List of Israeli companies to boycott

Before the Malaysians were actually calling for a boycott over the Israeli invasion of Gaza, I surfed the net to find out if anyone was boycotting Israeli products. I had remembered there was one called worldwide even during before the invasion of Lebanon.

My google search led me to this website http://www.inminds.com/. They actually have an extensive list of companies that supported Israeli that they say should be boycotted here.

Below is a duplication of the list of companies with the brands next to them:

AOL Time Warner Time Life
magazine, CNN, ICQ
Apax
Partners Jonny Rockets, Sunglass Hut.
Arsenal Football Club
Coca-Cola Fruitopia, Fanta, Kia Orange, Lilt, Sprite, Sunkist..
Caterpillar
Danone HP foods, Evian,
Volvic, Jacob
Delta
Galil Hema, Barbie, Carrefour, Auchan, Tchibo, Victoria's Secret, GAP,
Banana Republic, Structure, J-Crew, JC Penny, Pryca, Lindex, DIM, DKNY, Ralph
Lauren, Playtex, cK, Hugo Boss, M&S
Disney
Emblaze
Estée Lauder Aramis,
Clinique, DKNY, Prescriptives, Origins, MAC, La Mer, Bobbi Brown, Tommy
Hilfiger, Jane, Donna Karan, Aveda, Stila, Jo Malone, Bumble & Bumble, Kate
Spade
Home Depot Villager's Hardware, Georgia Lighting, Apex Supply, EXPO Design
Centres
IBM
Intel
Johnson &
Johnson
Kimberly-Clark Kleenex, Kotex, Huggies, Andrex
Lewis Trust Group
River Island, Isrotel hotels, Britannia Pacific
The Limited Inc Express
stores, Lerner New York, Structure, New York & Company, Mast Industries,
Intimate Brands, Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, White Barn Candle
Company, Henri Bendel
L'Oreal Giorgio Armani,
Redken 5th Avenue, Lancome Paris, Vichy, Cacharel, La Roche-Posay, Garnier,
Biotherm, Helena Rubinstein, Maybelline, Ralph Lauren, Carson
Marks & Spencer M&S, St.Michaels
McDonald's
Motorola
Nestle Nescafé, Perrier,
Vittel, Pure Life, Carnation, Libby's, Milkmaid, Nesquik, Maggi, Buitoni, Cross
& Blackwell, KitKat, Milkybar, Quality Street, Smarties, After Eight, Aero,
Polo, Lion, Felix cat food, L'Oréal
News Corporation TV: Fox, Sky, Star, Phoenix, Granada, CNBC. UK newspapers: Standard
Newspaper, News of the World, The Sun, The Times. Australian Newspapers: The
Telegraph , Gold Coast Bulletin, Herald Sun, Independent, Sunday Mail. US
newspapers: New York Post. Publishers: Harper Collins Ragan, Zondervan, National
Geographical. Nursery World, Rawkus, NDS, Mushroom Records, ChinaByte.com,
Festival Records
Nokia
Revlon New
World Entertainment, Forbes
Sara Lee Hanes, Playtex,
Champion, Leggs, Douwe Egberts, Bryan, DIM, Ambi Pur, Bali, Superior Coffee,
Just My Size, Kiwi, Maison Cafe, Nur die, Pilao, Lovable, Outer Banks,
Wonderbra, Sanex, Pickwick, Gossard, Body Mist, Brylcreem, Aqua Velva,
Radox
Siemens
Selfridges
Starbucks Seattle
Coffee, Pasqua, Hear Music, Tazo
Timberland

Just roughly going through the list, I don't think I purchase many things from those companies anyway. I didn't drink any of Coca-cola's product (including their juicest) in a few months already, same goes for any fast food chains like McDonalds.

I think the only thing on the list I've bought lately was Maggi Mee and Milo from Nestle.

Hrmmm, I guess the Intel Core 2 Duo processor in my notebook I bought recently counts as a purchase from a company that supports Israel. The way I see it, there are only two choices, Intel or AMD. My processor is most likely made in Malaysia. Anyway, Intel rocks and AMD isn't as great as they used to be. I can't help it. The Israeli's probably know that too.

I used to use a Nokia and a Motorola phone, now it's an Iphone. Good think I don't see Apple on the list. Even the Israeli's are smart enough to run on a PC hehehe.

Under Sara Lee, there's Ambi Pur. Okay, I admit I just bought a car freshener for my car. I'll try not to buy anymore Ambi Pur.

I looked up the reason why they're calling for a boycott of Carrefour. Turns out an Israeli company Delta Galil supplies women undies and socks to them. Damn, I thought all of Carrefour's textile product in Malaysia comes from asian third world country like China or India. I just might have to take a peek at Carrefour's socks one day and see where it's made at. Taking a peek at their women's undies section is too wierd, even if it's academic interest.

I do wear a Timberland watch but it was a birthday gift long ago so I didn't actually purchase it.

Actually, now that I think about it, most of the brands in this list I don't think I'm planning to buy anything from them in the immediate future anyway. At least they're not calling for a boycott of Burger King. Burger King beats McD anytime with their juicy burgers... mmm.

Okay, I won't buy Milo and Maggi products for the mean time. Those guys at Nestle must be really feeling the pinch. Well, serves them right for raising the prices of the their product when the government raised the fuel price last year. Now it's payback time.

Last night I was watching the news and Vincent Tan from Berjaya said that most of the companies that are on the boycott list in Malaysia are also owned by Malaysians. He said, for instance, the Starbucks brand in Malaysia is owned by him. What he meant was, the Starbucks franchise in Malaysia was brought in my Berjaya.

Originally I was on the fence about boycotting Starbucks just because they're American but after Vincent Tan said he owned the brand in Malaysia, now I positively think I won't want to buy anything from Starbucks. Not that I bought anything from them in a year or so.

Talking about all these boycott, I wonder if there are a list of companies we can actually support. I wonder if there are any companies that are actually sending aid to Palestine or actually calling for an end of the Gaza occupation. So far there are only NGO's we can support. I wonder if the Palestinians actually export anything at all to Malaysia besides us hosting their students here.

Their economy must be so bad they don't have anything to speak of to export. The Malaysian government should consider strongly sending a trade mission over there to see how we can help their economy grow. Once there is economic growth, more jobs will be created.

Alam Melayu

I was reading a colleague's blog about the boycott of American products that some NGO's are calling a boycott for. As the blog was in Malay, I wrote the below comments:

Senarai barangan wajib di boikot ini tidak seimbang dan hanya menyenaraikan
jenama-jenama terbesar. Kenapa jenama seperti Coca-Cola di boikot dan bukan
Pepsi? Kenapa McDonalds dan bukan Burger King?

Adakah kejayaan
'branding' jenama-jenama ini terlalu 'american' sehingga selintas pandang, terus
disenaraikan untuk diboikot?

Tidakkah kita terfikir mengenai 1700
pekerja di Coca-Cola F&N Malaysia Sdn Bhd? 60% daripada pekerja mereka are
pekerja Islam.

Bagaimana dengan pelabur-pelabur dalam dalam syarikat
ini? KWSP juga melaburkan duit simpanan kita di dalam syarikat ini.

Kebanyakkan daripada jenama ini dibawa ke Malaysia oleh seorang rakan
kongsi rakyat Malaysia.

Akhirnya, rakyat Malaysia yang akan lebih 'sakit' daripada semua boikot ini. Saya tidak menulis ini untuk protes boikot ini, hanya untuk menyeru pembaca untuk fikir semula senarai barangan yang ingin di boikot.

Tun Dr. Mahathir sudah pun berkata, kita harus boikot mata wang Amerika. Dengan tindakan ini, mata wang mereka akan turun nilai.

Bagaimana ini boleh dicapai? Kalau satu dunia boleh berhenti menggunakan
mata wang ini sebagai mata wang perdanganan antarabangsa, ini boleh dicapai.

Yes, I do write in and speak Bahasa Malaysia. I would admit, my spoken Bahasa Malaysia is much better than my writing.

Today, I had the most interesting conversation with another colleague. She asked my comment what is the different between gaya dan style. I said, gaya was the malay translation for style. She said she was planning to do some slides and they had words like kontemporari and tips. I told her she should use terkini and petua instead as those would be a better word as the ones she used although was correct, it was borrowed English words.

Another Malay colleague walked up and he gave the exact same comments. I laughed and said to her, "don't just take it from me because I'm Chinese, even a Malay just told you the same thing!". Right after that, she immediately walked of to refer to our boss if she could change the slides.

Anyway, back to the issue of the boycott. I think Tun had something good going on there about boycotting the US dollar. Currently, crude oil and even palm oil is traded internationally in dollars. If Malaysia actually made it a law that anyone who wanted to buy our palm oil or crude oil has to pay us in european currencies, that will create a ripple effect.

As it is, we buy more American things than the Americans buy our Malaysian product. Just look at our exchange rate. What isn't stopping some redneck American from starting a boycott Malaysian product campaign? Think about it.

Boycott?

I saw this in The Star Online today:

Malaysian Muslim eateries plan boycott of American goods
KUALA LUMPUR:
More than 2,000 Muslim restaurants in Malaysia will remove Coca-Cola from their
menus as part of a boycott of American products in protest against Israel's
bombardment of Gaza, officials said Wednesday.
American companies are being
targeted because of the US Government's support of Israel, which is carrying out
a military offensive on Gaza that is says is aimed at stopping rocket attacks
from the Hamas-controlled territory.
The nationwide boycott will be launched
Friday by several Muslim groups after they seek God's blessings at Friday
prayers, said Ma'mor Osman, secretary-general of the Malaysian Muslim Consumers
Association which is leading the campaign.
In addition to Coca-Cola, he said
they have identified some 100 other products ranging from food to beauty and
clothing such as Starbucks, Colgate, McDonald's and Maybelline.
Since the
Israeli offensive began, nearly 600 Palestinians, about half of them civilians,
have been killed and at least 2,500 people injured, according to UN and
Palestinian officials. Eleven Israelis have also been killed.
Muslims in
Malaysia and worldwide have held demonstrations against the Israeli action but
Ma'mor said such protests are futile.
"A boycott is the best way for us to
protest Zionist cruelty against the Palestinian people as consumers can weaken
the economy of countries like Israel and its ally, the United States," he
said.
"We urge everybody who loves peace and is against war to support our
campaign. We must send a clear signal to Israel to stop the assaults in Gaza,"
he said.
Some 2,600 restaurants under the Association of Muslim Restaurant
Operators will stop selling Coca-Cola from Friday, he added.
The move came
after former Prime Minister Mahathir Mohamad, a strident critic of Israel, last
week urged consumers and governments to boycott American products and the US
dollar.
Israel sent troops and tanks into Hamas-controlled Gaza on Saturday
after a weeklong aerial bombardment, sparking outrage among Muslims
worldwide.
Malaysia's government, which has no diplomatic ties with Israel,
has denounced Israel's ground offensive as "an act of total war" which cannot be
tolerated.
The United States has also been criticized for blocking approval
of a UN Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease-fire between
Israel and Hamas. -- AP

Now, this is not the first time a Malay organization has called for a boycott such as this. I still remember them calling for a boycott of Coca-Cola. After all that, I remember talking to a branding expert and he said that was a demonstration of the power of one's brand. Coca-Cola has always been identified as an all American brand, one of the essence of USA. Now, how come no one ever boycotts Pepsi or even Burger King instead of McDonalds only?

Today, I walked into my office and on the wall, someone has pasted a list of brands they should boycott. Among the list was Intel and I scanned the list, there was no AMD on it. A group of my colleagues were also crowded around saying how we should all boycott American products. I then said very loudly to all of them maybe you should all throw away your HP and Compaq notebooks, me I bought a Taiwanese brand.

The truth is, most of the brands (especially the fast moving consumer goods) are intertwined with our economy. Take for example Coca-Cola. In Malaysia it's produced by F&N Coca-Cola Malaysia Sdn Bhd. Most of their employees here are Malaysians. As for their minority shareholders, the last time I checked it was our own Employees Provident Fund (EPF). If their sales take a huge dive, there will be major layoffs and in this bad economic times we don't need anymore layoffs. EPF will also post lower returns and in the end, this boycott will probably hurt us more than it will hurt Coca-Cola.

I remember when there was a call to boycott Dutch products and Dutch Lady held a press conference begging consumers not to boycott their products saying exactly almost the same thing. The majority shareholders are Malaysians and so are their employees.

My take on this is, if I really want to boycott American products there are a few criterias the product has to meet first:

1. Is the product solely manufactured in USA? My Iphone is made in China. I love China, and I don't want those poor Chinese factory workers to loose their jobs. If it's products that are solely manufactured in USA then okay, I won't buy their products anymore. As for Intel and AMD, their processors are made in Penang and China now. I'll still buy it (Intel, not AMD because Intel Core 2 Duo rocks!)

2. Is the company opposed to the war. For all I know, Bill Gates is opposing the war and is actively campaigning to end the bombings. Anyway, a lot of people use pirated Microsoft products so it doesn't matter.

3. Does the company have direct relations with Israel? I remember a news report saying that our police has contracted Israeli nationals to provide their computer systems. Boycott the police then? I know ICQ used to be an Israeli company. Now that they're with AOL I'm not sure if they still have ties with them.

Tun Dr. Mahathir Mohammad had the best idea, boycott the US Dollar. It's a simple idea, stop using the US dollar as an international currency. We buy and sell crude oil; palm oil all in dollar. I wonder if its possible for Petronas to say from now on, you want to buy our oil, we would quote you in Ringgit. Don't follow the international market price in dollars anymore.

China has one of the largest foreign reserves in the world and most of the foreign currency held is the Dollar. Now what would happen if China just started selling their Dollar? Think about it. The value of the dollar will drop, Americans will have a hard time buying things. Their defence contractor would jack up their price and the American congress would seriously have to consider if they want to raise their defence budget or save their economy.

While we're on their topic, I also think the media is biased. How come no one protested when Hamas was launching home made rockets into Israel? Was that okay to randomly shoot rockets at them? If Hamas didn't provoke the Israeli's I don't think they would want to risk their lives going into Gaza too.

There won't be any easy resolution to this conflict. This conflict will go on and on if both sides decides that the only resolution is to destroy each other. Palestinian children who are being bombed today will grow up holding a grudge against Israeli's. Israeli children who grow up in fear of having to join their army and marching into Gaza would hate the Palestinians and think its best to kill all the Palestinians before they cause future problems.

If only we could take away all their childen from them and form an utopia. Palestinian and Israeli children would be brought up as brothers and sister not known the resentment for each other that their parents have. This new generation once they reach adulthood, can then be brought back to their homeland. From then on the new generation won't have anymore hate in them. Of course, all these is just wishful thinking.

Today, I asked my colleague why these Palestinians want to die for a job who has forgotten about them? He told me a story about the guy who was stuck on his roof during a flood.

There was a man sitting on his roof as there was a huge flood. The water was rising slowly. A small motorboat came by to rescue him and he told the boatman "thats okay, God will save me!". Awhile later, another boat came to rescue him and he said the same thing "Don't worry about me, God will save me!". A third boat came and he still chased away the boat. Finally the water when all the way up and the man drowned. When he reached heaven, he was quite pissed and he asked God why didn't God rescue him. God replied "I tried! I send 3 boats to rescue you but you kept chasing them away!".

I smiled as I have heard this one before. So I told my colleague, maybe God is trying to tell the Palestinian something. Maybe they shouldn't stay there anymore or they shouldn't launch rockets at Israel. They should probably move out of the place and scatter. If they don't want to do that, then they should find a non-violent way to live harmoniously with the Israelis. Stop smuggling weapons in Gaza through Egypt and making home made rockets. The Israelis should also encourage economic ties with the Palestinians. People with jobs won't have time to make home made rockets. Those who have something to loose won't want to treaten their jobs.

The Israelis should also realize you have to use a carrot and stick approach. If you march into Gaza and kick the shit out of the Palestinians, that won't stop the next wave of rocket attacks. If you drop bombs on children and kill civilians, that will just make them more angry. This isn't the first time they marched into Gaza to flatten them. Look at what good that did. They just made more Palestians pissed at them.

Stop dropping bombs on them!
Give them hope, not bombs.
Give them jobs, not death!