USPCN Action Alert: #BoycottSodaStream in reviews on Amazon

Season’s Greetings from United States Palestinian Community Network (USPCN)!

One of USPCN’s ongoing campaigns is to promote the boycott of SodaStream, a home beverage carbonating device that is produced in illegal Israeli settlements throughout the Palestinian West Bank. We invite all of USPCN’s members and allies to participate in a quick action to help undermine SodaStream’s popularity this holiday season.

How can you help? Tell consumers the truth about SodaSteam by writing a review on amazon.com and help bring SodaStream’s reviews down from 4 stars to zero stars. We have provided some background information on SodaStream below, and a few example reviews with instructions as to how to post them. Feel free to use one of our examples, or make up your own! SodaStream offers a lot of products on Amazon, and Amazon has become the largest wholesaler in the world, so the more reviews we can get out there, the better. Call your friends, get online, and review!

Soda Stream Protest. Chicago, IL 12-14-2013 Photo: Tess Scheflan/ Activestills.org

Boycott SodaStream:

SodaStream home beverage carbonating devices are fraudulently labeled as “Made in Israel,” but are in fact produced in illegal Israeli settlements in Palestinian territories, the occupied West Bank.

Settlement production relies on, and supports, an illegal activity under international law. Outside official state borders, Israeli companies operating in the West Bank enjoy cheap land and water from land that was confiscated from its indigenous Palestinian owners; a captive Palestinian labor force, under severe restrictions of movement and organization; vast tax incentives; and lax regulation of environmental and labor protection laws.

How to do it:

• Log into your amazon.com account, or register if you don’t have one.
• Go to items at this SodaStream link.
• Click on the review stars.
• Click on: write a product review.
• Then insert one of the reviews provided below or one of your own.
• Use these hashtags and handles when tweeting to get others to review on Amazon: @amazon, @SodaStreamUSA, #MyKindOfHoliday, #BoycottSodaStream, #BDS, #USPCN, #PalestineWillBeFree
• Lastly, email your review to [email protected] so we can track the number of folks participating in this quick and easy way to end Israeli occupation of Palestinian land.

Example Review 1:

SodaStream is produced in illegal Israeli settlements, built on stolen Palestinian land in the militarily occupied.

The SodaStream factory employs Palestinian workers under the discriminatory and exploitative conditions of the occupation. Shame on SodaStream for flouting international law and profiting from Israel’s occupation of the West Bank, which is responsible for massive violations of the Palestinian people’s human, civil, and national rights.

Example Review 2:

DON’T BUY SodaStream, built on stolen Palestinian land!  Its less expensive alternatives:

• Cuisinart: Priced at $99.95, the machine is in stock now at Bed Bath & Beyond retail outlets as well as on Amazon.
• SodaSparkle: it’s not a countertop appliance, but a smaller contraption, containing a single-use CO2 cartridge, that you screw into the bottle that comes with it to carbonate its contents. The company offers two starter kits on Amazon and on its own website: the standard one, priced at $50, includes the charger, a 1.3-liter BPA-free reusable plastic bottle, five single-use CO2 cartridges (each one good for one bottle of soda water), and 15 single-glass flavor packs; a $60 “deluxe” kit is identical except that it also includes a 1-liter bottle.

• Pat’s Backcountry Beverages: Instead of CO2 cartridges, Pat’s eco2SYSTEM relies on a combination of food-grade potassium bicarbonate and citric acid powders to produce CO2: to make carbonated water, you fill a special .6-liter (20 oz.) plastic bottle with water, empty a packet of eco2ACTIVATOR (the powders) into the specially designed top, and shake.

• My Pop Old Fashioned Soda Shoppe: Priced at $75 and apparently available only by mail order from the company’s online store, it consists of seven plastic bottles, six of which are connected by a maze of tubes, clamps, and valves, all packed into a bright green shopping satch.

Example Review 3:

Thinking about buying a carbonated beverage machine for Christmas? Don’t buy SodaStream! Christmas is about peace, not about profiting from a brutal military occupation, the same way SodaStream does by operating in illegal Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank. And Palestinian Christians cannot celebrate Christmas in peace in Jesus’ birthplace, as they and their holy sites also suffer under occupation in Bethlehem and Jerusalem.

Example Review 4:

Boycott, divestment, and sanctions helped end apartheid in South Africa. Help the Palestinian people with their BDS movement to END the Israeli occupation and human rights violations. Don’t buy SodaStream! Its factory is illegally built on occupied Palestinian land, benefits from the occupation, and discriminates against its Palestinian workers.

On Tuesday, December 3, activists in Minneapolis, MN delivered a petition with more than 8,000 signatures to Target headquarters asking the store to stop selling SodaStream.

www.uspcn.org