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No to child-murderers: Anti-Israel boycott calls grow louder amid Gaza genocide


By Press TV Staff Writer

After a temporary truce between the Israeli regime and the Palestinian resistance group Hamas expired last week, the regime resumed its blanket bombardment of the besieged Gaza Strip, with the focus now shifting toward southern Gaza.

While the United States and other Western allies of the Tel Aviv regime remain deeply complicit in the genocide of Palestinians, calls have grown louder across the world for the boycott of the regime and companies that aid and abet its genocidal war against Palestinians. 

On Monday, the Britain-based Islamic Human Rights Commission (IHRC), together with Inminds human rights group, launched a new campaign to “boycott genocide supporters.”

“Our governments are refusing to support a ceasefire to end the genocide, instead they are cheerleading the slaughter, providing arms and political cover so that Israel can continue exterminating Palestinians with impunity,” they said in a statement.

“We must act now, to do whatever we can to oppose this genocide. One of the easiest things to do is to boycott those that support genocide.”

IHRC and Inminds came up with a list of companies that are “particularly despicable in that they have ramped up their support for Israel, often specifically for the military.”

The companies on the ‘black-list’ include Coca-Cola, Schweppes, Fanta, Costa, Papa John's, Pizza Hut, Burger King, McDonald's, Pepsi, Nestle, KitKat, Maggi, Starbucks, Domino’s Pizza, Walkers, Lays, Disney, Marvel, Chanel,  Wix, Cat, Estee Lauder, La Mer, Clinique, Bumble and Bumble among others.

The press note said companies such as McDonald's, Nestle, Burger King, Papa John’s, Pizza Hut, Coca Cola and Domino’s Pizza “provide generous donations to the Israeli military” for carrying out the ruthless genocide in Gaza.

The companies that donate millions to the Israeli regime “through controversial non-profits” while it carries out the genocide in Gaza include United Jewish Appeal, Fox, Disney, Paramount, Pepsico, Chanel, Caterpillar, Teva and others, according to the IHRC and Inminds research.

The companies that seek to “silence criticism of genocide and promote propaganda on behalf of Israel” include Starbucks, Wix, Estee Lauder, and Spyglass Entertainment among others.

On Tuesday, the Masar Badil – The Palestinian Alternative Revolutionary Path Movement – launched another campaign that calls on labor activists, trade unionists and workers’ organizations “to take action to block Israeli ships, refuse to load or unload them, and refuse to transport weapons of war to the Israeli occupation currently waging a genocide against the Palestinian people in the Gaza Strip.”

The movement hailed recent actions taken around the world, including by the Yemeni military in “blocking the use of Yemeni seas for the transportation and passage of Zionist ships and cargo.”

Transport workers in Belgium, Barcelona and Japan, it said, have also refused to load weapons bound for the Israeli occupation, while dockworkers in Italy conducted a one-day strike against the Gaza genocide.

“From India to the Philippines to South Africa, the labour movement has made its position clear, demanding the expulsion of the Zionist ambassadors and rejecting the use of migrant labour to prop up the Israeli occupation regime in replacement of Palestinian workers,” it said in a statement.

The movement also hailed recent actions taken by Palestine Action in the UK and the US, especially in shutting down Elbit Systems, the largest Israeli weapons manufacturer.

“It is critically important that these are not symbolic actions, statements of solidarity or messages of support. Turning Israeli ships away from the ports of the world is, building upon the Yemeni example, a material means of besieging the occupation and supporting the colonized, occupied people of Palestine,” the movement noted in a statement.

“It is a material contribution to confronting and ending the escalating genocide carried out by the Israeli regime for over 75 years, with an intense and bloody escalation over the past 57 days that has already claimed nearly 20,000 Palestinian lives.”

Pertinently, Palestine Action has intensified its actions against Elbit Systems factories in England as well as in the US since October 7, forcing many of them to suspend operations.

The advocacy group has permanently shut down at least two Elbit plants in less than two years, including its London headquarters and a Ferranti factory in Oldham, according to reports.

In recent weeks, Palestine Action activists have blockaded the entrance of the company’s Bristol plant in the UK, shutting down its operations. They have also closed the company’s factory in Kent.

Also, late last month, pro-Palestine activists blocked the driveway entrances to Lockheed Martin subsidiary ForwardEdgeASIC in the western US state of Minnesota for aiding the genocide in Gaza.

Other arms manufacturing companies aiding the Israeli war on Gaza have also faced protests and blockades by pro-Palestine activists in recent weeks, including Raytheon, Lockheed Martin, and Boeing.

Leader of the Islamic Revolution Ayatollah Seyyed Ali Khamenei has been the most vocal advocate of the boycott against the regime, and his calls have been echoed by all top Iranian authorities.

The Israeli regime's economy, experts say, is not self-sufficient and is heavily dependent on trade and imports, especially energy, as well as exports, which makes it vulnerable to foreign boycott.

The boycott campaign against the regime, which has intensified since October 7, is already showing its impact, with many major companies reporting a drop in their revenues.

Starbucks reportedly lost 9.4 percent of its value in the past 11 days, which is the largest drop since the company went public in 1992. It had taken action against its labor unions for supporting Palestinians.

The boycott campaign has also hit the shares of PepsiCo, which popular multi-national brands such as Pepsi, Chipsy, Dunkin’ Donuts, and others. PepsiCo shares sunk to their lowest value in October in almost two years, reaching $157.9 per share, according to reports.

Walt Disney, which owns the Disney Channel and other entertainment businesses, also took a hit with its shares falling by 0.59 percent in October, reaching $83.1 per share.

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS), which has been leading this anti-Israel boycott campaign, in a post on X on Monday, said: “Targeting complicit companies can help stop Israel’s Gaza Genocide.”

BDS Movement is a pacifist pro-Palestinian movement that has been promoting boycotts, divestments, and economic sanctions against Israel for eighteen years.

“BDS calls for a boycott of Israeli and international companies that are complicit in Israel's genocide in Gaza, apartheid and other violations of Palestinian human rights,” it noted.

Meanwhile, pro-Palestine campaigners are not willing to step back this time. They want an immediate end to the Gaza genocide and a complete boycott of the murderous regime.

“Israel wants to normalize their horrors in Gaza. They hope the repetition & volume of atrocities will both desensitize & make us feel helpless,” human rights activist Arjun Sethi wrote on X.

“We must not relent because there is no relent in Gaza or the West Bank. Protest. Boycott. Organize. Resist. Legislate. Educate. Build.”


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