WASHINGTON, DC – AUGUST 2: Some 10,000 demonstrators march on the White House in Washington, DC, to protest Israel’s offensive in Gaza known as “Operation Protective Edge”, August 2, 2014.
On social networks, calls to boycott this or that company supposedly allied with Israel are increasing. Sometimes, with the help of fake news, as in the case of Carrefour, the French group is wrongly accused of supporting the IDF. If the emotion is legitimate, verifying the information and acting conscientiously are, today, more necessary precautions than ever.
Nearly 30,000 deaths, the vast majority of them women and children; hundreds of thousands of civilians displaced, massed, literally stuck in the south of the Gaza Strip, an area hitherto relatively spared from fighting and bombings, but which the IDF began shelling a few days ago; hunger, cold, disease, terror, death everywhere. Since the beginning of October, the rare images and testimonies that have come from the Palestinian enclave tell the full horror of a war that many, well beyond Muslim societies, no longer hesitate to describe as a real butchery. . War crimes or crimes against humanity: what word to say the unspeakable?
International outrage
For the NGO Amnesty International, the Israeli attacks are « illegal, (…) carried out without discrimination (…) and must be investigated for war crimes ». Already in December, the Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called for an investigation into « the possible commission of a war crime » by Israeli armed forces operating in Gaza. For his part, the Secretary General of the UN, Antonio Guterres, estimated at the end of January that « the population of Gaza is being subjected to destruction on an unprecedented scale and speed. Nothing can justify the collective punishment of a population ». From everywhere and, particularly, from the countries and leaders of the “global South”, condemnations and calls for a ceasefire are coming.
Carrefour, McDonald’s, Zara…: fake news despite everything
The weapon of boycott is not new and is, in particular, regularly used by opponents of the policies of the State of Israel – the “BDS” movement, for “Boycott Divestment Sanctions” has even made use of it. angular. It is therefore not surprising that this mode of peaceful protest is experiencing a resurgence in popularity during the current conflict; nor that social networks provide a sounding board for these calls for boycott, which come from NGOs and associations supporting the Palestinian people, or even from influencers, activists or ordinary citizens. But the war is also, always, that of information – and of disinformation. But we see “a veritable explosion of false information linked to the conflict between Israel and Hamas »notes essayist and Middle East specialist Matthieu Anquez.
Since October 7, the volume of fake news broadcast on the French-speaking Internet has even been “multiplied by 34”, according to the expert: “cit ranges from the Israeli far-right activist who adopts a hard-line view of the war to the French far-left sympathizer, who wishes to encourage the boycott of certain companies, including a Moroccan Internet user, a sympathizer of the Palestinian cause. On social media, “everyone can contribute to spreading false information, depending on their own confirmation bias and political agenda», explains Matthieu Anquez. And this, at the risk that one’s own emotions, however legitimate they may be, contribute to relaying “facts” which are not facts.
Case study: on Instagram, the photo of an alleged employee of the French distribution giant Carrefour, appearing to offer food to Israeli soldiers, ignited Internet users. And users of the platform are calling, en masse, for a boycott of the French brand. Issue : ” this initiative is that of an isolated employee of a franchisee of the group in Israel (…). Carrefour did not authorize it in any way and was never aware of it », specifies Matthieu Anquez, not without observing that “ the opposite would have been absurd, (Carrefour) being established in many Muslim countries » and thus deliberately alienating millions of potential customers. A similar misunderstanding hit the McDonald’s group, after some of its Israeli franchisees also distributed meals to IDF soldiers – a gesture which only concerns the Israeli management of the fast-food chain and not the all the world’s restaurants, yet affected by a wave of boycotts with commercial impact ” significant “depending on the group.
Verifying information, a reflex more necessary than ever
The list of brands under attack for their support – fictitious, exaggerated or taken out of context – for Israel is endless : Zara, accused of having released an advertising campaign mocking the suffering of the Palestinians, even though the incriminating visuals were validated several months before October 7; Puma, which removed its name from the jerseys of the Israeli football team – again, a decision taken well before the start of the conflict; Starbucks, which reportedly lost $12 billion on the stock market following its condemnation of the Hamas attacks; etc. So many proven cases of disinformation which raise a difficult question: does a cause, however just and noble it may be, justify ignoring the facts?
Especially since, if calls for boycott can have short-term consequences, « this type of campaign does not last, its effects do not last, and what we then witness is a catch-up effect », notes Didier Van Caillie, professor of strategy at HEC ULiège. His colleague Tanguy de Wilde, professor of international law at UC Louvain, observes that “ in a citizen-initiated boycott, there is nothing structured (…). There could therefore be a rapid turnaround in the economic situation ».
LNT with dispatches
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– 2024-04-09 20:10:01
