Activism and BDS Beat 27 February 2024
A McDonald’s paper bag sits in the bag of an Israeli tank surrounded by shells and a rifle. (Hanania Ben Shimon / Facebook)
McDonald’s Israel announced in October that it would be donating thousands of meals to members of the Israeli army and state security forces.
Now a photo posted by an Israeli soldier has emerged showing the fast food chain’s products in an Israeli tank in Gaza.
In the picture, a soldier is leaning over a McDonald’s bag with a rifle lying right next to it. Shells are stacked up around it.
“McDonald’s in the heart of al-Rimal, and oh, I hope the anti-Semites won’t see,” wrote Hanania Ben Shimon, the 23-year-old Israeli reservist who posted the photo on Facebook in December.
Al-Rimal, once an elegant and bustling neighborhood of Gaza City, has been reduced to ruins by Ben Shimon and his comrades.
Another picture Ben Shimon posted the month prior appears to show the same setting. This time the face of the soldier leaning over the McDonald’s bag is visible.
Ben Shimon captioned that picture, “And thanks to McDonald’s branch of Issa Hospital for fast delivery to Gaza, the courier deserves a raise in salary.”
It is unclear if this is meant to be a joke. There is no hospital of that name in Gaza or Israel, and fast food delivery would obviously not be possible to Gaza, unless it was part of an organized effort to pamper the soldiers as they carry out their gruesome task of destroying Gaza and murdering its inhabitants.
Ben Shimon, who lives in a colonial settlement in the occupied West Bank, returned from his deployment in Gaza several weeks ago. Last week he was injured when three Palestinians opened fire on cars near his home settlement of Maaleh Adumim, east of Jerusalem.
Ben Shimon is being treated as a hero for leaping out of his car and killing one of the Palestinians. Another was also killed, while the third was injured and taken captive by Israeli occupation forces.
Supporting genocide
While it is unclear how the McDonald’s bag seen in Ben Shimon’s pictures got into the hands of the soldiers in Gaza, there is no doubt that the company’s Israeli branch is doing all it can to show its support for the ongoing slaughter.
In addition to donating meals, McDonald’s Israel has since 7 October been offering any member of Israel’s forces a 50 percent discount – in effect the company is subsidizing genocide.
In a tweet on 22 October, McDonald’s Israel said it had already donated almost $1.4 million worth of free meals after 7 October to members of the army and security forces, rescue workers, hospitals and displaced residents of colonial settlements near Gaza.Other fast food chains, such as Pizza Hut, have also provided free food to Israeli soldiers.
McDonald’s is also providing propaganda cover and justification for Israel’s genocide in Gaza.
Another soldier posted a photo of a display at one of the chain’s restaurants which showed the face of an Israeli captive in Gaza with the words, “We do not forget the kidnapped. We will continue to project their images on the screens until they are released.”
These images appear to have been taken last month.An active duty Israeli soldier also posted pictures of their meal having used the discount:
“Committed to respecting human rights”
Since Israel launched its genocide in Gaza, consumers in many countries have been boycotting American brands. The boycott of McDonald’s in particular gained an additional boost because of McDonald’s Israel’s announcement that it would be giving meals to soldiers.
McDonald’s revealed earlier this month that the boycott had hit its profits hard, especially in the Middle East, Indonesia and Malaysia, where support for the Palestinian struggle is strong.
The parent company, headquartered in the United States, approaches the situation in Palestine with neutrality. Franchises in other countries, particularly Turkey and several Arab states, have announced donations of humanitarian aid for Gaza.
But there is a vast difference between supporting a genocide – as McDonald’s Israel is doing – and supporting aid for its victims, as some of the franchises in other countries are doing.
Indeed, McDonald’s official policy calls for the company not to be neutral, but to take a stance in support of human rights.
McDonald’s Corporation claims to “take seriously our responsibility to respect and promote human rights and to act with due diligence to avoid infringing on the human rights of others and addressing any impacts on human rights if they occur.”
“McDonald’s is committed to respecting human rights as set out in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights,” the company asserts.
In January, the International Court of Justice in the The Hague found that Israel has been plausibly accused of committing genocide and ordered it to immediately halt all genocidal acts.
If McDonald’s really took human rights seriously, it would not allow its Israeli branch to continue to associate its brand and its business with Israel’s systematic murder and deliberate starvation of 2.3 million people in Gaza.
Comments
Food and Starvation
Permalink Basalat Raja replied on
It's especially ironic that a company that sells food would be so dedicated to an effort to starving a population.
Corporate Genocide and Big Macs
Permalink Patricia replied on
Corporations have been putting profits over human rights for as long as they’ve existed. The fact that food has been a part of that is also well known from the manufacturing end down to the end of the consumer chain , (retail and consumer).
Sadly (?), this is nothing new at all.
What IS new (?), is the world wide EXPOSURE of a US “ally”, is now openly embracing , and expediting the genocide of a people who have been captured, rounded up, butchered like cattle, and are now being exterminated in front the eyes of the world : in REAL TIME. Such are now the cyber powers wielded by the Information Age. Manipulate THAT(?), and you will bring down empires : REGARDLESS of why or how they were created.
Welcome to 21st Century.
God be with you Palestine.
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