Starbucks Boycott:

While boycotting Starbucks is warranted based on its unethical track record and it’s former CEO’s ties to Israeli cyber-surveillance firms, it should not be conflated with or represented as an official BDS campaign targeting companies complicit in occupied Palestinian territories.

Starbucks is not officially on the BDS boycott list for companies directly involved in oppressing Palestinians and so should not be targeted with the same intensity — doing so risks minimizing the focused work of Palestinian solidarity movements.

The reasoning behind the Starbucks boycott instead stems from its union-busting tactics and unethical business practices; namely sending cease-and-desist letters and filing lawsuits against pro-Palestinian voices within its workers' union.

While reprehensible, their silencing of protestors was an attempt to clamp down on union activism rather than a pro-Israel stance; in actuality, Starbucks has largely maintained a neutral corporate position on the Palestinian issue itself.

That being said, there are many legitimate ethical concerns with Starbucks worthy of boycott for reasons. These include issues around supply chain management, workers' rights, human rights violations, tax avoidance, environmental impacts, enabling factory farming practices and the investments of former CEO, Howard Schutlz.

Former CEO Howard Schultz's investments in Israeli cyber-surveillance firms like Wiz are also hugely problematic, especially as he has the 6th largest share of Starbucks with 21,795,538 shares (1.93%) valued at $1,991,894,218 as of 18/04/2024 — meaning he is directly benefiting monetarily from Starbucks. With this in mind, the act of visibly consuming Starbucks products has also taken on new symbolic meanings for some Zionist entities and individuals in the current political climate. As efforts to boycott companies complicit in Palestinian oppression gain momentum, publicly committing to consumerism has become a way for certain groups to overtly signal their rejection of such boycotts.

By ostentatiously patronizing Starbucks, certain individuals are attempting to declare their opposition to the non-violent economic pressure tactics employed by the Palestinian solidarity campaigns. This brandishing of Starbucks effectively co-opts the brand into a display of anti-Palestinian ideology, despite the company's official neutrality on the issue.

As such, the simple act of buying a Starbucks drink has been politicized as a statement against Palestinian rights by those who oppose the boycott efforts targeting the Israeli occupation.

Anti-semitism:

In addition to other RCM violations, this individual has also either made, shared or celebrated anti-semitism or made statements that perpetuated particularly egregious and dangerous stereotypes about Jews which have historically resulted in their persecution.

We condemn this wholeheartedly and you should too because as most of you know, our movement is a space for collective liberation and justice where all individuals are afforded the same freedoms, human rights and liberties as others.

Anti-semitism has never, should never and will never equate to being pro-Palestinian — this is a complete fabrication and has been fundamentally rejected for decades. Anti-semitism is a very real and dangerous problem that needs to be addressed and we refute the notion that any criticism and rejection of Israel, its occupation or active genocide of Palestinians makes an individual fundamentally antisemitic.

For decades the state of Israel has tried to make themselves synonymous with Judaism and we reject that notion wholeheartedly. This deceptive claim seeks to erase the centuries-old, diverse and rich history of Jewish beliefs and silence Jewish individuals like Gabor Mate, Ilan Pappe and thousands of others by falsely asserting an intrinsic connection between Judaism and political Zionism.

In reality, Judaism predates Zionism by centuries and many within the Jewish community vehemently reject the specific tenets of political Zionism. To perpetuate this falsehood is to ignore the rich historical and theological nuances within Judaism, reducing it to a monolith and politically charged narrative that has been inexplicitly linked with the dehumanisation and genocide of Palestinian people.

If you ever witness any discrimination, bigotry or racism in any form, we encourage you to always call it out, interrupt it (when safe to do so) and continue supporting your fellow humans in achieving freedom for all.

Conflating Zionism with Judaism:

While the Jewish faith and cultural identity not only long predate and but have no inherent connection to the racist political ideology of Zionism, the modern Israeli regime has deliberately pursued an ethnic supremacist agenda rooted in Jewish ethno-religious identity — yet built upon the demolition of Palestinian homes, the theft of Palestinian lands and the generational uprooting, displacement and dehumanization of the Palestinian people at large.

The harrowing cost of human suffering, loss of life and deprivation of the most basic liberties and security has been unconscionable and now, Zionism represents an utterly deplorable ethnic supremacist ideology that has enabled unconscionable acts of violence, displacement and subjugation against the Palestinian people for almost a century.

Its real-world impacts have been nothing short of a calculated campaign of ethnic cleansing, cultural erasure and apartheid racism - a horrific legacy that cannot be decoupled from Zionism's founding vision of creating an exclusionary Jewish ethno-state through the denial of Palestinian self-determination and indigeneity.

The forced expulsion of over 700,000 Palestinians from their ancestral homes and villages during the Nakba, rendering millions stateless and exiled as refugees, was an act of premeditated ethnic purging. With the willful destruction of Palestinian property, demolition of homes, uprooting of ancient olive groves, and obliteration of cultural resources further demonstrating a systematic effort to erase Palestinian identity, history and any enduring claims to the land.

Subsequent decades have seen this brutal ethnic persecution, land confiscation and denial of human rights institutionalized through severely discriminatory policies, illegal settlements, violence by occupying forces, arbitrary detentions, torture, and most notably, systemic oppression under Israel's racist apartheid regime.

These are not mere "realities" for Palestinians who remain, but grave crimes against humanity perpetrated through Zionism's new brand of unrelenting, institutionalized cruelty. This utterly shameful legacy of calculated ethnic cleansing, apartheid governance and flagrant violations of international law is inextricably intertwined with how Zionism's racist, supremacist and anti-democratic ideology has been implemented on the ground by Israel.

Any attempt to decouple or whitewash these egregious atrocities from Zionism itself is a form of explicit denialism and complicity in oppression of the highest order. No ethnic, religious or any other group deserves an ethno-supremacist theocratic state constructed through the forcible subjugation of indigenous populations as second-class citizens stripped of all rights, dignity and humanity.

Such an abhorrent exclusionary system based on racial hierarchy is fundamentally incompatible with even the barest notion of true democracy, self-determination or universal human rights regardless of ethnicity or faith.

Statehood, sovereignty and self-determination can never legitimately emerge from such systematic violence, discrimination, forced displacement and ethnic persecution as political Zionism has perpetrated against the Palestinian population.

If a state were to arise organically through democratic processes that enshrine equality, safety and liberty for all citizens regardless of ethnicity or faith, it would have legitimacy. But any racist system of ethnic domination erected through brute force subjugation and calculated ethnic supremacy, as Zionism has done, is an egregious affront to justice and human rights that requires being dismantled - not enshrined - with a new equitable path forward established.

Amplified Zionist Lies:

This individual has used their voice and platform to echo and amplify egregious Zionist lies but also perpetuate the subjugation, torture, brutalisation and murder inflicted by the Israeli-occupation of Palestinian and its attempts to erase Palestinian identity, culture, heritage and statehood. [1] [2] [3] [4]

These egregious and dangerous lies MAY include but are not limited to: [5]

• Palestinians beheading babies [6] [7] [8] [9] [10] [11]
• Hamas Headquarters under Hospitals [12] [] [13] [14] [15]
• All Palestinians killed are terrorists [16] [17] [18]
• Israel didn’t kill its own citizens on October 7th [19] [20] [21] [22] [23] [24]
• Israel would never bomb hospitals (it ravaged almost all of them) [25] [26] [27] [28] [29] [30]
• Israel is the 'only democratic state in the Middle East' [31] [32] [33] [34]

Spreading misinformation and hateful propaganda against Palestinians is a deplorable act of dehumanization that directly enables human rights abuses, ethnic cleansing and violence against the Palestinian people. [35] [36] [37] [38]

By employing such malicious tactics to deny Palestinian realities and whitewash war crimes, home demolitions and the systematic deprivation of human rights under military occupation, this individual has provided racist cover for 75+ years of subjugation. [39] [[40]] (https://www.un.org/unispal/document/human-rights-situation-in-opt-unohchr-23feb-2024/)

This misinformation doesn't just distort the truth, it actively endangers Palestinian lives and inflames hatred, justifies atrocities like the active genocide and obstructs any path to justice through the wilful erasure of the Palestinian lived experience. [41] [42] [43]

For more information about amplified Zionist lies, please visit:

• Pali Answers
• October 7th Fact Check