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I recently noticed the moniker of the following commenter, beneath the line of a CiF Watch post about the Guardian’s coverage of the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike, “Observer op-ed on ‘hunger strikers’ exposes double standards on administrative detention issue“, May 13:
I replied and asked whether this commenter was indeed part of the successful efforts to defeat a BDS movement which targeted a coop in Brooklyn.
First, it’s always nice to be compared favorably to Elder and DivestThis!
But, briefly, for those unfamiliar with the BDS battle in Brooklyn’s upscale Park Slope neighborhood, here’s a quick summary.
On March 27, following a long and heated political battle lasting many months, members of the Park Slope Food Coop soundly rejected a proposal that asked the full 16,000-member market to boycott products made in Israel, turning aside the proposal after a 90-minute debate. (The Park Slope coop, one of the oldest and largest in the U.S., carries Israeli hummus, a seltzer water maker, organic paprika, two styles of kosher marshmallows and three varieties of tapenade and pesto.)
Image from site of Jewlicious
In fact, the commenter above is none other than Barbara Mazor of More Hummus, Please - the Park Slope resident who led the anti-BDS fight.
Mazor’s blog, following the BDS fail, noted the heavy publicity surrounding the debate.
“The Coop vote became quite a media sensation, including a segment from the Daily Show. We filmed this a few weeks before the vote (on Ta’anit Esther and Purim), but it aired the night of the vote. Since we already knew the referendum was defeated by the time we viewed it, I enjoyed it doubly.”
You can see the Daily Show clip (which includes interviews, by the Daily Show’s Samantha B., of both Mazor and a humorless pro-BDS activist named Liz Roberts) at Mazor’s blog, by clicking here.
While, true to form for the Daily Show, both sides are the object of some mockery, those of you familiar with the comic style of Jon Stewart’s show will know who comes out looking worse.
As a commenter at DivestThis! observed about the segment:
“It was clear from the cutting that Barbara Mazor of More Hummus, Please (the lady who led the anti-BDS fight) represented the sane side of the argument.
When Comedy Central makes you out to be “less” crazy, it’s a clear win.”
The BDS movement: a fringe group of extremists obsessed with the single minded goal of eroding the Jewish state’s legitimacy and crippling its economy, which has chalked up failure after failure, while causing no discernible injurious economic impact.
It would be hard for anyone not to appear “less crazy”!
Related articles
- ‘Elder of Ziyon’ responds to the Guardian’s Ben White on BDS. (cifwatch.com)
- My interview on Philadelphia talk radio, about CiF Watch (cifwatch.com)
- BDS-promoting Palestine Festival of Literature supported by British public funding. (cifwatch.com)
- CiF Watch welcomes its first follower from Gaza! (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian reader on “belligerent” Jewish race: 72 Recommends, not deleted by CiF Moderators (cifwatch.com)
- Guardian reader on those uppity British Jews exercizing their political rights (cifwatch.com)
- CiF’s Khaled Diab decries Palestinian fixation on ‘right of return’, but still seeks one state solution (cifwatch.com)
- Why is the Guardian afraid to expose their readers to the truth about Global March to Jerusalem? (cifwatch.com)
- Deborah Orr Tweet defends ‘chosen people’ essay, complains about Zionists’ sense of victimhood (cifwatch.com)
photo: Israel Fichman
Courtesy of the anti-racist website ‘Engage’, here’s a funny-but-true story to ease us into the weekend.
It appears that the British publication the ‘Morning Star‘ – originally the organ of the Communist Party of Great Britain – recently ran a quiz in which one of the questions concerned Israel’s national bird, the Hoopoe.
This apparent counter-revolutionary faux pas resulted in two indignant letters to the newspaper from two senior members of the Manchester Palestine Solidarity Campaign who, despite their being married to each other, obviously do not deal in philatelic skimping when it comes to advancing the workers’ cause.
I often wonder why so many of its readers find the Morning Star so exasperating.
Despite its condemnation of zionists (sic) it yet finds space to include an item in its daily quiz about Israel’s national bird.
Is the Star not aware there’s a cultural boycott going on?
And then, despite it’s (sic) condemnation of the Bahrain Grand Prix and rightly so, it then goes on to tell us who won.
For goodness sake comrades, get your act together.
George Abendstern
Rochdale
…
The Morning Star has always been the newspaper you could rely on to support the cause of the Palestinians, so why of all the birds in the world did you choose the Israeli national bird to include in your quiz?
Maybe you don’t support the methods chosen by the International Solidarity Movement of BDS to assist the Palestinians in their struggle for freedom and justice – a demand that came from them originally.
This includes any reference to their wildlife.
Linda Clair
Rochdale
And there’s a sequel; read the rest here.
This rather Voldemortesque (he-whose-name-shall-not–be-spoken) approach to the world is of course thoroughly in keeping with the institutional culture of fringe movements of single-issue obsessives, the members of which frequently appear to be vying with each other for the title of how to appear…well… most mad.
Perhaps Linda Clair will be disappointed, but I am obliged to report that the pair of Hoopoes which live in my back garden seemed remarkably unperturbed when informed this morning of their new ‘Aves non grata’ status.
Related articles
- Bigotry & justifications for terror as ‘progressive’ politics: Air Flotilla 2′s York PSC contingent (cifwatch.com)
- Another day: another Harriet Sherwood report on another British boycott. (cifwatch.com)
- ‘Air Flotilla 2′ Participants – the trailer (Anti-Zionist ‘activists’ consumed by hate) (cifwatch.com)
- More Hoopoe photos from last Wednesday and Thursday (parrotletsuk.typepad.com)
Like this:
Richard Millett was called a “typical Israeli” last night at an SOAS Palestine Society event in London.
(The event included a presentation by Abdel Bari Atwan – a ‘Comment is Free’ contributor who can be seen here explaining that if Iranian missiles hit Tel Aviv he would “dance in [London's] Trafalgar Square” and here praising a terrorist attack against Israeli civilians.)
If you’re wondering whether the abuse hurled at Richard was racist, simply replace “Israeli” with any other identity and repeat the charge. ”You’re a typical Arab.” “You’re at typical Black,” etc.
Of course, Richard is not an Israeli. He’s a British Jew who routinely defends Israel and Jews at events hosted by the most hostile anti-Zionist, pro-Islamist (and often antisemitic) activists. His blog posts are frequently personal reports, using both photos and videos compiled while monitoring events hosted by the UK’s ubiquitous array of groups hostile to Israel’s existence.
His reports unambiguously demonstrate the illiberal nature of much of the pro-Palestinian movement. One post shows Baroness Jenny Tonge praising Hamas leaders at a Palestinian Return Centre event, another post details a confrontation with a Holocaust denier who attended a Palestinian Solidarity event and yet another recounts a PSC event at which Jews were compared to Nazis.
It’s quite telling that the incident began last night when participants objected to Richard filming their public event (where no restrictions on such recordings were in place and, as Richard noted, others were filming the event). What did they have to fear from a lone Jewish blogger who was merely attempting to disseminate information about what was said by a few pro-Palestinian activists?
One of the biggest scandals of the Guardian’s coverage of Israel and the Palestinians is the dishonest manner in which they frame the debate: a binarism which imputes good will and progressivism to nearly anyone claiming to advocate on behalf of the Palestinians on one hand and racism (or at least illiberality) to those unapologetically advocating for the Jewish state.
Perhaps Richard Millett is feared so much because he consistently gives lie to this absurd moral paradigm.
Related articles
This is cross posted by Zach at Huffington Post Monitor.
Gilad Atzmon found this video of Omar Barghouti (who you probably know from his boycott work) putting his foot squarely in his mouth:
The video is only a minute long but there is oh so much information packed into it. For example Barghouti declares that he won’t be lectured on violence by a “white person” why? Because “the white race is the most violent in history of mankind.” Isn’t that special.
Atzmon found the video from Deliberation, which is a left-wing site. Deliberation had some uncomfortable questions as well:
“But there is also another acute question that deserves our immediate attention. Why exactly the ‘socialist’ crowd in Chicago is so exited by Barghouti’s Racist remark? Is it possible that our so-called ‘progressive’ panthers have changed their spots, are they now in favour if [sic] racism?
“I guess that Ben White, another spokesman for the BDS movement, may have an answer to offer. In a recent New Statesman article he foolishly admitted that that BDS “is a strategy, not a principle.”
“I guess that this is indeed very concerning about the BDS . It is not principled at all. A BDS prominent leader happens to spread racist remarks while enrolling to a ‘Zionist’ academic institute which he expects us to boycott. Another BDS prominent spokesman admits that the BDS is “not principled”. Meanwhile in the UK BDS attempts to destroy Israeli Habima theatre but does nothing to promote a Palestinian theatre from Ramallah. As the BDS buying itself a name of a dedicated book burning institution, we learn that trade between Israel and Britain grew last year by 34%.
“If BDS is an important humanitarian call and, we in Deliberation believe it is, it better be managed and represented by people who are slightly more principled and certainly more clever and astute.
I would say of course that BDS has been racist from it’s very beginning. This latest admission by Barghouti only helps to prove it.
Related articles
- The stylish appeal of BDS movement’s tireless campaign to erode the Jewish state’s legitimacy (cifwatch.com)
- Note to Philly BDS Activists: You will fail. (cifwatch.com)
- ‘Airflotilla 2′ & “normal,average Europeans” (cifwatch.com)
Like this:
A guest post by Gidon Ben-Zvi
Those who seek to destroy Israel by a thousand cuts scored a much publicized victory when The Co-operative Group, the UK’s fifth largest food retailer, announced (in late April) that it would “no longer engage with any supplier of produce known to be sourcing from the Israeli settlements”.
A major battle was won in the just war to free the Palestinian people, or so goes the self-congratulatory bloviating of a small but vociferous clan of activists.
Better still, this hard-fought victory of right over might was achieved without a single shot being fired. Non-violent protest at its most effective, no?
Let’s put to rest the canard that the BDS Israel campaign is in any way non-violent. Prominent British lawyer Anthony Julius, in his ‘Trials of the Diaspora: A History of Anti-Semitism in England’, describes the inherently violent nature of boycott campaigns:
“The boycotted person is pushed away by the general horror and common hate…It is a denial amongst other things, of the boycotted person’s freedom of expression….To limit or deny self-expression is thus an attack at the root of what it is to be human.”
Long before Jordan’s West Bank became Israeli-occupied Palestine, there was the Arab economic boycott of Israel, one component of a decades-long effort to eviscerate the Jewish state. And today, the song remains the same, with the BDS Israel movement not merely advocating policy change, but actively campaigning to purge Israel, both within and without the ‘Green Line’, of every last vestige of Jewish character and sovereignty.
BDS Israel is a soft war that perverts the sincere, commendable desire of students, artists and others for social justice into a movement that espouses a simplistic, distorted view of the Middle East in general and Israel in particular. By equating democratic Israel with Apartheid South Africa, BDS Israel proponents seek to fill a yawning chasm of ignorance with their own corrosive biases regarding Israel.
Once a foundation of fiction is laid, it becomes easy to build the case for isolating Israel by conjuring up the specters of discrimination, oppression and colonialism from the dark annals of human history. The ‘Never Again’ battle cry is thus hurled like a boomerang back at the most persecuted people in history. And voila, the dismantling of the Jewish State becomes as noble an aim as was that of dismantling Apartheid South Africa.
These people of good conscience who seek to do nothing more than end Israeli repression and Israeli war crimes are worthy of further examination. According to the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, many of the non government organizations that are spearheading the effort to end Israel’s colonization of Palestinian land are ‘either fictional, non-existent, and even, in some cases, front-organizations for Hamas and other terror groups.’
Had The Co-operative Group been better informed, it may have sought to dole out its misguided brand of social justice at such perennial human rights violators as Sudan, Syria, Iran, or Zimbabwe.
If The Co-operative Group had the support of Palestinian rights in mind, it may have thought twice before targeting the Middle East’s only true democracy, undergirded by a robust freedom of the press and an active, independent judiciary that helps ensure the equality of all Israel’s citizens – Jew, Muslim and Christian.
If the Co-operative Group wants to fix the Middle East, it can start with the tyrannical regime in Hamas-ruled Gaza. And yet the Co-operative Group chose to single out Israel. What drives the normally rational to such distraction when Israelis introduced into the conversation?
BDS Israel was conceived at the 2001 Durban Conference on Racism, where Israel was singled as the only nation earth that warranted the imposition of boycotts, divestment and sanctions.
Next, such Palestinian luminaries as Omar Barghouti, who studies at Tel Aviv University, stepped in to act as midwives, bringing BDS Israel into existence. Barghouti has openly and repeatedly called for a one state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. In other words, this founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) supports the destruction of Israel.
Finally, BDS Israel was nurtured and grew loud and fat thanks to the round-the-clock care of a cabal of guilt-stricken Western academics. Pacifist and post-modernist in their view of the world, these leading intellectual lights look back in shame at the behavior of the colonists towards the colonized. Decades later, this guilt manifests itself by way of sympathy for oppressed nations demanding self-determination.
Yet, for all of BDS Israel’s sound and fury, the movement’s leaders have precious little to point to by way of concrete accomplishments, which in itself points to a fetishizing of style over substance, of political grandstanding over principled protest.
To date, Israeli foreign exports are soaring and the Tel Aviv Stock exchange has more than doubled in the last two years. As such, the BDS movement has had no discernible impact on the Israeli economy.
Still, the guerilla chic appeal of BDS Israel all but ensures that a persistent, overblown coverage of this rather inane movement will continue well into the future.
Apparently, movements for social justice only become fashionable if they are loudly anti-Western, superficially pro-democratic yet remarkably mute when it comes to the vast majority of crimes against humanity inflicted by the once colonized against their own people.
Related articles
- ‘Elder of Ziyon’ responds to the Guardian’s Ben White on BDS. (cifwatch.com)
- Would a Jewish Supporter of BDS Boycott this Israeli Company? (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian, the Boycotters’ press release, the Co-op and the Hamas link. (cifwatch.com)
- Deborah Orr Tweet defends ‘chosen people’ essay, complains about Zionists’ sense of victimhood (cifwatch.com)
- Another day: another Harriet Sherwood report on another British boycott. (cifwatch.com)
- Comment is Free, Jane Eisner & a modest question for Peter Beinart & the American Jewish Left (cifwatch.com)
- Would a Jewish Supporter of BDS Boycott this Israeli Company? (cifwatch.com)
- BDS-promoting Palestine Festival of Literature supported by British public funding. (cifwatch.com)
- ‘Elder of Ziyon’ responds to the Guardian’s Ben White on BDS. (cifwatch.com)
- Another day: another Harriet Sherwood report on another British boycott. (cifwatch.com)
- The Guardian, the Boycotters’ press release, the Co-op and the Hamas link. (cifwatch.com)
Like this:
The article published on CiF Watch yesterday concerning the Co-operative Group’s decision to upgrade its boycott policies towards Israeli firms was, of course, just one of many. Among those also tackling the subject was ‘Elder of Ziyon‘, who – along with ‘Harry’s Place‘ – then became the subject of an article on ‘electronic Intifada’ by BDS groupie and Guardian writer Ben White.
‘The Elder’ responded:
“Ben White, who is apparently a writer specializing in hating Israel, wrote an article in Electronic Intifada criticizing my post pointing out the hypocrisy of the British Co-op boycott of Agrexco, which I noted also effectively hurts the livelihood of most Palestinian Arab farmers. In his critique, White unwittingly shows exactly the hypocrisy that I am talking about.”
Read the rest here.
This is an article I wrote last year about the BDS movement’s targeting of Agrexco and the reality of cooperation between that agricultural export company and Palestinian and Arab Israeli farmers.
In 2010 the government of the Netherlands donated 6 million Euros to two projects designed to “address food security concerns, high unemployment rates as well as to maintain and develop the full economic potential of the Gaza agricultural sector”. However, the Dutch government’s partner in these projects – an NGO known as the Palestinian Agricultural Development Association (PARC) – turns out to be active in the BDS campaign. In January 2011 it issued a press release which included the following statements:
“The last attempt by Agrexco to export to Europe limited quantities of strawberries and flowers from the Gaza Strip, exploiting the illegal Israeli siege of Gaza and the inability of Palestinian farmers there to export except through Agrexco, was aimed at beautifying the image of the Israeli occupation and covering up all its ugly crimes against the Palestinian people, and especially through the ongoing Israeli siege of the steadfasting Gaza Strip.
On this occasion, PARC salutes all activists and international supporters for the BDS campaign and especially our French friends and partners who were able to frustrate the Agrexco attempt to conduct a joint press conference with a few exploited Palestinian producers.”
(Coincidentally, it just so happens that another recipient of funding from the government of the Netherlands is none other than ‘electronic Intifada’.)
As ‘Elder of Ziyon’ correctly points out:
“To see what real Palestinian Arabs want, look at their companies who attend Israeli trade shows and fairs to increase their market. Look at those who visit the ports at Ashdod and Haifa to better understand import/export procedures.”
Related articles
- Ben White BDS letter published on Guardian letters page. (cifwatch.com)
- Hamas Hagaddah? Jewish Voice for Peace & great achievements in Jewish far left self parodies (cifwatch.com)
- Peter Beinart and the Crisis of American Jewish Liberalism (cifwatch.com)
Like this:
Why it should have taken two writers – both Observer ‘chief reporter’ Tracy McVeigh and Guardian Jerusalem correspondent Harriet Sherwood – to put together what is in fact no more than a re-hash of a ‘Boycott Israel Network’ press release is anyone’s guess. But it apparently did, and the result is this so-called article from April 29th on the subject of the Co-operative Group’s decision to boycott not only Israeli firms located over the green line, but also those with any connections to other businesses in those areas.
The section from the BIN press release which McVeigh and Sherwood neglected to include provides background information on how this decision on the part of the Co-op came about.
“The announcement by the Co-op came just before their Regional AGMs, due to take place over the next two weeks, and where motions on this issue have been submitted for discussion. For months Co-op members have been highlighting their concerns about trade with complicit companies through co-ordinated letter-writing and discussions with local offices.”
For those unfamiliar with the Co-op’s structure and the manner in which that lends itself to easy manipulation by pressure groups, here is a brief primer. Anyone over the age of 16 can become a member of the Co-op for £1. Most of those who join do so for the offers, discounts and end of year dividends, but it is also possible for them to set up local members’ groups and the Co-op actually assigns funding to enable their meetings.
The nature and purpose of each local group depends very much upon the members. Some might choose to go in for tasting the supermarket’s new range of wines at their meetings. Others may decide to recruit more new members at a local gala or engage in some kind of charity work. Still others may decide to liaise between the Co-op and the local community on a transition town-style green agenda – for example persuading their local Co-op to abandon the use of plastic bags or recycle food waste as compost.
The local groups send representatives to regional meetings, which in turn send representation to national level meetings. Thus, anyone committed enough to put in the time and effort can promote a specific agenda and influence the Co-op’s operations at both local and national level.
And that is precisely how this latest (and the previous, less far-reaching) boycott decision came about. Around 2008 the Co-op was identified by anti-Israel campaigners – in particular members of the PSC – as a ‘soft’ target. They became members, set up local groups and began pushing their agenda up the ladder. That task was not particularly difficult; the vast majority of Co-op members do not attend meetings and even those who do are often quite relieved to find that someone else is willing to spend time going to regional AGMs.
The project was made even easier by the fact that, unable to compete with Britain’s big supermarket chains on price or quality, the Co-op markets itself as the progressive ‘ethical’ alternative.
Sherwood and McVeigh quote one Hilary Smith in their article, describing her as “Co-op member and Boycott Israel Network (BIN) agricultural trade campaign co-ordinator”. The Boycott Israel Network of course involves itself in far more than just supermarket boycotts.
Smith is also a member of Sheffield PSC and Sheffield BDS and active in the ‘Coordin8‘ lobbying network (her regional organizer is recent failed ‘flytilla’ participant and would-be fixer of online polls Terry Gallogly of York PSC). In 2009 she was to be found addressing students occupying Sheffield University on behalf of Sheffield PSC and is apparently not averse to the libeling of Israel as an ‘apartheid’ state.
In February of this year Smith took part in an ‘Israel Apartheid Week’ event at Sheffield University which also featured a speaker from ‘Who Profits‘, (a ‘Coalition of Women for Peace‘ offshoot) who was described in the promotional material as coming “from Haifa in the occupied territories”. That negation of Israel’s existence is of course an underlying principle of the BDS movement.
In addition to her above activities, Hilary Smith is also a ‘volunteer international coordinator’ for the ‘Free Gaza’ movement ‘. Here she is reporting on a ‘Free Gaza’ speaking tour of the UK. Here she is acting as official contact and spokesperson for UK Free Gaza in 2009. Here she is posting information about the 2010 flotilla on the UK Trade Union movement’s ‘Labournet‘ site and here complaining to the BBC about its coverage of the Mavi Marmara incident and its portrayal of the ‘Free Gaza’ movement. Ahead of the 2008 flotilla organized by ‘Free Gaza’, Smith chaired a press conference held in London.
The participants in one of the 2008 jaunts organized by ‘Free Gaza’ did reach their destination and were received (and presented with medals) by leaders of Hamas, – the terrorist organization designated by the UK government which ‘Free Gaza’ enables and supports.
Activists in the ‘Free Gaza’ movement are very aware of the legal implications of their actions, as this briefing document – seized aboard a ‘Free Gaza’ ship – indicates.
For the source of the above document and more information on the ‘Free Gaza’ movement, its ties to Hamas and other designated terror-connected organizations such as the IHH and its roots in the International Solidarity Movement (ISM), see here.
The management of the Co-operative Group may not be aware that it has in fact been manipulated into this latest boycott move by subscribers to a political campaign which works towards the rather less than ethical ultimate aim of wiping a sovereign country off the map and often collaborates with designated terror organisations in order to do so.
On the other hand, the Co-op might simply not care. After all, this is the same organization which (rather hilariously, given its advertising spiel on ‘ethical banking‘) provides banking services to George Galloway’s ‘Viva Palestina‘ – which is at this very moment on yet another Hamas-supporting road-trip and travelling via Syria, where the incumbent dictator (for whom Galloway has such admiration) is still slaughtering civilians in their thousands.
This new boycott move by the Co-operative Group should actually be seen as very useful on a number of fronts.
It exposes the way in which it is laughably easy for very small numbers of energetic activists to dictate the agendas of large organizations in the UK. We have seen it happen in British churches, universities and trade unions – now it is the turn of the co-operative movement.
It also points a spotlight on the discrepancies between the ‘ethical’ image the Co-op likes to project for PR purposes and its actual practice. Let’s face it; the £350,000 worth of trade affected by this boycott is negligible (barely the price of a modest Tel Aviv apartment), but the move does highlight once again how the Co-op is apparently willing to overlook the terror-sympathetic connections (and real aims) of clients and campaigning members in order to curry favor with a perceived ’progressive’ client base.
The move also serves to highlight the manner in which UK-based anti-Israel campaigners have in the last decade or so managed to bring their message into the mainstream at local levels. Using letters to local newspapers, occasional PSC or ‘Friends of Palestine’ stalls and demonstrations, co-opting the support of churches and various specific interest groups, they have ensured that although the vast majority of the population understands little or nothing about the Arab-Israeli conflict, many are nonetheless convinced that they are capable of making ethical judgments about it.
Of course most British citizens will find this move by the Co-op somewhat less than ethical, if not downright abhorrent. The good news is that due to the company’s structure, they can do something about it by using exactly the same methods as employed by BDS activists in order to reverse the agenda.
Related articles
- Harriet Sherwood on the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike – high on pathos, low on fact. (cifwatch.com)
- Feeble reasons not to boycott the Guardian (cifwatch.com)
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A guest post by Joy Wolfe, StandWithUs UK chairwoman and co-President of the Zionist Federation
StandWithUs UK and many other UK organisations and individuals have applauded the high profile figures (Arnold Wesker, Ronald Harwood, Maureen Lipman, Simon Callow, Louise Mensch MP and Steven Berkoff) who have opposed calls for the Globe Theatre in London to disinvite the world-renowned Israeli Habima Theatre Company.
We also congratulate Howard Jacobson on his positive stand in supporting Habima.
Boycotts of any kind are totally counter productive and do nothing to help the Palestinians.
Hopefully the BDS brigade will think again about disrupting a performance that the majority of the audience wish to support and enjoy. However, if they do press ahead with their publicly declared threat to cause a disturbance I hope they will be quickly ejected and face legal consequences.
Cultural, academic and trade boycotts are particularly counter productive when Israel has so much to offer the international community.
Not only are they counter productive but often have the exact opposite of the desired effect as people often go out of their way to support companies and shops that are targeted. Recently in Canada, a targeted shop the boycotters were trying to disrupt was inundated with pro-Israel customers who previously had never even heard of the company.
Another example of a misguided attempt to help the Palestinians was the failed April 15th “Welcome to Palestine” flytilla, when over 1500 pro Palestinian protesters had planned to fly into Israel to disrupt Ben Gurion Airport before moving on to carry out alleged humanitarian visits to “Palestinian prisoners”.
In a brilliantly crafted response, Israel had alerted airlines to the fact that those denied entry into Israel would have to be flown home at the airlines’ expense. As a result, hundreds were refused boarding at a number of European airports and around 40 who did succeed in arriving in Israel were sent home with a pithily written letter noting all the genuine human rights issues around the world, not least in Syria, where their protests would be better directed.
In the meantime, despite the best efforts of the Boycott, Divest and Sanctions (BDS) campaigners, there are so many positives to prove just how unsuccessful they are. Israeli trade with the UK has never been at a higher level, academics from Israel and the UK are working together in many cooperative projects, Israel has just signed a new aviation agreement with the EU, and Israel and the UK have an extensive programme of business and academic joint projects.
We should reduce our efforts to counter BDS activists, and similar reactive measures, which give them the added oxygen of the publicity they seek, and concentrate instead on spreading the good news about Israel’s achievements and cooperation with grass-roots Palestinians, which are much more positive and effective ways to create an atmosphere more conducive to moving the peace process forward.
Related articles
- ‘Boycott Israel,’ the movie, starring actress Emma Thompson (cifwatch.com)
- I’m a Pro-Israel Muslim: So Why did UJS Ban Me? (cifwatch.com)
Hawkeye
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Guest/Cross Post
Hadar Sela
Overview of Guardian coverage of Israel: April 30th to May 27th 2012.
May 27, 2012 in Comments which are off-topic, ad hominem, racist, vulgar or include threats of violence will be deleted | Tags: BDS, Boycott, Comment is Free, Delegitimization, Distortion, Gaza, Guardian, Iran, Israel, Terrorism | by Hadar Sela | 1 comment
Last month we published a review of the Guardian’s coverage of events in Israel during April, highlighting the subjects it chose to address and – no less important – those it did not. Several readers suggested that this should become a regular exercise, so here is a breakdown of the subjects tackled during the period from April 30th to May 27th 2012.
During that four-week period, 58 articles appeared on the ‘Israel’ page of the World News section on the Guardian’s website. Two of those actually appear twice, so in fact we are addressing 56 articles, eleven of which also appeared on the ‘Israel’ page of ‘Comment is Free’.
Three items dealt with the subject of boycotts against Israeli targets whilst three others were obituaries. One article pertained to literature and one other was a video report in Jon Ronson’s series about ‘astroturfing’.
Six articles dealt with the Iranian nuclear issue and two pertained to the subject of the British government’s reaction to a hypothetical Israeli military strike on Iran.
Two articles speculating about early elections in Israel were followed by five articles about the Kadima party’s joining the coalition government.
One article contained archive material concerning the Manchester Guardian’s coverage of Israel’s declaration of Independence in 1948 whilst four items dealt with the subject of events on Nakba Day 2012. Five articles were published on the subject of the Palestinian prisoners on hunger strike whilst a further four dealt with subjects which can be classified as carrying a theme of ‘Israeli authorities against Palestinians’.
Two articles were connected to the subject of the Olympics – one concerning the IOC refusal to mark the Munich terror attack and the other about disabled Palestinian Olympians. Two items related to the Israeli TV series ‘Hatufim’ – one of which still carries the spelling mistake “Israeil” in its by-line.
Four articles (three of which appeared on the same day) were about the subject of illegal migrants in Israel, one dealt with the subject of the Mavi Marmara flotilla and potential compensation arrangements and two articles can be classified as relating to ‘settlements’ or ‘settlers’.
Six items appearing on the ‘Israel’ page have little if any connection to Israel, including one about the Hamas clamp-down on the ‘Palfest’ event in Gaza, one about Palestinian Authority actions against Palestinian journalists, one about human rights in Bahrain and another concerning Egypt and Saudi Arabia.
So what did the Guardian choose not to report during the same period of time? A partial list includes the following:
On April 30th a rocket fired from the Gaza Strip fell near the town of Sderot. (source)
On May 1st shots were fired from the Gaza Strip at Israeli soldiers engaged in routine activities on the Israeli side of the border fence. During the week May 2nd to May 8th, two rockets and one mortar fired from Gaza hit the western Negev.(source)
On May 3rd, two Palestinians carrying knives and explosives were arrested at Tapuach Junction. Later the same night, a Palestinian carrying a knife tried to infiltrate the village of Elon Moreh.
On May 7th, Israeli soldiers thwarted an attempt to smuggle weapons through the Kalandia checkpoint. On the same day, a Palestinian carrying three pipe bombs was apprehended near Tapuach Junction.
During the week May 9th to May 15th, one rocket fired from the Gaza Strip hit the western Negev. On May 10th Egyptian security forces apprehended three vehicles containing weapons – including 40 anti-tank missiles – being smuggled from Libya. (source)
Also on May 10th, two Palestinians carrying pipe bombs and fire bombs were arrested by the Border Police near Tapuach Junction.
On May 20th a Palestinian tried to stab a soldier at a roadblock. During the preceding month, three Israeli civilians were wounded in stabbing attacks. Information concerning the apprehension of a Ramallah area based terror cell which planned to abduct Israeli civilians was made public, including details of attempted kidnappings:
“During March 2012 the cell tried to abduct an Israeli several times:
(source)
In addition, incidents of rock-throwing at Israeli vehicles continued throughout the month.
As we saw in the previous review, the Guardian’s coverage of Israel goes out of its way to avoid any mention of the daily threats posed to Israeli civilians. Whilst Guardian readers world-wide may now be familiar with the TV drama ‘Hatufim’ the paper does not inform them about real-life attempts to kidnap Israelis. The same readers now know all about the Palestinian prisoners’ hunger strike, but little or nothing about the type of ongoing terror activities which lead to the arrests of Palestinians. Whilst the subject of building in towns and villages beyond the ‘green line’ is covered, an attempt by an armed Palestinian to infiltrate one of those villages is ignored.
Once again, the Israel-related news which Guardian editors elect to avoid telling their readers is no less significant than the stories they do choose to tell.
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