The leader of the Samaria Regional Council, Yossi Dagan, expressed the opposite of “I’m loving it” in regards to opposition to McDonald’s being given a tender to operate at Ben-Gurion Airport, as the fast-food chain will not operate franchises in the West Bank.
“A company that boycotts part of the state must not be allowed to compete in government tenders,” wrote Dagan in a letter to Finance Minister Moshe Kahlon, Transport Minister Israel Katz and Airports Authority director-general Yaakov Ganot.
He added that “the State of Israel recently passed the ‘Boycott Law’ whose purpose is to impose sanctions that will help deal with internal and external elements that seek to harm and confiscate parts of the State of Israel and its citizens.”
“Unfortunately, despite this clear and unequivocal law,” wrote Dagan, “I learned about the intention of McDonald’s to compete in the IAA tender to open restaurants in Ben-Gurion Airport, which in certain cases and regions has even turned it into a single supplier in the meat fast-food [industry].”
He elaborated, “The blatant boycott was not done casually but officially and openly, as Padan emphasized in 2013 when he vehemently refused to open a branch of the chain in Ariel which, as you recall, caused a large and just public uproar.”
There are 180 standard McDonald’s locations in Israel with more than 50 of them kosher eateries. The only kosher McDonald’s outside of Israel is in Buenos Aires.
