Sodastream, a carbonated beverage manufacturer is based in
the Mishor Adumim settlement industrial zone. Mishor Adumim is an industrial
are attached to the residential settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, East of Jerusalem
in the Israeli occupied West Bank.

 Israeli company Soda Club, which owns the Sodastream
brandname, has opened a new store called Ecostream on Western Road in Brighton.

Sodastream, a carbonated beverage manufacturer is based in
the Mishor Adumim settlement industrial zone. Mishor Adumim is an industrial
area attached to the residential settlement of Ma’ale Adumim, East of Jerusalem
in the Israeli occupied West Bank.

Corporate Watch contacted Steve Bannatyne, who has been
employed by Sodastream to open the store in Brighton.

Bannatyne said that the store was a place where people could
buy refillable bottles for Sodastream syrups and detergents and would be branching
out into food products too. The store stocks a range of Sodastream products.

The eco-concept store, which is owned on a lease, is
Sodastream’s only store in the UK. The company chose Brighton because of the
strong green movement in the city.

Last month Corporate Watch spoke to a woman who had attended
an interview to work at Ecostream but had decided to withdraw her application
after she became aware that Sodastream profit from ?from the Israeli occupation
and human rights abuses?.

Bannatyne said he had passed the concerns on to the company
and they had responded but that he felt he was ?not qualified to comment on behalf
of the business?.

The expansion of Mishor Adumim settlement industrial zone,
where the main Sodastream factory is based, is encroaching on the land of the Jahalin
bedouin, who are being forcibly relocated to a reservation in Abu Dis, next to
the Jerusalem Municipal rubbish dump.

Bannatyne told Corporate Watch that he had been taken on a
short visit to Israel by Sodastream where he was taken to two of the company’s factories.
He was taken to the company’s Ashkelon factory, inside 1948 Israel, where syrup
is manufactured and to the ?Mishor? factory which manufactures ?machinery?. He
said he was ?pleasantly surprised? by the conditions at the factories and that
he was told that ?the workers were paid more than in the neighbouring
villages?.

However, Palestinians living in the villages around Mishor
Adumim are prevented from building any permanent structure under Israeli
military orders. Their tents and huts, and even a primary school at Khan-al-Ahmar,
are subject to demolition by the army (more details at www.scribd.com/doc/80963609/Amnesty-Briefing-Paper-on-Jahalin-Bedouin-forced-relocation).

These building restrictions prevent the establishment of any
Palestinian businesses, meaning that local Palestinians are forced to work in
the settlements. Palestinian agriculture is limited by the settlements monopoly
on land and the restrictions placed on the grazing of cattle, often leading to
the seizure of cattle by the army see

Palestinians working for Sodastream in Mishor Adumim are
working in the context of the occupation. In January 2012 activists from Stop Sodastream
Italy made the following statement in response to claims by the company that
its workers were well treated: ?the fact remains that, as subjects of an
occupation regime, these workers do not enjoy civil rights (including the right
of workers to organize) and are under constant threat of having their permits
to work in the settlement revoked by the company at any moment.?

“Palestinian workers often have no choice but to work
in the settlements, with high unemployment rates that are a direct result of the
Israeli occupation. The 2011 United Nations Conference on Trade and Development
report explicitly links the decline in Palestinian agricultural and industrial
sectors and the dire humanitarian conditions with Israeli government policies,
in particular the confiscation of land and natural resources, restrictions on
movement of people and goods, and isolation from international markets. Only a colonial
mindset could claim to provide jobs to the very same people whose land and
freedom have been stolen.”

The Palestinian call for boycott, divestment and sanctions
urges a boycott of all Israeli companies until Israel complies with international
humanitarian law, recognizes the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian
citizens of Israel to full equality, the rights of return of refugees and ends
the siege of Gaza and the occupation of all lands occupied in 1967.

Sodastream products are sold in the UK at Robert Dyas, John
Lewis, Argos, Comet, Lakeland and some Sainsbury and Asda stores.

For more information on Soda Club see pages 96-102 and who profits – soda stream 

Sodastream’s reply fails toconvince