After Starbucks announced their support for Israel’s side in the Israel vs Palestine war on an Instagram story stating that they stand with Israel actions in the war, pro-Palestinians are attempting to boycott Starbucks and hopefully close down all the locations for good. For such a popular chain coffee shop, they should not take a political stance, especially posting it on social media because it leads to losing profit, supporters, and many stores closing down.
People around the world were horrified to see Starbucks workers unite and choose a side even though there is no right side in this ongoing war. When Starbucks announces that they are pro-Israel, they are stating to the world that killing over 11,000 children and more then 5,000 adults is justified under these circumstances. It is understandable if people are leaning towards one side more than the other, but it is wrong for a restaurant the public admires to blatantly disregard the other side, even if they are both in the wrong.
After people began to boycott Starbucks, Starbucks posted on X (formerly known as twitter), but quickly deleted the post that was stating, “Solidarity with Palestine!” They deleted this a couple minutes after posting because it seems like Starbucks was just posting because they got caught red handed and started to lose major profit from select locations.
Now, college students are uniting to support Palestine’s side of the war. At Howard University, the students staged a “Chalk the Block” which is where they take chalk and write all over the sidewalks in front of their college’s Barnes and Nobles for the Starbucks boycott. Also written on the sidewalk was the word “Starbucks” with a big red “X” crossing out the word. They also wrote, “Free Palestine” all over the sidewalks to show support for Palestine.
But now, we see the other side in the controversy; Neve Meiner ‘26 states, “I realized that some people have strong opinions about this matter, but I think that this has been blown out of proportion because it wasn’t wrong for Starbucks to choose a side and I still choose dine at Starbucks.”
Other popular chain restaurants like McDonald’s; announcing their support for Israel after a post online, agreeing with Starbucks and siding with Israel. Now, people are beginning to boycott McDonald’s for siding with Starbucks. The popular fast food place is beginning to lose tons of money and certain locations are thinking about shutting down.
The whole boycott is very much justified and other popular restaurants, shops, etc. should learn from Starbucks’ mistakes and not choose any sides.
Julie Lund ‘26 states, “Starbucks was not okay for doing especially blasting it all over the internet and then taking back what they said.”
