The strange allies of Hamas

A new ad campaign by the Coalition for Jewish Values is confronting corporate leaders for the unforced error of associating themselves with the morally repugnant and deeply unpopular terrorist group Hamas. They are absolutely right to do so. After the tragic death of George Floyd, blue chip American companies fired up their Twitter accounts and pulled out their checkbooks (well, really their shareholders’ checkbooks) to express their solidarity with the BLM movement. According to a database of corporate support for BLM and adjacent groups curated by the Claremont Institute, companies have pledged more than $99 billion (yes, that’s billions, not millions) to the cause.

Subsequent events have shown that this was an extremely ill-advised executive decision and a severe misuse of shareholder capital.

Well, actually, one subsequent event: The mass slaughter of innocents on Oct. 7 by Hamas has revealed the expensive foolhardiness of intermingling some of the premium brands in global capitalism with a movement that has founders and current leaders who are in solidarity with Hamas against the Jewish state.

For example, Patrisse Cullors called for the world to “end the imperialist project called Israel.” To call for the end of a nation, a people, is both etymologically and practically a call for genocide. And that wasn’t last week. That was in 2015, well before corporate America opened up the floodgates of cash and poured into her movement.

In other words, for Major League Baseball to put itself in the same league as BLM was an unforced error. Coca-Cola might be loaded with preservatives, but the decision to add BLM to its list of brand ingredients aged about as well as warm milk at a July picnic. In at least a nod to reality, the company quietly edited out a reference to BLM in a tweet, but only after it was called out by Senator Ted Cruz. That’s hardly enough. The BLM support was a very bad branding decision—like New Coke bad.

It appears that for the most part the pledged money has already been disbursed. How much, we don’t really know for sure. Claremont knows about the public declarations, but not about the non-disclosed donations. This is one reason why shareholders should support resolutions pressing these companies to disclose their donations, and why the SEC should continue to greenlight such proposals. They are clearly relevant to the brand, the reputation and the political environment of these companies.

What should companies do going forward? First, when the next big social mania comes along, hit the pause button, not the send button. A bit of manpower spent on the wayback machine could have alerted the C-suite that they were supporting actual communists, and genocidal ones at that (or perhaps they’re all genocidal). Whatever “the thing” is next, resist the temptation to slap it up on your social media accounts and throw money at it.

Second, actually start acting like you believe that black lives matter, which starts with defunding the world’s largest eradicator of black lives, Planned Parenthood and its ilk. Don’t give grants to it. Don’t match employee grants to it. Do not reimburse your employees who use it to end lives. Treat it as anathema, because it is.

Also, if you have any social cause money left after the $99 billion to BLM, try giving some to organizations that have a proven track record of saving black lives. First, that would be the black church, which was the original Health, Education and Welfare department of the black community long before government stepped up and mismanaged those functions. Black communities are much more churched and church-centered than America in general. The many corporations that match employee grants, except to churches, are practicing de facto racial discrimination in that there is a racial differential in the impact of those arbitrary bans.

Finally, to investors, which is a majority of Americans. Look at what is in your 401(k) plan and look at that Claremont list to see where there is overlap, then call or write to Investor Relations and start asking tough questions. For bonus points, log onto the next shareholder meeting and insist on answers.