The “No Thanks” app calls on people not to buy products from companies that “support” Israel. Is it a legitimate form of protest — or even antisemitism?
As a practical matter, the exact list of companies is always going to be problematic and in this case doesn’t seem to have clear guidance:
The lists of brands that should be boycotted, according to the website operators [cited by the app’s creator], include world-famous companies such as Adidas, McDonald’s, Chanel, Netflix and Apple, and also represent all kinds of industries, from food to cosmetics to streaming providers. Some companies are on the list because they jointly launched a campaign after October 7 in which they condemned Hamas’ terrorist attack on Israel. According to the websites, other companies invest in Israeli start-ups, for example, or finance “the theft of Palestinian territory.”
As a discussion of whether this type of action is antisemitic, it is worth reading this very good article.
Experts say this sentence can be interpreted as either critical of Israel or antisemitic. Meron Mendel, director of the Anne Frank Educational Center, told DW that the phrase recalled an antisemitic belief in the Middle Ages that Jews murdered children in order to produce Passover bread from their blood.
WOW, yeah it’s totally ambiguous, I could never tell.
Uffa Jensen, deputy director of the Center for Research on Antisemitism, also says that this expression could come close to being accused of antisemitism because it uses the image of Israel as a child murderer.
Yes, “Israel” is a terrorist, and murderous state. You can criticize a Muslim or Christian state without hating the religions or their followers. The same must be true for a Jewish state, especially one which uses Judaism as it’s shield against criticism.
