OCCUPIED JERUSALEM: A representative for Israeli drink maker SodaStream International Ltd. says its factory in an Israeli colony in the West Bank will be relocated next year to southern Israel.
Nirit Hurwitz said Wednesday that the facility will move in 2015 to Lehavim, in Israel’s southern Negev region. She said the decision to move is for “purely commercial” reasons.
Palestinian activists had launched a campaign boycotting the company because of the factory in an Israeli colony in the West Bank, a territory captured by Israel in 1967 from Jordan and claimed by the Palestinians.
SodaStream has said it employs hundreds of Palestinians and gives them equal benefits as Israeli workers.
SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum said: “We are working with the Israeli government to secure work permits for our Palestinian employees.”
SodaStream has quintupled the number of Palestinians it employs to about 500, making it the largest private employer of Palestinians in the West Bank.
But in the eyes of critics, employing a few hundred of the more than 2 million Palestinians in the West Bank does not excuse the fact that the factory operates in an Israeli colony, the establishment of which the United Nations has declared a violation of international law.
