Israel has very distinct social classes. It is now becoming more and more obvious that the country is infested with a society top echelon tier of self-inflicting BDS ingrates.
The BDS is an anti-Israel driven propagandist, founded by Arabs and their cronies, mostly anti-Semites, who together promote hate and boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against the state of Israel.
Ben & Jerry: Ice Cream Industrialists
The Jewish school friends, Ben Cohen and Jerry Greenfield, decided in 1978 to start their Ben & Jerry’s ice cream venture. In 2000 the brand was acquired by Unilever with the ice cream brand available in 33 countries around the globe, including Israel.
The Ben and Jerry duo decided to unsweeten their ice cream brand by delving into Israel’s local politics. Ben & Jerry’s decided to end their ice cream sales in Judea and Samaria, which they claim is a territory occupied by Israel that belongs to the Arabs. WRONG claim, wrong move!
Ben & Jerry’s consulted with like-minded friends before making their boycott Israel decision. They took the advice of anti-Israel activists such as Human Rights Watch “Israel and Palestine” Director Omar Shakir who wrote directly to the company’s board members and was previously deported from the Jewish state for supporting the BDS activities.
This very same board also took advice from journalist-columnist Peter Beinart, a frequent vicious critic of Israel, a self-confessed supporter for the dismantling of the Jewish state, a belief he shares with the terrorist organization Hamas.
This explosively bitter path that Ben & Jerry’s chose to walk on boomeranged with their loss, Unilever settling the battle in favor of the local market, and with Israel’s win.
Self BDS
Nowadays a new phenomenon has been rooting in Israeli society, coming from the politically Left leaning leftists; it is boycotting their own. Then, why even pay attention to BDS actions from abroad when Leftist Israelis are busy creating their own BDS ID tag?
Anti-government Leftist anarchists, disguised as “anti-judicial reform” activists, have come up with a new way to express their politically troubled soul over losing their reign in last year’s election in Israel. They created an Israeli-style BDS movement, targeting their own country, their own economy and with it harming the life’s standard of their fellow citizens.
These local BDS-ers created a Liberal Tag for business, purposefully. it is the Left kosher certification that gives a Left ideology seal of approval to a business where people shop. Kind of an ID, behind it is the announcement to the consumer that this particular business supports democracy, equality, and is busy with the most determined protest in order to bring the current strong right wing coalition government down.
Israel’s own ice cream industrialists – Straus – headed by boycotter Ofra Straus
Founded in Israel in 1939, the Straus Group is a leading global food and beverage company in Israel with expanded operations to over 20 countries across five continents.
The popular Straus ice cream brand goes hand in hand with Israel’s 75 years of Independence. The company’s delicious ice cream is crafted with premium organic milk and cream, has less air and higher butterfat with an exceptional dairy taste, one you can enjoy year round.
Raya is the younger sister of Michael Straus, the two heirs of the Straus business empire, with a net worth of $100 million dollars. Michael’s daughter, now the disgraced Ofra Straus, who initiated the merger of the Straus and Elite companies, is BDS-ing Israel TV channel 14, the only conservative, right leaning TV channel in Israel.
In the battle between Ofra, Straus family third generation, and 2nd generation Raya, who wanted to preserve the traditional spirit of the famous Straus dairy, Ofra won. The image of the Straus family, devotees of Israel, was shattered!
Israeli Billionaires Declare War on Channel 14
Ofra Straus, an Israeli citizen, obviously a Leftist, does not like and does not support the right wing coalition that is currently in charge of Israel’s polity and certainly its only public microphone, TV Channel 14. And so, she decided to boycott the TV channel by ending Straus’s commercials in order to harm the channel’s fiscal stability.
Early August, 2023, the Straus Group Ltd., considered to be the largest food manufacturer and distributor in Israel, announced it was suspending all its commercials on Channel 14. Several months ago the local conglomerate, Coca-Cola, also announced it was boycotting the right-wing TV channel, joined by Delek Motors that sells fancy BMW and Ford vehicles to rich Israelis.
In Return Viewers Boycott Straus’ Products
Straus food products were immediately omitted from Israeli shoppers’ shopping lists. The most effective pushback is against Straus’ most successful product: Tami 4, a water bar that serves cold and hot filtered water and has a special adjustment for use on Shabbat. The product, a subscription service, targets Shabbat-observant customers.
Straus BDS-ing Channel 14 caused customers to call the Tami 4 customer service office and cancel their service contract. The caveat, Straus will be happy to advertise on any TV channel provided that the channel’s messages are based on good values. Precisely what ‘good values’ are Left leaning ones?
The Battle Is in the Media
Since Channel 14’s meteoric rise in the ratings in 2023, the TV channel that suffered the most from this is Channel 13 which lost some of its best rating to Channel 11 and Channel 14 over their right-wing views. Debate and news panels on Channel 13 hardly include a non-leftist to the mix; Channel 14 does include Leftists in its debates programs. Apparently, come hell or high water, Channel 13 is committed to the anti-judicial reform protest movement, which really aims to topple the right wing government. And Straus is a minority shareholder of Channel 13.
Since Channel 14 news and Yinon Magal’s “The Patriots” program have been running and since Justice Minister Yariv Levin’s judicial reform drive Channel 14 has been outscoring mainstream Channel 13 in the ratings. Top-rated Channel 12 is still in the lead followed by Channel 14, then Channel 13, and the public Channel 11. Only since Channel 14 goes off the air on Shabbat, has Channel 13 managed to keep its better rating. That tells much about the political trend in Israel.
Unfortunately, the better Channel 14 does with its growing audience number, the fewer ads it manages to attract, which is pure politics, pure BDS. As basic economics, ad agencies should have moved a hefty part of their budgets from Channel 13 to Channel 14, which would have reflected the latter’s deeper audience reach; but they didn’t; I guess for the fear of retribution which the Left is so good at.
Channel 14 is the only major TV outlet for some 2.5 million Israelis who voted for the right-wing coalition parties that formed the current government. By far it is a huge consumer force that should take steps to punish its political enemies.
Some of Israel’s Print Media Is Self-Hating
The Times of Israel (TOI) online newspaper, in English, is at constant war with Israel’s political Right. It feeds the “hate Israel mantra” to American Jewry with lies and obfuscating information.
The Kohelet Policy Forum, established in 2012, is a conservative, libertarian, right-wing Israeli nonprofit think tank. Due to Kohelet’s support for the judicial reform Israel so badly needs in order to balance its democratic polity, US billionaire Arthur Dantchik ended his support for the think tank. According to the Times of Israel he broke away from the divisive policy of the forum. Dantchik called for unity to “preserve” democracy, the democracy Israel is not enjoying at this junction due to its legally overreaching High Court.
Does BDS-ing Israel Pay?
The BDS movement, founded in 2005, has been calling and putting pressure on the international community to subvert Israel economically as “a form of civil resistance” because it claims that Israel is a colonizing force that occupies Arab land and is an apartheid regime. This calumny is all lies used as tools against Israel.
But to BDS Israel means a change in lifestyle for some consumers who join these anti-Semitic actions.
Thousands of products consumers contain or use Israeli-developed technology, including, iPhone, iPads, MacBooks, Skype, computer firewalls, and Microsoft XP.
Here are 10 brands, with a large business stake in Israel that the BDS supporters have urged others to boycott. Therefore, if you are boycotting Israel, you automatically give up on certain brands like Pampers, Victoria’s Secret, Volvo, Intel, Tribe and Sabra Hummus, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard, Ahava products, McDonald’s, SodaStream and others.
Several local Israeli companies, based in Israel, threatened to move their headquarters out of their homeland and start operating from abroad. This was a threat, and with some change of mind good luck not to be materialized.
Hopefully, the self-inflicting BDS ingrates who appear to be protesting for the sake of protesting will come to a better conclusion. After all they are ingrates who simply do not appreciate the life the country affords them.
US companies that boycott Israel are in violation of US state laws.
Israeli companies that boycott Israel are in violation of exactly what Israeli law?
