Over the past couple of days, Arabic media have been asking the question: does Noon support the Jews or not?
The answer given is yes, Noon does support "Jews" and therefore must be anti-Palestinian.
This may sound surprising, especially since its website homepage says solicits funds for Gaza and offers multiple ways it will donate to Gaza charities.
So what's going on?
It turns out that the founder and owner of much of Noon, Mohamed Alabbar, is a billionaire business tycoon. His company also owns the Burj al-Khalifa Tower in the UAE.
In 2021, it was revealed that he, together with four other mega-rich people, donated $170 million to feed poor people in Israel between 2003 and 2021. Alabbar himself only started donating in 2018 so his share was significantly less.
Donating to the "hungry in Israel" means that probably half of the funds would go to the Arab community there.
This charity towards Arabs and Jews in Israel is now being spun as "supporting the Jews" or "funding Israel's war" or being "anti-Palestinian."
It is pretty clear that Arabs who boycott a company because its owner gives charity to poor Jews and Muslims in Israel are all antisemitic.
Levels of antisemitism have been rising steeply over the past seven weeks, and Arabs are in for forefront of that bigotry.
There is a cottage industry in Arabic media trying to determine which multinational companies support Israel, by their own bizarre standards. Cinnabon does not but Dunkin Donuts does - because someone took a photo of a donut with a blue Star of David on it. Dominos Pizza does but Nike does not. (Actually, Nike has a store in Tel Aviv. Sorry, boycotters.)
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