You are full of righteous anger; Israel must be made to suffer for the murder of thousands of innocent people. You savagely decide not to make that impulse purchase to buy a squishmallow for your favourite niece because you have been told that Jazwares CEO made a comment supporting Israel. “Zealous Zionist,” you think as you put your credit card away.
There is so much misinformation that is driven by strong emotion in this conflict, yet it takes a lot of research to form an accurate opinion. Let’s start with the most recent conflict as it’s most likely the cause of the current reaction and call for boycotts.
7th of October, the holiday of Simchat Torah. Thousands of Hamas fighters fired rockets at civilian targets and swarmed over the border attacking and slaughtering people in the middle of the night in residential areas. They took 253 hostages back to undisclosed locations opening the conflict.
8th of October, Israel declared a state of war.
10th of October, Israel begins Airstrikes
28th Of October, the Israeli Defence force started their ground offensive into the Gaza Strip
7th of November, the Death toll in Gaza is 10,000
1st of January 2024, The Palestinian death toll in Gaza stands at 23,000 people.
1st of March 2024, Israel fires on unarmed Palestinian civilians trying to get food from an aid convoy killing 100.
9th of March 2024, The death toll rises to 30,000 with 300,000 on the verge of starvation.
I have taken major parts of the conflict and loss of life, the actual timeline is much more complicated. So let’s now look at Boycotts because the public sympathy has changed dramatically during the conflict.
1: 7th October — 27th of October
It was generally considered acceptable and even important to express support for Israel in the wake of a terrorist attack targeting civilians, talk of murder, capture, and rape as part of the attack exacerbated the emotion.
2: 28th of October to the 7th of November
Israel’s retaliatory actions start to be concerning, with the death toll rising and with the IDF’s slow disregard for civilian lives in its attacks, there is a still mixture of sympathy and support, but it starts to erode.
3: 8th of November to 1st of January
The IDF / IAF response to the attack is increasingly disproportionate, the disregard for the people of Gaza is now a serious problem, public sympathy swings to the people of Palestine while still denouncing the actions of the paramilitary arm of Hamas.
4: 8th of March
Israel is now the aggressor, the murder of civilian life is now 30:1 from the original attack, even with estimates of 5,000 Hamas fighters, that is still a 25,000 human life toll to progress this war. The world court is still determining if the Israeli actions constitute genocide but there is a strong case. Because Israel is predominantly a Jewish state, anti-semitism is on the rise (at last count 380% in the US alone)
A boycott for supportive statements made in the first period is conceptually wrong, by boycotting for that reason you are expressing anger for the company opposing terrorism.
Boycotting for statements made in any other period is up to your individual conscience, however there does not appear to be any unbiased list of companies that have made aggression-specific statements to refer to.
For example, be aware of franchises, just because McDonalds in Israel gave free food to the Israeli Defence Force does not mean you need to attack or boycott McDonalds in Tehran, Florida or Sydney you will only harm local operators who might have a very different opinion on the conflict.
My reason for this article is PLEASE seek out actual material on why you are making a financial retaliatory action and don’t follow someone else’s ideaology.
