46 thoughts on “BREAKING: BDS Victorious as Ahava to Leave Occupied Territory, Move Plant Within Green Line – Tikun Olam תיקון עולם إصلاح العالم
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    1. @ iliya: “Pals?” Who are Pals? Do you call Jews “Yids?” If not, respect the name Palestinian, and if you can’t use it then don’t bother coming here.

      If Israel recognized Palestine as a free state & permitted it to have a fully free functioning economy it wouldn’t need the pittance that Israeli companies offer Palestinian workers.

    2. Yawn. Your ugly attitude to the Palestinians aside– so very typical for hasbarat cretins– it’s hilarious to see you try and champion yet another anti-Palestinian company as some kind of “equal opportunity” employer, in a desperate, grasping attempt to poo-poo what’s happened.

      The fact remains is that it is Israel, and Israelis, who go out of their way to damage or disable the Palestinian economy, and so cause the most grievous employment problems for Palestinians as a result.

      As with sodastream, the employment of a handful of Palestinians at best, paid considerably less then Jews and treated as ethic/racial inferiors by their “employers”, at a company like Ahava doesn’t remotely change the fact of what I just brought up.

        1. @ Eyal: That’s not what I wrote. I wrote that they were not paid the same wages they would’ve earned in a factory WITHIN Israel. Salaries for Palestinian workers in Sodastream plants are less than Israeli workers earn in Israeli plants within the Green Line. That’s one of the reasons factories outside Israel can be more profitable.

          Next time, read my comment carefully and respond precisely to what I wrote, not what you thought I wrote or wished I’d written. And accuse me of lying again & you’ll be banned.

          1. @ Richard
            Eyal is not responding to your comment but to another one on the thread.

        2. @ Eyal
          No, Kyle Renner is not lying, Palestinian workers at Sodastream were not treated as their Israeli conuterparts (not to mention that only a few new Jewish immigrants did the same work as the Palestinians) and your Hasbara-video from The Israel Project doesn’t convince anyone !
          There’s plenty of evidence, also statements from Israeli NGO’s and trade unions about the discrimination of Palestinian workers (concerning salaries, overtimes-pay, working conditions and working hours, medical insurances, working contracts, paid vacation and you name it !).
          Here’s Larry Derfner on 972mag: http://972mag.com/the-cynical-exploitation-of-palestinian-workers-in-scarlett-johanssonsodastream-affair/86698/
          “Who Profits”, the Israeli NGO also made a case study on Sodestream (cf. link in article on Electronic Intifada)

        3. @Eyal:

          ” A blatant lie. The Palestinians received exactly the same salaries as their Israeli counterparts and everybody was treated the same.”

          This in itself is a blatant lie. A shameless and stupid lie, with the latter part of your sentence looking like some third-rate hasbara muppet scrambling desperately to cover his ass after losing an argument on campus.

          “NO NO NO THEY WERE TREATED ALL THE SAME AND THEY LIKED WORKING FOR US” whilst breathing heavily and preparing to break out the cries of “anti-Semite”.

          Palestinians who worked for those illegally occupying companies report otherwise. Palestinians in general report otherwise. NGOs working for rights for Palestinians under the Israeli occupation report otherwise.

          ” Watch this video if you really want to know.
          link to youtu.be”

          Eyal– if I want to lose brain cells I can go huff glue or gasoline. I’m sorry– your attempts to push this foolish hasbara narrative about the nature of the illegally occupying Israeli companies in the West Bank and how they supposedly “really” treat” the sub-handful of Palestinian workers they employed just won’t work on me.

          Know why? Because I don’t have my head up where the sun don’t shine. Get it?

  1. Actually Jews do refer to themselves as Yidden or Yids in Yiddish but not ‘Juden’ because in Europe it was in the pejorative.
    Semantics 101.

    1. @ iliya: I’m not talking about Yiddish and you know it. I’m talking about English. Do you call Jews “Yids” in English before a mixed Jewish & non-Jewish audience? No you don’t. So don’t defame Palestinians by doing something similar. And don’t try to prove yourself more erudite than I am on this subject. You’re not.

        1. You keep them in poverty and then ‘grant’ them an underpaid job in your factories. You’re a shining example to the world.

  2. “Ahava now joins at least three other companies including Sodastream which have moved from locations in the Occupied Territories to within Israel itself. ”

    And taking Palestinian’s jobs with them.

    1. @ Barbar: Yours is the third comment I’ve read (1 here & a few on social media) saying the exact same stupid thing. Must be talking points from Hasbara Central.

      Which Palestinians has Ahava offered jobs to? And even if it had, were they jobs paying the going rate for an Israeli job inside Israel? You know they’re not. So these companies were exploiting these workers to maximize profit. Not doing Palestinians a favor. BTW, can you show me any other thing you’ve ever written anywhere in which you show genuine concern for the plight of Palestinian workers? I didn’t think so.

      You’re probably confusing Ahava with Sodastream, which did employ Palestinians. But Sodastream abandoned the West Bank not because of BDS but because it got a better deal exploiting Bedouin workers at its new plant in the Negev.

        1. And they all seem to say it the same way. In general, I’ve grown to dislike words or phrases like “purchase” or “part and parcel” as the hasbara crowd really does love to use them when they trot out propaganda at the general level.

          But I digress. This doesn’t have much to do with the topic at hand.

          1. To digress further, who’s to say Arab Hasbarists don’t “repeat each others’s dumb talking points” ad infinitum, as well?

          2. @ Laurel: “Arabs” as you call them (& whatever that’s supposed to mean) don’t have nearly the wads of cash to throw around nor do they have an advanced propaganda culture like Israel does. So there are far fewer “Arab hasbarists.” But the few that there are, the serious ones (if there are any) admire some of the work of pro-Israel hasbarists. They’d learn a few lessons about how to defend lying, cheating and stealing.

    2. Barbar in the end who cares where the Israeli Jewish factories are ?

      Study: At least 78% of humanitarian aid intended for Palestinians ends up in Israel’s coffers
      http://mondoweiss.net/2016/03/study-at-least-78-of-humanitarian-aid-intended-for-palestinians-ends-up-in-israeli-coffers/

      Sooner or later average Europeans and Americans will find out this money making system Israeli Jews have created using their Palestinian slaves and not only West Bank located settler industries will be blocked. Palestinians and especially Europeans and Americans who pay and keep this circus running, should finally end Palestinian Authority and this decades long imaginary two state game. Let Israel pay the real (=all) costs of the occupation , both military and the economical aid to Palestinians. If we do that there will be peace in a year or two. Israel Jews simply can not finance their growing unproductive religious sector, 5 million Palestinians, military occupation and their overlarge army with nukes. The result will be Israel renamed to Palestine or real two states based on 1967 borders, no matter which lunatics rule Israel’s Jewish side.

    3. Yawn.

      The real problem when it comes to problems with the Palestinian economy, and people going out of work?

      The occupation. The land theft project. The deliberate and relentless Israeli attempt to mess with the Palestinian economy in general.

      The hasbara stinkers seem to love to ignore all of these facts in favour of whining in the way you are whenever some Israeli company sitting on stolen land gets pushed out. Because pretending that half wages at best and being held in contempt for being “dirty” Palestinians is a better state of affairs for Palestinians as opposed to working in and profiting from Palestinian businesses and the Palestinian economy in general.

      Simply pathetic. No other way to say it.

    1. Well these are people who seem to see nothing wrong with people shrilling “death to Arabs” or unhinged ranting on commercial airliners about “Palestinian animals”, but see statements like “the settlements are illegal” or “Palestinians have rights and are as human as Jews” to be “hate speech” on par with what came out of Hitler’s mouth.

      So it goes without saying that the hypocrisy aside, they’re going to accuse people of being “hateful” at the drop of a pin, if that much.

  3. The British prison company . G4S, has declared it wilkl cut its ties to Isael entirely. Another valuable success for BDS.

    In that case, it sounds as though G4S is out of Israel entirey, and not merely out of West Bank.

    I’ve always believed that BDS must (that is, MUST) target all israeli companies and not only those which have operations in occupied territory, and the reason is illustrated by these Ahava and G4S stories. If Ahava and all other Israeli profit-making companies legft the West Bank and the Golan (so that settlers remained but not companies), the occupation would continue merrily on its way and BDS would have no targets.

    To defeat the occupation, BDS must aim at all Israeli companies and all foreign companies doing business inside Israel (even if not in occupied territory).

    1. “Another valuable success for BDS”

      Based on what?
      Lets play this out.
      So BDS protested, and G45 buckled.
      How does this help the Palestinian cause?

      Thx

      1. @ Mur: In case you hadn’t noticed, it’s not my job to educate you or clarify things about which you are confused. I think most of the rest of us understand this completely without need for such hand-holding.

    2. One can swallow it as a tactical step, but agree it should at some later point target the whole of Israel. As for those claiming “zero chance” this or that(check other comments on the thread), one can certainly imagine some people holding similar arrogant stand within the earlly Crusaders, where Arabs were at their weakest. The Crusades lasted more than hundred years,then driven out by the Arabs. The fact that the conflict is still very active, unresolved on the international arena, for more then sixty yrs, with the Arabs that weak, should give the stronger side some reasons to worry if and when Arabs ascend in power and influence.

      1. @ Mostafa: Agreed, it would be like me, a Democrat crowing that the GOP is in free fall & can never elect another president. I’ve lived long enough to know that the GOP, whether I want it or not, will recoup & eventually win the presidency. Just as the current Israeli regime cannot last forever no matter what the hasbara brigade here says. BDS will eventually win, whether it takes a yr or a decade.

  4. @pabelmont

    Zero chance that the Arabs will have their One Palestine, ‘from the river to the sea’ ; the Jews will not pack up and abandon their homeland in Israel to move to ‘who knows where’. Nor will the Jews forfeit their independence to become servile to Palestinian masters over Arab Palestine.

    Likewise, zero chance that the Palestinians will cut a deal that would end their ‘armed struggle for liberation’.
    http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4776949,00.htm

    BDS can do their best, but at the end of the day, the West despises Arab culture, and Arab civilization is turning to shit before our eyes in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, etc.

    Israel will survive BDS, because in the end, the very core, of Arab civilization is rotten, and neither Richard, pabelmont, Elizabeth or Deir Yassin, or their fellow travelers ,can prove that Arab civilization is in ascendance.

    l

    1. @Barbar

      “the Jews will not pack up and abandon their homeland in Israel to move to ‘who knows where’. “

      Well, I know the possible destination of one – aren’t you from the U.S? And when you are at it perhaps you can induce a few of your compatriots to go with you.

      “American extremism in the West Bank is not unique and contributes to growing tensions between Palestinians and illegal settlers. Sara Hirschhorn, a research lecturer and fellow at the University of Oxford, has revealed that out of the 600,000 Israeli settlers illegally squatting on occupied Palestinian land, 60,000 in the West Bank are Americans (more than the number of Americans in Afghanistan and Iraq combined), making up 15 percent of the settler population”

      http://www.huffingtonpost.com/maen-rashid-areikat/israeli-settlements-ameri_b_9101978.html

      1. @Arie

        I moved to Israel for personal, rather than religious or national, motives, and overall, I do not like my life here.
        My fellow Americans who did move here are genuine Zionists, and they have sunk roots.

        Your attempts to ‘other’ people, divide, or otherwise scapegoat, will failure, because Israel is a surprisingly happy and cohesive society, something you and Richard don’t get. You have to be on the inside to see it.

        If anyone thinks that a BDS stranglehold, or the removal of every settler from Judea and Samaria, is going to usher in a new age of peace and prosperity, they are sadly mistaken on both counts

        Maybe I will go back to America someday, but you, Arie Brand, has been sucked into the I/P vortex and you will never get out.

        1. @ Barbar: I simply don’t believe you. You ARE a Zionist. And if the hasbara blather you offer here about Israel being the greatest thing since sliced bread indicates you are unhappy in Israel, then I suggest you consult a psychiatrist since you show signs of having a split personality.

          If YOU are not a Zionist, then your friends who are “genuine Zionists” are out & out ultra nationalist fascists.

          Israel is a surprisingly happy and cohesive society, something you and Richard don’t get

          What you mean is that the Israelis YOU KNOW are relatively happy. That’s a relatively small cross section. But even if we concede that Israelis generally are content, that’s simply because they are Israeli Jews. Israeli Palestinians may be happier than Syrians, but that’s not saying much. They’re certainly much less happy than Israeli Jews. I can’t imagine that the 1/3 of Israeli Jews who are poor can be very happy either. So the Israelis who are really happy are middle to upper-class and Jewish.

          As for “cohesive,” you must be dreaming. There are more social & ethnic fissures in Israel than on the San Andreas fault.

        2. “Israel is a surprisingly happy and cohesive society.”
          Well, if agreeing on treating the Arab minority badly makes a society happy and cohesive, maybe you’re right.

          “But the divisions within Jewish society are dwarfed by the yawning chasm between Jews and Arabs. Four out of every five Jews favors discriminating in favor of Jews. Fully 48 percent agree with the statement that “Arabs should be expelled or transferred from Israel.” Ultra-Orthodox, religious and traditional Jews all support that statement by large majorities. Only secular Jews somewhat balance out the picture – but even among this group, one third signed off on the transfer idea.”

          read more: http://www.haaretz.com/opinion/1.708238

    2. @ Has-Barbarian: I really could care less about your predictions about what will or won’t happen in I-P relations. Save them for someone who really cares.

      No one (at least not here) says the Jews will or should “pack up.” I don’t expect any Jews to leave Israel except perhaps the oligarchs with their billions who will no longer have carte blanche in the transformed Israeli state. Nor will Jews forfeit their independence. They will become citizens with equal, not superior, rights to all other citizens.

      So let me see: despite the fact that polls repeatedly show Palestinian opinion far more willing to compromise than Israeli opinion, you link to a Ynet article which attempt to distill something about Abbas’ views. And you believe Ynet can correctly portray Abbas’ views, why??? The notion that Abbas is the, or an obstacle to peace is preposterous on its face. He may be corrupt. He may be inept. But if he’s anything, he’s Israel’s toady puppet. If Israel wanted peace, Abbas would be their man. He’d sell his soul to get a half a loaf for Palestinians.

      the West despises Arab culture, and Arab civilization is turning to shit before our eyes in Egypt, Syria, Iraq and Yemen, etc…the very core, of Arab civilization is rotten

      I’ve been waiting for you to hang yourself here & you just did. The only thing turning to shit is your disgusting Arabophobic comment. And the notion that you have any expertise to judge anything related to “Arab culture or civilization” is offensive on its face. You are now moderated. The next time you violate the comment rules, should you continue to post, you may be banned.

    3. Speaking of ‘fellow travelers’: I know a lot of people who are slowly discovering, or already have, that they have been fellow travelers for Israel for years, and it is a great disillusionmen to them to discover that they have been fooled.
      It must have been similar for Communists in the thirties, discovering what the Soviet Union was really like. For many it even took as long as the speech of Nikita Khrushchev in 1956 to open their eyes.

    4. @ Barbaric Hasbara
      ” (…..) the very core, of Arab civilization is rotten (….)”
      Kus ummak as we say ! (Sorry Richard.)

      1. Imagine the petulant outrage from the likes of Babar if one were to say that the very core of Jewish civilization was rotten because of things like the fact that the majority of Jews who’re pro-israel are pro-ethnic cleansing, pro-dehumanization, and generally “for” the leveling of entire city blocks and heaps of dead or maimed civilians– provided, of course, that they can always lie and whine to anyone who’ll listen about being the “real victims” and how the people they killed “wanted to die to make Israel look bad”.

        It’s pretty clear that he does like the idea of death and strife in different parts of the Arab world because he can try and push his rather repulsive narrative and otherwise show his utter indifference for the suffering in places like Syria or Yemen or Libya. That doesn’t make his “argument” in as much as it shows him up for how repulsive and morally bankrupt he and people like him are in general.

  5. @Barbar

    You can do this hasbara job equally well in the US, can’t you? And there seem to be rich pickings in the offing:

    “The Israeli government is planning to pour $26 million this year alone into a covert cyber operation to attack and sabotage the global human rights movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS), earmarking large sums for technology companies to spy on Muslim activists in the United States and Europe.
    The initiative was reported last week by Associated Press journalist Daniel Estrin, who told AlterNet he was personally invited to cover a private cyber technology forum for Israeli developers last month.

    … Estrin’s reporting makes one thing clear: The Israeli crackdown is poised to escalate its campaign to unprecedented levels. An unknown number of Israeli tech companies are threatening to unleash a wave of cyber-attacks, including “sly algorithms to restrict these online activists’ circle of influence” as well as “forensic intelligence gathering, such as detecting digital or semantic signatures buried in activists’ coding so they are able to track and restrict their online activity.”
    Those acts of sabotage will take place alongside a flood of “content that puts a positive face on Israel.”
    The non-profit Firewall Israel, sponsored by a government-linked think tank known as the Reut Institute, is “building an online platform to help pro-Israel activists around the world communicate about anti-Israel activism in their communities,” the article states.”

    http://www.alternet.org/grayzone-project/israel-announces-26-million-cyber-attack-boycott-divestment-and-sanctions-movement

  6. [comment deleted for comment violations–first, if you ever want to publish a comment here you must first read the comment rules. Second, this blog & the comment rules are not forums for pimping Kahanist principles as you have. You have plenty of other places to that. It’s been a long time since anyone tried to do that on their first published comment here. Because of that, you’re moderated. If you publish future comments that do not violate the comment rules, I might relax this.]

    1. This is after the fact, but Meir Kahane and his son were and remain evil people who have only a damned legacy. They caused their own deaths, like all kahanists. Just wanted you to know that, Majorie Stamm Rosenfeld.

      That’s their only legacy, and the fate of all contemporary Kahanists.

  7. I put a post here about a new plan and budget allocation of the Israeli “Propagandaministerium” to counter BDS. But it disappeared …. unless it is on a second page that I can’t trace.

    1. @Arie:

      It really is telling to see what conniptions they end up going into over BDS, despite their attempts to dismiss it outright otherwise. Goes double for the certified hasbarat types.

  8. About working condition for Palestinian laborers is Israeli plants in the West Bank, this excellent Dutch documentary (which won various prizes back in 2011): you’ve got to see it to believe it.
    It’s not about the settlements but about the free zones created just across the Green Line, the part about pollution is also very important (in fact factories were moved from within Israel proper to the Free Zones so the wind bring the pollution into the West Bank …).
    If any of you out there are into trade unions, this is a must.
    http://www.march21.nl/projecten/files/seedsofpeace.html

  9. @Kyle

    I recently read a column by Shlomo Ben Ami, a former Israeli foreign minister, in which he argues that Israel has now “a multitude of foreign policy opportunities” that serve to counterbalance the growing disaffection of the West.

    Israel now trades more with former enemies – China, India, Japan – than with the US. The leaders of those countries do not bother “ to link their economic ties with Israel to the success of peace talks with the Palestinians”..

    Israel is also cozying up to Russia. It refrained from criticising that country on the annexation of the Crimea and the arming of Ukrainian rebels. It has come to an understanding with it on the lines that should not be crossed in Syria.

    And in Israel’s immediate neighbourhood even Erdogan has decided that there are for him and Turkey “no strategic benefits from the Palestinian cause” and that Turkey “needs a country like Israel”.

    In the backyard of Europe Israel sees Greece and Hungary as potential allies in subverting or mitigating European sanctions. “In exchange for gas, defines technology and military intelligence, Greece is now offering its airspace for Israeli air force training”. In addition Greece has declared that it will not honour European Union guidelines about the labelling of goods produced in the settlements. So much for loyalty to the Union, the loyalty Greece expected as its due from other members to get out of its financial difficulties, say I not Bern Ami. Hungary too has come out against these guidelines “And, in fact” says Ben Ami, “as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu edges Israel toward illiberal democracy, he is counting on Eastern Europe’s increasingly illiberal governments to help shield Israel from adverse EU initiatives.”

    Does Ben Ami welcome these new opportunities for Israel . The short answer is No. There is no reason for Israel to rejoice. “After all. the suppression of Palestine has, and will continue to have, fatally corrosive effects on Israeli society. Insofar as Israel’s new foreign-policy opportunities allow for the continuation of that suppression, they are not good for Israel or Palestine.”

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