Murdoch Press and the Fictional Jewish Chocolatier

Dear friends,
an excellent piece published on Palestine Chronicle and written by my friend Samah Sabawi discussing the Murdoch media's appalling coverage of BDS and the Max Brenner protests in Melbourne. As Samah notes if you are looking an accurate representation of what the BDS campaign is about or what is really happening in relation to the Max Brenner protests you are not going to find it the pages of The Australian.

In solidarity,
Kim

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Murdoch Press and the Fictional Jewish Chocolatier



By Samah Sabawi: Palestine Chronicle: 26 August 2011

The Murdoch press in its zeal to attack the Palestinian Boycott Divestment Sanctions (BDS) campaign has misrepresented facts and even ran an entire article quoting a fictional character that simply does not exist. The invention of Max Brenner the Jewish chocolatier demonstrated the lack of integrity and journalistic ethics employed within the Murdoch press's campaign against the pro-Palestinian advocacy groups who have called for a boycott of the Israeli owned Max Brenner chocolate franchise.

Despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary, senior reporter Cameron Stewart (The Australian: August 20, 2011) still referred to the protests against the Max Brenner franchise as “marching on a Jewish-owned chocolate shop” and repeated the claim that BDS aim to “harm a legal Jewish business”. This deliberate misrepresentation of the corporate Israeli franchise directly link to the military and of the BDS protests is part of a larger campaign by The Australian that is carefully orchestrated to play on Jewish stereotypes and to shamelessly manipulate the emotions of the Jewish community creating an atmosphere of fear, mistrust and hostility.

Most astounding was the article’s reference to Max Brenner as “the man whose real name is Oded Brenner”. This is very revealing of the journalistic spin used to distract and misinform readers about these legitimate protests. Putting the spotlight on the man behind the name behind the cooperation is a cheap tactic, a diversion meant to humanize a corporate entity for the purposes of adding to the demonization of the protestors. But wait, there is more!

The Australian pursuit of the Max Brenner story has indeed gone too far. The same reporter Cameron Stewart (August 13, 2011) tried to further humanize the franchise by running an article entitled “Targeted chocolatier Max Brenner 'a man of peace'”. In this article Stewart wrote “it seems Max Brenner, the company's founder, is perplexed and dismayed at finding himself as an unwitting symbol of the Palestinian-Israel conflict.” But, the missing truth from this heart wrenching story of a Jewish chocolatier trying to survive in the big anti-Semitic world is that the man doesn't exist.

Max Brenner, the corporate entity, was founded in 1996 in Ra'anana Israel, by Max Fichtman and Oded Brenner, using a conjunction of their names. Max Fichtmann is no longer associated with the Max Brenner entity. Oded Brenner remains. Since 2001, the company has become a part of Strauss Group: a cooperation that supports Israel’s military. There was never a Jewish chocolatier named Max Brenner yet the Australian senior reporter Cameron Stewart dedicated an entire article about this non-existent ‘man of peace’.

It seems The Australian will do what it can to paint the BDS advocates as “radical” “anti-Semitic” and “anti-Israeli bullies” while ignoring the reasons behind the boycott call – Israel’s atrocious treatment of the Palestinian people, its land and water theft, its violence and terror against the population it occupies and its system of discrimination which has been likened by leading human rights organizations and advocates to the apartheid system which once plagued South Africa.

The campaign for BDS is not “radical” unless in the views of The Australian calling for international law to be respected is a radical notion, but is affective and perhaps this is the greater danger and the reason why the right leaning newspaper The Australian is leading the fight against it.

In demanding equality for Palestinians and Jews, BDS poses a great danger for Israel, a state that defines itself along ethnocentric lines and considers all non-Jews, including citizens of the state, a demographic threat.

It is worth mentioning that I had a lovely cup of coffee just yesterday in St. Kilda in an area surrounded by Jewish owned businesses where I enjoyed an environment that was peaceful and pleasant. The good news is that there is no call to march on Jewish-owned businesses by any group of people. But also worth knowing is that if indeed Jewish businesses were ever targeted by any group I would not be surprised to find the same human rights advocates who are marching against Israel today standing to defend the Jewish community’s right to live free of racism and intolerance. These are the values held by the BDS movement: non- violence, equality, justice for all and zero tolerance for all forms of racism and discrimination. But you would never know that, if your primary source of information is The Australian newspaper.

- Samah Sabawi is a Palestinian writer and is Public Advocate for Australians for Palestine. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.

Loewenstein on BDS and the Max Brenner protests: Enough with the Nazi Slurs

As mentioned in my introduction to Michael Brull's article in my previous post, Brull's article is the first article to appear in the Australian “mainstream” media which has actively challenged the demonization of the BDS campaign and the Max Brenner protests in Melbourne. Brull, while being publicly on the record as not being a supporter of BDS, correctly points out that there is a concerted and undemocratic attempt to not only crush the Melbourne Max Brenner BDS protests but also that this attempted to forcibly crush the protests has been aided by the Murdoch Press in their relentless promotion/accusation that BDS and the protests are equivalent to Nazism.

Yesterday on the New Matilda webjournal, another well-known Australian Jewish blogger and author, Antony Loewenstein published an article addressing head-on use of the Nazi slurs being thrown around in an attempt to discredit BDS and the Max Brenner protests in Melbourne. Loewenstein, who is a non-Zionist and a supporter of the Palestinian BDS campaign, notes that not only are the Nazi accusations false but that Australian Zionists have cheered and supported the accusations in order to distract from Israel’s anti-democratic behaviour. Loewenstein points out that falsely accusations are not only offensive but also have the effect of undermining the ability to challenge real anti-Semitism when it does occur.

Please find below Loewenstein's New Matilda article (Loewenstein's article, like Brull's has a number of links in it. For some reason, however, the links did not automatically transfer when I posted the article here, so I have included a link to the New Matilda website and the original article, so you can check out the links)

In solidarity, Kim

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Enough With The Nazi Slurs
By Antony Loewenstein, New Matilda, 25 August 2011

Equating the BDS movement with Nazism is both offensive and outrageous. So why aren't members of the Jewish community speaking out on this, asks Antony Loewenstein
Joseph Stalin changed his name and so did New South Wales Federal Greens MP Lee Rhiannon.
Stalin, writes Alan Howe, executive editor and columnist with Rupert Murdoch’s Herald Sun, was "perhaps the 20th century’s greatest murderer".

Rhiannon backs the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel and, argues Howe, people should know about "the 1930s where violent protests against Jewish traders may end. It was a colourful time of brownshirts, blackshirts and yellow Stars of David".

In this fashion, Rhiannon is likened to a supporter of fascism and remains "against the only democracy in the Middle East and the one country in which the region’s Arabs are guaranteed safety".

Welcome to the level of debate in Australia over the Israel/Palestine conflict. The last months have seen a litany of public figures that should know better accusing anybody associated with the BDS movement of embracing Nazism, anti-Semitism and outright Jew-hatred.

It shames the Australian Jewish establishment that no leading voices have challenged this odious and absurd comparison. Instead, they’ve cheered it on, coordinating nationally, with the support of an Israeli government desperate to distract from its own anti-democratic practices.

The Australian Jewish News has editorialised that boycotting Jewish businesses here will remind Jews of similar Nazi tactics in Germany and Austria in the 1930s. How on earth will the paper cover real anti-Semitism when they so casually compare today’s behaviour to Hitler’s Third Reich?

Back in early July, 19 pro-Palestinian activists were arrested and charged for protesting in front of a Max Brenner chocolate shop in Melbourne. Max Brenner was targeted because its parent company Strauss Group supports elements of the IDF accused of war crimes in both the West Bank and Gaza.

This campaign has continued globally for years. For example, a reader of my website in 2009 sent me a copy of a letter they sent to Max Brenner outlining the reasons the company was a legitimate target for boycott.

The Victorian Government recently continued to threaten the activists with further legal punishment, imprisonment and fines.

Max Brenner’s parent company Strauss Group is an openly political business that proudly states on its Hebrew website that "We see a mission and need to continue to provide our soldiers with support, to enhance their quality of life and service conditions, and sweeten their special moments". Some of these soldiers were directly implicated in war crimes allegations during incursions into the West Bank and the invasion of Gaza in late 2008 and early 2009.

In late July, The Australian reported the campaign against the BDS movement in Australia with a story called, "Anti-Jew protest condemned". Federal Labor MP Michael Danby, journalist Jana Wendt and union head Paul Howes met for a hot chocolate inside a Max Brenner shop in Melbourne, condemned the "violent" protest against the shop and again talked about Nazi Germany. Former Labor Party president Warren Mundine was quoted by journalist Leo Shanahan as saying BDS was not "not anti-Israel but anti-Jewish".

Howes said the protesters were "mimicking the behaviour of the Nazi thugs" and it was necessary to "nip this in the bud". Howes said most people who voted for the Greens had no idea how "xenophobic" its policies were. Not one journalist asked him whether he truly believed waving placards outside a shop in Melbourne is akin to the Gestapo arresting and murdering millions of Jews in the gas chambers. And no Jewish leaders took him to task for the comparison.

Last weekend’s article by The Australian’s Cameron Stewart allowed this misperception to perpetuate. Like Shanahan, Stewart quoted Wendt as saying that, "As the daughter of refugees whose lives were critically affected by both fascism and communism, I’m grateful for what Australia has to offer".

A week later, the Victorian Government announced that it was investigating "anti-Israel activists" — by asking the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission (ACCC) if the BDS-ers were breaking federal law by "threatening" Israeli stores.
The state’s Consumer Affairs Minister Michael O’Brien raised the spectre of 20th century attacks on Jewish businesses and claimed BDS was a threat to democratic order. Bizarrely, he singled out the Maritime Union Of Australia, Geelong Trades Hall Council, the Green Left Weekly magazine, Australians for Palestine and the Palestine Solidarity Campaign. For the record, Australians for Palestine had nothing to do with the BDS protest against Max Brenner, though they do back BDS.

The Australian followed up with a story recently headlined, "Targeted chocolatier ‘a man of peace’". "Max Brenner says he is a man of peace who hates all forms of violence," the article says. Reporter Cameron Stewart doesn’t mention the serious allegations against the IDF soldiers supported by Max Brenner. (And besides, Max Brenner is the name of the business — not of the company owner. Actually, it’s an amalgam of two names.)

One of the activists interviewed by Stewart, Kim Bullimore, spokesperson for Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, told me that little of what she said to the journalist ended up in the article.

The Australian editorialised further on the matter last week by arguing "for any student of 20th-century history there is something deeply offensive about targeting a Jewish-owned business".

And the Jewish establishment said nothing.

BDS is a peaceful, non-violent movement, like that which campaigned against apartheid South Africa. It aims to put pressure on a state that refuses to end its illegal occupation of Palestinian land.

What Australian politicians will not acknowledge is the real face of modern Israel. Calling for BDS inside Israel is now illegal. As an Arab member of parliament recently told the New York Times, a member of the Knesset wanted to sue him for simply calling for a boycott against the illegal settlement of Ariel. This is in "democratic" Israel.
With Israel announcing yet more illegal colonies in the West Bank, the international community has a clear choice: engage in empty rhetoric about "democratic" Israel or find alternative ways to target a state with one of the most unequal class systems in the developed world.

Australian politicians and all public figures should be strongly challenged on comparing BDS to fascist hoodlums, and rejected.

An interview with The Australian newspaper on BDS and the Max Brenner Protests ... OR ... What The Australian doesn't tell its readers...

On Thursday, I received a text from Cameron Stewart, a reporter from The Australian, wanting to interview me in relation to the BDS protests in Melbourne focusing on the chocolate store, Max Brenner.

Max Brenner is owned by the Israeli company, Strauss, one of Israel's biggest food and beverage companies. According to Strauss' website, the company runs a number of community programs, including one which supports the Golani and Givati brigades of the Israeli military, by supplying soldiers in those brigades with games, sporting equipment, spending money and books [NB: this information has since been removed from Strauss' english language site but remains on their Hebrew language site - here].

What is not mentioned by Strauss is that these two brigades were heavily involved in Israel's 22 day assault on the Gaza Strip in 2008/2009 known as Operation Cast Lead, a brutal military assault which resulted in more than 1300 Palestinians killed, the majority of whom were civilians, including 350 children.

The Melbourne BDS protests highlighting Brenner's complicity with Israeli's occupation and apartheid policies have been taking place since December 2010.

After receiving the text, I did a 10 minute interview with Stewart and was informed that an article would be appearing in Saturday's paper. Well, the article was published in The Australian on Saturday but given the pro-Zionist bent of the paper it was unsurprising to discover that the majority of what I had told Stewart in the interview was not included.

As you can see from Stewart's article below, only the barest of information is included about why pro-Palestine/BDS activists were actually in fact protesting at Max Brenner, despite the fact, I had explained this in detail to Stewart - including the connection between Max Brenner/Strauss and the Israeli military.

In addition, while Stewart notes in the article that "the protests have been condemned by both sides of Victorian politics", he deliberately declined to include my response to his question about this, in which I noted that it was very telling that both sides of politics had condemned the protest but they had nothing to say about Israel's human rights abuses or Israel's killing of more than 1300 people in Operation Cast Lead, or the fact that Israel was continuing to build more illegal settlement or the fact that Israel was in breach of the Fourth Geneva Convention and rulings made by the International Court of Justice.

Please find below the article as written by Stewart and published in The Australian.

I have also included after the article an outline paraphasing of what I told Stewart in the 10 minute interview I did with him, so you can see what exactly what he chose to leave out.

in solidarity,
Kim

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Targeted chocolatier Max Brenner 'a man of peace'
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/news/nation/targeted-chocolatier-max-brenner-a-man-of-peace/story-e6frg6nf-1226114075710

by Cameron Stewart: The Australian: August 13, 2011

MAX Brenner says he is a man of peace who hates all forms of violence. So how has this chocolate maker become the target of anti-Israeli protesters in Australia who accuse him of being complicit with the Israeli military?

It's a claim which has outraged many who see the campaign against the 24-store Max Brenner chocolate chain in this country as an ugly echo of the anti-Semitism of 1930s Germany when Jewish businesses were targeted.

Anti-Israeli activists counter that the current global campaign of protests against international Israeli retail chains like Max Brenner are a legitimate means of highlighting what they say is the deeply flawed human rights record of Israel and its military.

But the activists are under growing pressure to abandon their campaign since 19 people were arrested following violent clashes with police outside the Max Brenner store in Melbourne's CBD on July 1.

The protests have been condemned by both sides of Victorian politics.

This week, the Baillieu government asked the Australian Competition & Consumer Commission to examine whether the protesters could be prosecuted for alleged secondary boycotts.

"We remember the precedent of the 1930s,' says Jewish federal MP Michael Danby. "My father came from Germany and (at) any sign of this kind of behaviour, we have to draw a line in the sand."

Kim Bullimore, a spokesperson for the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, vows that the campaign against Max Brenner will continue, with more protests planned in Brisbane on August 27 and Melbourne on September 9.

But it seems Max Brenner, the company's founder, is perplexed and dismayed at finding himself as an unwitting symbol of the Palestinian-Israel conflict.

A Max Brenner spokesman said Mr Brenner, who lives in New York, was on leave and was unavailable for interview. But when asked in July 2009 about protests against his Sydney stores, Mr Brenner said he was no more than a chocolate-maker.

"Everything that has to do with conflict seems stupid (to me),' he said. "Whether it is in Israel or not, anything to do with violence, aggressiveness or appearing at protests or boycotts seems silly (to me). But then again, I am just a chocolate-maker."

The link between the 43-year-old Mr Brenner and the Israeli military is accidental and indirect, notwithstanding the fact that Mr Brenner, like other Israeli-born men, had to complete mandatory military service as a young man.

In 2001, the Max Brenner chain became part of the much larger Strauss Group, Israel's second-largest food and beverage company. But Strauss also provides food and care packages to Israeli soldiers. This, in the eyes of anti-Israeli activists, justifies a boycott.

Ms Bullimore, the co-ordinator of the protest campaign in Australia, denies that activists are simply targeting an innocent chocolate-maker.

"We are trying to highlight Israel's human rights abuses,' she told The Weekend Australian.

In a statement last night, the general delegation of Palestine to Australia said it was aware of the recent incident at the Max Brenner shop in Melbourne but that it did not dictate positions or actions to such civil society initiatives "either within Palestine or in other countries".

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Kim's notes on interview with Cameron Stewart:

Stewart (the reporter) wanted to know when was our next action. I told them Sept 9. He wanted to know if we would be picketing Max Brenner. I told him our upcoming action would once again be a non-violent peaceful rally which would highlight Israel’s human rights abuses and that we would be continuing to highlight Max Brenner and Strauss’ complicity with Israeli apartheid and occupation.[ Strauss is Max Brenner's parent company. Strauss gives direct support to the Israeli military by providing care packages, spending money, games, books and sporting equipment to Israel's Golani and Givati Brigades, two of the key military brigades which were active on the ground in Operation Cast Lead in 2008/2009, which resulted in the killing of more than 1300 Palestinians, including 350 children].

Stewart asked if other companies had been protested against as part of the BDS campaign in Austrlaia – I pointed out that protests had been held against Israeli owned companies, Seacret and Jericho. Both companies sell Dead Sea products and while Israeli companies profit from exploiting the Dead Sea, Palestinians living under occupation and living around the area of the Dead Sea are regularly prevented access to not only their lands but also the Dead Sea because of Israel’s occupation and apartheid policies.

Stewart wanted to know if there were other actions happening around the country, I pointed out that there were solidarity actions being organised in several states with those arrested and that there would also be a protest in Brisbane later this month. And I also pointed out that there had been protests in Sydney outside of MB.

He asked me what I thought of Ted Lapkin (former AIJAC staffter) saying that it was hypocritical for us to protest at Max Brenner, when we oppose the blockade of Gaza! I pointed out while we are holding a non-violent peaceful demonstration which lasts for an hour or so, once a month to highlight the complicity of MB/Strauss (via their support for the Israeli military) in Israel’s human rights abuses, as well as occupation and apartheid policies, the Israeli state has been conducting a 4 long year blockade of Gaza, which ensured that medical equipment, building equipment, foods supplies etc can not get in to Gaza. To try and compare the two is hypocritical and outrageous.

Stewart also asked what I thought about the fact that both sides of politics have come out and condemned the protests. I said I thought it was quite telling that both sides of politics felt the need to condemn our legitimate non-violent civil resistance (and that boycotts had long been a legitimate form of civil dissent in liberal democratic society), but did not have a word to say about Israel’s ongoing human rights abuses, Israel’s continued building of illegal settlements in violation of International law or that the fact Israel killed more than 1300 people during Operation Cast Lead, the majority of whom were civilian, including 350 children.

He also asked about the ACCC being called in. Again, I pointed out that it was appalling that politicians are trying to set up investigations into a legitimate non-violent civil resistance movment but fail to say a word about Israel’s human rights abuses, occupation and apartheid policies or that it was in violation of the 4th Geneva convention and rulings by the International Court of Justice.

I pointed out that non-violent civil resistance has long been a legitimate and acceptable part of liberal democratic practice. That it has been used by Gandhi and Martin Luther King Jnr, as well as many others. I pointed out that the campaign was a Palestinan initiative and that was supported by Palestinian civil society.

When I raised the issue of MB/Strauss’ connect to the Israeli military, he asked me (to paraphase) “well what about the fact that there are many companies in the US who have supported the US military”. I pointed out that there has been in fact boycotts and protests around companies involved in the wars in Iraq and that non-violent civil resistance is a legitimate form of dissent.

He asked how we knew that Strauss supported the Israeli military. I pointed out that they had had the information up on their english language website but have since taken it down but it remains on their Hebrew site and this had been translated for us by Israeli activists involved in the boycott campaign. I also offered to send him a copy of the statement issued by the Israeli BDS activists in support of Australian BDS activists and he declined to have me send it to him, instead saying he could find it on the web.