On January 29, 2014 the 29-year-old actress Scarlett Johansson announced she was quitting her role as an ambassador of Oxfam, the international charity organization, whose mission is to help alleviate poverty, because of "fundamental differences" between them. She had worked for Oxfam since 2005, and became one of its ambassadors in 2007 engaging in highlighting the impact of natural disasters and helping raise funds to save lives and to fight poverty. After the Indian Ocean earthquake, she travelled to India and Sri Lanka to aid the tsunami survivors, and also went to Kenya to help provide support for the poor.She's definitely classy, especially for an Obama-shilling Democrat, lol.
The basis for the fundamental differences is now well known. Oxfam is opposed to all trade involving products from Israeli settlements which it holds are illegal under international law. Ms. Johansson signed a contract to be the first brand ambassador and spokesperson for SodaStream, the Israel business making products that allow people to produce carbonated sodas. The company makes those drinks in 25 factories throughout the world, and another one is being built in Israel in the Negev where Bedouins will be employed. The problem for Oxfam is this SodaStream factory located in Mishor Adumim, in the industrial area of the Israeli settlement of Ma'ale Adumim, a city of 40,000 people.
Oxfam has shown its public face of being part of the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel, and has succumbed to the pressure of politically-correct leftists, anti-Semites, and the Palestinian Campaign for the Boycott of Israel. By taking this bigoted position Oxfam has departed from its declared humanitarian mission focused on alleviating poverty.
Oxfam is echoing, if in more subdued manner, the other bigoted organizations and people who call for a whole or selective boycott of Israel, or for cutting of ties with it. A prominent example of this is Roger Waters of Pink Floyd, who has called for a boycott of Israel, approved the boycott decision of Israel by the American Studies Association of December 4, 2013, and also declared that Israeli settlements are an obstacle to peace. This rock and roll singer went further, in an article on December 4, 2013 implicitly comparing Israel with Nazi Germany because of its "systematic racist apartheid." Waters found the parallels between the 1930s in Nazi Germany and Israel today are "so crushingly obvious."
But Waters, like others in the BDS movement, sometimes inadvertently reveal their outrageous true sentiments, which have little to do with Israel or its settlements. In his article he warned, "The Jewish lobby is extraordinary powerful here, and particularly in the industry in which I work... people are terrified (of it)."
Oxfam cannot be characterized as an anti-Semitic organization, but it might take care of the company it keeps. By contrast, Johansson, in her difference of opinion with Oxfam, has exhibited qualities of grace and courage, and confirmed her principled advocacy of peace. She replied to Oxfam that she never intended to be the face of any social or political movement, distinction, separation, or stance. She believes in economic cooperation and social interaction between democratic Israel and Palestinians.
More at the link.
Also, "Sex, Politics, Scarlett Johansson, and the Middle East."
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