Sodastream is planning to open a manufacturing plant in Gaza, its CEO announced on Thursday.
“We want the people in Gaza to have jobs—real jobs—because where there is prosperity, there can be peace,” said Daniel Birnbaum at the Globes Conference in Jerusalem, without going into detail.
In 2014, the originally owned Israeli carbonation-product company closed its factory in Judea and Samaria, and moved to a bigger plant in the Negev Desert.
Birnbaum said efforts to boycott Sodastream at the time only had a marginal effect on the company. These boycotts were, and still are, advocated by the anti-Israel BDS movement, which includes calls to not purchase products made in the West Bank.
The carbonation-product company was acquired this year by PepsiCo for $3.2 billion.
