Buycott app gets public to boycott Israeli produce

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Buycott app gets public to boycott Israeli produce

As critics of Israel’s policy in Gaza lose faith in governments to take action, a new app is helping them to it themselves. Buycott is one of the hottest items on the market as shoppers are using it in their droves to avoid purchasing Israeli products.

The Buycott app has a number of groups, which its users can join, with one of the most successful being the “Long live Palestine, boycott Israel” group. Numbering just a few hundred users in mid-July, it has surged in popularity in a month, with over a quarter of a million people currently signed up, according to the Buycott website.

The “Long live Palestine, boycott Israel” group on the Buycott app was set up in April by a British teenager. It is going from strength to strength. The group saw traffic grow by almost 30 percent in just 12 hours on the morning of Thursday 7.


“I noticed three weeks ago that we were seeing an unusual spike in traffic, but there hadn’t been any articles written about the app or Israel campaigns,” said Ivan Pardo, speaking to Forbes. “Next thing I knew Buycott was a top 10 app in the UK and Netherlands, and #1 in a number of Middle Eastern countries. Word was spreading through social media.”

The groups mission is about, “ordinary people around the world using their right to help bring an end to the oppression in Palestine. It’s a peaceful means of putting international pressure on the state of Israel and follows in the successful boycott against South African apartheid,” a message on the “Long live Palestine, boycott Israel” application stated.


The app works by allowing shoppers to scan barcodes of food products, such as a tub of hummus, to see if it was produced in Israel, or has any links with companies that support Israel’s bombardment of Gaza. The scanning process takes just a few seconds and then provides information about the company, such as its location and its website.

The Long Live Palestine, boycott Israel group has 49 companies on its ‘companies to avoid’ list, which range from Victoria’s Secret, which is one of the largest clients of Delta Galil, who operate a textile factory in the West Bank industrial zone of Barkan, to Volvo, who’s machinery has been used to destroy Palestinian settlements in violation of international law.

In contrast, the group also supports four companies, such as the Taybeh Brewing Company, which operates a Palestinian owned brewery and winery in the West Bank. Also on the list is the UK cosmetics firm Lush, which has striven to raise awareness of the struggle for human rights in Palestine.

Social media has been playing its own part in trying to put economic pressure on Israel to halt its actions in Gaza. The Israeli company SodaStream, which is also on “Long live Palestine, boycott Israel’s” list has come in for particular criticism.

SodaStream has its main plant in the industrial zone of Mishor Edomim, which is an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank, while the Boycott website also states that Palestinians who work there are paid less than half the minimum wage.

The BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement targets products and companies (Israeli and international) that profit from the violation of Palestinian rights, as well as Israeli sporting, cultural and academic institutions.

In February, BDS hit the headlines when it demanded Oxfam drop Hollywood actress Scarlett Johansson as an ambassador for her endorsement of SodaStream. They argued that Johansson’s role in Oxfam undermined the organization’s supposed condemnation of economic corporation with Israeli settlements.

"A refusal to part ways with Johansson will tarnish the charity’s credibility among Palestinians and many people of conscience around the world,” said the BDS in a statement.

Meanwhile, SodaStream’s UK operations were dealt a blow in July after department store John Lewis decided to stop stocking the product in its shops, while another store in Brighton, which had endured protests for two years, also decided to close.

Sarah Colborne, the director of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, attributed the closure of the Brighton store as well the decision by John Lewis, directly to pressure from the BDS movement.

“The news that SodaStream is closing its main UK store and that John Lewis is taking Soda Stream products off its shelves is a major success for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement,” she said, according to Haaretz.

'US beating drums of war against Russia to increase European defense spending'

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'US beating drums of war against Russia to increase European defense spending'

Marine Corps General Joseph Dunford testifies during the Senate Armed Services committee nomination hearing to be chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff on Capitol Hill in Washington, July 9, 2015.

European leaders know that the US wants to get them to spend money on military equipment which will be purchased from the US, says Brian Becker of the anti-war Answer Coalition. But Europe knows the dangers from the experience of two world wars, he added.

Several senior American officials say Russia is the greatest threat to their country's national security. First it was Secretary of the Air Force Deborah James, then General Joseph Dunford at his confirmation hearing for the position of Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff called Russian actions “nothing short of alarming.”


RT: Several senior American officials say Russia is the greatest threat to US national security. Why is such rhetoric being employed by senior American officials?

US military leaders call Russia ‘greatest threat’, demand more funding

Brian Becker: We have to understand this rhetoric and these presentations first by the Air Force Secretary Deborah James and Major General Joseph Dunford, soon to be Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, both of whom pose the presentation that Russia is an existential threat and the greatest threat to America.

They also say, and this is very interesting, that it requires the 28 NATO members to step up and do their part to spend at least two per cent of their GDP on military spending in NATO, and only four of the 28 members of NATO are doing it so far. What the US military officials are basically telling NATO is: “Get in line, this is an existential threat, you have to spend more of your money, money that is being drained from other parts of the economies of Europe." A lot of that money will go to US war contractors. So the ABCs of the war propaganda Russia is an existential threat is that it is very good, very necessary in fact for the biggest war contractors, the biggest parts of the military industrial complex in America. That is one part of the story.

RT: What is calling Russia 'the biggest threat'' and lumping it in with Islamic State going to lead to?

BB: It doesn’t just lump Russia in with ISIS, it says “Russia is a greater threat to the US and to the West, and to world peace than ISIS.” Now you see the US’s government right now is at war, endless war with IS because purportedly it poses an existential threat. But if the existential threat posed by Russia is even greater than IS, you can make the case, and I think it’s absolutely true, that the US military is preparing the American public for military confrontation, conflict of some type with Russia, which would seem to all people to be absolute madness.

Nonetheless, they must be doing this to prepare the population to allow greater and greater military threats to go against Russia. Now, once the Pentagon claims the escalation ladder, carries out massive war exercises on Russia’s border, Russia will be compelled to meet that threat. That’s how conflicts go from small conflicts to bigger conflicts, and even possible global conflicts.



RT: European officials have been so far reluctant to boost military spending for NATO. Do they not fear any imminent threats that the US is citing?

BB: The European powers know absolutely that this is hogwash. They know with certainty that the US is beating the drums of war in order to get them to spend more of their money on military equipment, much of which will be purchase from the US. And they also know that it’s easy for American politicians, and the Generals in America are just politicians in uniform before they become big businessman when they circulate back into corporate America, they know that they are playing with fire. It is very easy for American officials to talk tough against Russia. But Europe knows all too well, the dangers of real war, the danger of WWI and WWII which is 70 years over this year. They don’t take lightly to the fact that the Pentagon is playing with fire. And of course it will be the European people who will be on the frontlines, not Americans.

RT: US military officials said that they knew Europe was facing tough economic challenges, but NATO commitments should still be a priority. Is this talk of threats a way to secure NATO funding?

BB: Yes, that was my point. I think a lot of this is to keep the alliance together. They know that Germany and France, and other major European powers could start to have very warm and good relations - economic, political, and even possibly military relations with Russia. They are trying to keep the discipline of the alliance, and they are also trying to make sure that those countries pay their fair share to the war effort, to the NATO war effort, which, as I said, benefits US war corporations.

Units from NATO allied countries take part in the NATO Noble Jump 2015 exercises, part of testing and refinement of the Very High Readiness Joint Task Force (VJTF) in Swietoszow, Poland June 18, 2015.

US Secretary of the Air Force and United States Marine Corps general not diplomats

Paul Heroux, Middle East expert also commented on Deborah James’s and General Joseph Dunford’s statements that Russia is the greatest threat to US national security saying that “Their job is to bring to attention what, in their point of view, is going to be a big threat.”

RT: European officials have been so far reluctant to boost military spending on NATO. Why do you think that is?

Paul Heroux: There could be a number of reasons. The crisis in Greece right now is putting pressure on other European counties because there is maybe a need for a debt bailout. But at the same time we don’t want to go back to the old ways of huge deficit spending on the military. I would like to think we’ve progressed a lot more and we’re going to do more diplomatic solutions.

RT: You talk about diplomatic solutions... Is it diplomatic to call Russia 'the biggest threat' to American security?

PH: No, I don’t think it is. But I also think that was made by somebody whose job is not to be a diplomat, somebody who is either a general or secretary of one of the branches of our [US] armed forces. Their job is to bring to attention what, in their point of view, is going to be a big threat.


We also have other people in the US saying that the biggest threat to US security is cyber terrorism, or cyber security; other people say it might be global warming; other folks might say it’s ISIS or terrorism, and some might even say the nuclear program in Iran.

RT: Does calling Russia "the biggest threat" suggest the deterioration in relations between Moscow and Washington? Is that the sign there is no real hope for dissent dialogue in the next coming weeks and months?

PH: Deterioration has been going on for a number of years, that’s right. From the point of view of the US, Russia is the problem, from the point of view of Russia; it’s probably the US that’s the problem. The important thing is that they keep working together. What we need to do is basically take baby steps, small, realistic goals that can be achieved rather than trying to change the whole landscape of the negotiations and the state of affairs between the two countries. Small realistic baby steps will help develop a sense of trust and a sense of shared interest. And I think that’s the direction we should be going in.

‘Artificially hostile atmosphere’: Moscow blasts US claims of Russian threat

RT: Why has the trust deteriorated so badly, do you think on the both sides since the so-called reset?

PH: I think it could be a number of issues. Just the interest of the US and Russia. Russia, for example, is trying to reclaim its former kind of Eastern superiority, and that may sometimes complete with some US interests or some of NATO’s interests. Other times the US is also trying to keep ourselves from sliding into place where other countries don’t want to work with us, and it’s a difficult balance. Also it largely could be just the personalities of different leaders. We see that with Barack Obama and Benjamin Netanyahu; we saw that starting with Vladimir Putin and George Bush. So personalities do play a large role in these negotiations and discussions.

Ohio cops accused of brutality for arresting pregnant woman, 12yo girl at swimming pool

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Ohio cops accused of brutality for arresting pregnant woman, 12yo girl at swimming pool

Screenshot from YouTube video recorded by witnesses in Fairfield, Ohio

Police used excessive force and pepper spray on a pregnant woman and several children, who allegedly resisted arrest at a Fairfield, Ohio pool. The woman’s attorney accuses the officers and pool staff of racism.

Krystal Dixon, 33, and her sister Maya, 34, pleaded not guilty to charges of resisting arrest and disorderly conduct in court on Wednesday morning. A police report says Krystal “aggressively confronted pool staff” on June 9, after being asked to leave because of her children’s misbehavior, according to the Dayton Journal-News.

One police officer who intervened says he was physically attacked by the sisters, as well as some of the children. A boy, 15, and a girl, 12, were also charged.

Almost nine minutes of video footage recorded by the Dixons was made public, with the women’s attorney Clyde Bennett saying the evidence clearly shows his clients not breaking the law or acting violently. Bennett asked the city to dismiss the charges “so the community can move on.”

“If a person is behaving in a legal manner, you can’t just grab them. You can’t just say ‘come here’ and snatch them. That’s unconstitutional,” Bennett said. “If you want to go through a trial, that’s fine. I don’t have a problem with a trial, but it shouldn’t go that far,” he told local news station WLWT.

Fairfield is a community about 25 miles north of Cincinnati. The incident took place about a week after police in McKinney, Texas forcefully dispersed a group of African-American teenagers at a pool party. Eyewitness video shows a police officer throwing a girl on the ground and sitting on her back. Officer Eric Casebolt resigned following the public outcry over the incident.

Outrage as Texas cops break up teenage pool partly, violently froced black girl to ground

Bishop Bobby Hilton, head of the Word Deliverance Ministries in Forest Park and member of Reverend Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, held a news conference on Tuesday and showed some of the Dixons’ video footage. Hilton also claimed the 12-year-old girl suffered a jaw and rib fracture from the incident, but later dropped the allegations.

Fairfield Police Chief Michael J. Dickey said the video clips only reinforced his opinion that the officers acted appropriately.

“All they are trying to do is calm everyone down,” Dickey told the Cincinnati Enquirer. “It’s just business.” He rejected all allegations that anyone was injured in the incident, beyond temporary discomfort from the pepper spray used by the officers.

“This is an unfortunate situation and our officers had a tough situation there,” added Fairfield Mayor Steve Miller. “But I think they did a good job in showing restraint.”

According to Dixon, she brought eight children to the aquatics center around 3 pm, and then went to pick up her sister. One of her nephews did not have swimwear and was asked to leave. When Dixon returned, pool staff told her the boy had broken the rules by swimming in his clothes and asked the family to leave because the other children had misbehaved when informed of the violation.

A park ranger who came to ask Dixon to leave asked her to show him her identification. When she did not, he threatened to arrest her and took her by the arm. At that point, several of the children tried to step in, and the staff called 911.

The police released a recording of the 911 call by one of the pool employees, a woman on the verge of tears, who said a group of children was fighting with the officers and asked for backup “immediately.”

“They’re videotaping, trying to make it look like a racist thing, and it’s not at all. They were breaking our policies. We told them they couldn’t be here anymore, and it’s really scary and I don’t feel safe,” the caller says.

Dixon’s attorney, Clyde Bennet, was skeptical of the policy violation explanation. “I’m not convinced that’s why they wanted them out of the pool,” he told the Daily Beast. “There’s a lot of people in Cincinnati who believe they wanted them out … because they were black.”

Krystal and Maya Dixon were allowed to remain free on their own recognizance and are due back in court for a pretrial hearing on July 8.

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