10 October 2013

How not to hold a protest

Young (he's only 23 - how dare he be so young and so sensible, as well as clever) Sam Halles has the following article on The Times of Israel online edition. In it he highlights 12 errors committed by the PSC protesters outside John Lewis, Oxford Street, London, a week or so ago. They were protesting against Sodastream, you know, that company that has a factory on the West Bank, employs half its workforce from among the local Arab population, on the same terms, conditions and pay as its Israeli (Jewish) employees.

How disgraceful is that? How dare they apply equal treatment to Jewish men and women and Arab men and women. It goes against the capitalist grain to do that! Capitalists are supposed to grind the faces of the proletariat into the dust and then laugh all the way to their Swiss bank. I mean, I'd demonstrate against that: capitalists acting as though they have a moral compass and a set of decent ethical beliefs.

What's that? That's not why the protesters were there? They were there because it's an Israeli (i.e. Jewish) company?

Be that as it may, Halles has a written a clever and witty article which illustrates very well the title of the piece. See what you think. And if you haven't already got one, then go out and buy a soda stream. Our kids have. It works very well, too.

By Brian Goldfarb.