Why brand boycotts won't significantly affect the Israel-Hamas war

McDonald’s and Starbucks are among numerous western companies facing consumer boycotts over the Gaza conflict.  McDonald’s found itself caught in the crossfire after an Israeli franchisee said it was providing thousands of free meals to the Israel Defense Forces. Similarly,  Starbucks faced boycott calls after disagreeing with a post on the social media platform X (formerly Twitter) by the chain’s union expressing solidarity with Palestine. In both cases, customers have been voting with their feet in countries including Lebanon, Saudi Arabia,  Morocco,  Turkey,  Jordan and  Malaysia – despite franchisees expressing loyalty to the local community. There were  also attacks on the two chains in the UK. Many other American companies are being targeted, in some cases purely for their government’s support for Israel. These  include KFC, Pizza Hut and  Burger King, as well as brands such as  Coca-Cola,  Pepsi,  Wix and  Puma. Google and Amazon face  boycott calls for offering services to the Israeli government and military to sustain what  many contend is apartheid against the Palestinians. Meanwhile, UK retailer  Marks & Spencer has faced similar calls after running a Christmas commercial with a fire that was burning coloured paper-hats that looked a bit like the Palestinian flag – the commercial has since been withdrawn. This took an uglier turn after critics of Israel  pointed out that the company has partially Jewish roots. Other brands with Jewish roots have been targeted too, including  Danone,  Starbucks,  Dunkin Donuts and Netflix. Lists of products founded by Jewish business people have also been shared on  TikTok and  Facebook. Boycotts relating to the Middle East have a long history.  Twenty years ago, American brands were being removed from Arab shelves over the Iraqi invasion.  Coca-Cola was boycotted by the Arab League from 1968-91 because it traded in Israel. Sometimes the activism has also come in the other direction, with  Ben and Jerry’s,  Orange, and  SodaStream all pulling out of illegal Israeli settlements. More broadly, there have been boycotts over everything from the  Ukraine war to  “woke” branding. The logic is straightforward enough: governments will listen if you hurt their companies’ bottom line. So, in what circumstances is this effective? Outrage over Danish cartoons In 2005 Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten  caused huge offence to Muslims over cartoons satirising Prophet Muhammad. Much outrage got directed at the Danish government for refusing to take action, while Danish-Swedish food group Arla became a lightning rod for calls to boycott Danish products. After 40 years of building  its business in the Middle East, it suffered financial and  reputational loss. Arla found it  extremely difficult to stay out of the debate and faced further criticism from politicians for not explicitly supporting Denmark’s freedom of speech. Even then, it took two years for the company  to re-establish itself in the Middle East. Denmark’s economy  wasn’t hurt by the broader boycott, though the newspaper  did issue an apology to Muslims four months after the row began. Operations halted in Russia during its Ukraine invasion Both  consumers and western companies boycotted Russia and Belarus after the Ukraine invasion in 2022. Among the companies pulling out or temporarily halting operations were  McDonald’s,  Starbucks,  Coca-Cola,  Nike,  Apple,  BP and Shell. The boycotts damaged the  Russian economy, but clearly didn’t stop the invasion. Of course, many of these companies are now being targeted over Israel. The  US was actually criticised in the weeks after the invasion for encouraging this Russia boycott while refusing to take a similar line over Israel. In fact, there are laws in place to prevent American municipalities from boycotting Israel themselves, which were upheld by  the US supreme court earlier this year.  There are plans to introduce a similar bill in the UK, and opponents worry it might make it harder to boycott countries like Russia in future. Criticism against brands for anti-wokeism In 2015,  Starbucks initiated a national conversation about race relations and attempting to bring different racial groups together. This attracted  much criticism online for being self-serving, with people pointing out that the chain’s staff weren’t particularly ethnically diverse. It further backfired in 2018, following  an incident in a Philadelphia outlet where a member of staff got two young black men arrested for refusing to leave because they were waiting to meet someone and wouldn’t order anything. Video footage on social media significantly worsened the situation. Many people thought it smacked of racism and called for boycotts, prompting Starbucks to  publicly apologise and promise to  train employees about unconscious race bias. More recently,  Bud Light faced a two-week boycott from conservatives after its “woke” campaign online featuring trans activist Dylan Mulvaney promoting a tallboy can. Sales fell 25 per cent and Bud Light lost its position as the top-selling US beer, prompting owner InBev to try and repair the brand damage by  saying it would avoid controversial subjects in future. However, this hasn’t dissuaded companies such as  Nike,  Target and  Disney from adopting similar pro-trans/LGBTQ strategies. Implications for the boycotts of Israel Judging by the experiences of Denmark and Russia, brand boycotts appear to  exert minimal influence on the target nation’s economy. The Russia case suggests they are most likely to succeed as part of coordinated sanctions, though on that occasion the boycott was still undermined as  European businesses and  third countries found  ways to get  around it. The best solution is for the international community to implement a system  penalising such activities, which hasn’t existed with Russia. In the absence of coordinated sanctions against Israel,  social media is likely to be the  sole means of  pressuring companies and  governments into change. Western brands have  been noticeably quiet on the humanitarian crisis in Gaza (and also Ukraine), in contrast to their willingness to  risk supporting anti-racism and LGBTQ+. Many people will find this extremely disappointing, though of course, the examples of Starbucks and Bud Light show how companies can end up in trouble if their stance is seen as inauthentic or  “woke-washing”. Companies trading in Israel or even whose government is backing the offensive could easily fall into that category. In sum, the boycotts against American companies have succeeded in  raising awareness about Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, but probably won’t have a huge economic impact. If the  international community would encourage corporate action against Israel like it did with Russia, it might make all the difference, but there is little sign of that happening so far.

This article is republished from  The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the  original article.