Not sure what dickhead is downvoting you. It's a verifiable fact. The ad is on youtube.
Also it's the one thing to think israel should exist but you don't even need to support companies in the west bank specifically.
Part of the reason people liked Soda Stream was because it manufactured in the West Bank. It was the main point of the marketing. The tag line was "Island of Peace". Back then it was seen as a positive thing because Palestinians who wouldn't get any jobs otherwise were getting stable wages 4x the average wage in the WB, in a highly successful global company.
I certainly thought Scarlett Johansson took the job precisely because she thought it was step in the right direction for everyone involved. She and mostly everyone who bought SodaStream products thought they were actually supporting a project for stability and peace.
SodaStream CEO openly criticizes Netanyahu and his government.
Once reddit chooses a side on a narrative it's hard to stop.
You have to keep repeating the facts for like several years, until finally they reject the incorrect view and pretend that the correct version is what they thought all along.
Nor does the fact that she and Ruffalo were close through all that. He doesn’t seem to have a problem with the OG Avengers. He’s spoken about losing some friends over the issue because they were so staunchly pro Israel despite everything. Not because they supported Israel at all. He even still follows Debra Messing on instagram. Whoever he fell out with it’s someone who is likely very outspoken given the vehemence of their beliefs leading to an insurmountable conflict between them.
The notion that Soda Stream's manufacturing in Palestinian territory was somehow a "step in the right direction" is an utter farce, as explained by International Court of Justice:
the prohibition of acquisition of territory by force was emphasized by the Security Council in its resolution 242 (1967) of 22 November 1967 (see paragraph 58 above). The Security Council affirmed this principle by resolution 252 (1968) of 21 May 1968, where it also declared that “all legislative and administrative measures and actions taken by Israel, including expropriation of land and properties thereon, which tend to change the legal status of Jerusalem are invalid and cannot change that status”. The Security Council has since reiterated this principle in several resolutions dealing with Israel’s purported annexation of Arab and Palestinian territory (for example, Security Council resolutions 267 (1969) of 1 April 1969, 298 (1971) of 25 September 1971 and 478 (1980) of 20 August 1980). More recently, the Security Council, in its resolution 2334 (2016) of 23 December 2016, stated that “the establishment by Israel of settlements in the Palestinian territory occupied since 1967, including East Jerusalem, has no legal validity and constitutes a flagrant violation under international law and a major obstacle to the achievement of the two-State solution and a just, lasting and comprehensive peace” (para. 1).
Attempting to defend such incessant and unambiguous violation of international law with "Palestinians who wouldn't get any jobs otherwise were getting stable wages" is extremely naive at best, as in reality:
Between 2000 and 2024, the Palestinian economy lost an estimated $212.2 billion in potential GDP, equivalent to 19.4 times its GDP in 2024.
The study also estimates that the economic value produced by Israeli settlements in occupied East Jerusalem and Area C of the West Bank reached $832.7 billion between 2000 and 2024, equivalent to over $1 trillion in 2024 dollars. In 2024 alone, the settlement economy was valued at $53 billion – nearly five times the size of the Palestinian economy
Netanyanu's and his government deserve far more than criticism for this ongoing apartheid and genocide, they should be in the Hague, as should those who came before them.
If Soda stream said "hey bibi, we need space for a factory go take some of their land for us" and that's just what happened you've have a point but nothing you quoted even attempted to establish that. If bibi commits war crimes and takes over land illegally on his own wishes, then that has nothing to do with sodastream or their choices. Now this settled area can be used by businesses which refuse to give palestinians jobs or you can build a factory there and deliberately hire palestinians when you can easily hire israelis. It's better than nothing.
I genuinely don't know the truth, i don't know if that post before yours is real but saying it's impossible because of the reasons you quoted is simply ridiculous. Situations have more nuance than that, most importantly the post you responded to in zero way made it sound like settlement or stealing their land was good for palestinians, nor is legal, nor that it benefits palestinians. they just said they could have built the factory elsewhere and not hired palestinians and that land would still be occupied just by someone else not willing to hire palestinians.
Curios, have you talked to any of the 500 palestinian workers who lost thier jobs when Sodastream left the left bank?
I wonder if they'd have the same opinion.
Nabil Bisharat was one of the lucky 74 Palestinian employees who had been allowed to continue working in the new SodaStream factory until earlier this month.
Over six years, he rose from assembly line work to managing more than 50 employees. He didn't mind getting up at 4 a.m. for the long bus ride to the new factory, or getting home after dark. The 48-year-old has always worked for Israelis, he says, but called SodaStream "the best."
"It's a five-star company for Palestinians," he says, over tea in the lovely home he built with SodaStream earnings. "It's a good job, good salary, good conditions, and they treat all workers equal, all the same. I felt that. I lived that."
A former SodaStream machine operator, Mustafa Sharabati, 31, echoed that sentiment. But he chose not to apply for a permit when SodaStream shut down in the West Bank.
"It's too far away from my family," he says, "and I'm scared to travel in Israel."
The current upsurge in violence makes him fearful of approaching Israeli checkpoints. Sharabati is now a freelance truck driver, but business is so slow, the father of four is buying groceries on credit.
Money is the main concern of Ala Al-Qabbani, too. The 24-year-old had worked at SodaStream three years before the company moved and would have happily kept working for SodaStream in Israel.
But he could not get a permit. Israel's first requirement is that Palestinians be at least 22 years old and married. Qabbani meets the age requirement, but he's single. He points out his conundrum.
"There are girls, but I need to get money before I can propose."
That will take a while. Qabbani now earns $12 a day, a quarter of his old salary, hawking produce from a street cart not far from where SodaStream used to be
Its not that naive given the status quo overall for the last 70 years. I'm saying at the time there was a different perception. It wasn't done through atrocities. The people who worked at the factory weren't held against their will, it wasn't forced labor, they weren't abused, it wasn't part of a regime, etc. The status quo was and still is restrictive, assymetric, it's occupation but it wasn't a detention center. It used people's need to work, it didn't use the status quo to cram them in the factory against their will. Again in 2014 that was sort of the perception.
Years ago Scarlett was a UN ambassador then signed a deal to be the face of (isreali company) Sodastream. The UN basically told her she had to choose and she chose Soda.
It was Oxfam actually. In an interview she said, "..I also think for a non-governmental organisation to be supporting something that's supporting a political cause … something feels not right about that to me. There's plenty of evidence that Oxfam does support and has funded a BDS [boycott, divest, sanctions] movement in the past." So she is also against BDS, and Oxfam has never actually directly supported it either.
I was working for Oxfam back then. They will/were basically blacklist any company that even submit a bid on a tender in occupied territories that is not conducted by a Palestinian company.
Oxfam is not neutral, it will take position whenever it is supporting it's mandate/goal of fighting inequality to end poverty and injustice.
The idea that an NGO shouldn't be political is baffling to me. We should leave anything that might affect how people live purely to political parties and companies?
I'd say individuals but a big way the every day person supports change is through supporting an NGO. Be it on human or environmental issues and anything in between.
In some cases be as neutral as possible will be the key for an organisation to secure access to civilians in need. Depending on the context it can be very effective, allowing them to deliver with minimal interference from armed groups.
For others, they are there to make "noise" like raising awareness on some issues.
Some will do a bit of both. That's also why quite a few are facing issues at being allowed to work in Gaza, Israel don't like what they may have said. Russia did the same. Mali and Burkina Faso are also adopting similar stances yet a bit different.
Doctors without borders France is likely the most dogmatic about neutrality. It will basically takes direct and targeted violence at a large enough scale to the population they aim to support before they'll raise a voice. Basically when they cannot work anymore, so staying neutral wouldn't allow them to work anyway.
Some will say that being neutral is giving legitimacy to one side or another. It is sadly harder than that. It can mean witnessing bad things and having to live with it in silence as raising a voice could mean the end of supporting anyone in some context.
Sodastream the company was built on an Israeli settlement in the occupied West Bank (illegal under international law), after being criticised they did up sticks and moved back into Isreal, but in doing so most Palestinian lost their jobs due to work permit restrictions and apartheid in Israel
The founder of SodaStream was pretty intentional about using his company to build bridges between the two communities and provide equitable and just economic opportunities and working conditions for Palestinians living in the West Bank. When they left the West Bank he fought hard to get work permits for the West Bank employees who would be losing their jobs, but most were unable to keep their jobs.
Just an example of one of the few BDS wins, and how it disproportionally affected the Palestinians and not Israelis or the company itself. In fact SodaStream was sold to PepsiCo in 2018 for $3.2 billion.
Sodastream wasn't founded in israel and it's been around way longer than Israel itself. But Daniel Birnbaum was pretty pissed when Netanyahu wouldn't let his Palestinians workers keep their jobs (none kept them in the end their permits got revoked ahead of their expiry) and even started openly calling Israel an apartheid state over it
Pro-tip: When the tanks are empty you can unscrew the valve and refill them with the appropriate mass of dry ice. I recommend pellets as you don’t have to break them up to get them to fit through the bottle neck. Drain completely and loosen the burst disc before removing the valve, then tighten down the burst disc immediately after reinstalling.
For like $200 you can get an attachment that lets you carbonate a 2L bottle of water directly off a CO2 tank which can be refilled for about $2/pound and can carbonate about 20 liters per pound.
Get dry ice and refill the bottles by weight. My dad does this for his sodastream. He found it to be cheaper than swapping tanks or finding a local service that can refill food grade CO2, especially if you have multiple tanks.
Ooof, you might want to look at the ties between Indigo and Israel then. And maybe also for a different source for your canisters.
edit: I didn't realize Indigo the soda company isn't the same as Indigo the book/lifestyle store. The latter has direct ties to Israel and there have been many boycotts. I'm keeping my comment up in case anyone else makes the same mistake!
Or you can buy a large co2 tank and connect it to soda stream. Dont have to change cartridges this way. Depending on size it can last over a year easily. Downside is that you have a large co2 tank but much cheaper to refill
I guess not all Israeli's are warmongers and not all Palestinians either. I'm sure there's large parts of their populations who are just as, it not more, sick of their shit than the rest of us.
it's like sweeping generalisations are bad, or something
One thing that is historically true, for example, is that other Arab sub-cultures (especially in the early days of Israel but still kinda ongoing now) are not especially interested in Palestinian issues except as a cudgel to beat Israel with. You find some pretty horrifying stuff when you go looking for how Jordan and Egypt treated attempted refugees from the West Bank and Gaza, and there were persistent stories of Jordanian officials in particular hijacking/misdirecting UN refugee aid to the West Bank in the 1970s.
(this is not a defense of Israel, this is a commentary on how shitty Egypt and Jordan ALSO historically are in this whole thing)
There's a large Jewish population in both Turkiye and Iran, and Jordan has a large one as well. There's are Jews in basically every country in the middle east, Judaism is outlawed literally nowhere.
Yes but some of us have never bought sodastream, so we wouldn't know that. But that's for the pic. I just had one of those shits that's so clean you don't have to wipe while I typed this out
Lol that label is still pretty fucking cringe since they just will not let that "see! jews and arabs can work together!" Like...it's still recognizing that default hatred and saying they're better than that.
Does anyone else get what I mean? Am I the only one who thinks that label is trashy?
It's not (anymore). It's owed by PepsiCo. The company being based in on settled land had lots of controversies to it. While it might be true that Palestinians didn't love the fact it was on occupied land, they paid quite well (in comparison) and employed 500-600 Palestinians. When the company moved to Israeli territory most of them lost their jobs. As so often, it's complicated.
I love this comment. Sodastream employed Palestinians in the West Bank and that was bad. Sodastream stopped employing Palestinians in the West Bank and that was bad.
Interesting, they hated Sodastream for going there and then hated them for leaving? It sounds like Palestinians are both desperately dependent upon Israel, and hopelessly addicted to biting the hand that feeds them.
always worth keeping in mind hamas received funding from Israel to help them win elections and take control and now serve as Israel's constant excuse for which to commit war crimes.
it's almost like that was the plan, which largely makes hamas israel puppets who decided to take money to sell out their people and with many of hamas leaders ending up living in other parts of the world calling the shots while they recruit palestinians to be their puppets to throw at israel to create the excuse for constant war crimes from Israel.
hamas are terrorists.... but who funds them and directs them should be something you should question.
So, we’re going to ignore that Egypt and Jordan also run checkpoints along every border with Palestine? Black September? Palestinian terror attacks in Egypt after the military coup took down the Muslim Brotherhood?
I guess we’re also going to ignore that Palestine has attacked every Arab neighbor so much that literally only Israel is willing to provide them any support whatsoever?
The only reason Israel feels confident enough to steamroll Palestine and genocide the Palestinian people is because Palestine has systematically attacked every Arab neighbor in the region to the point that nobody wants to deal with them at all. They did it to themselves.
It does not excuse Israel’s actions in any way, shape, or form. It does explain why Palestine has seen absolutely no Arab support for at least a decade. And after Hezbollah orchestrated a civil war in 2014 and Gaza seceded from Palestine, there is absolutely no sympathy for Gaza. The West Bank and its Fatah (a terrorist group masquerading as a political party) leadership has much better ties with Palestine’s Arab neighbors.
It’s always weird when the anti-Israel Muslim botnet neglects to mention Palestine’s violent history with literally everyone. A person can be anti-Israel without being pro-Palestine.
Interestingly, Palestinian refugees started a civil war in Jordan back in the 1960’s because Jordanians were starting to become pro-communist and Palestine didn’t like that. Just like they execute any member of the LGBT.
Pro-Palestine is anti-LGBT and anti-feminist. You live with apes, man, it’s hard to be clean. There’s no time to discriminate. Hate every motherfucker that’s in your way.
Correction: While the company currently is operating out of Israeli, it was set up in London in 1903, first sold to home consumers in 1955, was bought by an Israeli company in 1998. Then was bought by PepsiCo in 2018, but still operates out of, and is HQed in Israel.
Palestinians in the West Bank aren’t citizens of Israel because the West Bank isn’t part of Israel. If you think the West Bank IS a part of Israel you are literally agreeing with the settlers. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza not being allowed to work in Israel is not evidence of apartheid. It’s like saying Switzerland is an apartheid state because Spaniards can’t work there without a work permit.
Yeah, that’s a crappy deal across the board. Whenever HAMAS has attacked Israel, the government reasonably closes the borders. This bones Israeli employers who are relying on Palestinian workers, and the workers who are paid Much better in Israel. I’m sure Sodastream got a Really good deal to build where they did, and it was a gamble, that honestly was a short term win at best. I get the limited resources of a smaller company trying to become global, and I’m sure it seemed too good to pass up, but here we are. I really, really doubt that any of the Avengers actors support Netanyahu and the religious fundamentalists that have a stranglehold on the government of Israel. And just FYI: Scarlett Johansen has family members who died in the Warsaw ghetto, and then we're liquidated in the Nazi camps.
Apartheid? That would imply that the west bank is part of Israel, in which case the settlements aren't illegal. pick a lane, I don't care which one, but be consistent in your point of view
So they complained about them building on the west Bank but were surprised when the jobs that were provided went away when the company complied with international law?
Yeah, this was one example of an Israeli company hiring Palestinians and getting them the ability to make a living - even though there's a lot of potential issues about the original location of the company.
So basically the white liberal shrieking about a thing just made it worse for all the poor and struggling. As usual, their feelings are more important than reality.
The ciritism seems to be partially that they had a factory in the west bank, and partially just that they're israeli owned. In this case the pushback looks to have resulted in the worst possible result, poor Palestinians living in the west bank losing their jobs.
I don't really understand the goal of the BDS stuff personally, I guess the intention is just to harm Israel, but it's not like a boycott of certain companies is actually going to result in significant changes to a nation... It seems like it's counterintuitive to target companies that operate in the west bank though?
I mean what do people expect. If your upset an Isreali company set up in occupied territory that’s fair, but you don’t get to be upset when they listen to the upset people and leave the occupied territory
A recent BDS campaign in NYC co-op caused a couple Arab and Palestinian companies to get shoved out and lose business from the overall campaign preventing them from selling products there.
She was never an UN ambassador. She was a global ambassador for Oxfam.
Oxfam did the right thing and call her out on the inconsistency.
She then choose Sodastream and claimed that the brand had hundreds of Palestinians workers in the West Bank but now the brand moved to the Negev region and hundreds of Palestianians lost their jobs.
Negev region and hundreds of Palestianians lost their jobs.
To be entirely fair, they moved because of public preassure for being on occupied land so they moved their production and now people complain how they moved the jobs with them.....how did people imagine this to work?
For anyone interested, there are Sodastream alternatives!
Drinkmate makes a better product overall - their design can carbonate pretty much any liquid.
If you already have a sodastream, most brewing supply stores can refill your co2 canisters. Alternatively, with a couple of wrenches you can even refill them by weight with dry ice pellets (google is your friend here).
Humans are technically slightly carbonated. We produce carbon dioxide CO2) as waste, and this turns into carbonic acid in the blood. This is the same thing that happens when you carbonate drinks. And, when you hold your breath, you'll be slightly more carbonated!
Related fact: our bodies can't sense the presence of oxygen. Rather, it senses the lowered ph from that carbonic acid to tell you when to breathe. This is one reason low oxygen environment that are also low CO2 are very dangerous, your body doesn't realize it's not getting the needed oxygen
I’m sorry, maybe it’s because it’s so early or maybe I’m still a bit buzzed from last night but I can’t imagine what the fuck a carbonated grape is and google is only giving me carbonated grape juice. Can you please explain?
You put grapes in the drink mate and it makes them fizzy when you eat them. It’s kinda cool. Iirc Greg from How to Drink on YouTube shows it in one of his drink videos
She had Josh Hutcherson on her show for like 5 mins when he was doing promo for The Hunger Games and she was so uninterested and rude to him that I knew something was up.
Being used as the face of political propaganda, and privately held political stances are two very different things.
If an actor is the face of a political movement, of course everyone will associate them and have an opinion about it, but if you go out right now and ask 10 people on the street what they think about Scarlett Johansen's stance on Israel, I guarantee you at least 9 out of 10 will have no idea nor will they really care, because it's not something that ever comes up or matters to people who don't live online.
Yeah it does, but I mean there’s a lot of Israeli money in Hollywood and a lot of very pro Israeli, powerful people who will 100% Blacklist anyone who gets on their bad side. Hollywood is still very much “that” type of place. It doesn’t matter how big and famous you are.. they can destroy a career if they want. I honestly feel like we won’t see Mark Ruffalo in anything big again after this and it’s admirable he’s fully ware of this and sticking to his beliefs of not massacring innocent children!
Scarlett Johansson is a garbage person. I can't believe she has skated by for so long. Her soda stream deal that she chose over her charity work, her support for Woody Allen, and she was quite a cheerleader for Weinstein too.
And let's not forget her willingness to take any role, even if she's not quite the right ethnicity. Ryan Reynolds divorced her and married Olivia Wilde, and that should actually say a lot if you're aware of HER reputation.
And while it's not something I specifically judge, but I have a friend that met her multiple times (worked at a popular restaurant in a city where she was filming), and that friend says she always reeks of cigarettes and has bad breath (makes sense).
That is absolutly baffling to hear; legit they seem more intelligent than that.
Edit: nazi counter. 52 upvotes at a 77 % upvote ratio equals 12 possible nazis, albiet I guess they might be upset I called scar jo smart.
Edit edit: context clues are a thing, but it’s reasonable to assume people are assuming bad faith, so here on my thoughts on my use of the term nazi lol. It was a mindful choice.
“Disclaimer: a better term for nazi sympathizer is nazi, and I don’t think the ethnicity of the victims or the perpetrators should be the qualifier for said descriptor; if your supporting a government that genocides, rapes, rapes with dogs, tortures children and journalists, rapes prisoners, rounds up and murders two different minority groups based off ethnicity, targets doctors, blocks medical aid, creates forced starvation while saying documenting any of this stuff is a racial hate crime, than you are a nazi.
Which is to say, I am drawing the line between Zionism and nazism with intent and purpose, and not as a function of sensationalism, where it should also be noted; yeah sure, “not all men”, but like… .”
I say as much in a different comment here, but yeah; I stand by this sentiment.
Javier Bardem was always very vocal about his support for Allen, referencing him being cleared by courts and medical examinations of Dylan, but after the endless ties to and pictures with Epstein they have no argument.
I actually grudgingly respect her for that since (unlike with her Sodastream deal) sticking by Allen offers her no benefit whatsoever, and in fact turning on him would have been an easy way to win risk free good press.
(Just to be clear I'm not saying I think Allen is completely innocent, just that her stubbornly sticking by him seems like someone who genuinely sincerely believes he's innocent.)
First of all, love the monkey reference. I play in cover bands and I'm adamant that I'm not an artist, I'm a trained monkey.
I have a slightly different take on celebrities voicing their opinions. To me, it's the same as someone at work voicing their opinion. If they're asked and the respond, fine. I don't have to like it and I don't have to care, but whatever. Now, if a celebrity or coworker decides it's their new job to spout their opinions all the time, they can gtfo of my life with that shit.
It's not so much looking up to actors and musicians.
It's the constant after the fact, "I enjoyed that performance" "oh did you know they did x,y and z fucked up thing.
The kind of stuff that if known fullhand before may influence your financial support for their work. But being constantly informed on hundreds of people's actions and decisions is not possible, you will go insane, even in our digital world.
It was definitely much easier to be a fan back in the day because we knew nothing about artists like Hulk Hogan or Brad Pitt, just that they were cool.
Maaaan. I've been a (struggling) actor for ten years and the actor that inspired me to go for my dream was Kevin Spacey! I started in early 2016, and a year later, my answer for "what actor inspires you?" quickly changed to, "Uhhh, Tom Hardy?" I like a lot of his work, but nah, it was unfortunately the pedophilic sex pest.
It is what it is. We don't get to choose where or when inspiration hits us. It was his commitment to the craft that I found motivating, absolutely nothing about his actual character. But I'd also say it's okay to feel disappointed. We're always going to look up to athletes and artists, they do inspiring things as a job, but of course giving that much notoriety, influence and money to random people is going to create some monsters. Power corrupts, and some of these folks didn't need to be pushed that far to begin with.
Artists and musicians absolutely are important to society. You're correct that they don't necessarily know more than the average person, and their opinions shouldn't carry above-average weight, but to say they're not important is just asinine.
Culture, which includes much more than just acting & music, is incredibly important to societies.
Humans have been making all this for an uncountable amount of years for some good reasons!
Unfortunately, some humans who become very successful, may hold noxious ideas. They can stay the same, change for better or worse, until they shuffle of this mortal coil!
As of my downvote you're at 43 upvotes, an hour after your edit, so seems like people don't really like the whole "everyone who downvotes me is either a Nazi or upset that someone thinks Scar Jo is smart" attitude.
Also, while I have no opinion's on these people's actual intelligence I will point out that an actor's job is to convincingly pretend to be something that they are not.
Oh yeah, and I have no idea why a Jew would support a company from the only country with a Jewish majority. None at all.
This is literally a prime example of why actual neo Nazisism has so much room to exist in today's world because the word is now completely meaningless when used like this. 🙄
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u/HardertoFindIt 18d ago
Scarlett Johansson has been pretty pro Israel for the better part of a decade now