Sodastream - an Alliance of Christian anti-Semites and Neo-Nazi Kach supporters Oppose the Demonstrators

Picket of Brighton’s Sodastream Shop

Christian anti-Semites are out to back up neo-Nazi Zionist & 'Christian' demonstrators

Many thanks to Inminds for these excellent photographs of the Palestinian BDS demonstrators and their anti-Semitic Christian/JDL opponents

 

 

One of the most obnoxious and stupid of the Christian demonstrators Jill Young.  Not unsurprisingly she is hiding her face.  Her message about other countries being more repressive than Israel is reminiscent of apologists for Apartheid in South Africa.

 

The public queues up to sign the petition opposing Sodastream and Israel's occupation of the West Bank

Exceptionally the Police escort one particularly abusive Zionist across the street

Zionist Doublethink - a Zionist carries leaflets entitled peace whilst advocating war.  Hitler as also a 'peacemaker' who was attacked by Poland!

Despite repeated threats Mike  on the right continues to come down from London to give support to the Palestinians

The shop is empty as usual, but it pays for a security guard nonetheless.  In the foreground another member of the public shows her support.

Sodastream playing dumb  (or dumber than usual) doesn't know where it's products come from.

Although I was there at the beginning of the pickets of the Israeli shop, Sodastream, I was forced to curtail my attendance last autumn owing to illness.  However I kept in touch with the magnificent work of the local Brighton & Hove PSC group.

In the last couple of months I have attended for the last half hour and I notice that the same anti-Semitic Christians are in attendance as when I first took part in the campaign.  Gill Young, a Daniel and a couple of others, Christian fundamentalists, who in places like Guatemala presided over the genocide of over 100,000 Mayan Indians.

The 'Christian's' consistent message has been that the Palestinians are the occupiers of the lands that they and their ancestors have live on!  Why? Because of the myth that the Jews lived there for 3,000+ years.  Apart from abysmal ignorance (there were no Jews then, merely Canaanite tribes who would have spoken a language far different from biblical Hebrew & who worshipped a variety of gods) for over 2,000 years most Jews lived outside Palestine for economic reasons i.e. the land could not sustain them.  Those who survived gradually became Christians, especially when Constantine, the Roman Emperor in the 3^rd century made Christianity the religion of the Roman Empire.  Even Ben Gurion, Israel's first Prime Minister and Yitzhak ben Zvi recognised this fact.

Jesus was, apart from being a Phariseeic rabbi, a Jewish rebel against the corruption of the the high priests,  the Sadducees.  That was the reason why the ruling class and the Romans decided to execute him.  The descendants of the Jews who remained in the Roman state of Palestine were ironically the poor Jews who converted to Christianity!  The European Jews in so far as they had any specific lineage were descendants of the trading country of the Khazars, situated in between the Black and Caspian Seas.  This is well known to  historians and was the subject of the book, which was a best seller in Israel for 19 weeks, The Invention of the Jewish People, by Shlomo Sand, a professor at Tel Aviv University and Arthur Koestler’s ‘Thirteenth Tribe’.  

The Christians who demonstrate in support of Sodastream support the transfer or  massacre of the Palestinian people of the West Bank.  Why?  Because their primary religious text is Revelations when the return of the Jews to Palestine will herald the second coming of Christ with the evil Jews (most of the Jews are so termed) dying in the battle of Armagheddon and the Christian faithful rising to heaven in The Rapture. In other words they look forward to a new holocaust of the Jews.  

 In the United States in WWII these Protestant Fundamentalists were the main force behind those who campaigned vociferously against the admission of Jews who wished to escape the holocaust.  Indeed one of the primary motivations of Evangelical Christians has always been to get rid of the Jews in their midst.  Examples about - Lord Shaftesbury, George Elliot, Ernest Laharanne, Palmerstone, Disraeli etc.

Perhaps the best example of these anti-Semitic Christians was Arthur James Balfour whose Balfour Declaration in 1917 set the seal on an alliance between the Zionists and the British which was the real beginning of the Israeli state.  Balfour as Home Secretary, introduced the Aliens Act 1905 whose primary purpose was to prevent the immigration of Russian Jews fleeing the pogroms into Britain.  He was a man who also disliked Jews intensely but he was a good Zionist, which is why Zionist HQ in Britain is named Balfour House.  He wrote that:

If [Zionism] succeeds, it will do a great spiritual and material work for the Jews, but not for them alone. For as I read its meaning it is, among other things, a serious endeavour to mitigate the age-long miseries created for western civilisation by the presence in its midst of a Body which it too long regarded as alien and even hostile, but which it was equally unable to expel or absorb. Surely, for this if for no other reason, it should receive our support. [From co-existence to conquest, International Law and the Origins of the Arab-Israeli Conflict 1891-1949 by Victor Kattan]

Examples abound of Evangelical Christians who are and were anti-Semitic Zionists, not least among the Nazis.  One example was H H Beamish who wrote that ‘‘There is only one cure for this world-evil, and that is for all the Christian white races to combine and to repatriate to Palestine and the neighbouring territories every Jew, male and female, and to take the most drastic steps to see that, once they have founded their Zionist state in their own Promised Land, they permanently remain there.’[The Jews’ Who’s Who: Israelite Finance. Its Sinister Influence, Popular Edition (London: The Judaic Publishing Co., H.H. Beamish, Proprietor, 1921), p. 43.  

British Brothers League - opposed the entry of Jewish refugees but they were ardently in favour of Zionists

 Another example is the first proto-fascist organisation in Britain, the British Brothers League headed by William Evans-Gordon MP, who gets a remarkably sympathetic write up in Chaim Weizzman's auto-biography Trial and Error.  Its President, William Stanley Shaw, in a letter to the Jewish Chronicle of 6th November  1901, who declared that 'I am a firm believer in the Zionist movement which the British Brothers League will incidentally do much to foster.  The return of the Jews to Palestine is one of the most striking signs of our times.' before going on to quote some obscure passage from the Bible.

British PM David Lloyd George, an ardent Christian Evangelist, standing shoulder to shoulder with his hero

 But  perhaps the best example of a combination of anti-Semitism was that of Lloyd George, the ‘Welsh Wizard’ and British Prime Minister from 1916-21.  He was the strongest supporter of the Balfour Declaration after Balfour himself.  He was also an admirer of Hitler and after a visit to Hitler in 1936, wrote that Hitler was "the greatest living German".  [Jones, J Graham. entry in Dictionary of Liberal Thought Brack & Randall (eds.) Politico's Methuen, 2007]  

In a Jewish Telegraph Agency report of 20 September 1936 it reported that ,David Lloyd George, who had just returned from a visit to Germany, had expressed enthusiastic approval of Chancellor Hitler, whom he visited twice, and he explained persecution of Jews as due to the Nazi leader’s belief that the Russian Jews were responsible for Soviet press attacks on the Reich.’   A lie of course as anyone who is at all familiar with Mein Kampf will confirm.  But Lloyd George was a fervent Zionist so he is forgiven..   

In case anyone should be under the impression that this was all in the past, the Baptist and Evangelical leader of American Christians and Pastor John Hagee of the San Antonio, Texas-based Cornerstone Church, Pastor, who heads Christians United for Israel, which has 1.1 million members, wrote in his book Jerusalem Countdown that Hitler was born from ‘accursed, genocidally murderous half-breed Jews.' Bruce Wilson, The Huffington Post, August 1, 2009.   

John Hagee during his speech describing Hitler as god's messenger demonstrates what a hunter does

 Hagee is best know for his statement that Hitler was a messenger from god sent to drive the Jews to Israel!

"Theodor Herzl is the father of Zionism. He was a Jew who at the turn of the 19th century said, this land is our land, God wants us to live there. So he went to the Jews of Europe and said 'I want you to come and join me in the land of Israel.' So few went that Herzl went into depression. Those who came founded Israel; those who did not went through the hell of the holocaust.

"Then god sent a hunter. A hunter is someone with a gun and he forces you. Hitler was a hunter. And the Bible says -- Jeremiah writing -- 'They shall hunt them from every mountain and from every hill and from the holes of the rocks,' meaning there's no place to hide. And that might be offensive to some people but don't let your heart be offended. I didn't write it, Jeremiah wrote it. It was the truth and it is the truth. How did it happen? Because God allowed it to happen. Why did it happen? Because God said my top priority for the Jewish people is to get them to come back to the land of Israel." see video clip of the speech.

John Hagee addressing the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee, the main pro-Zionist organisation in the United States, explaining why Hitler was much misunderstood

When Senator John McCain was running for President he sought and obtained the endorsement of Hagee.  Such was the outcry that he was forced to distance himself from the brute when  this was revealed.   

The Anti-Defamation League - opposed to 'anti-Semitism' when its anti-Zionism but supporting Christian anti-Semitism of John Hagee

None of this stopped the Abe Foxman, of the appropriately named Anti-Defamation League (it has its own history of Jewish uncle tommery) writing to defend Hagee: 

‘“We are grateful that you have devoted your life to combating anti-Semitism and supporting the State of Israel,” [The New York Jewish Week, 18.6.08] 

Glenn Beck, who believes the Jews killed Christ, after addressing the Knesset.  Seen here talking to Baruch Mazel
a settler and  supporter of Kach, the Zionist Nazi  organisation

  

 But Hagee isn’t the only anti-Semite who loves Israel.  Glenn Beck, who Murdoch was forced to fire from Fox TV for his explicit anti-Semitism, was responsible for the gems below, calumnies worthy of the gutter anti-Semite, Julius Streicher, who was hanged at Nuremburg.  He hosted one guest on his Fox show

‘“…who describes as “accurate” the anti-Semitic tract “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”; likening Reform rabbis to “radicalized Islam”; calling Holocaust survivor George Soros a “puppet master,” a bloodsucker and a Nazi collaborator; touting the work of a Nazi sympathizer who referred to Eisenhower as “Ike the Kike”; and claiming the Jews killed Jesus.'

Knesset members give a rapturous reception to a prominent anti-Semite

Yet none of this prevented Beck being invited to give an address to Israel’s parliament, the Knesset.

Ami Kauffman of the radical Israeli 972 Magazine describes how ‘Outside the Negev hall, the atmosphere was like before a rock concert, complete with the pushing and shoving. Most attendees were religious, all the way from knitted kippas to haredim. After we sat down, it was only a few minutes wait till the star came in. Almost immediately the whole room stood up, including the Members of Knesset, and gave the man a standing ovation.’ 30.8.13.  

Whereas John Hagee is widely seen as a clown, Beck is an altogether different figure.  He is a convinced anti-Semite and a member of the US Establishment.  Beck is so anti-Semitic that he holds that the Jews killed Jesus.  Before being fired from Fox, he explained how "Jesus conquered death. He wasn't victimized. He chose to give his life. He did have a choice. If he was a victim, and this theology was true, then Jesus would have come back from the dead and made the the Jews pay for what they did."

Even the ADL, which is tolerant of anti-Semitism when it comes from Christian Zionist supporters drew a line at this.  After all the ADL identifies the claim that "the Jews" killed Jesus as one of the top four most destructive of anti-Semitic lies.  It was the watchword of Christian anti-Semites throughout the ages.

 But none of this matters to the Zionists and their Christian supporters outside Sodastream.   

The Christians are part of a tiny but virulently anti-Semitic sect within the wider Christian church and the Zionists come from the far-Right of the Jewish community.  At least two Zionist demonstrators, including the leader of the counter-demonstrators, the thuggish Simon Cobbs is, as has been pointed out elsewhere on this blog, a supporter of the Jewish-Nazi group Kach (this description is not mine  but that of fellow Zionists for whom imprisoning Arabs who have sexual relations with Jewish women is reminiscent of the racial ‘hygiene’ laws of Nazi Germany under which many Jews were executed.  Like Nazi Germany Kach/Jewish Defence League does not seek to criminalise Arab (Jewish) women who have/had sex with Jewish/German men.

Hitler greets Bishop Muller, head of the Reich Church and Abbot Schachleitner

 The behaviour of a tiny minority, and they are a tiny minority of anti-Semitic Christian counter-demonstrators is not surprising.  In Hitler’s Germany the Protestant Churches were more sympathetic to the Nazis than those of the Roman Catholics (though the anti-Nazi Protestants like Dietrich Bonhoffer, who was hanged shortly before the liberation of Mauthausen) were dedicated anti-Nazis.  The Confessing Church of the Protestants, which grew throughout the 1930’s held that the doctrine of race was incompatible with the Christian message that all those who accept Jesus message of salvation will be saved.  In particular the Protestants set up, under Bishop Muller, the Reich Church, which was wholly  supportive of Hitler.   

  It is no surprise that both the Christian anti-Semites and Jewish neo-Nazis who make up the bulk of the counter demonstration have nothing positive to say or any message to impart.  They direct a volume of abuse at Palestinian supporters, including passers by, thus alienating the public even more.  Jewish demonstrators are particularly subject to villification as ‘traitors’ (when have we ever been loyal to a Nazi/Zionist creed?) and attempts at physical intimidation.  One particularly obnoxious specimen goes by the name of Chelsea.  She is a transexual who clearly does hate herself, as the  Christians despise transgender people and gays in particular.

It is no surprise of course that the Police have given consistent support to the Zionists, as has the business correspondent of the Argus John Keegan.  They have arrested people giving the Zionists a Hitler salute when they are simply recognising them for what they are.  But of course when anti-Semitism was at its height in Britain in the 1930’s with Sir Oswald Moseley, the Police were his best friends.  Just as today when we stopped the English Defence League marching in Brighton, the Police spent hundreds of thousands of pounds enabling them to pollute Brighton’s sea air (& still failed to force them through!) in April 2012.

Tony Greenstein

Israeli Shop Sodastream (Ecostream) Opens in Brighton to Large Picket

Zionists trying to avoid another Ahava-like humiliation

The stall did a roaring trade

 

One of the Bedouin slated for removal from the land

Today, was the beginning of a large picket and stall outside the Israeli shop Sodastream.  A number of our opponents, including two mad Christian Fundamentalists, were on hand, but the vast majority of Brighton people passing by gave us their support and we ran out in 2 hours of over 500 leaflets.  There are a number of pictures of our picket and also a video, whose quality leaves a lot to be desired but gives a flavour of the exchanges. 
So successful though was our first outing that we’ve decided that instead of mounting pickets every 2 weeks, as happened at Ahava, we are going to do weekly pickets of this Apartheid shop.

Its branding in Green Brighton is interesting.  It calls itself ‘Eco’ stream – part of an attempt to greenwash its activities just as the Jewish National Fund calls itself an eco-friendly organisation, building all those forests and parks, even if they are on top of razed Arab villages whose inhabitants have been expelled from the West Bank!  But there is nothing eco friendly about Ecostream’s base and activities.

As the information below shows, Sodastream is based in the Mishor Adumim industrial zone, which is part of the growing number of Jewish only settlements on the outskirts of Jerusalem, Ma’ale Adumim.

Amongst our opponents was a Christian Fundamentalist who claimed to live nearby, but was disturbed by our ‘offensive’ message.  His neigbours described him as a 'w*****' and a mad Black female fundamentalist who seems to think Apartheid was and is ok, and 2 or 3 Zionists who repeated the same hoary lines.  One of them at one point asked me ‘what about the 6 million’!  As if the dead at the hands of the Nazis justify further racism, as I asked what was the logical connection.
This is Sodastream’s first UK outlet and it is rumoured they have a 6 month lease.  It is incumbent upon us to ensure that it is not renewed and Sodastream get the message that stolen goods from stolen land are not welcome here.

Tony Greenstein

Israeli apartheid profiteer Sodastream opens new store in UK

August 22, 2012, Corporate Watch

Sodastream, a carbonated beverage manufacturer, is based in the Mishor Adumim settlement industrial zone. Mishor Adumim is an industrial area  attached to the residential settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, East of  Jerusalem in the Israeli occupied West Bank. Israeli company Soda Club, which owns the Sodastream brandname, has  opened a new store called Ecostream on Western Road in Brighton, UK.

However, Palestinians living in the villages around Mishor Adumim are prevented from building any permanent structure under Israeli military  orders. Their tents and huts, and even a primary school at Khan-al-Ahmar, are subject to demolition by the army

The Israeli army plans to forcibly evict and transfer 20 Palestinian communities, some 2,300 people, from their homes in the area of the Ma’ale Adumim settlement bloc in the occupied West Bank. The plan aims to relocate the communities, a majority of which are Jahalin Bedouin, to a site about 300m away from the Jerusalem municipal garbage dump.  Israeli authorities have not consulted with the communities and the residents oppose the move. Military officials have said that the army will begin implementing the plan in early 2012.  If carried out, this forced transfer would violate Israel’s obligations under international law and uproot some of the poorest communities in the West Bank.

These building restrictions prevent the establishment of any Palestinian businesses, meaning that local Palestinians are forced to work in the settlements. Palestinian agriculture is limited by the settlements monopoly on land and the restrictions placed on the grazing of cattle, often leading to the seizure of cattle by the army.

Palestinians working for Sodastream in Mishor Adumim are working in the context of the occupation. In January 2012 activists from Stop Sodastream Italy made the following statement in response to claims by the company that its workers were well treated: “the fact remains that, as subjects of an occupation regime, these workers do not enjoy civil rights (including the right of workers to organize) and are under constant threat of having their permits to work in the settlement revoked by the company at any moment.”

“Palestinian workers often have no choice but to work in the settlements, with high unemployment rates that are a direct result of the Israeli occupation. The 2011 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development report explicitly links the decline in Palestinian agricultural and industrial sectors and the dire humanitarian conditions with Israeli government policies, in particular the confiscation of land and natural resources, restrictions on movement of people and goods, and isolation from international markets. Only a colonial mindset could claim to provide jobs to the very same people whose land and freedom have been stolen.”

Bedouin tent slated for removal

The Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions urges a boycott of all Israeli companies until Israel complies with international humanitarian law, recognizes the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality, the rights of return of refugees and ends the siege of Gaza and the occupation of all lands occupied in 1967.

Sodastream products are sold in the UK at Robert Dyas, John Lewis, Argos, Comet, Lakeland and some Sainsbury and Asda stores.

For more information on Soda Club see here, pages 96-102.

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