jewish Nazi and he complaint to no avail to the Police.  Last week he made a move across the path that people walk on in order to attack me, so I was forced to punch with with a left hook.   Shaker squealed and whined to the Police who have said they will no doubt want to talk to me about this too!  However the law on self-defence is quite clear.  If you perceive a threat of violence to you then you can act pre-emptively.

The Zionists fixate upon the Kapos, who the Nazis selected to carry out the supervision of other Jews.  However they had no choice.  Indeed it was the Kapos who initiated the rebellions at Auschwitz (where one of the crematoria was blown up), Treblinka, where many Jews escaped and Sobibor, where hundreds of Jews and others escaped.

It was the Jewish Councils, the Judenrat which provided the lists of who to round up and their accomplices in the Jewish police who were the real traitors and 66% of Jewish Council members were Zionists.  The Zionists, who were favoured by the Nazi government in Germany prioritised building their ghetto state to saving Jews.  Indeed they actively tried to prevent anyone else from rescuing Jews if the destination was not Palestine. One of Ben-Gurion’s most shocking statements concerned the attempts to rescue Jewish German children and send them to Britain.  Fortunately the Zionist attempts to sabotage the kinder transports came to nothing:

Scarlett Johanssen brings nothing but woe

“If I knew that it was possible to save all the children in Germany by bringing them over to England, but only half of them by transporting them to Palestine, then I would opt for the second alternative.   For we must weigh not only the life of these children–but also the history of People of Israel." Lenni Brenner, p.149 'Zionism in the Age of the Dictators, citing Yoav Gelber, ‘Zionist policy and the fate of European Jewry 1939-42, Yad Vashem Studies, Vol. 12, p.199 and Tom Segev, p.28, the 7th Million.  Ben-Gurion to the Mapai CC, 7.12.38, Labour Party Archives, Bet Berl Tsofit., 22/38, Shabtai Teveth The Burning Ground, p.855.

Zionism was a favoured movement amongst the Nazis (see Lucy Dawidowic, p.118, War Against the Jews).  It is a movement of collaboration.  As Jewish and non-Jewish people recognise what Zionism is and its abuse of anti-Semitism as a weapon against its opponents, so Israel is facing a never increasing Boycott.

Jill Young - another mad Christian

It is important though to remember that whether or not Sodastream moves its factory from the West Bank, which is a distinct possibility, it will still be an Israeli company that should be boycotted.  The West Bank settlers have done nothing that the Zionists in Israel within the fictitious Green Line haven’t done before them.  As Israel Galili, a founder of Ahdut Ha'avoda, former Minister of Information and Minister without Portfolio and a member of Golda Meir's top Cabinet and a member of the Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee and the Ministerial Committee for Settlement said:

"Our right in Gaza is exactly like our right in Tel Aviv. We are colonising Gaza exactly in the same manner in which we colonized Yafa. Those who doubt our right in Gaza should doubt our right in Tel Aviv as well." Israel Galili, quoted in Haaretz, April 18, 1972 as reprinted in Israel: Utopia incorporated, Uri Davis, Zed Press, London, 1977, p. 15.

Even were it possible to separate Israel from the West Bank, then Israel would still be the oppressor of the Palestinians and a reactionary gendarme of imperialism.  There can be no solution to the problem of Israel without de-Zionisation and the return of the Palestinian refugees.

Tony Greenstein

Netanyahu convenes ministers to discuss growing Israel economic boycott threats

Knesset ministers to consider whether to launch an aggressive public campaign or operate through diplomatic channels.

By Barak Ravid Feb. 9, 2014

Benjamin Netanyahu, left, and Yuval Steinitz Photo by Daniel Bar-On

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu convened a meeting Sunday evening to discuss how to cope with the growing threat of the economic boycott on Israel in light of continued occupation and settlement construction in the West Bank.

Senior Israeli officials said prior to the meeting that the plan was to try to decide on a strategy and determine whether to launch an aggressive public campaign or operate through quieter, diplomatic channels.

The discussion had been scheduled to take place last week, but cancelled at the last minute due to the political row between Netanyahu and Economy Minister Naftali Bennett. Sunday's meeting will take place amid a different confrontation – this time between Bennett and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman.

The previous discussion was supposed to include a broad forum of ministers. The Science Ministry asked to separate the discussion on the economic boycott threat from a discussion on the academic boycott threat, since there is already a strategy for the latter, while the former has yet to be dealt with.
The discussion, scheduled to begin at 5:30 P.M., will only include Lieberman, Bennett and Strategic Affairs Minister Yuval Steinitz, who is expected to present a plan his ministry has been working on.
According to plan, Israel should be proactive in its opposition to organizations who promote boycotts against Israel. The plan proposes to invest substantial resources in organising a public campaign.
Minister Steinitz is demanding a budget of 100 million shekels for implementation of the plan, which would include PR materials and aggressive legal and media campaigns against pro-boycott organizations.

The Foreign Ministry has a different approach. Diplomats think the non-governmental organizations pushing for a wide-ranging boycott against Israel and not strictly against the settlements are relatively marginal and that a public campaign against them will only play into their hands, bolstering them.
The Foreign Ministry thinks the public response to organizations promoting a boycott against Israel should be constricted. It wants to focus on less public diplomatic activity to combat such initiatives and believes advancing the peace process with the Palestinians will stave off a large portion of the boycott threats.

One of the issues to be discussed at the meeting is whether to file legal suits in European and North American courts against organizations that are proponents of the boycott divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement. Ministers will also consider whether to take legal action against financial institutions that boycott settlements, or boycott Israeli companies that are somehow operating in or connected to the settlements.

Another consideration is whether to activate the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S., specifically AIPAC, in order to promote legislation in Congress against the economic boycott of Israel, akin to the legislation that was passed in the 1970's against the Arab boycott.

One of the issues that will be raised during the discussion is that there is a lack of knowledge and inefficient tracking by Israeli intelligence of pro-BDS organizations.

The Strategic Affairs Ministry has provided the Israel Defense Forces' intelligence department a budget of several million shekels for the purpose of bolstering military surveillance of such organizations. However, the need for the prime minister to instruct the Shin Bet Security Service and the Mossad on the efforts is likely to come up.

Fizzy drinks win over human rights for celeb Scarlett

Scarlett Johansson Prefers Money to Human Rights



Cartoon from Katie Miranda





Image: Katie Miranda. Scarlett Johansson preferring to be the global ambassador for fizzy drinks confected by Sodastream, a product from an illegal settlement, rather than for the charity Oxfam

.‘SodaStream is at the heart of Israel’s system of occupation’

Cartoon from Katie Miranda and articles from 1) Channel 4 news, 2) Christian Science Monitor – short extract; 3) Electronic Intifada and Notes and links. Some of the many cartoons that have been launched into cyberspace are interspersed throughout.

From Jews  for Justice for Palestinians

Scarlett Johansson quits Oxfam amid SodaStream row

By Channel 4 news January 30, 2014

Scarlett Johansson quits her role as ambassador for Oxfam after coming under huge criticism for supporting the company SodaStream, that operates in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank.

The Hollywood actor’s global debut as the face of Israeli company Sodastream will take place on Sunday in a prime time advert during the Super Bowl.

Protest against Sodastream outside Macy’s department store, NY city. Photo by Flickr

But the multi-million dollar deal has caused a huge backlash from pro-Palestinian activists and humanitarian groups, because SodaStream’s largest factory is based in a Jewish settlement in the occupied West Bank.

After talks with Oxfam this week, the star of awards season favourite Her has decided to stick with the company and end her seven-year association with the charity.

Her spokesman said in a statement that she and Oxfam had a "fundamental difference of opinion in regards to the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement". It added that she was "very proud of her accomplishments and fundraising efforts during her tenure with Oxfam."

Settlements by Israelis on the Palestinian West Bank are illegal under international law, and Oxfam and other human rights groups are against any trade with companies based there.

And since the sponsorship deal was announced, the charity has come under huge pressure to drop Johansson as an ambassador. Activists encouraged alternative names for SodaStream flavours using the hashtag #ScarJos, which included Doctor Pepper Spray, Gaza Calorie Count and Palestinian Punch.

A ‘supporter of economic cooperation’

Johansson has pointed out that the company employs both Palestinian and Israeli workers, and affords its employees salaries that are triple the national average. SodaStream, which produces bottles and home soda makers, said it employed the highest number of Palestinians in the region.

Graphic from PSC Facebook

Yonah Lloyd, SodaStream’s president, told the Financial Times: "The boycotters are actually demonstrating a complete lack of humanitarian sensitivity to the thousands of people that benefit from the stable economic opportunity that we provide."

Yonah LLoyd promotes the Sodastream superbowl ad on CNBC ?video=3000144365 6 minutes in for a completely apolitical interview.

The actor said last week that she was a "supporter of economic cooperation and social interaction between a democratic Israel and Palestine."

For its part, Oxfam said:

"Ms. Johansson’s role promoting the company SodaStream is incompatible with her role as an Oxfam global ambassador.

"Oxfam believes that businesses, such as SodaStream, that operate in settlements further the ongoing poverty and denial of rights of the Palestinian communities that we work to support."

The Israeli Jewish settlements on land seized in the 1967 Six Day War are a key point of contention in the US-backed peace talks between Israel and Palestine. US Secretary John Kerry has called them "illegitimate", but Israel has continued to build and develop on land on the West Bank, despite its illegality.

‘SodaStream is at the heart of Israel’s system of occupation’

"The very existence of (Israeli settlements) amounts to a serious violation of international law," the New York-based Human Rights Watch said in a statement on Wednesday.

"It is impossible to ignore the Israeli system of unlawful discrimination, land confiscation, natural resource theft, and forced displacement of Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, where SodaStream is located."

The Palestinian BDS National Committee, that supports boycotts and sanctions against Israel, said that Johansson had abandoned her reputation in exchange for money. "Just like the few artists who played Sun City during South African apartheid, Johansson will be remembered for having stood on the wrong side of history," said spokesperson Rafeef Ziadah.

"This controversy has shined a light on the fact that SodaStream is at the heart of Israel’s system of occupation, colonisation and apartheid."

Palestinian workers back Scarlett Johansson’s opposition to SodaStream boycott

By Christa Case Bryant, Christian Science Monitor

January 30, 2014

EXTRACT from article which begins with reports from Palestinians who are glad to have jobs at Sodastream because there is so little paid work available in the West Bank despite the PA’s donor income.

One of the workers waiting for the SodaStream bus this morning says he hates the fact that he’s working in an Israeli settlement, and lies to people when they inquire about his work.

"I’m ashamed I’m working there," he says. "I feel this is our land, there should be no [Israeli] factory on this land."



Graphic from PSC Facebook

He feels like a "slave," working 12 hours a day assembling parts – drilling in 12,000 screws a day, he adds.

While Israeli labor laws technically apply in the settlements, labor rights organization Kav LaOved says it is poorly enforced. Inspections, which are considered the essence of labor law enforcement, are reportedly sparse. Abed Dari, the organization’s field coordinator in the Jordan Valley and Mishor Adumim, the industrial zone where SodaStream’s factory is located, estimates that 95 percent of Palestinian employees of Israeli businesses in those areas do not earn the minimum wage of 4,300 shekels ($1,230).

Dari says SodaStream is one of the few companies in Mishor Adumim that does pay minimum wage, but adds that his organization’s worker hotline received a complaint about some 100 workers being fired recently, due to "seasonal" hiring practices. Workers in Azzariah mentioned that some fellow workers had recently been let go, which they attributed to boycott pressure.

As one of Israel’s largest food and beverage exporters, which ships to 45 countries, SodaStream indeed has international reach – and thus is potentially more vulnerable to international opinion. But Yonah Lloyd, president of SodaStream, says the company does not act in response to boycott pressure.

SodaStream "treats us like slaves," says Palestinian factory worker

By Stephanie Westbrook, Electronic Intifada

May 09, 2013

A professionally-produced video recently appeared on YouTube, taking the viewer on a carefully-constructed tour of the production facilities for the Israeli company SodaStream, manufacturer of carbonated drink machines.

The 8.5-minute video focuses on the firm’s factory located in Mishor Adumim, the industrial zone of the illegal Israeli settlement Maale Adumim in the occupied West Bank, and its Palestinian workers. The underlying message throughout the video is that the company’s settlement factory is a "fantastic sanctuary of co-existence" and, despite being built on stolen Palestinian land, is beneficial to the Palestinian economy and workers.

The video was recently shown to M., a Palestinian employee of SodaStream who has worked on the assembly line at Mishor Adumim for a long time and lives under Israeli occupation in the West Bank. M. spoke to The Electronic Intifada on condition of anonymity.

His immediate reaction to the blissful setting presented in the video was one of shock.

"Lies"

"I feel humiliated and I am also disgraced as a Palestinian, as the claims in this video are all lies. We Palestinian workers in this factory always feel like we are enslaved," M. said.

The release of the video coincided with the launch of SodaStream boycott campaigns in the US, considered the company’s most important market. Taking advantage of the company’s major marketing offensive in the US, including a $4 million Super Bowl ad, boycott campaigns succeeded in garnering press coverage exposing SodaStream’s complicity with Israeli violations of international law.

M. and his fellow workers were unaware of the boycotts. "They never told us about boycotts at all," he remarked.

Instead the premise for the video presented to the workers was nothing less than a way to maintain their jobs, otherwise at risk due to a lack of orders. M. said that "When they came and told us about the video, they announced that they wanted to market SodaStream globally, with a special presentation to the US, and they wanted to show the work and how it was improving."

M. and his coworkers had been told that the company planned to "let some of the workers go before the end of the year," but a $500-million order from the US had changed things and a "campaign to support the company’s sales" would save their jobs.

The YouTube video is clearly part of SodaStream’s public relations campaign, which lately has focused on the company’s Palestinian workers. In a speech given in early February at an Israel Advocacy Seminar in Johannesburg, Amir Sagie, director of the civil society affairs department for the Israeli foreign ministry, stated, "SodaStream have appointed lobbyists — an initiative that is paying dividends" ("Trends to expect from BDS & how to klap them," MyShetl, 6 February 2013).

According to M., the workers appearing in the video were given instructions on what to say. "I actually saw the company preparation work [for the video]; they were preparing all the workers and telling them what to say and how to say it," he said.

In the video, Sodastream’s chief executive Daniel Birnbaum appears as if he’s a constant presence in the Mishor Adumim factory. M. explained that this is not at all the case.

"I have worked here for a long time, and I have never seen him at the factory. This is the first time I see him [in the video]. They have their offices in Israel, and they do not come here," he said.

By M.’s estimates, SodaStream employs 800-850 workers on the factory floor, 90 percent of whom are Palestinians. The only Jewish Israelis doing "hand work" are "new immigrants, as they call them; olim hadashim or the ‘black Jews’ as they describe them."

Only a tiny fraction of the Palestinians employees hold higher level positions and there are none at all in management. "In all of SodaStream, there are only two foremen who are West Bank Palestinians, and they are supervised by two Israeli Arabs," said M.

Discrimination

When asked if there was discrimination between black and white Jews, M. replied, "Yes, for sure. You will not [find] white Jews wearing yarmulke [a skull cap] doing the hard work or ‘hand work.’ The supervisors who run the factory are mainly Russian and they are managed mainly by the white Jews, and we are ‘Palestinians,’ only workers."

M. also talked of discriminatory hiring practices, explaining that "most Israelis are hired through the company directly," while West Bank Palestinians require "a special security permit to be employed." The settlement factory has an internal security officer who "takes care of applying for the permits from the Israeli authorities."

M. added that Palestinian workers from Jerusalem, along with immigrant workers and African Jews, work through external manpower companies and may be hired after nine months "if they prove to be good workers." Otherwise, he said, "they are let go."

The recent report from the UN Human Rights Council’s fact-finding mission on Israeli settlements notes that a "stringent system of permits and quotas that determines employment in Israel and the settlements lends itself to abuse by contractors and middlemen."

"Not allowed to pray"

The video touts an onsite mosque where SodaStream’s Muslim workers go to pray. M. told a very different story.

"A good example that shocked me was the claims [in the video] about the freedom to practice our prayers," he said. "Those claims are all false. There is a full discrimination against the [Muslim] workers and we are denied our right to practice our religion."

M. noted that the mosque shown in the video "is just the locker room," and that supervisors had "even hidden the carpets from the workers" in an attempt to prevent them from praying.

Restrictions on are especially severe on the assembly line, where most West Bank Palestinians work. M. explained that they are only allowed to pray if prayer times fall "during their lunch break," otherwise "they are not allowed to pray at all."

This is not the first time SodaStream has put its celebration of multiculturalism on promotional display. In 2009, following extensive negative press in Sweden, the workers’ rights organization Kav LaOved reported that SodaStream organized "a party celebrating the factory’s multicultural makeup: Sudanese, Ethiopian, Russian and Palestinian." The group noted that "some of the Palestinian workers, who had not registered for the event, were only allowed to participate for one hour, and then returned to work while others continued to celebrate multiculturalism in their name" ("Multiculturalism at the Soda Club factory," 2 May 2009).

While M. confirmed Palestinian workers are currently paid "three or four times the salary we can get at the Palestinian Authority" — not the four to five times more mentioned in the video — this only came about following workers’ struggles and protests in which many lost their jobs, the intervention of Kav LaOved and negative publicity in Europe, as documented by the group Who Profits from the Occupation? in a report on SodaStream ("SodaStream: A case study for corporate activity in illegal Israeli settlements," January 2011 [PDF]).

"From work to bed"

However, the same job insecurity and harsh working conditions reported by Who Profits remain. M. described the working week at the factory as "from work to bed," leaving little free time for anything else. Employees work on a "four-two" system, meaning that they work for four days, 12 hours per day, with two days off — totaling 60 hours of work in a seven-day period.

According to the Israeli Hours of Work and Rest Law, a working day "shall not exceed eight working hours" and shift workers "shall not be employed for more than one hour of overtime per day, and that the average for three weeks shall not exceed 45 working hours per week."

The SodaStream factory has two shifts, day and night, and M. explained that workers change shifts every four days with "no day that you leave early."

Requests to leave early are rarely approved. These working conditions apply to both men and women. M. explained that women workers also work night shifts and 12-hour shifts.

He also noted that "there is no extra pay for overtime or night shifts," in violation of the Hours of Work and Rest Law.

Making the work day or night even longer, Palestinian workers must allow two additional hours for transportation to and from the Israeli settlement, where they are not allowed to live. "They pick us up at six in the morning or the evening, and we arrive home at least an hour after work. Around 14 hours you are away from home, and there is no time to see our families," M. explained.

One big family?

SodaStream’s CEO Daniel Birnbaum has referred to the factory workers as one big family. M. disputed this portrayal, and explained some of the job insecurities Palestinian workers face: "They treat us like slaves. This has happened many times on the assembly line: when a worker is sick and wants to take sick leave, the supervisor will fire him on the second day. They will not even give him warning or send him to human resources, they will immediately fire him."

Birnbaum also claims in the video that SodaStream received no government incentives for its settlement factory. However, all three of the company’s own annual reports filed with the Security and Exchange Commission in the US, including the report for 2012, clearly stated that transfer of their production facilities "to a location outside of the disputed territories" may "limit certain tax benefits" ("United States securities and exchange commission, SodaStream International Ltd.").

M. noted that some production is currently being shifted to a new factory at Alon Tavor in the Galilee, within present-day Israel. "Now they have a new assembly department inside Israel, and [the factory] is getting less work. They are forcing the workers to work less, sometimes only for two or three days a week only, which means less salary." Those unhappy with just 10 to 12 work days per month "are ‘free to go,’" he added.

The rumors at the Mishor Adumim factory are that it will soon close, with all production moving inside Israel. Despite the conditions, M. and others "are hoping that the workers will be able to move and continue working there too." As M. explained, "All of the workers have no other choice but to work in the settlement factory; we want to feed our children and there are no work opportunities in the Palestinian Authority."

Cover for illegality

A recently-published update from Who Profits on SodaStream’s facilities showed that the Alon Tavor site serves as cover for the company’s illegal settlement factory. Who Profits cites an article from the Israeli business publication Globes, in which Birnbaum claimed products sold in countries such as Sweden, Switzerland, Norway, Finland, and France are manufactured at Alon Tavor due to "the sensitivity in these countries to Israeli products manufactured beyond the green line."

However, examining details on production facilities listed in SodaStream’s own annual report for 2012, WhoProfits demonstrated that it would not possible for a complete SodaStream machine to be produced at Alon Tavor.

The company has also won a 25-million-shekel ($7 million) government grant for construction of a new plant in the Idan Industrial Zone in the Negev (Naqab), capable of housing all of the company’s production under one roof ("SodaStream wins NIS 25 m grant for Negev plant," Globes, 4 April 2013).

Birnbaum recently threatened to move production to another continent if Israeli government subsidies, such as grants and tax breaks, are reduced. According to SodaStream’s 2012 annual report, its effective tax rate was 1.7 percent for 2012, and 10.9 percent for 2011. The corporate tax rate in Israel is 25 percent ("SodaStream CEO: More Israel investment depends on incentives," Globes, 24 April 2013).

While Birnbaum, beholden to his Nasdaq investors, concentrates on the bottom line, his settlement factory is part of a system described in the United Nations Human Rights Council report on settlements as exerting "a heavy toll on the rights of the Palestinians."

This systematic denial of basic rights outlined in that report creates the conditions that force Palestinians to turn to settlement companies for job opportunities. The report maintains that "the inability for the Palestinian economy to expand and offer opportunities, high unemployment rates and falling wages in the Palestinian labor market, inflation and increasing poverty are factors that drive Palestinians to seek employment in the settlements and in Israel."

In an email to The Electronic Intifada, a spokesperson for Who Profits stated that Israeli settlement companies exploit Palestinian laborers while claiming that the work benefits them. "A business that operates unlawfully cannot demand legitimacy on behalf of the workers and at their expense," the spokesperson said. Who Profits added that in other cases of exploitative employment, "civil society worldwide rejected employers as legitimate representatives of their workers" and maintained instead that "major corporations and colonial powers be held accountable for their actions."

In 1996, Sodastream made a decision to locate its production facilities in an area under military occupation and has maintained them there ever since. When confronted with this clear violation of international law, the company chose not to address it but rather sought to use its Palestinian workers to deflect attention away from its role in maintaining Israel’s unjust colonial system.

What we can do as people of conscience genuinely concerned for Palestinian workers, is to step up boycott, divestment and sanctions campaigns against companies like SodaStream, to ensure we can soon celebrate true multiculturalism, with guarantees of equal rights for all.

Stephanie Westbrook is a US citizen based in Rome, Italy. Her articles have been published on Common Dreams, Counterpunch, The Electronic Intifada, In These Times and Z Magazine. Follow her on Twitter @stephinrome.

Next Protest – Sat 1st February, 12-2pm outside John Lewis, Oxford St. London (nearest tube Oxford Street)

Join the regular protest to alert shoppers that John Lewis is selling Sodastream products which are produced in an illegal Israeli settlement.

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Letter to Oxfam from a long-standing supporter

PSC

January 28, 2014

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Boycott Sodastream – Fortnightly Protests in London

NGOs campaign against house demolitions Oxfam is one of the 36 NGOs/aid groups to join in calling for an end to Israeli house demolitions, December 2013