anti-Semitism
SWR presenter Helen Fares shocks with boycott app for Israeli products in supermarkets
SWR presenter Helen Fares shared an Israel boycott app
© Future Image / Imago Images
On her private Instagram account, Helen Fares, who works at SWR, shared with her followers a boycott app that can be used to see whether Israel is behind products in supermarkets. Fares then faced a lot of headwind online.
“‘Don’t buy from Jews’ in the 2024 version,” wrote the “ÖRR Antisemitism Watch” account on X, formerly Twitter. The reason for the outrage was an Instagram story on the private profile of Helen Fares, who works for Südwestrundfunk. In it, Fares presented her almost 100,000 followers with an app that allows you to see in the supermarket which products Israeli companies are behind – in order to then boycott them.
Helen Fares promotes Israel boycott app
Fares mentioned her favorite chocolate milk from Alpro (listens to Danone), which she no longer wants to buy from now on. “It turns out that the owner of Alpro is investing in Israeli startups and the Israeli economy,” Fares said. The background: Danone, the company behind Alpro, was founded by the Sephardic Jew Daniel Carasso. In 1941, Carasso fled Frankfurt to the USA to protect himself from the Nazis in Europe and thus save his life.
For Fares, Alpro’s connection to Israel is a reason to stop buying the chocolate milk that she actually likes to drink so much. The boycott of Israeli products is not new. After the Nazis called for people not to buy from Jews, that is exactly the goal of the BDS movement. BDS stands for boycott, divestment and sanctions and is a campaign that critics have classified as anti-Semitic. According to the Federal Agency for Civic Education, the movement aims “at the systematic demonization and delegitimization of the Jewish state in political and social discourse.”
SWR wants to comment
The music journalist and podcaster Fares, who herself has Syrian roots, has long been using her reach on Instagram for her activism against Israel. The fact that she also works for public broadcasting makes her statements online all the more questionable. After her story was spread on X and other platforms, quite a few people demanded a statement from SWR. Volker Beck, a Green Party politician and president of the German-Israeli Society, told the “Bild-Zeitung” that he did not consider “such an anti-Semitic boycott attitude” to be compatible with the ÖRR’s mission. Author Hasnain Kazim was also outraged on X. “Six months ago today, Hamas terrorists invaded Israel, murdered, raped and burned people alive. Well over a thousand people were murdered. Hamas is still holding hostages captive. And a SWR presenter can’t think of anything other than one Promote an app that recognizes brands associated with Israel in supermarkets so you can boycott those products. That’s ‘Don’t buy from Jews!’ in 2024. Crazy.”
Another user expressed his outrage a little more casually. “Why isn’t there an app that tells me how to boycott anti-Semites in the ÖRR?” he wrote. According to “Bild”, the SWR wants to comment on the matter today.
Sources:X/ “Bild” newspaper / Federal Agency for Civic Education