Max Brenner Parramatta the latest BDS Victim

September 21, 2012 Agencies
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Anti-Israel activists have demonstrated outside the  Israeli chocolate shop Max Brenner on Thursday night.

BDS supporters at Max Brenner Parramatta

According to Australian Associated Press, about 50 people gathered at Westfield in Parramatta to protest what they claim is the store’s collusion with the continued occupation of the West Bank because Brenner’s parent group, Strauss, supports the IDF.

The rally was timed to coincide with the 30th anniversary of the Sabra and Shatilla massacre in Beirut during the 1982 Lebanon war, organisers said.

Among the chants were: “Max Brenner come off it, there’s blood in your hot chocolate” and “Max Brenner you can’t hide, you support genocide.”
One of the speakers, Mohammad Husein, said Sabra and Shatilla was  a “36 hours holocaust,” AAP quoted him as saying. “To this day the murders have gone unpunished.”
A Facebook page for the protest carried the following messages: “Boycott rogue criminal entity Israel, boycott its apartheid institutions, its hideous occupation and those who support them,” and “The worldwide boycott campaign helped bury apartheid in South Africa.”
In July, two Max Brenner protesters from a rally outside a Melbourne cafe last year were found guilty of assaulting police.
ends

Comments

12 Responses to “Max Brenner Parramatta the latest BDS Victim”
  1. Liat Nagar says:

    Shirlee,
    Energy does start to wane when attempting to offer reason, or even just another perspective, in the face of entrenched ideology and ignorance. There’s no point following these BdS protesters around to their various chosen venues, but there’s certainly plenty of point in exposing them for what they are. I still say they shouldn’t have the right under Australian law to congregate around the entrance to the shops or go inside, disrupting business and easy access to goods for customers.

    Dislike and ill intent toward Israel is starting to reach alarming proportions worldwide and all the anti-Semites are coming out from under. Added to this, anti-Israel Israelis and Jews of the same ilk in the Diaspora are getting enormous publicity and used as an excuse for bolstering attacks against Israel. It is not to say that the IDF does not make mistakes and that a small minority of Ultra-Orthodox Jews in Israel behave in ways inimical to the vast majority of Jewish people, however, as Greg Sheridan of ‘The Australian’ pointed out on Q&A last Monday night, no other country in the world, no matter how bizarre or destructive, is put in the position of Israel, constantly having to defend its legitimacy to exist.

    All these non-Muslim Australian protesters need to live in the Middle East for a lengthy period of time, and not just in Israel, and see how that experience equates with what they’re saying. They also need to read history.

  2. Valerie says:

    Why is the only free democracy in the middle east seen as the problem.
    Do any of those people who are calling Israel appartheid really know what that is?
    Why do Palestinian children get medical treatment the same as Israeli children? In appartheid
    South Africa the coloured population recieved only very basic health care my husband experianced that.
    Why should Israeli children suffer the daily bombings that they do ?
    Why do the middle eastern peoples want to see Israel destroyed?
    If all the enterprises working in the so called occupied territories are destroyed how will that effect
    the livelihoods of palestinians benefiting from employment etc.
    Wake up and see what the real issues are ,and who the real enemy is.
    Victimisation and violence should not become the Australian way

  3. Michael says:

    Mullen if you were fairdinkum and wished to be taken seriously you would be demonstrating outside the Syrian embassy for their daily atrocities and human rights abuses , you would be demonstrating outside most Arab and Muslim owned Kebab shops because their countries real human rights violations are on a daily basis. However you only choose to concern yourselves when Jews are involved which is hard not to make the obvious conclusions.

    Another thing Mullen I attend many of the Anti israel/ Jewish protests to study who are the participants.
    The protests particularly the Max Brenner protests are organized by Students for Palestine connected with Karkar’s Australians For Palestine along with Socialist Alternative who are the Palestinian storm troopers and act as the heavies.Regular attendees i see are members of the Arab/ Muslim community that include Lebanese, Somali, Sudanese , Jordanians { i presume many or some of them are formerly Asylum Seekers / refugees] there have also been Asylum Seeker/ refugee activists some of which are Muslim.
    Of course no anti Israel would be possible without out James Crafti who is more extreme than any Palestinian activist.

  4. Shirlee says:

    Thanks Liat. I was halfway through writing something then I thought “What’s the point?” Mullen has been indoctrinated passed the point of no return anyway

    He is very wrong in his assumption that the majority of protesters were non-Muslims. I know people who were there and I have seen photos from a few different sources and video footage. It was pretty much 50-50.A call went out from pro-Palestinian and Muslim groups for Muslims to take part.

    I never went to this ‘performance’. I did enough of that last year. I can think of better ways to spend an evening, than to listen to stupid screaming idiots standing in the street, making complete and utter fools of themselves, by yelling and shouting at an Australian owned chocolate shop.

    He has no idea what apartheid is and I have no intention of trying to explain it to him.

  5. Liat Nagar says:

    You’re spot on, Naomi. To the point and succinct. More than I can say for the confused ignorance and sentimentalism that is employed by those making the case against Israel and her defence forces. Defence forces … think about the word ‘defence’, instead of ‘occupation’ and ‘illegal apartheid’, and all the other easy accusations coming out of the mouths of the BDS protesters. What absolute bunkum it is, this fully-fledged circus the Palestinian cause has become, with all the ignorant do-gooders of the world in company with the zealots, shouting one-sided slanders. And all the Jew-haters of the world relishing this and getting on board, in the hope and with the intent, of exterminating Israel. This is what the global BDS campaign is about.
    Mullen says the majority of protesters were non-muslim Australians; well I would say that Mohammad Husein, who is quoted as saying “Sabra, Shatilla was a 36 hours holocaust.” is possibly a Muslim, and where’s the significance of his statement in relation to Max Brenner’s chocolate shop, when, as Naomi said, the massacre was carried out by Lebanese Christian Phalangists? As for the non-muslims involved, after hearing many of them speak on video, they come across as wet-behind-the ear-Australians with no real knowledge of the history of the Middle East and the Arab-Israeli conflict; they’re giving voice to their own ideology, which has nothing to do with full knowledge and historical facts.
    As for the Jordanian Muslim woman whose child held the placard saying “Behead the Infidels”, how does the fact that she’s only been in Australia two years excuse her involving a child in this Sydney demonstration in such an abhorrent way? Before she was granted a residential visa she would have had to be aware of the life, laws and ideals of Australian society and life. The fact that she’s willing to be involved in such a violent demonstration in Sydney only two years after coming here, as well as poison the mind of her child, who at that age should be innocent of such concepts, doesn’t augur well for her assimilation.
    Get off the bandwagon. There’s nothing wrong with protesting, but there’s plenty wrong with persecution, which is what the BDS crew are doing to legitimate Australian businesses, and there’s plenty wrong with violent protest movements inciting ignorant people to perform to an agenda.

  6. Mullen says:

    You guys don’t seem to realize that the majority of protesters were non-muslims. They were there opposing Israel’s illegal apartheid and occupation which kills innocent people. Max Brenner is a store operated by the Strauss Group which openly funds Israel military brigade which once again commits massacres and kills innocent men, women and children. The rally was a part of the global BDS campaign. The protest had nothing to do with religion. The protest was organised by Australians. And Naomi i think you seem to think that it is the western countries such as Australia, USA & The UK which invaded these Muslim countries making it a living hell while at the same time funding a minority of terrorist organisations. Such as the U.S who funded the Taliban. And the countries you speak of protesting is permitted and if it isn’t it’s so the people can not have a voice and get the truth out, How else do you get the truth out if you can’t protest? Don’t believe everything the media tells, Do your own research. Peace.

  7. Otto Waldmann says:

    Michael, wrong again !!!
    Some of these people are refugees and they deserve to be hosted by us, paid fortnightly the benefits all of us enjoy, free medical care etc. Most of them have suffered persecution in their country and now they are expressing their Australian democratic rights, just like you would if ANYONE would say or write on a piece of carboard something offensive about things you hold dear to yourself, like Nabisco biscuits, extra virgin olive oil, Israel, and when suitably offended you would spend your week-end, after dovening at your shule making your justified anger known block the traffic, shout into the faces of shoppers, burning symbols of the perpetrators of the criminal acts and then, I can just see you spitting on the so called order keeping uniformed blokes and sheilas some call police and if spitting happens to iritate them you would pick up some instrument and punish them for not allowing you, as a fully fledged Aussie with your permanent resident visa under your yarmulke, to practice multiculturalism – took me a while to spell it corektlie -.

    On the other hand, the hand that wipes off tears of amazement and pain that we have allowed our great country inch closer to the splendors of sharia ethics, the new, improved strategy heralded by the muslim leaders that the necessary demonstrations should continue as planned and instilled in the minds of their obedient worshipers, aiming in an orderly fashion ( attend a mosque if you want to get the meaning of orderly ) at all and sundry who do not follow the percepts so clearly defined in the prayer books, have been praised by so many incredulous suckers as accepted measures of communal responsibilities……….
    . The very definition of “peaceful” demonstartions, allowed ANYWHERE intent effectiveness demands, must be seriously reviewed, because there is nothing peaceful about inciting hatred, interrupting normal course of life, interfering with what have been the norms of civilised behaviour. It is peaceful only if done in a place that does not cause affront to anyone. Shopping centres are for shopping. If they would be called demos centres, then have your demos there, same with our streets, they are meant to be used for the flow of traffic and unimpeded passage of pedestrians. You have a beef and want it known publicly do it in a place and by means that address your target audience without causing any disturbance to anyone not willing to partake in your free enterprise !!
    These abuses of what is misinterpreted as democracy, intend quite obviously to alter seriously the democracy we so valiantly arrived at and turn our metropolis into the boulevards of downtown Tehran or Gaza, even if so “peacefully” carried out.. And our interfaith partners seem to be doing just fine !!!

    • Lynne Newington says:

      Regardless of the reasons for the protests, this reminds me of Germany at the commencement of the persecutions.
      Everyone was silent then too.

      • Otto Waldmann says:

        …not quite edified. Lynne………
        could you please expand on the analogy between the political and racial persecutions in early Nazi period in Germany and the issue at hand…………

        otto

  8. Lynne Newington says:

    Maybe it’s time local Catholic Bishop, Anthony Fisher stood up and voiced his abhorrance of this outrage, if not as a leader of the Catholic community of over 33 thousand souls, then at least as concerned Christian citizen.

  9. Michael says:

    Multiculturalism Australia style when will the Jewish community wake up!

    BTW the woman whose kid was holding the Behead the infidels placard a Jordanian Muslim has only been here 2 years… Maybe we get her to work as a security officer at one of our Synagogues, Community centers or day schools.. { or maybe even the office of the ADC}

  10. Naomi says:

    Isn’t this just too ironic? Even as Frank Lowy is giving his magnificent (and touchingly personal) speech on multiculturalism, these clowns are taking advantage of their freedom to invade one of his Westfield establishments to harass another enterprise. Doubly ironic in that as I understand the history of Sabra and Shatilla, the massacre was carried out by Lebanese Christian phalangists, and while the IDF was in the vicinity, they were found to be only indirectly responsible. Are there parallels with the present situation where an Egyptian Coptic Christian (admittedly a nutcase) makes a video and the blame falls on the US? You bet. The persecution of the Copts within Egypt is no joke, however. The fact that these folks have so many, and such vicious and apparently unresolvable, internecine squabbles within their own countries leads to their acting out big-time when they get to a country where this is permitted. What’s the solution? How about a nice cup of hot chocolate? Where’s the nearest Max Brenner?

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