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October 11, 2024
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It’s a (literally) bubbling oasis of peaceful coexistence in a region often characterized as a focal point for ethnic strife and geopolitical conflict. The SodaStream production facility in the Judean community of Ma’aleh Adumim was thrust into the limelight recently when celebrity spokeswoman Scarlett Johansson refused to bow to pressure from anti-Israel ac­tivists and quit her position as Oxfam’s glob­al ambassador. The SodaStream factory is also where evangelical minister, former governor and TV and radio personality Mike Huckabee took a tour under the auspices of Ateret Co­hanim.

Huckabee began his latest Israel tour by paying a solidarity visit to the Israeli-Ameri­can Frenkel family, whose son Naftali was one of three teenaged boys kidnapped by terror­ists and murdered on their way home from school. He then visited sites acquired in re­cent years by Ateret Cohanim in the portion of Jerusalem’s Old City commonly referred to as the Muslim Quarter. One of these, Beit Zion, is being used as an IDF preparatory academy. The other, Beit Wittenberg, was once the site of the Mediterranean Hotel, where famed American author Mark Twain stayed during his storied sojourn in the Holy Land as im­mortalized in the book The Innocents Abroad. Also of note, a special Knesset caucus was convened in the afternoon, where, along with Huckabee and his party, dozens of MKs, gov­ernment ministers, community and business leaders came together to discuss the threat of delegitimization campaigns aimed at the Jewish state.

Taking pride in his company as a mod­el for peace and cooperation and speak­ing highly of his entire staff, SodaStream COO Yossi Azarzar briefed the Huckabee delegation, giving him a breakdown of the numbers. Of the factory’s 1,100 employees, says Azarzar, 600 are Palestinian, and an­other 250 are Arabs with Israeli citizen­ship; all of them working side-by-side with their Jewish Israeli counterparts, both on the factory floor and in white collar posi­tions. When the exec pointed out that So­daStream is not only one of the few em­ployers of Palestinians that offers benefits (such as health coverage) to all its employ­ees, but that the starting pay for entry-level workers is more than four times as much as that offered by local Palestinian-run businesses, Gov. Huckabee quipped: “Do you have any openings?”

When asked by a member of Huckabee’s entourage why SodaStream would maintain production in Ma’aleh Adumim when labor in China—where SodaStream conducts some 20% of its production—is so much cheaper, Mr. Azarzar noted simply and without hesita­tion: “We do so just because we are Zionists.”

Privately, we spoke with Muhammad Barhun, one of the company’s top man­agers, and an Arab citizen of Israel. When asked what his response is to those mem­bers of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanc­tions (BDS) movement who would rather see SodaStream close up shop than oper­ate in “Palestinian Territory,” Mr. Barhun told us: “You know, it’s very simple to shut down, and you can [then] find all the em­ployees here [sitting] in their houses with no work. … But I suggest to the BDS [activ­ists] to come here, to see how we treat the Palestinian employees over here. Here we don’t have any discrimination.”

Barhun then noted with satisfaction that his company provides economic op­portunity and a decent standard of living not just for 600 Palestinian employees, but for some 600 families.

Company President Yonah Lloyd (who was also a featured speaker at Monday’s Knes­set caucus), seemed to only grudgingly ac­cept SodaStream’s newfound political signif­icance. “The company is growing very strong despite all the negative noise in the media,” said Lloyd, adding: “We’re not a political enti­ty, we’re a business.”

When asked what message he might like to convey to those sympathetic to companies like SodaStream that are tar­geted by anti-Israel activists, he said: “If you don’t want to boycott, then you should buycott.” Mr. Lloyd went on to ex­toll the virtues of his household soda mak­er, calling it “healthier” than pre-made soft drinks, as well as fun and family-friendly.

For his part, Gov. Huckabee seemed quite impressed by what he saw at the fa­cility in Ma’aleh Adumim, praising SodaS­tream as a place where Israelis and Pales­tinians “work side by side … in peace.”

The company’s employees, he opined, “do more in a day than all the diplomats from the United States, Israel, and the Pal­estinian Authority have done in the past ten years. They should take a lesson from SodaStream.”

After visiting the high-profile Judea-based company, Huckabee and his delegation were received by Mayor Benny Kasriel, who la­mented the fact that over the course of two presidential administrations, no U.S. diplomat has agreed to meet with himself or any rep­resentative of Ma’aleh Adumim, the largest Jewish community in the Judea-Samaria re­gion. Kasriel also expressed his concern over a construction freeze imposed by the Israeli government under international (read: Amer­ican) pressure. Mr. Huckabee, known for his plain talk and pithy observations, noted that “If America would put as much pressure on Iran to stop building bombs as it did on Israel to stop building bedrooms, the world would be a safer place on both ends.”

Gov. Huckabee’s mission to Israel con­cluded, for all practical intents and pur­poses, in the northern coastal town of Caesarea, with Birthright Israel’s annu­al Summer Mega-Event. Greeted as a VIP guest by thousands of screaming Jewish teens and 20-somethings from around the world, Huckabee also met briefly with business magnate Sheldon Adelson and his wife Dr. Miriam Adelson and sat with PM Netanyahu, who referred to the Ar­kansas governor as a personal friend and a “strong friend of Israel.”

Daniel Perez is a freelance writer and media consultant based in New York City. He can be reached at Daniel@ PerezConsulting.org, and you can follow him on Twit­ter: @PerezFreelance.

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