Saad Tasleem – Should You Boycott Starbucks_

			I said, I'm on a Chromebook, I have to lie, but I can't do. So what I'm doing right now is basically
like a raw video, bra, blog or vlog or whatever you want to call it. Basically, no fancy graphics.
Sound may not be amazing. There's no beatboxing in the beginning, you know, that kind of stuff. But
I wanted to address a topic that you may be surprised, but I get this question a lot. The question
of should we boycott Starbucks? And I know, you may be thinking, you know, it's it's kind of a
trivial issue. Like, why would you make a video about this? And actually, the reason I'm making a
video about this is because it's it relates to a bigger issue. And that is the issue of boycotting
		

			in general, should we boycott. And this is an issue which if you look at islamically, it goes back
to what is known as Masada and Mufasa, the harms and the benefits. There's nothing particular in
Islam that says it's how long to do boycotts or something like that. So you look at the harms of the
benefits to see if the benefits outweigh the harms, then it is something that you should do. So in
the past, I've generally looked at this issue. There's two two main issues. Number one, is it
effective? Are boycotts effective? And for the most cases, I found that they're not really that
effective. Number two,
		

			is it realistic? Is it realistic to actually boycott? And what I mean by Is it realistic is, you
know, for those of us who live in America, for example, and by the way, this issue does differ from
country to country. So if you're living in a Muslim country, or country where the majority of people
are Muslim, then it may be different, the circumstances are different, but I'm speaking from America
and from the perspective of Americans or American Muslims. So in America, for example, if you were
to you know, some people they say, like just boycott all the companies that, for example, are owned
by Jews, for example. And that's not really that's not really, it doesn't make much sense. It's not
		

			very feasible. And if you were to actually do something like that, you would end up not using most
of the products in the market, and basically be very, very difficult, extremely difficult. I know
some of you, you may have seen those lists that go out like the emails, like boycott this, this this
and every day like there's like 10 2030 products added to that. And that's just very unrealistic to
think that you can live in America and boycott any companies owned by a Jew. That's just it's just
ridiculous. But on the other hand,
		

			in the current climate, if there's a company, for example, that is funding,
		

			terrorism, right, so funding, the Israeli army, who was involved in brutality against the
Palestinians, you know, this genocide, pretty much literally genocide, then that takes on a
different, it's a different issue at that point, right. Now, the issue of So basically, that's what
it would go back to, and I think in the current climate, my personal opinion is that there is
benefit in boycotts, especially accept, especially those companies and you gotta, you have to
differentiate between companies that are funding and sending money to Israel and sending sending
money to the
		

			Israeli forces and all that, compared to just a company which is, for example, owned by someone who
is of the Jewish faith. Now they should Starbucks in particular, this has been, this is always a hot
topic, actually. And I remember, I record a video a while back in which I was talking, and I was
actually drinking Starbucks, and I got a lot of backlash, a lot of messages and things like that
people were upset, like stuff, but a lot of you drink Starbucks and blah, blah. And my stance on the
Starbucks issue, for the most part has been, I don't see, in the past, it's been I don't see a
problem in drinking Starbucks. And that is, because if you it's looking at the facts, and the facts
		

			have not changed. The facts are this. Number one, as a company, Starbucks doesn't send any money to
Israel, they don't send any money to the Israeli forces. And they actually even have a an official
statement on their website where they say, look, we do not fund Israel, we do not fund the Israeli
army or anything like that. And they want to be very clear about that. And actually, I'll put a link
to that, to that statement in the in the description of this video. So you can you can check it out.
That's the first thing. The second thing and this is why people think you should boycott Starbucks
is because the CEO of Starbucks, and I believe his name is Howard Schultz or something like that. He
		

			does send money to Israel, and he's very outspoken about his support for Israel and the Israeli army
and so on and so forth. And so that leads people to say that you should boycott Starbucks. Now, in
the past, for me, that has not been enough of a reason to boycott Starbucks and to say, you know, we
shouldn't drink Starbucks and all that kind of stuff. However, in
		

			The current climate,
		

			I am just personally, there's my personal opinion, I'm not really that comfortable anymore.
		

			Buying Starbucks for that, for the reason of, you know, even the issue of the CEO. Now I want to
clarify something here, you have to be very clear when you boycott something, what your purpose
behind that boycott is. So for example, if Starbucks were to get in touch with us and say, Okay,
what would make you or what, what do you need for you to start drinking? Starbucks? Again? What are
your What are your demands? What do you want? We would say, and this is the issue here, we would say
that we are not comfortable. And I'm not comfortable buying the products of a company, who employs a
person who is who is funding terrorism, and who is funding this brutality against the Palestinians,
		

			and basically funding this genocide of a people, let alone it be the CEO of that company. So we
would say, listen, fire, Howard Schultz, and then we can reconsider, then we'll then we'll go ahead
and stop our boycott. And that is a very clear message, compared to Oh, you're a Jewish company, and
we don't want to buy your products, or, you know, and like I said, the claims about
		

			the company itself, funding the Israeli army, that those are not true. And those are the facts.
That's what the company is. And I know, you know, there's always skeptics, and people will say, you
know, they're just saying that because they're trying to make money. Yeah, that it's possible. But
we have to, at this point, take them at face value. Lastly, and this is also a very, very important
issue. When it comes to issue of boycotting, we need to make sure that we understand that for each
and every Muslim, that this is a personal choice. They decide whether they want to boycott or not,
and we really, really should not be shaming people for not boycotting, especially, for example, the
		

			issue of Starbucks, because like I said, it's not a company, they're not sending money, the company
is not sending money to, to to Israel or to the Israeli army. I don't think it's an issue that we
should, that we should shame people about as a stock for the law, like how dare you, Tom, for you to
drink Starbucks and ridiculous statements like that. However, if someone's made a personal choice,
and they say, you know what, I'm not comfortable. And this is a choice that I recently made. Those
of you who know me, you know, that I enjoy my Starbucks. I like Starbucks, and, you know, but still,
and I'm no longer especially in the current climate, um, I'm not really comfortable. I'm not really
		

			comfortable. You know, buying from Starbucks, like I said, because the issue of the CEO, but the
point here is that we shouldn't be shaming people for using certain products or especially the issue
of Starbucks. And in the end of the day,
		

			this is what I know. And this is what I've been told, and launchpads Allah knows best. So until next
time, insha Allah said, I'm on equal Mohammed llahi