A selection of sites reporting the closure of Sodastream’s ‘Ecostream’ store in Brighton:
Palestine Solidarity Campaign (UK)
International Middle East Media Centre
Oumma.com (NB “Les Militants de Brighton”)
Other News & Reports
Palestine Solidarity Campaign issues statement about deaths of three Israelis
The Palestine Solidarity Campaign issued the following statement from its UK headquarters in London:
July 1, 2014
Kamel Hawwash, Vice-chair of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, said:
‘I am saddened to hear of the death of the three missing Israelis whose bodies were found near Hebron. It is time violence ended and a genuine drive for a just peace started.
Over 1500 Palestinian children have been killed by Israeli forces since 2000.
Israel regularly abducts Palestinian children, beats them, humiliates them and brings them to military courts in shackles. In 2012, a Foreign Office-commissioned report confirmed that Israel treated Palestinian children as adults at 16 while Jewish Israelis were legally not considered adults until 18.
Israel missed the opportunity to show a genuine desire for peace in the recent peace talks, choosing to build illegal settlements instead. I fear that rather than conduct a proper investigation into the deaths, Israel will collectively punish Palestinians. It has done this since the three went missing, arresting hundreds and killing at least five Palestinians. An enlightened Israeli leadership would want to end the conflict and move to end the occupation of Palestine. I fear it will choose violence.’
Professor Kamel Hawwash, Vice-chair, Palestine Solidarity Campaign
EcoStream store closes following two years of street protests
See also:
Ecostream closure announced around the worldBHPSC thanks Brighton & Hove for supporting the Ecostream campaign |
Following two years of regular street protests by pro-Palestine campaigners outside the EcoStream store in central Brighton, the shop has announced that it has ceased trading.
Campaigners have held regular demonstrations outside the store since it opened in the summer of 2012. The protests have raised awareness about the role of the shop’s parent company SodaStream in Israel’s programme of ethnic cleansing and human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territory. SodaStream’s main factory is located on an illegal Israeli settlement in the occupied Palestinian West Bank, where Palestinian villages have been destroyed and the population removed to make room for Israeli colonists and businesses. The SodaStream company enjoys numerous financial incentives from the Israeli government to operate there in order to consolidate the illegal occupation of Palestine.
The people of Brighton and Hove have been asked to boycott the EcoStream shop to show their disapproval of Israel’s illegal settlements and their violations of human rights, and to put pressure on the Israeli government to comply with international law. The people of Brighton & Hove have responded by refusing to buy into the shop’s alleged ‘green’ image. The shop’s profits declined steadily over the two years of the protests. Today’s announcement of the shop’s closure is the result.
The regular protests outside the EcoStream store in Western Road have attracted huge support from local residents and from human rights campaigners all over the country and internationally. The campaign has featured regularly in the local, national and international media – including coverage in the Times and the Guardian. The campaign is now a national one, with stockists of SodaStream products being targeted for protests in local areas across the UK.
Brighton & Hove Palestine Solidarity Campaign today issued the following statement:
‘This campaign has taken the message about human rights abuses in occupied Palestine to the people of Brighton, and their response has been fantastic. They have made it clear that they do not want businesses from illegal Israeli settlements trading in their town. The closure of SodaStream’s so-called flagship UK store in Brighton is just one step in a campaign to send a clear message to the Israeli government and the international community that, at the grassroots level, people of conscience are taking action to force Israel to comply with international law and to bring about justice for the Palestinian people. We give notice to the other stockists of SodaStream products in the city that we will continue to take the message about SodaStream to the people of Brighton on behalf of the Palestinian people. Congratulations to the people of Brighton and Hove, who can tell the difference between ethical and unethical.’
These protests are part of a wider international movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), following a call in 2005 by over 130 civil society organisations in Palestine (http://www.bdsmovement.net/). The BDS Call 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. The EcoStream protest has focused specifically on the Israeli programme of illegal settlement expansion, and the presence in the store of products manufactured on a key illegal settlement in the West Bank.
Oxfam ‘in dialogue’ with Scarlett Johansson over SodaStream endorsement
The international development organisation Oxfam is currently facing a dilemma. Since 2005, the actor Scarlett Johansson has worked with them as a ‘global ambassador’, and has reportedly helped the organisation considerably with their work.
It has emerged that Johansson has recently signed up to do a similar job for SodaStream – the deeply unethical Israeli company targeted around the world for boycott, due to their complicity in illegal settlement expansion and human rights abuses in the occupied Palestinian territories.
In response to a letter-writing campaign, the Oxfam CEO Mark Goldring has stated publicly that Oxfam “is opposed to trade from Israeli settlements, in which Sodastream is engaged. Israeli settlements are illegal under international law and have a devastating effect on the lives and livelihoods of the Palestinian communities that Oxfam works with. Trade with businesses operating in settlements exacerbates the ongoing poverty and denial of Palestinians’ rights that Oxfam addresses in its work.”
Significantly, he states that Oxfam “are now engaged in a dialogue with Scarlett Johansson on these important issues”.
Oxfam is clearly embarrassed by Johansson’s partnership with SodaStream, and is looking for a way to save face all around. And the pressure on the organisation is acute, since SodaStream has recorded a major TV advert starring Scarlett Johansson to be broadcast during the TV coverage of the US football Superbowl on the 2nd of February. If the advert goes out and she remains Oxfam’s ‘celebrity ambassador’, Oxfam’s reputation and popular respect amongst people of conscience will suffer a serious blow.
The furore has attracted considerable media attention. See for example the coverage on Mondoweiss.
The Oxfam CEO Mark Goldring can be contacted at mgoldring@oxfam.org.uk.
Globe Theatre: Strong pro-Palestinian protest inside and out
The managers of the Globe Theatre in London, along with hundreds of passers-by on London’s south bank, will have been left in no doubt about the strength of opposition to the Globe’s invitation to the Israeli National Theatre Company, Habima, to perform as part of the ‘Cultural Olympiad’.
In the hours before the performance on Monday 28th May, hundreds of pro-Palestinian protesters made their presence felt in a noisy but peaceful demonstration outside the theatre, and inside the theatre the performance was disrupted several times by protesters who unfurled banners and shouted ‘Israeli Apartheid Leave the Stage’.
Lyn Gardner in the Guardian reported that it was ‘an evening that held as much drama off stage as it did on: the production took place amid airport-style security and pro-Palestinian protests were held both outside the theatre and during the performance. For much of the first half, a woman stood up in one of the galleries silently in protest, her mouth taped shut. Others were removed.’
For full coverage of the protest, follow the links below:
The BBC version of events
The Press Release from the Boycott Israel Network
Tony Greenstein’s blog account
A lively account in The Independent
Numerous video clips on YouTube posted by Art4Palestine
Write to the Co-op to support their stance on Palestinian human rights!
On April the 27th the Cooperative Group board made a historic and welcome decision to extend their Human Rights & Trade Policy to include all companies who trade in the illegal settlements. While the Co-op’s policy shift isn’t a complete boycott of all Israeli companies, we do recognise what an important advance this is for the BDS movement: the 5th biggest UK food retailer and the biggest Co-operative society in Europe will be boycotting four complicit companies and have promised that evidence of other companies’ illegal trading activity, if proven, will result in the policy applying to those companies too.
The Co-operative Group have demonstrated that human rights can come before profit, which is something Israel is desperate to ensure doesn’t become the norm. Now is the time to send a clear message to other food retailers and UK companies, that ethical trading does make a difference and people should always come before profit. You can start by writing a letter to Len Wardle, Chair of the Co-operative Group expressing your appreciation of the policy change. You can do this whether or not you are a member of the Co-op.
