Calls to boycott SodaStream were given an unexpected boost after it turned out that actress Scarlett Johansson was chosen as the company’s brand ambassador. For example, Palestinian journalist Daoud Kuttab wrote in Al-Monitor that the fact that the American actress’s being forced to forgo her position as ambassador for the charitable organization Oxfam was a long-term victory for the Palestinians and their supporters everywhere.

Johansson was unwilling to give in to Oxfam’s conditions when it pressured her to give up on her contract with SodaStream, and in so doing, gave up on those who pressured her to boycott the Israeli company. Even if someone considers this a Palestinian victory, the question remains: How can Kuttab completely disregard that the SodaStream factory employs more than 900 Palestinians? Hurting the factory, which is the source of their livelihoods, would constitute an economic death sentence for those employees.

There is no Palestinian factory or company in the West Bank that employs so many workers. There is no Palestinian factory or company that provides the same terms of employment that SodaStream gives its workers, both Jews and Arabs.

By the way, Palestinian employees of SodaStream, who don’t have Israeli health insurance because they are not Israelis, and who don’t have Palestinian health insurance because there is no national health coverage in the Palestinian Authority, receive an additional payment so that they can insure themselves privately in the West Bank. That is why SodaStream has some 900 Palestinian workers who are willing to work in an Israeli factory which is threatened by an economic boycott by pro-Palestinian organizations.

Read the article in full at Al-Monitor.