Israel Support Leads to Sabra Campus Protest

Beyond providing local news outlets with a chance to smear on the puns for some dippy headlines, a debate over hummus brands at a Midwest university is more than a few activists full of beans.

At DePaul University, one of America's largest Catholic schools, students are set to hold a vote on whether or not the school's dining halls should remove Sabra brand hummus. Opponents of Sabra insist that the brand's parent company, Strauss Group, funds groups guilty of human rights violations.

The Students for Justice in Palestine, a campus organization, contend that Strauss Group, the maker of Sabra, funnels money to several Israeli military organizations which have committed human rights abuses against Palestinians.

In a press release dated May 16, Students for Justice in Palestine state, "DePaul University’s Student Government Association has allowed a campus-wide referendum on whether or not Sabra hummus should be removed from campus dining halls next week. Students have voiced concerns about Sabra’s parent company, the Strauss Group, which provides financial support and supplies to two Israeli military brigades implicated in human rights violations."

In 2010, Strauss scrambled to remove language from its website that showed support for the Israeli military after activists from Philadelphia mobilized to protest Sabra sales at a University of Pennsylvania supermarket.

Campus activism against brands blamed for human rights abuses are nothing new. And some have been very successful. In 2005, the Student/Farmworker Alliance used campus boycotts and student government action to press Taco Bell to address "sweatshop conditions" on Florida farms supplying the fast food giant.

After pressuring Taco Bell on 300 campuses across the nation, parent company Yum! Brands acquiesced to the demands of the Florida’s Coalition of Immokalee Workers to certify its tomato supply chain as free of sweatshop labor.

DePaul students will vote on the referendum between May 16 and 20.