Oxfam's decision to dump Hollywood superstar Scarlett Johansson from her ambassadorial role over her tie-up with SodaStream has brought the boycott, disinvestment, sanctions (BDS) issue centre-stage.

SodaStream is based in the illegal Jewish West Bank settlement of Maale Adumim, which is part of the massive zionist colonisation project east of Jerusalem, designed to Judaise the city and frustrate the Palestinian goal of siting the capital of an independent state in east Jerusalem.

Oxfam paid polite tribute to Johansson's work in raising funds for the charity, but it was uncompromising over Israel's lawless activities on the occupied West Bank, stating that her promotion of SodaStream was "incompatible" with being an Oxfam ambassador.

"Oxfam believes that businesses such as SodaStream that operate in settlements further the ongoing poverty and denial of rights of the Palestinian communities that we work to support," it said.

SodaStream owner and US citizen Daniel Birnbaum describes his factory as a "model for peace," pointing out that he employs 500 Palestinians, supporting about 5,000 people, who would otherwise be unemployed.

His self-justification could be taken virtually word for word from the apologia spouted by various transnational corporations that gorged themselves on black workers' labour in apartheid South Africa.

Birnbaum's self-righteousness blinds him to the reason why Palestinians on the occupied West Bank suffer unemployment and hardship.

It's the occupation, stupid. Their homeland is under a brutal Israeli military dictatorship and is milked by rapacious capitalists such as himself.

Birnbaum is reputed to have agreed a $4 million (£2.4m) fee to screen a SodaStream advert featuring Johansson during TV coverage of tomorrow's Super Bowl US gridiron final.

But he faces censorship of the ad by Fox TV, which took exception to Johansson's "Sorry, Coke and Pepsi" line that undermines two major corporate advertisers.

The last thing the Israeli government needs now is a spotlight on growing international support for the BDS campaign at a time when its closest allies in the US and the European Union are growing impatient over Tel Aviv's intransigence.

US Secretary of State John Kerry has been involved in a tortuous process of talks about talks in recent months, having put pressure on Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas to drop preconditions as a means of persuading Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to participate.

However, there is widespread opposition to his efforts from both sides.

Thousands of supporters of left-wing secular forces led by the Democratic Front for the Liberation of Palestine (DFLP) and the Palestinian People's Party (PPP) demonstrated in Hebron and Nablus last Saturday urging Abbas to end the talks.

PPP central committee member Fahmi Shahin called on the Palestinian Authority to "immediately stop peace negotiations and reject US sponsorship of these talks."

DFLP political bureau member Ramzi Rabah said that Kerry's meanderings had given Israel more time to expand settlements that were destroying the possibility of an independent Palestinian state with its capital in Jerusalem.

Palestine Liberation Organisation secretary-general Yasser Abed Rabbo damned proposals emanating from Kerry as Israeli ideas, accusing him of offering Palestinians "general and vague" formulas about the fate of Jerusalem.

Even Abbas recognises that Israel has benefited more from the negotiations process than the Palestinian side.

He said that Palestinians living inside what is now Israel "were on the land 1,500 years before Israel was established," which made it impossible to recognise it as a Jewish state.

Members of Netanyahu's government have also condemned the process, openly attacking their PM and refusing to apologise or resign.

Economics Minister Naftali Bennett, a member of Jewish Home, had accused Netanyahu of planning to leave some Israeli West Bank settlements under a future Palestinian state.

He ranted that "our forefathers and the descendants of our descendants will not forgive an Israeli leader who gives up our land and divides our capital."

Bennett's unapologetic apology consisted of stating that he had never intended to insult Netanyahu but that it was his responsibility to criticise the prime minister "when necessary."

Fellow Bayit Yehudi Knesset member Motti Yogev went so far as to accuse Kerry of "anti-semitic undertones" for pressing Netanyahu "to decrease the Jewish presence in the land of Israel and create a Palestinian state."

Such strident rhetoric recalls the bluster of South African apartheid president PW Botha or Ian Paisley in Northern Ireland when they failed to perceive an historical shift in the prevailing wind.

Far from hostile to Israel, Kerry is an ardent supporter, but he fears that, "if talks fail, for Israel, the demographic dynamic will make it impossible to preserve its future as a democratic Jewish state. Today's status quo cannot last forever."

British ambassador Matthew Gould told Israeli TV last weekend that attitudes were changing in Europe, noting EU insistence on differentiating between Israeli and its West Bank illegal settlements.

"I love Israel and I worry that in another five years Israel will wake up and find that the country won't have enough friends," he warned.

Whether Netanyahu listens to his backers or gambles by going for broke, the SodaStream row has clearly been a publicity disaster for Israel.

It should encourage friends of Palestine to intensify the BDS campaign and help secure justice for the Palestinian people.