Home Center responded by stating that the controversial discount is company
policy. "Home Center offers a wide range of attractive discounts throughout
the year. As part of a plan to target specific communities, the chain offers
different discounts for different sectors from time to time," the statement
said.
Now at Home Center: Discounts for Arabs only
Customer accidentally stumbles upon secret 'minority discount' offered by
Israeli home goods chain. 'I tried to think what would happen if it was a
discount for Jews only,' he wonders
Roni Lipshitz YNET Published: 08.07.08, 19:43 / Israel News
www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3579400,00.html
Ynet has learned that Home Center, a popular home wares chain that operates
throughout Israel, has been offering preferential treatment to the Arab
sector via special discounts they alone are eligible for, regardless of
whether the store is situated in a mostly Jewish city.
Home Center customer Eli Chai arrived at his local branch at the Renanim
Mall in Ra'anana last Tuesday, with the intent of buying a power drill,
several tools and a number of other products. As the cashier began scanning
his purchases at the checkout line, Chai noted that before passing each
product the register computer would ask the cashier 'Minority Discount.' The
cashier, said Chai, clicked 'no' and continued scanning the goods.
"I wasn't sure I had really seen what I thought I had," Chai recounted, "it
was strange, I hadn't encountered anything like it before. I wanted to make
sure, so I asked the cashier what the discount was, and why he was not
giving it to me.
"He insisted that it wasn't a discount. But I said, cancel the purchase and
scan it again. So he relented and said, 'It's a discount only for
minorities'."
Chai claimed that, to his understanding, the chain offers a 10% discount on
specific products for people belonging to a certain minority.
"I asked him what it meant, and he said, 'a discount only for Arabs'. I
said, 'What do you mean, if I was Arab you would give me a discount?' He
said yes. Definitively. It was really strange. I decided not to argue and to
forgo the discount, so I paid full price for the products I had purchased.
"I didn't expect to get a discount, but I was appalled when I realized that
had I been Arab I would have received one. I tried to think what would
happen if it was a discount only for Jews, or Sephardim, or Ashkenazim," he
concluded.
Home Center responded by stating that the controversial discount is company
policy. "Home Center offers a wide range of attractive discounts throughout
the year. As part of a plan to target specific communities, the chain offers
different discounts for different sectors from time to time," the statement
said.
Following Ynet's report, members of the far-right National Jewish Front -
Itamar Ben-Gvir and Baruch Marzel - addressed an urgent letter to Attorney
General Menachem Mazuz and to State Prosecutor Moshe Lador, in which they
demanded that an investigation be launched against Home Center on the
grounds that the discount constitutes discrimination, and is therefore
unlawful.
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