SodaStream is dumping their apartheid digs in Occupied Palestine, allegedly. As news of SodaStream’s announced closure of their factory and forthcoming exit from Mishor Adumim Industrial Park in the illegal Jewish settlement of Ma’ale Adumim flooded main stream media yesterday the plagued seltzer company announced the results for its third quarter ending September 30, 2014. It isn’t pretty. We previously reported the “titanic” stock drop that occurred after SodaStream released the preliminary report on October 7, 2014.
A glance at Bloomberg’s headline tells us everything we need to know about why this is a huge victory for the BDS campaign:
A virtual chorus of synchronized press running AP’s coverage from ABC , Newsday to The Washington Post opened with “boycott” in the lede. What a striking turnaround from the coverage just a 3 weeks ago when we reported “unofficially, it’s the boycott.”At that time, the majority of the press covering SodaStream’s plummeting stock didn’t even mention the boycott.
SodaStream plans on moving to the Idan HaNegev Industrial Park /Lehavim Industrial zone, 1,100-acre “development zone” just outside of the Bedouin township of Rahat in the Negev desert, heavily subsidized by the Israeli government. This is the same news we’ve heard repeatedly over the last couple years.
Who Profits, SodaStream Update | May 2013:
At the third quarter of 2012, SodaStream started constructing a new factory within Israel, in the Lehavim Industrial zone in Negev desert. The company evaluates that the first stage of the construction will be completed in approximately 18 to 30 months. The 2012 annual report emphasizes, “Upon completion of the first phase, the new site will have all production capabilities necessary to produce all of our products”.
So why are we hearing this now? Perhaps it’s because SodaStream stock is still floundering down in the low 20’s and has hardly budged all month.
If SodaStream thought re-announcing the move to the Lehavim Industrial zone next year would generate a spike in stock prices they were wrong. But one thing is certain from yesterday’s coverage, SodaStream’s brand has been thoroughly saturated by BDS. Their new marketing plan shifts the corporation’s previously disastrous tagline “Set the bubbles free” to the bland “water made exciting.” Regardless, it is unlikely to wash away the permanent stain left over from the p.r. assault by pro-Palestinian BDS activists.
Although the move from the occupied territories is certainly a victory, it’s not enough. Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions National Committee (BNC) spokesperson Rafeef Ziadah said:
SodaStream’s announcement today shows that the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement is increasingly capable of holding corporate criminals to account for their participation in Israeli apartheid and colonialism.
BDS campaign pressure has forced retailers across Europe and North America to drop SodaStream, and the company’s share price has tumbled in recent months as our movement has caused increasing reputational damage to the SodaStream brand.
Even if this announced closure goes ahead, SodaStream will remain implicated in the displacement of Palestinians. Its new Lehavim factory is close to Rahat, a planned township in the Naqab (Negev) desert, where Palestinian Bedouins are being forcefully transferred against their will. Sodastream, as a beneficiary of this plan, is complicit with this violation of human rights.
Any suggestion that SodaStream is employing Palestinians in an illegal Israeli settlement on stolen Palestinian land out of the kindness of its heart is ludicrous.
Let this be a warning to everyone investing and empowering apartheid and the occupation of Palestine. The pressure won’t stop.
The money men/women will soon drop Israel when their profits are being eroded.
Loyalty to any cause takes second place to the pursuit of profits.That has always been the case and always will be.
BDS efforts substantiates this and Israel,s and their enablers in the USA ,constant whining and plans to counter BDS are proof it has them on the run.
Thanks for keeping us updated Annie.This is one of the few bright spots coming out of a very sad situation.
“Water made Exciting!”
Isn’t swimming in “exciting” waters called drowning?
The idea of opposing Israeli re-settlement of the Bedu is interesting. It is, like all Zionist activity, a stealing of people’s land and of their way of life. People who’ve lived in the open don’t want to live in apartment buildings (even if they were decently built, but why raise another question?).
International law may not regard such forced resettlement as illegal, but BDS can do what it pleases and horrible actions can be fought whether or not formally illegal under international law.
“Its new Lehavim factory is close to Rahat, a planned township in the Naqab (Negev) desert, where Palestinian Bedouins are being forcefully transferred against their will. Sodastream, as a beneficiary of this plan, is complicit with this violation of human rights.”
From bad to worse?
The brand is toast.
“Water made Exciting!” In the desert? Stolen water? Nearby new reservations/townships for the “natives”?
For the brand to even break even, it should move to the US of Israel.
Scarlett Johansson, January 2014: “SodaStream is a company … committed … to building a bridge to peace between Israel and Palestine.
She must be crying now that these bridges will not be build any more.