Indonesians boycott McDonald’s, Starbucks over support for Israel

Boycott follows McDonald’s Israel’s announcement that it donated free meals to the Israeli military. The boycott comes despite McDonald’s Indonesia, which is owned by PT Rekso Nasional Food, last week announcing that it had “deployed humanitarian assistance valued at IDR 1,5 billion ” to support Palestinians. Indonesian President Joko Widodo has pressed US President Joe Biden to do more to end “atrocities” in Gaza, and the enclave’s Indonesia Hospital was built in 2011 with donations from Indonesians following a funding drive by MER-C. On Sunday, tens of thousands of Indonesians, including Foreign Affairs Minister Retno Marsudi and the former Jakarta governor and presidential hopeful Anies Baswedan, gathered at the National Monument in Jakarta to express solidarity with Palestinians and call for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza. Last week, the Indonesian Ulema Council, Indonesia’s top Muslim clerical body, issued a fatwa making it haram to “support Israeli aggression against Palestine or parties supporting Israel, either directly or indirectly”. We don’t know, but no customers have asked us about the boycott yet.” Starbucks, which operates a similar franchise model as McDonald’s, last month criticised its union for posting “Solidarity with Palestine” on social media above an image of a Hamas bulldozer knocking down a fence during the group’s October 7 attacks on Israel.