February 03, 2014
If you
think the controversy of actress Scarlett Johansson’s relationships with Oxfam
and the Israeli company Sodastream is a minor side story about Hollywood
celebrities, think again. This is the latest signal of a major direction of
Palestinian and global activism against Israeli settler-colonial policies in
the occupied Palestinian territories, which reveals Israel’s weak spot globally
and its growing isolation because of its occupation and treatment of
Palestinians.
Johansson
resigned her post Wednesday as a global goodwill ambassador for the
developmental charity Oxfam after coming under intense international criticism
for her contradictory role as a spokesperson for Sodastream, which manufactures
carbonation machines in the Israeli settlement of Mishor Adumin in the occupied
West Bank. The argument against her was simply that she could not feed the
jailer and the prisoner at the same time—she could not support the good work of
Oxfam in improving people’s lives around the world, while simultaneously
promoting an Israeli company whose factory in the occupied West Bank
perpetuates the subjugation of Palestinians and their denial of national and
personal rights.
This
highlights how Israelis and Palestinians confront each other in three principal
arenas of conflict and conflict resolution: military attacks; diplomatic
negotiations; and, grassroots activism based on legal and ethical principles.
The first two modes of Palestinian-Israeli interaction—warfare and
negotiations—have continued unabated since the 1930s, without achieving the
desired goals of either side. This is why the third option—populist activism on
moral and legal grounds—has emerged recently on the Palestinian side as the
most significant new development in decades, and it continues to pick up steam
and worry the Israelis, as it should. I refer mainly to the movement for the
boycott, divestment and sanction of Israel (BDS) for its denial of Palestinian
human rights in three related arenas: the second class status of Palestinian
citizens of Israel, the Apartheid-like conditions Israel imposes on
Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip, and
the structural denial of rights to exiled Palestinian refugees living outside
of historic Palestine.
This
campaign has continued to win victories in recent years, including decisions by
Norwegian and Dutch state investment funds, major European supermarket chains,
the Methodist and Presbyterian churches in the United States, and the European
Union to refuse various forms of relationships or investments that involve
Israeli companies or organizations based in the occupied Palestinian territories.
The continuing BDS activism of Palestinians and their supporters challenges any
international company, individual, organization or government whose policies
acquiesce in or promote the illegal, immoral and oppressive nature of the
Israeli occupation and other forms of human rights denials to Palestinians.
Scarlett
Johansson is the most recent example of this trend. When she resigned her Oxfam
post she released a statement citing “a fundamental difference of opinion”
about the issues raised by her serving both Oxfam and SodaStream. Oxfam said
that it finds Johansson’s role promoting the company SodaStream as incompatible
with her role as an Oxfam Global Ambassador. It noted: “Oxfam believes that
businesses, such as SodaStream, that operate in settlements further the ongoing
poverty and denial of rights of the Palestinian communities that we work to
support. Oxfam is opposed to all trade from Israeli settlements, which are
illegal under international law.”
She
responded to the criticisms against her by saying she was a “supporter of
economic co-operation and social interaction between a democratic Israel and
Palestine.” This nice sounding but ludicrous statement ignores the fact that
the “Palestine” part of this happy equation in her make-believe Hollywood mind
is an occupied, colonized, subjugated and deeply deprived land whose
Palestinian Arab inhabitants live in conditions that closely mirror the
condition of American or South African blacks in the 1950s, i.e., they could do
menial tasks in conditions of total control and confinement, without any
prospect of living a normal, full, dignified life, and with strict limits on
where they could live, work, travel and use public facilities.
Reuters
reporter Noah Browning interviewed a mid-level Palestinian employee in
SodaStream’s plant who gave a more accurate picture of the interaction between
Israelis and Palestinians. “There’s a lot of racism here,” the Palestinian
said. “Most of the managers are Israeli, and West Bank employees feel they
can’t ask for pay rises or more benefits because they can be fired and easily
replaced.
The
European Union’s ambassador to Israel, Lars Faaborg-Andersen, told Reuters for
his part that, “Of course there are some (Palestinian) people who are gainfully
employed by settlements. But the alternative of being able to use more than the
40 percent of the territory which is now open for use for Palestinians could
potentially give much, much, much more economic benefit to the people living in
the area.”
The
important new development in this episode is the ability of the BDS movement to
mobilize globally, and to generate greater discussion about the nature of the
Israeli occupation and its denial of Palestinian rights.
Rami G.
Khouri is Editor-at-large of The Daily Star, and Director of the Issam Fares
Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs at the American
University of Beirut, in Beirut, Lebanon. You can follow him @ramikhouri.
Copyright
© 2014 Rami G. Khouri—distributed by Agence Global