Does Alshaya support Israel?

We have not yet found publicly recorded donations from Alshaya. Absence of records does not confirm absence of support.

Filed under: Retail & supermarket chains · Coffee chains & brands · Fashion & apparel brands · Companies that support Israel

Background

M.H. Alshaya Co. is a Kuwaiti family-owned retail franchise operator, and no recorded donations, investments, contracts or statements in support of Israel were found for the company, its subsidiaries or the Alshaya family. Alshaya is a licensee, not an owner, of the international brands it runs — Starbucks, H&M, Victoria's Secret, Mothercare, The Cheesecake Factory and others — and it operates them in Bahrain, Egypt, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Morocco, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Türkiye and the UAE. It has no stores in Israel, and Starbucks itself has had no presence there since it exited that market in 2003. Holding a Western brand's franchise in the Gulf is not in itself evidence of supporting Israel: a franchisee pays royalties for the right to use a brand in defined territories, and it neither controls the brand owner's politics nor the actions of that brand's licensees in other countries. Alshaya was in fact on the receiving end of the post-October-7 boycott wave: from 3 March 2024 it cut more than 2,000 jobs — about 4% of its roughly 50,000 employees — almost all in its Starbucks MENA stores, with a spokesperson citing "continually challenging trading conditions over the last six months." Separately, in March 2024 Alshaya Starbucks and The Starbucks Foundation jointly committed $3 million to World Central Kitchen to provide one million meals in Gaza, alongside an employee donation-matching drive. Because Alshaya is a private Kuwaiti company, it publishes no audited public accounts and files nothing with US regulators, so the absence recorded here rests on news and official-statement review rather than on filings.

Gulf News (Reuters report on Alshaya job cuts) Starbucks Stories EMEA — Starbucks Foundation and Alshaya Starbucks Gaza aid Starbucks — Facts about Starbucks in the Middle East (markets list, Israel exit 2003) The National — Starbucks Middle East operator to shed 2,000 jobs amid Gaza war boycotts

What we checked

• News & official statements — 2026-07-30
• Nonprofit tax filings (Form 990) — 2026-07-30
  No US-registered Alshaya foundation exists in ProPublica's Nonprofit Explorer; Alshaya is a private Kuwaiti company and its philanthropy is not filed on US Form 990. No Israel-linked grantmaking identified.
• SEC filings — 2026-07-30
  Alshaya has no SEC registration or CIK — it is a privately held Kuwaiti company with no US-listed securities, so US disclosure systems do not apply and contain nothing about it. A planned minority-stake sale in its Starbucks franchise was put on hold in 2024 and produced no public filings.
• Federal election records (FEC) — 2026-07-30
  No Alshaya-affiliated committee appears in FEC records; foreign nationals and foreign corporations are barred from contributing in US federal elections, so no US political money trail exists.
• Independent fact-checkers — 2026-07-30
  Cross-checked BDS Movement materials and circulating boycott lists: Alshaya appears in them only as the regional operator of boycott-targeted brands such as Starbucks, never on the basis of any documented act by Alshaya itself. Advocacy listings alone are not treated as evidence here.
• usaspending — 2026-09-25
  Queried the USAspending.gov award API on 2026-09-25 for US federal contracts, grants and other awards to this company whose award text mentions Israel. It returned no awards.
• lobbying — 2026-09-25
  Searched the US Lobbying Disclosure Act database at lda.gov on 2026-09-25 for filings naming this company as the client whose reported lobbying issues mention Israel. No filings matched.
• ohchr — 2026-09-25
  Checked the UN OHCHR database of business enterprises involved in activities in the occupied Palestinian territory, report A/HRC/60/19, on 2026-09-25. This company is not listed in it.
• whoprofits — 2026-09-25
  Searched the Who Profits company index on 2026-09-25 — the research centre that documents corporate involvement in the Israeli occupation. This company has no profile there.

Frequently asked questions

Sources & citations

Record last updated: 2026-09-25

• Gulf News (Reuters report on Alshaya job cuts) gulfnews.com
• Starbucks Stories EMEA — Starbucks Foundation and Alshaya Starbucks Gaza aid stories.starbucks.com
• Starbucks — Facts about Starbucks in the Middle East (markets list, Israel exit 2003) about.starbucks.com
• The National — Starbucks Middle East operator to shed 2,000 jobs amid Gaza war boycotts thenationalnews.com