Computers and Diapers Are Two Products Which Will Disappear If The Boycott Movement (BDS) Has Its Way

FEBRUARY 3, 2014 · 12:00 AM

↓ Jump to Comments

10 brands you'll have to give up if you're boycotting Israel

Since 2005, the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement (BDS) has called on the international community to pressure Israel economically as “a form of civil resistance to Israeli occupation, colonialism, and apartheid.”

That would mean significant lifestyle changes for some consumers. Here are 10 brands that BDS supporters have urged others to boycott, not to mention thousands of other products that contain or use Israeli-developed technology, including iPhones, iPads, MacBooks, Skype, computer firewalls, and Microsoft XP.

1. Pampers

Proctor & Gamble, which produces Pampers, is one of the largest clients of an Israeli company that supplies diaper products, Avgol Nonwoven Industries. P&G accounts for nearly half of the company's sales, according to the pro-boycott research group Who Profits. Avgol Nonwoven Industries runs a plant in the Barkan industrial complex, located near the West Bank settlement of Ariel.

2. Victoria's Secret

The popular lingerie company is one of the largest clients of Delta Galil, which operates a textile factory in the West Bank industrial zone of Barkan as well as a shop in the settlement of Maale Adumim. Palestinians have also criticized the company for establishing its headquarters on land expropriated from Palestinians in the Galilee.

3. Volvo

BDS supporters have criticized the Swedish giant for supplying equipment used to bulldoze Palestinian homes and also for its 27 percent stake in Merkavim, whose buses are used to transport Palestinian prisoners to and from Israeli jails.

4. Intel

Al-Awda, the Palestinian Right to Return Coalition, has called on Intel to close its plants in Kiryat Gat, site of the former Palestinian villages Iraq al-Manshiya and Faluja. Israeli historian Benny Morris has written that during the 1948-49 Israeli war of independence with Palestinians and their Arab allies, the villages' residents were all expelled in line with Israel's “strategic desire to achieve 'Arab-clear' frontiers.”

Intel, whose processors can be found in about 80 percent of the world's computers, has reportedly invested $2.7 billion to upgrade its Kiryat Gat plants where it is working on new chips that will make computers lighter and faster. That brings its total investments in Israel to about $10 billion, and it has also benefited from more than $1 billion in Israeli government grants.

5. Hummus

A Philadelphia-based BDS campaign drew attention to Israeli hummus makers Tribe and Sabra with a flash dance adaptation of a Lady Gaga song, which they dubbed “No Justice, No (Chick) Peas.” The critics pointed to Sabra parent company Strauss's support of the Israeli military, and Tribe's owner Osem's support of the Jewish National Fund, which they criticized for displacing Bedouin with development projects in the Negev desert.

6. Motorola

Electronics giant Motorola has been targeted by BDS supporters for providing surveillance equipment used around Israeli settlements, along the Israeli-built separation barrier, and along the Israel-Gaza border. In addition, the company signed a $100 million deal with Israel in January 2014 for encrypted smartphones for its soldiers and security personnel.

7. Hewlett-Packard

Hewlett-Packard, the maker of computers and printers better known as HP, has come under fire for its involvement in biometric technology at Israeli checkpoints and for Israeli identification cards. BDS supporters have also criticized them for using service providers based in Israeli settlements.

8. Ahava

The Israeli cosmetics company, whose name means “love,” is a common target of BDS supporters. Ahava's products use minerals from the Dead Sea, which borders occupied territory, and its manufacturing plant is located in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank that is also a shareholder in the company, giving the settlement a direct financial stake. Ahava exports to 45 countries, and derives about half its sales from such exports.

9. McDonald's

BDS supporters have targeted McDonald's for its partnership with the Jewish United Fund, which, among other things, promotes visits to Kiryat Gat, built on top of a destroyed Palestinian village. Critics have also targeted McDonald's for discriminating against Arab workers at its restaurants in Israel.

10. SodaStream

The Israeli company, which runs a factory in the industrial park connected with the Israeli settlement of Maale Adumim, has become a lightning rod for BDS criticism since releasing an ad featuring Scarlett Johansson. Palestinian residents in the area and international activists issued a press release on Jan. 30 calling on Ms. Johansson to stop promoting SodaStream, saying that such companies “directly support Israel's illegal occupation and colonization of Palestinian land by paying taxes to municipal settlement governments, employing local settlers, and providing the economic infrastructure for Israel's settlement expansion.”

Top Innovative Companies in Israel

The World's Top 10 Most Innovative Companies in Israel

Nadav Shemer - fastcompany.com,  February 11th, 2013

1.  SodaStream
For providing an alternative to bottles. Virtually unknown until a few years ago, SodaStream is now the world’s largest manufacturer and distributor of DIY home carbonation systems, selling its brands in more than 60,000 retail outlets in 45 countries. How much of a threat does it pose to traditional soda sellers? In February, CBS axed an ad created by SodaStream, presumably because it showed bottles by two of its regular advertising partners–Coke and Pepsi–vanishing into thin air.

2.  Xsight Systems
For keeping airport runways safe. Foreign Object Debris costs the aviation industry around $13 billion per year and famously downed an Air France Concord supersonic aircraft in 2000. Xsight’s FAA-approved FODetect system has emerged as one of the leading solutions, using hybrid radar and electro-optical technology to detect junk on runways. Boston’s Logan Airport was the first to test it in 2009, and Paris Charles De Gaulle and Bangkok Suvarnabhumi installed it in 2012.

3.  Waze Mobile
For crowdsourcing GPS navigation. Waze gathers map data and user-submitted information from its nearly 30 million app users, and provides recommended routes, traffic updates and even fuel prices in real time. In October, 2012, the company also rolled out more personalized features: If friends are all meeting up at one spot, the app gives real-time updates on everyone’s travels, or can map a route for how one person can reach another.

4.  Galil Software
For bringing tech jobs to Arab communities. Israel’s large Arab minority is underrepresented in the local workforce, particularly in the tech industry. But that is changing thanks to companies like Galil Software, a Nazareth-based leader in onshore outsourcing of R&D and software services. It employs about 150 Arab engineers and last year won the Prime Minister’s Prize for Initiative and Innovation, for “providing an example for young Arabs who aspire to careers in the high-tech industry.”

5.  Agricultural Knowledge Online
For modernizing Chinese agriculture. China’s Anhui province has begun using AKOL’s Agro Cloud solution to quantify total food production. The computerized technology, which was developed in conjunction with IBM, enables local officials to monitor fruit, vegetable, dairy, poultry and meat production. A pilot program ran through 2012, and should it prove successful, the Agro Cloud will likely be adopted on a national scale.

6.  TaKaDu
For saving water on a global scale. TaKaDu’s system provides water utilities around the world with real-time detection of water leaks, bursts, zone breaches, faults, errors and inefficiencies, using existing data and its own algorithms. The company’s largest client is London’s Thames Water, which serves 9 million people, but last year saw an important expansion into Latin America, Australia, and other parts of Europe.

7.  Kaltura
For democratizing web video. The tech firm’s open-source HTML5 video platform is used by more than 150,000 web publishers, media outlets, and education services, and last year scored its biggest a coup: Wikipedia adopted it for a massive roll-out, enabling video on hundreds of millions of entries.

8.  InSightec
For developing new, non-invasive treatments. The company (partially owned by GE) combines MRI and ultrasound technologies in exciting, Star Trek-like ways–curing patients without ever having to operate. It is already used to locate, heat, and destroy some tumors inside the body, and the company continues to receive important FDA approvals on new non-invasive uses. In October, the agency blessed InSightec’s use of the tech as therapy to treat pain from bone metastases in patients that can’t undergo radiation treatment.

9.  Pythagoras Solar
For creating solar windows. Israel’s solar energy industry is active, and one of its most exciting players is this venture-backed creator of the world’s first transparent photovoltaic glass unit. Its first installation was last year. Windows deliver solar power, while producing their own natural light to eliminate the need for artificial lighting during the day.

10.  Better Place
For making electric vehicles accessible. Better Place began delivering its Renault Fluence Zero Emission EVs to Israeli customers this year, complemented by its nationwide network of battery switch stations. The company expects to support up to 10,000 vehicles in Israel and Denmark by the end of this year, before turning its attention to larger markets in an attempt to achieve CEO Shai Agassi’s objective of ending global oil dependence by 2020.