SodaStream quits West Bank

SodaStream has announced that is wrapping up its operations in the occupied West Bank and moving its factory to Israel within two weeks.

The company’s CEO Daniel Birnbaum commented earlier that the boycott only had a “marginal” effect on their business and accusing the movement of “anti-Semitism”.

Mahmoud Nawajaa, the Palestine Boycott National Committee (BNC) general coordinator, said: “SodaStream’s announcement today provides further proof that the BDS movement is increasingly able to hold corporate criminals to account for their role in Israeli apartheid and colonialism.”

“Even when this 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.”

Last year, targeted by protests, SodaStream suffered huge setbacks in UK. SodaStream’s UK woes come six months after it received worldwide attention for its involvement with Israel’s illegal settlements in the occupied West Bank, as brand ambassador Scarlett Johansson was dropped by Oxfam over her ties with the company.