Remember SodaStream, the Israeli company that manufactures a device for home production of fizzy beverages and was represented by the bubbly Hollywood star Scarlett Johansson?
Following a campaign by the Boycott, Divest, Sanction (BDS) movement that included personal attacks against Johnasson, it closed its West Bank plant October 2015, laying off more than 500 Palestinians, and relocated to Israel.
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Now, CEO Daniel Birnbaum says the dismissal of the firm’s last 74 Palestinian workers is not the fault of BDS , but that responsibility lies with the Israeli government, that refused to grant them work permits.
Mahmoud Nawajaa, the BDS coordinator in the West Bank town of Ramallah, called the loss of the Palestinian jobs at SodaStream “part of the price that should be paid in the process of ending the occupation.”
The Palestinian employees, many of whom have worked at the company for years, are caught in battle of permits between SodaStream and Israeli authorities.
On Monday, many were in tears and company officials expressed outrage as they boarded buses to leave the southern Israeli plant for the last time.