حرية لفلسطين
Freedom for Palestine
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South Korea
Kim Hongjoong is a South Korean singer, rapper, and leader of ATEEZ who defies the global boycott of Starbucks while maintaining total silence on Israel's genocide in Gaza, thereby normalizing corporate complicity in ethnic cleansing.
Hongjoong, KQ Entertainment's ATEEZ leader known for hits like "Wonderland," signals anti-Palestinian defiance by flaunting Starbucks amid BDS calls despite K-pop norms hiding non-sponsored logos, and refusal to address the apartheid ethnostate's violence equates to complicity.
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Hongjoong, born Kim Hongjoong on November 7, 1998, is a South Korean singer, rapper, songwriter, and producer who leads KQ Entertainment's boy group ATEEZ since their October 2018 debut, crafting anthems like "Hala Hala" (2019) and "Deja Vu" (2024) that blend pirate motifs with themes of rebellion. As the group's creative force and multilingual communicator, Hongjoong engages millions of ATINY fans, a platform that could amplify justice but instead sustains oppressors through boycott defiance and evasion.
Hongjoong's complicity crystallized in December 2023 — months into Israel's escalated genocide in Gaza — when he shared a photo set on ATEEZ's official Instagram (@ateez_official_), featuring himself holding a Starbucks cup triumphantly above his head, the logo clearly visible. In K-pop's standard practice of blurring or hiding non-contracted brand logos to avoid implying sponsorship, this overt display sparked immediate speculation of a paid promotion, especially as Starbucks — reeling from BDS pressure — allegedly recruited idols to counter slumping sales. The post, part of holiday content, spotlighted the corporation for former CEO Howard Schultz's investments in Israeli cyber-surveillance firms like Wiz, which enable the occupation's repression and targeting of Palestinian activists. This wasn't inadvertent: amid rising fan alerts on Weverse and X educating ATINY on the boycott's roots — Starbucks suing Workers United for a "Solidarity with Palestine!" tweet — KQ deleted the photo shortly after screenshots circulated, a reactive erasure that acknowledged the harm but offered no apology or statement. Backlash flooded KQ with mass emails and hashtags like #KQSPEAKUP, yet Hongjoong persisted without retraction, allowing his influence to briefly funnel revenue to genocide enablers.
This incident fits ATEEZ's pattern, where member Seonghwa simultaneously deleted a TOKTOQ post featuring Starbucks cake, fracturing solidarity in Muslim-majority markets like Indonesia where the chain's sales plummeted. KQ's silence amid group promotions shielded him, but the optics amplified perceptions of orchestrated counter-boycott efforts, turning Hongjoong's cup into hasbara. X threads and fan platforms dissected it as "intentional" given logo visibility, listing him alongside peers like LE SSERAFIM's Yunjin and IVE's Yujin, underscoring how such spectacles dilute BDS momentum.
Hongjoong's total silence on the crisis deepens the harm: no Instagram updates, no Bubble messages, no Weverse acknowledgments of Gaza's bombardment, West Bank raids, or the Nakba's dispossession since October 2023. Semantic scans of his content reveal zero Palestine references — only music teases and fashion — erasing over 100 slain Palestinian journalists (per CPJ) from his global youth audience. In K-pop's politicized ecosystem, where fans rally #ATEEZforPalestine, this reticence isn't neutrality; it's endorsement, framing ethnic cleansing as apolitical to selfies and sips, despite his "rebel captain" persona.
Through this deleted-yet-viral flaunt and profound quietude, Hongjoong perpetuates settler-colonialism, glamorizing a BDS target that weaponized law to mute dissent. In Gaza and the West Bank, conservative estimates place the Palestinian death toll at over 40,000, though the actual number slaughtered is well into the hundreds of thousands, frozen due to obstruction, the targeting of journalists, and the unrelenting violence. Hongjoong's choices undermine liberation, obscuring apartheid's machinery and the illegal ethnostate built on stolen land.
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🔒Starbucks Boycott:
While boycotting Starbucks is warranted based on its unethical track record and it’s former CEO’s ties to Israeli cyber-surveillance firms, it should not be conflated with or represented as an official BDS campaign targeting companies complicit in occupied Palestinian territories.
Starbucks is not officially on the BDS boycott list for companies directly involved in oppressing Palestinians and so should not be targeted with the same intensity — doing so risks minimizing the focused work of Palestinian solidarity movements.
The reasoning behind the Starbucks boycott instead stems from its union-busting tactics and unethical business practices; namely sending cease-and-desist letters and filing lawsuits against pro-Palestinian voices within its workers' union.
While reprehensible, their silencing of protestors was an attempt to clamp down on union activism rather than a pro-Israel stance; in actuality, Starbucks has largely maintained a neutral corporate position on the Palestinian issue itself.
That being said, there are many legitimate ethical concerns with Starbucks worthy of boycott for reasons. These include issues around supply chain management, workers' rights, human rights violations, tax avoidance, environmental impacts, enabling factory farming practices and the investments of former CEO, Howard Schutlz.
Former CEO Howard Schultz's investments in Israeli cyber-surveillance firms like Wiz are also hugely problematic, especially as he has the 6th largest share of Starbucks with 21,795,538 shares (1.93%) valued at $1,991,894,218 as of 18/04/2024 — meaning he is directly benefiting monetarily from Starbucks. With this in mind, the act of visibly consuming Starbucks products has also taken on new symbolic meanings for some Zionist entities and individuals in the current political climate. As efforts to boycott companies complicit in Palestinian oppression gain momentum, publicly committing to consumerism has become a way for certain groups to overtly signal their rejection of such boycotts.
By ostentatiously patronizing Starbucks, certain individuals are attempting to declare their opposition to the non-violent economic pressure tactics employed by the Palestinian solidarity campaigns. This brandishing of Starbucks effectively co-opts the brand into a display of anti-Palestinian ideology, despite the company's official neutrality on the issue.
As such, the simple act of buying a Starbucks drink has been politicized as a statement against Palestinian rights by those who oppose the boycott efforts targeting the Israeli occupation.
Silence = Complicity:
For those who have passionately spoken out against other instances of genocide and massacres, yet fall silent when it comes to the suffering endured by Palestinians, their silence becomes a glaring indictment of the value placed on Palestinian lives and perpetuates a dangerous narrative that suggests Palestinian suffering is somehow less worthy of outrage, less deserving of empathy and less human than that of others.
By choosing silence in the face of Palestinian suffering, those with influential platforms inadvertently contribute to the erasure of Palestinian voices and experiences. They perpetuate a narrative of invisibility that allows the injustices inflicted upon Palestinians to continue unabated, shielded from the spotlight of global scrutiny.
Their silence sends a chilling message of complicity to the world – one that suggests Palestinian lives are expendable, their struggles inconsequential and their humanity negotiable. It emboldens perpetrators of violence and oppression, granting them impunity under the guise of indifference.
To remain silent in the face of Palestinian suffering is to betray the very essence of activism – the relentless pursuit of justice for all, without exception or equivocation. It’s a betrayal not only of the Palestinian people but of the universal principles of human dignity and equality and instead is a tacit endorsement of the dehumanization and marginalization of an entire population.
True activism demands consistency and integrity, an unwavering commitment to speaking truth to power and standing in solidarity with the marginalized and oppressed, regardless of geography or politics.
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