British MP Galloway to Scarlett Johansson: Your Hands Are Scarlet with the Blood of Palestinians

British MP George Galloway recently attacked actress Scarlett Johansson over her endorsement of the Israeli company SodaStream, which has a factory in the West Bank. Your face should be "scarlet with embarrassment" for choosing SodaStream over Oxfam, and your hands "are scarlet with the blood of the Palestinian people," said Galloway, the Respect Party MP.

Following are excerpts from his statement by British MP George Galloway, which aired on Press TV and was posted on the Internet on February 2, 2014.

George Galloway: The story, for those who don't know it, is Scarlett Johansson. She's a very famous Hollywood actress, I think of Swedish or Danish origin, who is a big star. She's taking money from a company called SodaStream to promote their product, which is a kind of spray which sprays soda water into drinks.

That would be one thing. You would think she had enough money not to have to cheapen her image and brand by having to do that, but she does.

But there are two real problems with it. The first is that SodaStream is actually produced on illegally-occupied Palestinian land in what they call the West Bank – on a settlement, an illegal settlement, kept on someone else's land in defiance of international law, by brute military force, by a brute military occupation.

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So I've got to say to Scarlett Johansson, whom I once admired – she's a very beautiful young woman and a good actress, who made some good movies, particularly Lost in Translation, with Bill Murrey... I've got to say to her: You are an absolute disgrace. Your face should be scarlet now – scarlet with embarrassment that you chose a few shekels from SodaStream over Oxfam and over your international reputation.

Because your hands are certainly scarlet – they are scarlet with the blood of the Palestinian people, whose land has been stolen so that these illegal settlements can produce products like SodaStream.

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