Should You Boycott Starbucks? A Look into the BDS Movement

      In October of 2023, the war between Palestine and Israel rose again. This time, Israel officially started the war by fighting back Hamas's attack. Both sides allege that the war criminal is the opposing side. Israel argues that Hamas, the terrorist group located in Gaza, Palestine, had already committed hundreds of crimes against women and children. Thousands of palestine citizens, on the other side, allege that Israel inflicts similar harm due to the ongoing war. To support their own rights, people started to actively join the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement. Its aim is to end international support for Israel's oppression of Palestinians and pressure Israel to comply with international law. In order to achieve their goal, they picked boycott as one of the methods. If a company has supported Israel either directly or indirectly, it became the target of the BDS movement regardless of how global the firms were.  For instance, according to an Oct. 22 X post, McDonald’s Israel has given 100,000 free meals to security and rescue forces worth 5 million shekels ($1.3 million). As a result, it became the target of the BDS movement. Similarly, Startbucks is going through a similar economic impact due to BDS movement’s accusations. At this point, the question arises: What has been the economical impact of such boycotting, and is this justified? The answer to this question is that might be yes, might be no. In the short term, such companies are suffering economic impact. Some have even terminated a contract. Yet, economists suggest that the impacts of such boycotting often last too short against very economically resilient firms. 

     So far, BDS movements have set high expectations on people who advocate Palestine by actually decreasing the net profit. As starbuck is a world-wide company that almost everyone knows, some actually started to believe that the movement is effective. According to Anson Freick, the co-founder of Strive Asset Management, this can be true for the first  two or three months. Yet, what he had realized is that those movements and impacts usually don’t last longer than that. If the movement can’t last for longer than three months, large companies, which are very resilient to such economical damage, would easily recover. Therefore, while boycotting companies’ products might be good to show to society what the BDS movement is, it would be hard to show a great decrease in the selling trend of the global iconic company for long term.

     On the other hand, there are companies that made different choices compared with Starbucks. One of the exemplar brands is Ben & Jerry’s which is the ice cream maker. This January, this brand called a “permanent and immediate ceasefire” in Gaza. What they have claimed was that this is not related to the Gaza war. However the society is being skeptical about their speaking of the Gaza war and their Ceasefire. Puma also made a different choice. Puma was the supporting brand of the Israel Football Association. Last December, however, they announced that they would not be renewing the sponsorship of Israel Football Association. This would be reasonable to see that this has high relation with the BDS movement and the brand. 

      While many boycotting movements are short-lived, it is still plausible that BDS lasts longer, resulting in more and various economical impacts. In a situation where global franchise firms are exiled from the country due to a boycott, the banishment would do more goods for the local economy than it harms the firm. In the perspective of an international firm, they would still be able to gain profit and rehabilitate through investments in other countries. In the perspective of citizens who now don't have large franchises in the region, banishment would mean new chances for local business expansion. Currently, the large firms like Starbucks and Mcdonalds are almost dominating the nation’s food market. Even though the local restaurants and cafes were protected by law, the expansion that they could reach was very limited. Therefore, absence of monopoly-like firms can result in various positive economical impacts. The increased and flourishing local firms can increase competition, create jobs, diversify the economy, and retain the profit. Also these impacts are viewed positively by most of the economists. As a result, the BDS movement can have unintended impact of reviving the local markets. 

     Observing the consequences of the BDS movement, their decision on boycotting seems reasonable and justifiable. Their methods to cause short term impacts, which is not likely to last long, was very effective at spreading their word around the world. Targeting the global countries eventually became a method to minimize the economical harms caused by the movement. In addition, even if the BDS movement lasted long, the researchers have proven that the companies’ resilience and local companies’ expansion seems to have much more benefits and disadvantages.