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Jan. 22: A Palestinian opens fire with an M-16 assault rifle against Israelis waiting at a bus stop in  Jerusalem, killing two and wounding 40.

Jan. 25: A Palestinian suicide-bomber explodes himself in a cafe near the old bus station in Tel Aviv, wounding 25.

Jan. 27: A Palestinian suicide-bomber kills one and wounds more than 150 in downtown Jerusalem.

This is the war of liberation of the Palestinian people.

It would be bad enough were this the only front in which Israel had to fight back. But Israel often finds itself under diplomatic and media assault, too. In addition, it’s now also under attack on another, unusual front: that of corporate warfare.

This involves subtle, almost silent, yet scandalous aggression in the business filed. The name of the game is legitimization or delegitimization. The political battle for Jerusalem, settlements and other contentious issues is thus waged not only in the corridors of the United Nations and chancelleries of the world but also in the executive offices of multinational corporations. For example:

• Giant cellphone company Motorola’s most recent service manuals exclude Israel from its list of worldwide company branches – despite the fact that Motorola has been operating in Israel for 38 years. Too impatient to wait for the Palestinian state to be established, Motorola added to its list the nonexistent state of «Palestine» and listed Jerusalem as a Palestinian city.
• The British department store Harrods, owned by Egyptian businessman Mohammed al-Fayed, has recently removed from its shelves Israeli-made products manufactured in the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and the Golan Heights. Another British megastore, Selfridges, joined the boycott just before last Christmas.
• The McDonald’s website in early 1999 did not show Israel, where the hamburger empire has 80 restaurants, in the company’s country list.
• Burger King came under heavy economic pressure in recent years after it opened a restaurant in a settlement. The idea of selling hamburgers there was considered politically atrocious by some dictators, sheiks and kings in the Arab world.
• The Italian manufacturer United Colors of Benetton refrained from building a new outlet in the «territories» to avoid the Arab wrath.
• The U.S. telephone conglomerate Sprint was persuaded to remove a picture of the Dome of the Rock from a commercial ad tailored for Israel.
• The hotel chain Days Inn, too, was persuaded to withdraw its name from a lodge in a settlement.
• Ben & Jerry’s Israel prompted a torrent of Arab condemnation after the company announced its ice-creams were made with water from the Golan Heights.
• The Walt Disney Company found itself in the eye of the storm when it had allow Israel to portray Jerusalem as its capital in a millenium pavilion in Epcot Center, and it gave in.

It would be wrong to conclude that these companies are fundamentally pro-Arab or anti-Israel. In truth, they are simply protecting their economic interests, and it would be reasonable to assume that they’d rather not get involved in the Arab-Israeli quagmire at all.

Costumers, though, have a right (and a duty) to voice their opinions, and companies do adjust to the degree of pressure they receive from patrons. To the best of my knowledge, after receiving complaints from Israel and the Jewish diaspora, Motorola, Selfridges, McDonald’s, Burger King and Ben & Jerry’s have backtracked on their original decisions of vowing to Arab blackmail.

This awkward situation turns every Jew, Muslim, Arab, Israeli and their respective sympathizers into » political consumers.» They are an «army» whose weapon is their purchasing power. In Shakespearean fashion, these consumers decide «to buy or not to buy» from companies that adopt a negative attitude toward one of the parties. Sublimely ironic as it may be, the simple act of purchasing a product has thus become politically charged.

Next time you chose to eat this or that hamburger, to have this or that ice-cream, or to use this or that cellphone, you will be making a dramatic statement of political proportions.

Julián Schvindlerman is a political analyst and journalist in Washington D.C.