West Milwaukee, WI – The Milwaukee Palestine Solidarity Coalition organized actions outside Target in West Milwaukee, calling on the store to drop illegal settlement products. The protest was coordinated with an international day of action organized by the U.S. Campaign to End the Israeli Occupation.

Activists rallied in front of the store with signs reading “Boycott Soda Stream” and “No money for apartheid.” Some activists entered the store to hand out educational fliers detailing the case against SodaStream.

SodaStream operates a factory on stolen Palestinian land, in an Israeli settlement condemned by the international community. In the past year, the company has emerged as one of the primary targets of the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement for its involvement in Israeli occupation and apartheid.

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Milwaukee, WI – On Nov. 5, the self-proclaimed “fastest growing motivational movement,” #besomebody, met the world's fastest growing boycott movement on the campus of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee.

Over 20 activists handed out informational fliers exposing the connection between SodaStream and the #besomebody “movement” which markets SodaStream's in-home soda machines. Activists educated fellow students on SodaStream's human rights abuses which include operating on an illegal Israeli settlement in the West Bank of Palestine.

Members of two Students for Justice in Palestine chapters held signs that read, “Don't drink SodaStream. Support Palestinian human rights. #besomebody against occupation.“During the action, activists from the Milwaukee Palestine Solidarity Coalition and Friends of Palestine met with #besomebody's founder, Kash Shaikh, and urged him to cut ties with companies that profit from the occupation of Palestine. Before a large group of activists Shaikh admitted, “I didn't do a very good job looking into their background,” referring to SodaStream, and said he was personally opposed to the occupation.

Actions and local campaigns against companies that sell SodaStream have been springing up over the last year as it becomes one of the primary focuses of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement. A national week of action against SodaStream will coincide with ‘Black Friday’ later this month, focused on the retailer Target, demanding they withdraw the product and break ties with the Israeli occupation.

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Minneapolis, MN – On Sept. 19, activists with the Minnesota Coalition for Palestinian Rights will return to the downtown Minneapolis Target store, urging shoppers not to buy products from SodaStream. This will follow a successful Aug. 15 mobilization, where 30 people held signs, chanted and passed out informational flyers to hundreds of pedestrians.

Sold at Minnesota-based Target stores, SodaStream is a company that manufactures home carbonation systems at a plant in the largest Israeli Jewish settlement on the West Bank. The construction of hundreds of settlements in the West Bank has been condemned by numerous human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, for violating international law and Palestinian human rights.

“We met with a positive response from the hundreds of people walking on Nicollet Mall at rush hour,” said Meredith Aby of the Anti-War Committee. “Minnesotans don’t support a company that makes its profits from stolen Palestinian land and the system of Israeli apartheid.”

The Minnesota campaign opened a few months ago with a letter initiated by Jewish Voices for Peace, which called on Target to discontinue sales of SodaStream products because the company is in violation of international law and in violation of Target’s ethical standards and Social Compliance Program.

This is effort is part of an international campaign of boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel until it complies with international law and Palestinian rights. A truly global movement against Israeli Apartheid is rapidly emerging.

#Minneapolis #MinneapolisMN #AntiwarMovement #Occupation #Palestine #MinneapolisAntiwarMovement #Apartheid #SodaStream #AntiIsraeliApartheid #JusticeForPalestine #MiddleEast