Update Note: My good friend
Debbie Schlussel
has written several very important articles about anti-Semitic attacks against
Starbucks, including the January, 2006
attempted bombing of a Starbucks store in San Francisco
which was an apparent escalation of a Starbucks boycott which began in 2002. In
the same article, Debbie Schlussel showed Muslims protesting a Starbucks in
Lebanon. Debbie also broke the story about the connection of Caribou coffee and
terrorism, and has been on top of the Starbucks and Caribou stories from the
beginning and deserves much credit for her fine work on this and other topics.
For several years, Starbucks has been under
fire, primarily from Islamic groups,
attacking Starbucks because Howard Schultz, the President of Starbucks is
Jewish. The anti-Semitic attacks on Starbucks has been far reaching,
challenging both their patriotism and making stealth claims about the company
being anti-Semitic in
order to get Jews to boycott the company, all in the name of getting as many
people as possible to stop buying Starbucks products, all because Mr. Schultz
is Jewish.
After Boycott Watch exposed the attacks
on Starbucks as being from Islamic groups, the attacks on Starbucks have
started to come out from the underground, most notably in a
video from Egyptian television where Starbucks has come
under direct fire with fabricated claims of Jewish conspiracy, claiming the
mermaid in their logo is Queen Esther and calling
Mordechai, the hero of the Purim holiday evil, presumably because he saved the
Jews in ancient Persia. More specifically, the boycott call is aimed at
Starbucks because, once again, the president of the company is Jewish.
In a
video
translated by MEMRI, The
Middle East Media Research Institute which does a great job translating Arabic
television and exposing Jihadist hate messages, An Egyptian cleric calls for a
Muslim boycott of Starbucks and explains his call using hate filled reasoning
that has nothing to do with the actual truth.
The
video does, however, exemplify the simple fact that the Arab boycott of Israel
and all associated boycotts are hate filled and have nothing to do with
achieving peace in the Middle East.
"The Arab
boycott of Israel is a ploy to divide people, not bring peace" said Fred Taub,
President of Boycott Watch. "The only way to bring peace to the Middle East is
by first ending the Arab boycott of Israel because without economic
cooperation, there is no basis for sustaining peace. Written agreements are
meaningless without structure to support it, and actual trade, not just trade
agreements, is that structure."
Mr. Taub is known
for speaking nationally with his message that peace in the Middle East can only
be achieved once the Arab boycott of Israel, which is ran via the Central
Boycott Office in Damascus, Syria, is dismantled and Arab nations establish
trade with Israel, without pre-conditions of any kind. Efforts to boycott
Israel, including the Divestment, Boycott, Sanctions (DBS) campaign are all
impediments to peace because, as Mr. Taub states, "you can't have peace with
people you won't sit down and have a cup of coffee with."
Starbucks has also recognized that Boycott Watch has
helped block false rumors against their company. In a 2005
statement by Starbucks, the company pointed out that
Boycott Watch is an accurate source of busting a myth against them. Boycott
Watch points out that we have received no compensation from Starbucks for our
reporting.
Starbucks' most prominent competitor is
Caribou Coffee, whose website likes to give the impression it is an American
company, but nothing can be further from the truth. Fine-print on Caribou's
website states "Our majority shareholder since 2000 is an affiliate of Arcapita
Bank B.S.C.©," but what they fail to mention is that Arcapita was formerly
known as the First Islamic bank of Bahrain which at one point owned about 90%
of the company and was renamed to hide the fact that the company adheres to the
same Islamic Sharia laws which prescribes discrimination against Jews,
Christians and women. Boycott Watch has also previously written how Caribou has
ties to terrorism.
Although we cannot directly tie the boycott calls against Starbucks to
Caribou's attempts to silent Boycott Watch and false anti-Semitic claims about
Starbucks, we do find the possibility of such a relationship rather intriguing.
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