Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: SodaStream

Showing posts with label SodaStream. Show all posts

Sunday, February 09, 2014

BDS trying mightily to spin Scarlett into some sort of victory

By any objective yardstick, the SodaStream/Scarlett Johansson episode was an unmitigated disaster for BDS. But Max Blumenthal, whose rabid anti-Zionism and series of provable and verified lies have ensured that he can no longer be published except in Mondoweiss and Arab news outlets, writes a fantasy about Scarlett Johansson to try to fit the facts of the past couple of weeks...

Coke invests in SodaStream competitor; will Pepsi buy SODA?

From Business Week: Coca-Cola (KO) announced on Wednesday that it’s buying a 10 percent stake in Green Mountain Coffee Roasters (GMCR) for $1.25 billion. It’s not a move to get into the coffee business but rather an aggressive push to compete directly with SodaStream (SODA), which sells do-it-yourself carbonation machines as well as the flavor syrups that go with them. Coke...

SodaStream CEO destroys Oxfam official on BBC

This is so great: I also like when the clueless BBC host says that Judea and Samaria is "territory seized from another country." Which country was that, again? And were that country's claims on the West Bank legal under international law? Another point that I've been noticing lately is that the Israel haters - and I'm including the Oxfam representative here - purposely conflate "settlements" with Area C. The two are not identical. Settlements...

If you aren't Jewish, BDS won't boycott you

Ha'aretz has a very nice article about their visit to the Mishor Adumim Industrial Park, where they spoke with happy Arab employees from many companies that work there. But one part was especially interesting: The Shweiki glass factory, with its sleek outer façade and interior, stands out among the mostly shabby-looking low-tech plants, carpentries, workshops and garages that populate this industrial zone just outside the Jewish settlement of...

Even the Guardian's corrections are wrong on SodaStream

From The Guardian's "Corrections and Clarifications" on Monday: An article about the issue of boycotts of Israel (US and Israel in war of words over boycotts warning, 3 February, ) wrongly stated that SodaStream, an Israeli company, is "based in the West Bank settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, which is built on expropriated Arab land". As we have said before, it is a factory that...

My letter to Reuters about SodaStream

Not that I expect anything to be done, but when they know people are watching them, they tend to be a little more careful. Dear Editor, In the story "Israeli settlement factory sparks Super Bowl-sized controversy," writer Noah Browning interviews a worker at the SodaStream plant in Mishor Adumim: One mid-level Palestinian employee who spoke to Reuters outside the plant, away from the bosses, painted a far less perfect picture, however."There's...

Two more articles showing SodaStream's Arab workers are against BDS (updated)

I've been keeping a tally of articles about Arab SodaStream workers, and two more have appeared. Both of them again find that the workers are happy and against any boycott, utterly demolishing the lies of Electronic Intifada and Reuters' Noah Browning. From The Telegraph: “We have no problems working here”, said one Palestinian employee, as others nodded in agreement. “The...

Tweets and administrivia

Sometimes I tweet things that people like, but I don't blog them. Which makes me feel guilty. Yesterday, I saw posted on CUWI Facebook page an old, great cartoon that I cleaned up and tweeted - and it quickly became very popular: My SodaStream poster, which The Forward mentioned was going viral, made it to the UK: My #SodaStream poster makes it to the UK http://t.co/GsBAKOvJ0V...

Special Achievement Hasby Award for outstanding grassroots activism

This is a Special Achievement Hasby Award, given outside the normal nominations process, since I didn't have a category for this - and I should have. The Special Achievement Hasby Award for grassroots activism goes to.... ...

Arab SodaStream workers say they are against BDS

From the Christian Science Monitor: [T]hose most familiar with the factory – Palestinians who work there – largely side with Ms. Johansson. “Before boycotting, they should think of the workers who are going to suffer,” says a young man shivering in the pre-dawn darkness in Azzariah, a West Bank town cut off from work opportunities in Jerusalem by the concrete Israeli separation wall. Previously, he earned 20 shekels ($6) a day plucking and cleaning...

1980 UK SodaStream commercial plus more

Far out, man. This is actually a YouTube playlist so there are some other bizarre SodaStream commercials that just keep on coming if you choose "Play All."...

From AP: Scarlett Johansson is ending her relationship with a humanitarian group after being criticized over her support for an Israeli company that operates in the West Bank. A statement released by Johansson's spokesman Wednesday said the 29-year-old actress has "a fundamental difference of opinion" with Oxfam International because the humanitarian group opposes all trade...

How Israel-haters use interview bias in SodaStream stories (updated)

The SodaStream story brings up an interesting point about journalism itself. So far, since last year, we have seen four different media outlets interview workers at the SodaStream plant in Mishor Adumin. First, JTA last February: “Everyone works together: Palestinians, Russians, Jews,” a Palestinian employee named Rasim at the Maale Adumim site told JTA. Rasim has worked at the plant for four months and asked that his last name not be published....

The Forward went to the SodaStream factory in Mishor Adumim and spoke to the CEO, Daniel Birnbaum. Birnbaum is not at all a right wing fanatic. Far from it. He is as liberal a person as you can find. He does not support Israel's claim to Judea and Samaria. He would not have set up the factory in Mishor Adumim, but it was there when he took over the company. And he shows...

The Sodastream irony

If you put together everything that every "pro-Palestinian "activist has ever done for actual, real Palestinians.... If you tally all the specific things that Omar Barghouti and Max Blumenthal and Philip Weiss and Ali Abuminah and Greta Berlin and Ben White and every single member of Free Gaza, Mondoweiss, Electronic Intifada, the BDS Movement, Students for Justice in Palestine,...

My Sodastream poster dedicated to Scarlett Johansson (updated)

UPDATE: The Forward mentions this poster but says it is inaccurate. In fact, the company’s own estimate of how many Palestinians it employs is now 500 out of some 1,300 total workers — up from 160 Palestinians in December 2010 as a result of the growth in sales. And the poster’s grandiose claim that the company “built a mosque on site” appears to be based on a company...

SodaStream shows the toxic hate - and hypocrisy - of leftists

Sodastream as a microcosm of Israel: My first-ever holiday party was going great until someone in the living room wanted club soda for his vodka. It’s not that I wasn’t prepared. I was in the kitchen, overseeing eggnog, and I handed my co-host a bottle of seltzer made for the occasion with my SodaStream countertop carbonator. He’s the one who told me what happened next. “Enjoy...

BDS leader explains how the movement is meant to manipulate Western liberals

The Badil Center, a Palestinian Arab organization that is a major force behind the BDS movement, has published an extensive analysis in Jadaliyya magazine of their perspective on its progress and shortcomings over the past eight years. The magazine reprints what appears to be a seminal 2011 piece by Nimer Sultany of SOAS in London, one of the theoreticians behind today's BDS movement. A careful reading of his article reveals the pure hypocrisy...

The heroes of Brighton

Thanks to a Hasby Awards nomination from Harvela, I saw this short video showing how many ordinary people come out every Saturday to counterprotest the BDSers in Brighton who are boycotting a Jewish owned shop that happens to sell Sodastream. There are lots of videos there, definitely worth checking ou...

#BDSFail in Brighton

From Sussex Friends of Israel: Supporters of Israel came together today, to hold a Bagels Against Bigotry party outside Brighton’s environmentally friendly refill store Ecostream, to counter a planned day of action and demonstration by BDS, the anti Israel group Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions. The bagel themed party started at 11.30am outside the Ecostream store on Western...