Max Brenner - Support For IDF

Support For IDF

The Strauss Group's support for the Golani reconnaissance platoon (part of the Israel Defense Forces) has made Max Brenner stores a target of the international Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign. Activist group, Students for Palestine have organized a series of protests in 2011 outside Max Brenner outlets in Australia, including one in Melbourne where there were 19 arrests.

The protests have drawn condemnation from Australian Foreign Minister and former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd, who remarked “I don't think in 21st-century Australia there is a place for the attempted boycott of a Jewish business.” In September 2011, the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission said that "the protesters had not broken federal competition law because the protests did not cause substantial loss or damage to the Max Brenner chocolate stores." Some pro-Palestinian organizations including Australians for Palestine have distanced themselves from the protests but have publicly defended the choice of Max Brenner as a boycott target. In October 2011, Izzat Abdulhadi, head of the General Delegation of Palestine to Australia said that he is against the "full-scale" BDS campaign, and in particular expressed his anger over the occasionally violent protests at the Max Brenner stores, saying, "BDS is a non-violent process and I don't think it's the right of anybody to use BDS as a violent action or to prevent people from buying from any place."