Rami G. Khouri writes: If you think the controversy of actress Scarlett Johansson’s relationships with Oxfam and the Israeli company SodaStream is a minor side story about Hollywood celebrities, think again.
This is the latest signal of a major direction of Palestinian and global activism against Israeli settler-colonial policies in the occupied Palestinian territories, which reveals Israel’s weak spot globally and its growing isolation because of its occupation and treatment of Palestinians.
Johansson resigned her post Wednesday as a global goodwill ambassador for the developmental charity Oxfam after coming under intense international criticism for her contradictory role as a spokesperson for Sodastream, which manufactures carbonation machines in the Israeli settlement of Mishor Adumin in the occupied West Bank. The argument against her was simply that she could not feed the jailer and the prisoner at the same time – she could not support the good work of Oxfam in improving people’s lives around the world, while simultaneously promoting an Israeli company whose factory in the occupied West Bank perpetuates the subjugation of Palestinians and their denial of national and personal rights.
This highlights how Israelis and Palestinians confront each other in three principal arenas of conflict and conflict resolution: military attacks; diplomatic negotiations; and, grassroots activism based on legal and ethical principles. The first two modes of Palestinian-Israeli interaction – warfare and negotiations – have continued unabated since the 1930s, without achieving the desired goals of either side.
This is why the third option – populist activism on moral and legal grounds – has emerged recently on the Palestinian side as the most significant new development in decades, and continues to pick up steam and worry the Israelis, as it should. I refer mainly to the movement for the boycott, divestment and sanction (BDS) of Israel for its denial of Palestinian human rights in three related arenas: the second-class status of Palestinian citizens of Israel; the Apartheid-like conditions Israel imposes on Palestinians living in the occupied West Bank and the besieged Gaza Strip; and the structural denial of rights to exiled Palestinian refugees living outside of historic Palestine. [Continue reading…]
