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The SA Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) coalition has called on South Africans to boycott major brands such as fast food outlet, Mcdonald's, following the donation by its franchise in Israel, which pledged to supply thousands of free meals to Israeli troops, which anger communities across the world.
Despite McDonald's in SA distancing itself from the donation made by Israel Mcdonald’s owner, Omri Padan, which includes a daily 4 000 meals to the security forces, healthcare workers and residents of the affected Gaza region, on Friday night the BDS movement slammed the food outlet and other multinational brands such as Pizza Hut, Puma and Cape Union in a statement.
The BDS spokesperson, Roshan Dadoo said:
Dadoo added that all peaceful efforts, including boycotts and divestment aimed at holding these entities accountable for their support of Israel’s crimes against Palestinians, are justified and called for.
She conceded that until all the businesses in South Africa condemned their parent companies' complicity for allowing their Israel branches to support an ongoing military aggression that leading scholars of genocide have described as a “textbook case of genocide, we call on South Africans to boycott them".
It sustained its call for Cape Union Mart to be boycotted too saying that the company's chairperson, Philip Krawitz, is a member of the board of governors of the Jewish Agency for Israel, which along with the World Zionist Organisation, the Jewish National Fund and Keren Hayesod, are the four pillars of Israel and all enjoy a special legal status.
Dadoo added:
She also claimed that sports apparel company Puma's continued sponsorship of Israel's national soccer team was problematic as this was in violation of international law and human rights. ZZ2 Tomatoes, South Africa’s largest tomato producer, was also lambasted by the BDS.
The coalition said the company buys its tomato seedlings from Hishtil, an Israeli company with two nurseries in Limpopo and the Western Cape - and five in Israel in areas from which the Palestinians have been forcibly removed since 1947.
“We reiterate our call on our government [South Africa] to declare the apartheid Israeli ambassador persona non grata and shutdown the Israeli embassy in Pretoria. The National Prosecuting Authority must expedite and prosecute the cases of South Africans who join the Israeli occupation forces in contravention of the Regulation of Foreign Military Assistance Act.
"We further demand that our government implements policy guidelines for an academic, sports and cultural boycott of apartheid Israel and the institutions complicit in its war crimes and crimes against humanity,” the statement read.
