THIS is How You Do BDS
James Hurst
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Those supporting, endorsing and promoting BDS have had some success. Not too much, but some. The future of Ben & Jerry’s in Israel is in jeopardy, there were some groups that pulled out of the Sydney Festival, a number of Latin professors have severed educational links with Israel and, well… look, they have only been going since 2005 and these things take time to gain momentum, right?
No.
When you have a just cause, when people actually support and believe in what you are promoting then BDS becomes rather more productive.
- KPMG, the third largest accounting firm in the world announced its Russia and Belarus firm would leave the KPMG network. PricewaterhouseCoopers are doing the same.
- The streaming service Spotify has closed its office in Moscow and removed and restricted content that is operated or backed by Russian state media.
- Netflix and TikTok have suspended services
- US tech giant Apple is stopping sales of iPhones and other products in Russia. It has also limited Apple Pay – which has led to huge queues on the metro system.
- Google said it has removed Russian state-funded publishers such as RT from its news-related features, including the Google News search tool. The tech company has also banned RT and other Russian channels from receiving money for ads on websites, apps and YouTube videos. Google Pay has been limited in Russia and Google Maps has disabled live traffic data in Ukraine so you cannot see how busy a place is.
- RT has been taken off the air in numerous counties around the world.
- PayPal has shut down its services in Russia.
- Video game maker Electronic Arts Inc (EA) said it is removing the Russian national team and all Russian football clubs from its popular video game FIFA 22.
- Microsoft said it had suspended all sales of its products and services to Russia.
- Flat-pack furniture giant IKEA has temporarily closed all retail and manufacturing operations in Russia and Belarus in a move impacting around 15,000 workers.
- American Express has announced it is suspending all operations in Russia and Belarus.
- Mastercard and Visa announced they would be suspending their operations in Russia impacting foreign transactions.
- Vilnius, Lithuania will change the name that the Russian Embassy sits on to “Heroes of Ukraine Street”, in Albania to “Free Ukraine Street” and in Latvia to “Independent Ukraine Street”
This list is by no means exhaustive, just a flavour of how the world is reacting to a real persecution. When the world supports the cause, the companies follow suit.
Although there is one company that doesn’t appear on the list. The company that seems to be blaming America for the conflict:
Parent company Unilever CEO Alan Jope stepped in with “Ben & Jerry’s is a great brand – most of the time they get it right – they have a great track record of campaigning on important issues that are relevant to their consumers.”
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