British SodaStream Repair Store Shut After 2 Years of Protests
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An Israeli-owned store in England that sold replacement parts for SodaStream closed after two years of weekly boycott protests.
The EcoStream shop in the coastal town of Brighton shut down last week, the Jewish Chronicle reported.
The store sold the recyclable bottles for the SodaStream machines made in the factory in the West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim.
Since September 2012, pro-Palestinian activists from the Palestine Solidarity Campaign have demonstrated in front of the store every Saturday as part of the global boycott, divestment and sanctions movement. The Sussex Friends of Israel staged regular counter-protests, according to the Chronicle.
“Following a two-year test period, the company has decided to focus its business efforts on other channels,” a SodaStream spokesman told the Jewish Chronicle.
The British department store chain John Lewis recently removed SodaStream products from its shelves as well.
SodaStream had been in the news in recent months following the signing of actress Scarlett Johansson as a spokeswoman and the ensuing controversy over its West Bank factory.
Johansson resigned as a global ambassador for Oxfam over her position with the company, which employs Jewish and Palestinian workers in Maale Adumim.
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