[A-List] US imperialism: the blowback continues

["Keaney Michael" <Michael.Keaney@xxxxxx>]

Starbucks the target of Arab boycott for its growing links to Israel
By Robert Fisk in Beirut
The Independent, 14 June 2002

Across five Arab states a new and closely co-ordinated campaign to
boycott American goods is being launched, with Starbucks coffee shops
their primary target, but with Nestlé, Coca-Cola, Johnson & Johnson
and Burger King outlets also on the list. In Beirut today, activists
will be leafleting outside the city's four Starbucks shops, detailing
the pro-Israeli sentiments of its chief executive, Howard Shultz, and
claiming he is "an active Zionist".

In 1998, Mr Shultz was awarded the "Israeli 50th Anniversary Tribute
Award" from the Jerusalem Fund of Aish Ha-Torah, which is strongly
critical of Yasser Arafat and insists that the occupied Palestinian
territories should be described only as "disputed".

In a speech to Jewish Americans in Seattle earlier this year - at the
height of the Israeli Prime Minister, Ariel Sharon's, reoccupation of
West Bank towns - Starbucks' top man condemned Palestinian "inaction"
and announced that "the Palestinians aren't doing their job - they're
not stopping terrorism". Gideon Meir, an Israeli Foreign Ministry
spokesman, complimented Mr Shultz for helping American students to hear
"Israeli presentations on the Middle East crisis".

Starbucks operates in six other Arab countries - Saudi Arabia, Kuwait,
Bahrain, Oman, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates - but the boycott
protesters, who include both Palestinians and Muslim groups at Ein Shams
University in Egypt and the American University of Cairo, have a much
wider list of companies they wish to punishfor allegedly supporting
Israel, not only in the Middle East but in the United States itself.

They include AOL Time Warner, Disney, Estée Lauder, Nokia, Revlon,
Marks & Spencer, Selfridges and IBM. Students at Dubai University and in
the Syrian capital, Damascus, are now also liaising over their boycott
plans.

"At first, it was very frustrating getting even the four boycott groups
in Lebanon to work together," Amira Solh, one of the Lebanese activists,
says. "We had difficulty defining whether we should target American
goods or those companies that have direct relations with Israel. We
really only got going the first time the Israelis laid siege to Arafat's
headquarters in Ramallah. Lebanon boycotts all Israeli goods, so we
started asking, 'What about those companies which help Israel directly?'

"Most Arab countries have fallen into a capitalist world that accepts
American companies with close links to Israel. What we are now
initiating is an economic war."

Burger King incurred Arab anger more than two years ago when it opened
an outlet in an illegal Jewish settlement on the occupied West Bank. The
company initially decided to close the outlet and then - after
pro-Israeli lobby pressure in America - apparently allowed it to reopen
under a different franchise.

Nestlé has bought a control-ling share in the Israeli firm Osem,
allowing Nestlé to sell its products in Israel, including Nescafé,
Perrier, Carnation, Smarties and KitKat. It is a deal which, in the
words of one Israeli journalist, "provides Osem with a worldwide
distribution and advertising infrastructure". In a recent report to
investors, Osem-Nestlé an- nounced a four-monthly profit of $7.5m
(£5.1m).

In Lebanon, Coca-Cola - which runs a plant in the country - has
attempted to deflect Arab criticism by pointing out that it does not
manufacture Coca-Cola in Israel and sells only imported bottles of its
products, including Fanta and Sprite, in the Jewish state. In what was
widely seen as an attempt to soften the mood of protesters, the
Coca-Cola company in Lebanon has suddenly embarked on a programme of
planting cedar trees - the national emblem - near the town of Jezzine,
south of Beirut.

Starbucks, which has 4,709 retail locations around the world, has been
trying to damp down its pro-Israeli image, telling protesters who have
written to the company that its chief executive, Howard Shultz, who is
himself Jewish, "does not believe the terrorism (sic) is representative
of the Palestinian people".

When he spoke recently to his local synagogue, Starbucks says, "Howard
was speaking as a private citizen and did not interview with the media
regarding this subject". Another Starbucks response says the company "is
deeply saddened by the current events (sic) in the Middle East" and
quotes a statement by Mr Shultz. "I deeply regret that my speech in
Seattle was misinterpreted as anti-Palestinian," he says. "My position
has always been pro-peace and for the two nations (sic) to co-exist
peacefully."

Arab students believe the real fears of American executives are focused
not on losses in the Arab world but on the danger that Arab protests
will be picked up by Palestinian sympathisers in Europe and even in
America itself.

Mr Shultz, who does not appear to have condemned the building of illegal
Israeli settlements on occupied land, spearheaded Starbucks' entry into
the Israeli market last year with its first two coffee shops - built
through a joint venture company called Shalom Coffee Ltd - in Tel Aviv.
By the end of this year, Starbucks plans to have a total of 20 coffee
houses operating throughout Israel.

Mr Shultz is a regular visitor to Israel and one of many personalities
who have been brought to Jerusalem as a guest of the Theodor Herzl
mission, at whose gala dinner is held an award ceremony of the Friends
of Zion to honour those "who have played key roles in promoting close
alliance between the United States and Israel".

Others who have travelled on the Theodor Herzl mission include Baroness
Thatcher, Newt Gingrich, the US Speaker of the House, and the former US
governor Tom Ridge - now the head of "Homeland Security".