US refugee policy: a militarized wall, jailing & deporting refugees, kidnapping children from their parents, concentration camps for unaccompanied children, shooting at rock throwers.
Daily Archives: November 5, 2018
Not to be intrusive, but since so many of my FB friends like Dr. Bronner’s products, I am reposting this edited entry on the politics behind the brand which is compromised with Israeli apartheid.
_______
The labels on Dr. Bronner’s products are covered with spiritual & New Age slogans about world peace but their political savvy is nothing to sniff at. In 2007, a few years after BDS was launched by Palestinians, the company announced they were sourcing 90% of their olive oil (150 metric tons per year) from Palestinian producers in the West Bank through the trading firm Canaan Fair Trade (CFT) working with the Palestine Fair Trade Association (PFTA)–both organizations founded by an American-Palestinian entrepreneur.
According to Dr. Bronner’s, the other ten percent of their olive oil comes from Israel, including an unspecified amount through Sindyanna, a fair trade business in Israel run by Jewish & Palestinian women. A closer look at Sindyanna suggests they are not so much New Age or apolitical entrepreneurs as compromised with Israeli apartheid. Another unspecified portion of that ten percent from Israel is from what Dr. Bronner’s calls the “Jewish Israeli Strauss family farm.” Here’s where things get real dicey.
The Strauss firm is hardly a family farm. It’s Israel’s foremost food & beverage company; in 2004 the Israeli Antitrust Authority labeled it a monopoly–an enterprise engaged in all sorts of felonies. The Strauss family has deep connections to the Israeli military (IDF). From 1975 till 2001, the company was run by Michael Strauss, a former elite IDF scout. It’s now run by his daughter, Ofra, who posted not just support for but “adoption” of the Golani & Givati Brigades of the IDF on the Strauss website. The Golani & Givati Brigades are elite units of the Israeli military in operation since the 1948 war to dispossess Palestinians. Both have been involved repeatedly in Israeli wars against Palestinians, including every murderous siege on Gaza.
Dr. Bronner’s can’t have it both ways. You can’t be all New Age on your labels & continue doing business with ethnic cleansers in your board room. It isn’t splitting hairs to say Dr. Bronner’s should be boycotted until they get rid of that 10% from Israel & sever business (& probably political) relations with Strauss. That 90%-10% split between sources for olive oil may well not be reliable–any more than their designation of Strauss as a family farm.
Some may say, well that’s a lot of business for olive producers in the West Bank to lose if Dr. Bronner’s dumps them as a supplier. The first response is “what is the price we place on human lives in Gaza?” Less than 150 metric tons of olive oil? And the second response is, trust in the power of BDS to bring Dr. Bronner’s to its business senses.
(Photo is of Dr. Bronner’s soap bottle)
Trump’s threat to shoot any stone pelters among the Central American caravan is not to be taken lightly. Soon after I moved to the Rio Grande Valley, a teenager on the Mexican side of the border from El Paso was shot & killed by a US border patrol agent who claimed the boy was throwing rocks. I still have my placard from protesting that incident. This LA Times article from 2015 points out that out of 67 such shooting incidents with a fatality rate of 19 Mexicans dead, all US agents were absolved of criminal misconduct with three cases then pending.
http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-border-patrol-shootings-20150615-story.html?
A reliable source informs me that he watched Black Hawk combat helicopters landing here in Border Patrol facilities on the Texas-Mexico border. In a vicious irony, these special operation aircraft were named after Black Hawk, a Native American warrior fighting the incursion of European settlers in the early 19th century.
Are these what Trump intends to use against any adolescent stone pelters among those in the caravan who reach the US border?
(Photo from DoD by Gertrud Zach/US Army)
The Mexican government, functioning as the southern flank of US immigration policy, is blocking the delivery of buses to carry the caravan safely north which is in violation of Mexican law allowing immigrants right of passage. It does however use its army to facilitate the transport of drugs to the US border.
Those who advocate punching a fascist in the face have an adolescent view of politics & no respect for the state & military power behind fascist goons. It’s such a privileged way of looking at things. Would punching out be of any use to Palestinians, Kashmiris, or Rohingyas against genocide or Afghans, Iraqis, Yemenis, Syrians against carpet bombing? Those who face savagery understand the character of fascism & do not consider fisticuffs an adequate response.
An estimated half of the Central American caravan are children. That is who Trump is threatening to shoot. Worse than crying ‘fire’ in a crowded theater, he should be prosecuted for inciting violence, endangering children, denying asylum to refugees.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/children-migrant-caravan-getting-faint-041345103.html?
A powerful piece about how Kashmiris experience a brutal, violent occupation, by Basharat Shameem:
https://countercurrents.org/2018/11/02/increasing-impunity-and-militarisation-in-kashmir/?
Although the Central American refugee caravan has been determined to proceed, the participants are peaceful & do not engage in violence. But the white supremacist running this country has emboldened border security to shoot at any young kid who might throw a rock. He must have learned that from Israel & India. If so many did not hope Democrats would end all this if elected, there would be massive protests all over this country—which is the only thing that will end the sustained attacks on refugees.