Tag Archives: Boycott

Jul 23 2012

Phoebe Greenwood’s anonymous EU diplomat despairs at trade upgrade with Israel: #BDSFAIL

In what must be sad news for the BDS folks and other anti-Zionists of all stripes, the Guardian reported that “The EU will offer Israel upgraded trade and diplomatic relations in more than 60 areas at a high-level meeting in Brussels on Tuesday.”

The report by Phoebe Greenwood noted the following:

“The EU will widen its relationship with Jerusalem on a range of areas including migration, energy and agriculture. It will remove obstacles impeding Israel’s access to European government-controlled markets and enhance Israel’s co-operation with nine EU agencies, including Europol and the European Space Agency.”

The new areas of co-operation include what’s known as the Agreement on Conformity, Assessment and Acceptance of industrial products, or ACAA, which refers to the “elimination of technical barriers to trade”, thereby increasing the accessibility of Israeli markets to products from the EU and vice versa”.  The package also promises to “further bilateral co-operation” between Israel and key EU agencies, including the EU’s Judicial Co-operation Unit and the European Police Office.

However, Greenwood dutifully located an ”anonymous” EU diplomat to question the wisdom of such an upgrade in relations with Israel.

“One senior EU diplomat, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that despite private complaints of the inconsistency of chastising Israel with one hand while rewarding it with the other, not one minister was prepared to oppose Tuesday’s agreement.

“I was struck by the fact that a whole range of relations was offered to Israel – at the request of Israel – as if nothing is happening on the ground,” the diplomat said. “Most ministers are too afraid to speak out in case they are singled out as being too critical towards Israel, because, in the end, relations with Israel are on the one hand relations with the Jewish community at large and on the other hand with Washington – nobody wants to have fuss with Washington. So [ministers] are fine with making political statements but they refrain from taking concrete action.” “[emphasis added]

Yes, of course: Hapless EU ministers are pressured into upgrading relations with Israel due to the fear of offending “Washington”, and the Jewish community.

The EU diplomat, who chose not to use his or her real name out of fear, it seems, of the possible dangerous consequences of speaking truth to Zionist power, added:

” “The only possible tool for the EU to make Israel change its behaviour is to use the weight and power of these [diplomatic and trade] relations,” he said.”

Greenwood adds:

“Paul Hirschson, a spokesman for the Israeli ministry of foreign affairs, admits the EU and Israel may have their differences, but, dismissed the idea of trade sanctions as nonsensical:

“Both sides would suffer terribly if we start throwing eggs at each other. With Greece and Spain imploding, it doesn’t make sense for the EU to do anything to damage trade with anyone at this point,” Hirschson said, pointing out that two-thirds of Israel’s imports are bought from EU member states.”

Indeed, the Israeli spokesperson makes an important point, one which has broader significance in the Jewish state’s battle against delegitimization tactics such as BDS.

The purpose of BDS, which has its origins in the NGO Forum of the UN’s 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, “is to isolate Israel via boycotts of Israeli academic, cultural, and consumer institutions, divestment from companies doing business with Israel, and sanctions in the areas of military, economic, and diplomatic cooperation agreements between Israel and other states.”

However, what BDS activists never seem to take into consideration, despite a pitiful record of failure upon failure, is that Israel’s increasing technological and economic prowess serves as a natural bulwark against such pressure.

EU officials’ reluctance to embrace BDS, either de facto or de jure, is not based on fear of angering Jews (a community which, after all, represents a measly two tenths of 1% of the world’s total population) but, rather, on a sober understanding of their own political and economic interests.

For instance, Israel is ranked #2 in the world for venture capital funds, and first in venture capital investments (as a percentage of GDP) compared to 34 OECD nations, not because venture capitalists are passionate Zionists, but because they intuitively understand that Israel’s economic success, highly educated workforce and relative political stability makes it a sound investment.

Additionally, Israel’s recent emergence as a regional energy superpower will likely mean that the ability of the anti-Zionist Arab governments to influence political opinion in Europe and the rest of the world may decline.

In short, there is a direct and necessary relationship between Israel’s culture of success (which is, by nature, immune to outside influence) and the increasing irrelevance of  BDS – a supremely immoral movement which is destined to continue to fail spectacularly.

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Jul 13 2012

Matthew Gould provides another glimpse into delusional British attitudes towards Israel

The following essay was written by Hadar Sela, and published at The Commentator.

How much does Matthew Gould’s speech reflect the institutionalised views of the FCO?

Recently, The Commentator offered some insight into attitudes towards Israel within the British Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Further illumination was available this week when Matthew Gould, the British Ambassador to Israel, spoke at a sub-committee meeting in the Knesset in Jerusalem.

There is much in the Ambassador’s speech (which, obviously, reflects the attitudes of those he represents rather than his own opinions) to raise quizzical eyebrows, but insufficient space here to address all the points.

Not the least bizarre was the statement that last year the British government allocated £2 million for security in Jewish schools — without addressing the rather obvious follow-up question of why Jewish schools in the UK (and only they) are in need of security in the first place.

No less bizarre is the following claim:

“…[T]here is indeed a small group of people in the UK – as in many other countries – who are determined to promote a fundamental assault upon Israel’s very legitimacy.  They represent a small minority, but they are active, loud and hugely dedicated. 

They try, and sometimes succeed, to marshal civil society organisations to their cause. These people are on the margin of political life, but they have made occasional inroads into mainstream politics.”

One can but speculate as to how Palestine Solidarity Campaign patrons such as Jeremy Corbyn MP and Baroness Tonge will react to the knowledge that the FCO considers them to be ‘on the margin of political life’.

Equally, one wonders how the 17 trade unions affiliated to the PSC – representing, according to their own claims, 80 percent of the members of the 6.5 million-strong TUC – became a ‘small minority’. And, according to the Ambassador’s theory, apparently the Church of England can also now be classified as a fringe group.  

But among all the claims made in the speech, there are two in particular which merit further discussion. The Ambassador – again, presumably reflecting FCO accepted wisdoms – stated that:

“There is an important battle for public opinion to be had in the UK, but it is not the one at the far fringes of political life.  Rather, it is for the centre ground, where the issue is not delegitimisation but a genuine concern about the absence of progress towards peace, about settlements and the occupation. 

“By contrast, progress towards peace will further discredit the delegitimisers and allow Israel’s supporters to shift their energy away from extinguishing fires to embracing Israel positively.”

Notably, this view places the onus entirely upon one party involved in the conflict: Israel. It completely ignores the many efforts –and sacrifices – Israel has made over the years in order to try to achieve a settlement to the conflict.

Read the rest of the essay, here.

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Jul 5 2012

It’s the Settlements, Stupid: Alon Liel’s Fantastic Vision for Peace in our Time

A guest post by Gidon Ben-Zvi, who blogs at Jerusalem State of Mind

The road to peace? A Jewish child sits in front of the rubble of a structure demolished by Israeli police in a settlement outside Ramallah, on Sept. 5, 2011.

A frenzy of sorts has broken out surrounding a former Israeli ambassador to South Africa’s recent backing of international efforts to prevent produce originating in Jewish settlements in the West Bank from being labeled “Made in Israel”.

The goal of such a policy, according to former ambassador Alon Liel, would be to protect and reinforce the pre-1967 border. Liel goes on to commend the decision of South African and Danish governments to delineate between products originating in Israel and those coming out of “settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories…” since such settlements “…are not [in] Israel [but] are built on occupied land outside Israel’s internationally recognised borders and are illegal under international law.”                                                                                                     

While Liel’s piece is loaded down with references to “international law”, the esteemed former diplomat fails to communicate a most basic fact: international law makes a clear distinction between land occupied during a war of aggression and land taken as a result of a defensive war.

Israel captured the West Bank and Gaza Strip in a war of survival. In fact, Israel’s seizing of land in 1967 was, arguably, the ONLY legal acquisition of this territory in the 20th century. In contrast, Jordan’s occupation of the West Bank from 1947 to 1967 had been the result of an offensive war launched against the fledgling Jewish state in 1948. With the exception of Great Britain and Pakistan, this particular occupation was never recognized by the international community, including the Arab states.

Having delegitimized Israel’s claim to the territory it acquired during the Six Day War, Liel then takes aim at that pesky, perpetual enemy of peace in the Middle East: the settlements. According to the former ambassador: “[t]he continuing settlement expansion threatens to make a two-state solution to the conflict impossible.”

Indeed, concern over Israeli settlement construction is not a new issue. Yet, despite the “the expansionist policy of Israel’s rightwing government led by Binyamin Netanyahu”, serious, concerted efforts have been made to determine and cement the legal status of the outposts in the “occupied territories”.

On July 3rd, 2012, a committee tasked with examining the legality of Jewish construction in Judea and Samaria, headed by a retired Israeli Supreme Court justice, concluded that international law does not preclude Israeli construction on land owned by the state. The committee also declared that communities built with government assistance were implicitly authorized.

However, the report that the committee, established by Prime Minister Netanyahu, issued went far beyond merely asserting Israeli sovereignty over the disputed territories. It also made a concerted effort to address lingering legal issues regarding communities which were not built on privately owned Palestinian land, but whose status was still in doubt due to legal bureaucracy.

The report also criticized Israeli government action in the territories, stating that “dozens of new neighborhoods have been erected, without government authorization and at times without a contiguous link to the mother community… several were built outside the legal jurisdiction allotted to the community.”

Having whitewashed the existential threat faced by Israel that precipitated its military response in June, 1967 – against Arab nations openly committed to the destruction of the Jewish State - Liel then proceeds to demonize the Jewish inhabitants of homes that were subsequently built in these territories.

Liel aims to shock with his presentation of the old and intellectually fuzzy demographic time bomb argument: 550,000 Jewish settlers now squatting in the “occupied” lands. Truth be told, over two-thirds of the Jews in the West Bank live in five settlement “blocs” that are all near the 1967 border.

Most Israelis believe these blocs should become part of Israel when final borders are drawn.

Furthermore, built-up settlement area is less than two percent of the disputed territories. An estimated 70 percent of the settlers live in what are in effect suburbs of major Israeli cities such as Jerusalem. These are areas that virtually the entire Jewish population believes Israel must retain to ensure its security.

In short, the main obstacle to peace between Israel and its Arab neighbors has never been the territories, or the settlements, or the settlers – it has been the very existence of Israel. From 1949–67, when Jews were forbidden to live in the West Bank and “East” Jerusalem, the Arabs nonetheless refused to make peace with the “Zionist Entity”.

It is worth considering that the growth in the Jewish population in the territories may actually serve as a catalyst for peace since the Palestinians now realize that time is on the side of Israel, which can build settlements and create facts on the ground. Realizing this, Israel’s peace partners may finally acknowledge that the only way out of its dilemma is face-to-face negotiations, without preconditions. 

Ultimately, the disposition of settlements is a matter for final status negotiations. While one may legitimately support or challenge Israeli settlements in the disputed territories, they are not illegal. Furthermore, Alon Liel’s favorite obstacles to peace have neither the size, population, nor placement to have a serious impact on sincere efforts to reach a comprehensive agreement with the Palestinians on issues of disputed territories.

Jun 24 2012

Columnist for Ha’aretz, a Guardian protege paper, seeks Alice Walker’s wisdom on Israeli racism

Here’s a multiple choice question:

Maya Sela, literary correspondent for Ha’aretz, penned an essay for ‘Comment is Free’ (Alice Walker’s ‘The Color Purple” should be read in Israel, June 22nd) opposing the American writer’s decision not to allow her novel to be translated into Hebrew (a boycott against the entire Hebrew speaking country) because:

A) Singling out Israel for BDS (Boycotts, Divestment, Sanctions) is morally hypocritical and inherently racist.

B) Alice Walker is an antisemite with no moral authority by which to lecture the Jewish state and indeed has engaged in Judeophobic narratives including the following: evoking the ancient decide charge by conflating the “persecuted” Palestinians with Jesus Christ, advancing the odious charge that Israel’s sins can arguably be compared to those of Nazi Germany, and morally legitimizing a Palestinian women who prayed that God would protect her from the Jews.

C) Whatever her literary talents, many of Walker’s political views are facile and downright juvenile and she represents an embarrassment to serious left-wing critics of Israel. For instance, she believes that Israel is the greatest terrorist organization in the world and has referred to Jews who live across the green line as being on a par with the KKK.

D) Preventing Israelis from reading ‘The Color Purple’ denies Jews Walker’s liberating wisdom on how to combat their nation’s “primitive”, “sick” and “extensive” racism”.

If you guessed (D), you’re correct.

Sela begins by arguing:

“[BDS supporters like Walker] are feeding the flames of a lingering sense of victimhood. Victimhood is one of those mental constructs that is hard for Israelis to rid themselves of – and therefore, one which the Israeli establishment itself nurtures because it is convenient.”

The Ha’aretz ideological bubble which Sela inhabits is evidently as blind to the ugly reality concerning very real regional enemies possessing undeniable malevolence (insatiable antisemitism, a collective desire to wipe Israel from the map, and terrorist movements on its borders which launch hundreds of rockets into its towns each year) as it is to the circular logic it often peddles.  

What Sela is essentially saying is that singling out the democratic Jewish state for sanction doesn’t suggest that Israel is the victim of a malicious movement intent on isolating it from the community of nations but rather that it erroneously reinforces the nation’s belief that it is being victimized.  For Sela, the BDS movement is convenient for Israelis because, on some psychological level, it allows them to nurture the evidently fantastical notion that antisemitism (in its classic and anti-Zionist manifestations) is a malign and dangerous force.

Sela continues:

“Walker, of all people, who has confronted racism and written a powerful fictional critique of it, is preventing Israelis from being exposed to the very kind of literary work that is crucial for them to read….”

Whatever the powerful truths about the evils of racism imparted the book ‘The Color Purple’, Sela doesn’t offer her Ha’aretz readers so much as a clue regarding Walker’s profound blind spot when it comes to Israelis. Walker’s anti-racist street cred is necessarily eroded by an acquiescence to the most crude, often unintelligible, hate speech about Jews as such.  

Ultimately, Walker is only granted political legitimacy and moral authority by virtue of the failure of journalists like Sela to take her task (or even minimally hold her accountable) over this visceral loathing she seems to possess for one nation: the particular Jewish inhabitants of the state of Israel.

Walker may have confronted racism in her own life but when it comes to Jews, she has come to represent the hate which hate creates.

Sela concludes:

 ”It is precisely here in Israel that her voice needs to be heard, and in Hebrew.

[Walker should] have found that the occupation is only one of our problems. Perhaps it’s the most acute of our problems, but the manifestations of racism in Israeli life are far more extensive than solely attitudes towards the Palestinians. The incarceration and deportation of African migrants living in Israel…is eliciting unprecedented racism from Israelis…

Something inside us is sick.” [emphasis mine]

Perhaps the most acute pathos of the Israeli left is the failure to even marginally comprehend the ethical imperative of political and moral proportion. It is representative of a Western left, more broadly, which routinely engages in self-flagellation over every imaginable societal sin, without acknowledging that such social imperfections pale in comparison their profound progressive virtues and undeniable liberal advantages over the non-democratic world.

This is the “sickness” which, as much as any other factor, continues to define the hard left: “intellectuals” who cannot distinguish between free nations consisting of imperfect citizens with ethnocentric biases and the capacity for toxic rhetoric (but where such behavior typically elicits social opprobrium) and nations where racism, intolerance (and violence) directed against “the other” is normative, and encouraged by the state, religious leaders, the media and popular culture.  

Guardian protegés such as Ha’aretz journalist Maya Sela are also plagued by an acute moral myopia – the willingness to bestow liberal anti-racist credentials to nearly anyone who fancies themselves anti-Zionist.

A genuine intellectual left – one with a serious moral claim to that mantle – would immediately exclude any “activist” from the progressive community who, like Walker, engages in tropes about Jews which are indistinguishable from those employed by the extreme right. 

Alice Walker is no anti-racist and Jews need not take seriously her self-righteous, and supremely hubristic, lectures on intolerance.

A genuinely progressive Israeli voice would understand this intuitive truth.       

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Jun 22 2012

Antisemitism with a literary glow: Alice Walker’s ugly caricature of Israeli Jews

Written by Hadar Sela and Adam Levick

“Jesus, a Palestinian – is still being crucified.” (Alice Walker’s blog, per CAMERA)

“[Israeli] settlers are the [Ku Klux] Klan” (Alice Walker, during interview with Jesse Rosenfeld.)

“I think Israel is the greatest terrorist in that part of the world. And I think in general, the United States and Israel are great terrorist organizations themselves.”  (Alice Walker, Foreign Policy, in June, 2011.)

“I feel that the Israel that many Jews dreamed of having – that one is gone. That’s demolished. I think it’s time for people to accept that. Because what you have now is something that is so frightening. Israel is as frightening to many of us as Germany used to be.” (Alice Walker: Why I’m joining the Freedom Flotilla to Gaza, Guardian, June 25, 2011).”

The literary foot-stomping  which is Alice Walker’s recent refusal to permit her book ‘The Colour Purple’ to be translated into Hebrew – bizarre as it is – can hardly have come as much of a surprise to anyone familiar with the writer’s history of anti-Israel activism. Neither does the Guardian’s decision to showcase extensive sections of Walker’s letter of refusal to the would-be publisher exactly come as a shock.

Walker is a long-standing activist in the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS), and indeed allowed her letter to the Israeli publisher which requested permission to translate the book to be posted on the website of PACBI – the Palestinian Campaign for Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel – which leads and sets the tone for the BDS campaign.

PACBI does not aspire to a two-state solution – it promotes the ‘return’ of millions of descendants of Palestinian refugees, thereby rejecting the existence of Israel within any borders. PACBI opposes ‘normalisation’ and has produced a document which defines that term as:

“participating in any project, initiative or activity whether locally or internationally, that is designed to bring together-whether directly or indirectly Palestinian and/or Arab youth with Israelis (whether individuals or institutions) and is not explicitly designed to resist or expose the occupation and all forms of discrimination and oppression inflicted upon the Palestinian people.”

PACBI founding member and steering committee member Omar Barghouti believes (mistakenly) that:

“International law does give people under occupation the right to resist in any way, including armed resistance”.

In other words, Alice Walker chose to make her statement on the platform of an organization which aspires, by any means, to oppose co-existence in the Middle East and bring about an end to the Jewish state.

That too should not be surprising, for another of Alice Walker’s pet hobbies is supporting an additional Palestinian organization which opposes dialogue, seeks to bring about the end of Israel and openly calls for the murder of Jews – Hamas.

In 2011 Walker joined the (failed) flotilla to Gaza, engaging in self-promotion on the pages of the Guardian (where else?) along the way. Walker’s flowery prose was full of buzz-words such as ‘justice’ and ‘respect’, but any concern for the people of Israel’s south – battered and traumatized for over a decade by the terror organizations involved in organizing that flotilla – was remarkably absent, as Howard Jacobson pointed out to her at the time.

And then of course there is Alice Walker’s involvement in that self-appointed kangaroo court-cum-echo chamber known as the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, which flits from venue to venue in order to reach the foregone conclusion of Israeli’s immutable guilt based on carefully pre-selected ‘evidence’.

Walker claims that her decision not to allow her book to be translated into Hebrew is part of her ongoing attempt to “rid humanity of its self-destructive habit of dehumanizing whole populations”, yet it has obviously never occurred to her that she is supremely guilty of that fault herself.

A woman who would liken Israelis who live on the “wrong” side of the green line” to the KKK is an unserious political poser – an extremist engaged in incendiary, hateful, and dehumanizing rhetoric about hundreds of thousands of Jews.

A once  celebrated literary figure who holds steady with the sophomoric belief that the United States and Israel are the “great terrorist organizations” of our time is someone who has become a 60′s political anachronism: an embarrassment to those who may have succumbed to the temptation of imputing to Walker true wisdom by virtue of her literary achievements.

A person who excuses terror and murder by claiming that “[t]his is David and Goliath, but Goliath is not the Palestinians. They are David. They are the ones with the slingshot. They are the ones with the rocks and relatively not-so-powerful rockets. Whereas the Israelis have these incredibly damaging missiles and rockets” is severely lacking in even basic human empathy.

Much of Walker’s self-allocated expertise and supreme authority on the subjects of terrorism, discrimination and apartheid is, by her own account, based upon her experiences growing up in the south of the United States.

But by choosing to support a plethora of organisations which seek to deny Jews the right to self-determination like any other nation in the world and in promoting her own radical-chic credentials by deeming a language – and the nation which speaks it – beyond the pale, Walker shows herself to be no better than the Deep South racists of her youth.

Walker, schooled in the art of compassion, liberalism (and the theology of liberation) evidently fails to note the succor she is providing for the most illiberal, reactionary Islamist movements: forces of antisemitic intolerance which resemble – indeed, wildly exceed – the fervor of hardcore racism arduously defended during the 1950s and 1960s in places like Jackson, Mississippi and Birmingham, Alabama.

In an essay which Walker wrote in 2009, she described giving a gift to a Palestinian woman:

“I gave her a gift I had brought, and she thanked me. Looking into my eyes she said: May God Protect You From the Jews. When the young Palestinian interpreter told me what she’d said, I responded: It’s too late, I already married one.” [emphasis added]

It may be too later for her, but Alice Walker seems intent on at least protecting others from the perfidy of the Jewish people.

May 29 2012

Richard Millett: Habima’s Merchant of Venice rocks London’s Globe Theatre

Cross posted by the indispensable Richard Millett

I really enjoyed last night’s performance of Habima’s The Merchant of Venice at The Globe on the south bank of the River Thames on a beautiful summer evening in London.

The cast received a prolonged standing ovation at the end (see above). The Globe was the perfect setting with its open roof allowing you to peer into the ever darkening sky as the constant movement of small planes readied you for the inevitable interruptions.

My main concerns were whether I would follow a play in Hebrew and whether the interruptions would ruin the experience, but two small screens kept us nicely updated in English and The Globe’s security knew when to act and when not to.

Security removed protesters swiftly so limiting the disruption but they allowed a very weird protest, where six protesters stood silently on the first balcony for virtually the entire first half with their lips taped up, to proceed.

First protest during last night’s show.

Second protest during last night’s show.

The performance itself brought to the fore the comedy of The Merchant of Venice with a humourous gondola impression each time the action transferred to Venice, reminiscent of a sideways Moonwalk.

Seeing Shylock dispossessed of everything when Antonio’s defence lawyer finds a loophole in his contract with Shylock and watching Shylock forced to convert to Christianity to escape going to prison himself was maybe a Shakespearian premonition of the treatment in store for the Jews of Europe and Arab countries in the centuries to come.

In all there were some 20 protesters. I recognised two of them:

Peter Scott recently tried to have me arrested and charged with harassment for doing nothing more than photographing him for my blog holding a Palestinian flag at an anti-Israel protest. Last night he donned a smart Panama hat. When I noticed him during the interval I pointed him out to security who, again, did nothing.

I went out to get a drink but when I came back two friends said that a man wearing a Panama had just been removed by security after he had approached them to discuss the disturbances. As they were talking to him they noticed he was wearing an electronic recording device on his lapel. Here is Scott during the interval:

I saw the following protester going into The Globe last night and when I called his name he looked round. I then called security but he made haste away from me until he was eventually caught by security and, out of breathe and shaking, gave a butter-wouldn’t-melt-in-my-mouth look.

I felt traumatised that I might have unjustly accused an innocent person and ruined his evening, but just before the interval he did unfurl a banner and was removed by security:


Jonathan Rosenhead about to be removed by Globe security last night.

Meanwhile, the foyer was packed with police dealing with the protesters. In the top left corner here you can spot ubiquitous anti-Zionist activist Tony Greenstein:

Outside The Globe the Zionist Federation and Stand With Us had arranged a pro-Israel protest. There was also a pen for Palestine Solidarity Campaign activists. One PSC man had donned a mask with a big nose, but swore it wasn’t an anti-Semitic gesture.

I asked some of the PSC  lot whether they saw the recent production of Richard II by the Palestinian theatre company also at The Globe. They said they didn’t as it was a matinée and they had work commitments. They must have conveniently failed to spot the Saturday performance at 7.30pm then; proof, if ever it was needed, that PSC activists don’t give a damn about the Palestinians.

Habima is expecting another packed house tonight and many thanks should be paid to The Globe, its security and the police for allowing the show to go on despite the efforts of those with ignorant views.

Meanwhile, the London Evening Standard described last night’s performance by Habima as “a tricky evening triumphantly negotiated” and The Times said it was “an evening to remember for reasons of art as well as politics”.

Photos from outside The Globe last night:

This is not an anti-Semitic gesture by a PSC comrade, apparently.

Having fun outside The Globe.

Sweet

Precisely

Related articles
May 27 2012

Overview of Guardian coverage of Israel: April 30th to May 27th 2012.

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:

  • The afternoon of March 11, 2012: Members of the cell attacked an Israeli driver on the road between the village of Rantis and Kiryat Sefer (northeast of Ramallah), near Beit Arieh. They blocked the car and tried to drag the driver out, but he escaped.
  • March 12, 2012: Members of the cell attacked an Israeli woman driving along the road to the village of Ma’ale Lavonah in southern Samaria. They blocked the car and used various blunt objects in an attempt to shatter the front windshield. The driver escaped in her car.
  • The night of March 15, 2012: Cell operatives attacked an Israeli woman driving with her infant daughter from Givat Assaf (north of Ramallah) to Beit El. They blocked the car and shattered the front windshield but fled when another Israeli vehicle approached.
  • During March the cell tried to abduct Israeli civilian hitchhikers from the gas station at the village of Mishor Adumim, east of Jerusalem. They stopped their car and one of the Israelis almost got in, but a friend prevented him.”

(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.  


May 18 2012

Leader of ‘Stop BDS at Park Slope Coop’ campaign (& CiF Watch reader) featured on Daily Show

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”!

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May 17 2012

Chair of Manchester Palestine Solidarity Campaign declares Israeli Hoopoe birds ‘Aves non gratae’.

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. 

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May 16 2012

Guardian letters page publishes a diversity of opinion on why Israel is cruel & oppressive

This is cross posted from Anne’s Opinions

In yesterday’s Guardian letters page (May 15) the decision was unanimous. Israel is guilty.

The first letter is from Lord Andrew Phillips.  Before reading it you should know that Lord Phillips has previous “form” on Israel. He has claimed that “America is in the grip of the well-organized Jewish Lobby“, and he once chaired an event organized by MEMO, a Hamas-supporting group.

The basis for today’s letter was a ‘Comment is Free’ column (May 8) objecting to the proposed boycott of Israel by the TUC and other UK unions.

Phillips writes:

Israel‘s ambassador, Daniel Taub, is right to say the Unison boycott is discriminatory (From boycott to bigotry, 9 May). That is the unavoidable crudity of all boycotts, which are usually last-resort expedients when governments do nothing. For many there is no other practical means of expressing, with any sniff of effectiveness, abhorrence at the relentless colonisation by Israel of the West Bank and East Jerusalem (appropriating so far well over 40% of their land mass by recent Foreign Office calculations).

Actually, according to these maps produced by the BBC (whom one could hardly accuse of being biased towards Israel) the following conclusion is drawn:

“Israel has pursued a policy of building settlements on the West Bank.These cover about 2% of the area of the West Bank.”

According to this AIJAC report the number is probably less:

“B’tselem is highly critical of Israeli settlement policy in the West Bank, and commissioned a detailed survey of the West Bank to determine the degree of settlement control and published a highly critical report last year. The group choose to focus their publicity for the report on the fact that municipal and regional councils associated with the settlements had theoretical legal jurisdiction over 42% of the West Bank, but they also conceded that their survey showed that the “built-up area” of settlements constituted a mere .99% of West Bank land. (As for the 42% number, one often quoted by Palestinian advocates, it is pretty irrelevant. This is municipal jurisdiction – ie zoning, planning, responsibility for local road maintenance – over mostly empty land. This land can become part of a future Palestinian state essentially at the stroke of a pen.)”

Back to Phillips’ letter:

“The fact that a significant minority of Israelis, and many Jews here, vehemently oppose both that colonisation and Gaza’s slow strangulation, with the oppression and humiliation that attends them, only underlines the complete failure of western (particularly US and UK) diplomacy, replete as it is with double standards.”

Again, lots of emotive words with no facts to back any of them.  He does not even explain what double standards he is talking about.

Phillips continues:

“If the Israeli government were remotely interested in accommodation with Palestine, as opposed to its subjugation, they would long ago have ceased their annexation programme…”

Annexation program? The only area captured in 1967 that has been annexed is “East” Jerusalem, i.e. the part of Jerusalem that was originally home to thousands of Jews until they were expelled by the Jordanians in 1948.

The next letter on the page is from a Sylvia Cohen, who writes to express support for the boycott of Israel’s Habima Theatre (a bit late now that the boycott has been rejected). Again, Ms. Cohen has “form” on Israel with at least two previous letters in the Guardian, one rejecting any celebration of Israel’s birth, as the Jewish state was “founded on terrorism, massacres and the dispossession of another people from their land.”

The third letter was written by Ernest Rodker. Again, Mr. Rodker is no ordinary outraged citizen. He is the UK spokesman for the Israeli man convicted of treason, Mordechai Vanunu.  (He can be seen here being interviewed by Iranian Press TV.)

His letter is a farrago of lies, exaggerations and outright propaganda. He writes:

“It is strange to read Daniel Taub, defending what he calls the voices speaking for peace against being boycotted, when he is representing and defending one of the most vindictive and oppressive governments in the Middle East.” [emphasis added]

While I’m not sure which human rights organizations have attempted to quantify Israel’s level of “vindictiveness”, the suggestion that the Jewish state is among the most oppressive in the region is simply risible. (See this report by Freedom House for a definitive analysis of Israel’s human rights record.) 

Rodker continues:

“Faced with thousands of Palestinians imprisoned for long periods without trial, many in their teens, assassinations of suspects not proven guilty, and appropriation of hundreds of acres of land through illegal evictions alongside the building of many illegal settlements, and all in the name of defending Israel, Taub’s comments are hardly credible.”

“Thousands of Palestinians imprisoned”? Wrong. Even B’Tselem has the number at 308. Assassinations of suspects not proven guilty? By “suspects” perhaps he’s referring to the targeted killing of terrorists in neighboring Gaza involved in the planning or execution of attacks against Israelis, a practice the U.S. has been using quite liberally to kill terrorists thousands of miles away from its shores, in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The final letter is by Karl Sabbagh, a Palestinian-British writer, who comments:

[...] if Taub thinks that the boycotts of Israel have done “nothing at all”, why is he so exercised about them?

WhyBecause boycotts have a publicity appeal which have everything to do with delegitimization and nothing to do with practicalities.

Sabbagh goes on to list some companies who have withdrawn from collaboration with Israel under pressure from BDS groups, but the immediate victims of these boycotts and economic blackmail are the Palestinians themselves. If Sabbagh would ever come to Israel he would see that the trains (from which Deutsche Bahn were pressured to withdraw) are running (not on time, this is Israel after all), the electricity (from which Veolia was pressurized to withdraw) is humming and Israel’s economy continues to thrive.  The BDS-ers are certainly not having it all their way, as the site “Divest This!” explains.

Sabbagh concludes:

“Taub may say he is concerned on behalf of the Palestinians, but there are plenty of Palestinians – I am one of them – who cheer every victory of the boycott movement as a sign that there are limits to Israel’s power to have things its own way.”

He may claim proudly to be a Palestinian, but he lives in Britain and will not feel the effect of boycotts on himself or his family. He is ready to sacrifice his co-nationals on the altar of his radical-chic “right-on” mentality.

These four letters illustrate more clearly than any textual analysis the Guardian’s World View - showing Israel in the worst light possible, exaggerating every conceivable sin, and belittling Israel’s undeniable progressive and democratic advantages.

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May 7 2012

Video: BDS leader Omar Barghouti making blatantly racist remark

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.

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May 6 2012

The stylish appeal of BDS movement’s tireless campaign to erode the Jewish state’s legitimacy

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.

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May 5 2012

Made in Israel

With all the recent attempts by the BDS movement to promote their negative cause, perhaps it is time for a brief reminder of what – despite its short history, lack of natural resources and constant national security issues – Israel contributes to the world. 

This video was made by ‘Israel 21c’ in honour of Israel’s 64th anniversary. 

And – credit where credit is due – here’s a decent Guardian article on the subject of the latest TV hit ‘Homeland’ and its parent series ‘Hatufim’: made in Israel, of course. 

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May 5 2012

Would a Jewish Supporter of BDS boycott this Israeli Company?

A guest post by AKUS

As anyone who has read my comments and articles from time to time will know, if there is one kind of opponent of Israel I absolutely loathe it is the as-a-Jew who claims authority, as a Jew, to condemn Israel for this or that issue. Among that select group, the as-a-Jew BDSer is the lowest of the low. And among those, the most objectionable are those who do not even use the fig-leaf of wanting to boycott companies whose products come from the West Bank, often providing employment to local Arabs (see the latest embarrassment from the British Co-op Boycott), but any Israeli company at all for whatever pet or imagined reason. 

It was with particular interest and renewed pride in yet another amazing Israeli accomplishment that I noticed that a tiny Israeli company called Protalix Biotherapeutics has developed a medical compound to treat a rare disease called Gaucher’s Disease.  According to the USA’s FDA site:

“The U.S. Food and Drug Administration today approved Elelyso (taliglucerase alfa) for long-term enzyme replacement therapy to treat a form of Gaucher disease, a rare genetic disorder.

Gaucher disease occurs in people who do not produce enough of an enzyme called glucocerebrosidase. The enzyme deficiency causes fatty materials (lipids) to collect in the spleen, liver, kidneys, and other organs. The major signs of Gaucher disease include liver or spleen damage, low red blood cell counts (anemia), low blood platelet counts, and bone problems.

Elelyso is an injection that replaces the missing enzyme in patients with a confirmed diagnosis of Type 1 (non-neuropathic) Gaucher disease and should be administered by a health care professional every other week. Type 1 Gaucher disease is estimated to affect about 6,000 people in the United States.”

The shares of this tiny company skyrocketed to give it a market capitalization of in excess of $600 million after the FDA approval. Pfizer paid $60 million upfront during development for the distribution rights and $55 million as it passed regulatory milestones for the global distribution rights.

Now, I know nothing about Gaucher’s disease, biochemistry, or anything to do with this particular development or company. But as I read about it, I found that, like Tay-Sachs, Gaucher’s disease is particularly prevalent among Ashkenazi Jews. For example, this site among others  notes:

“Gaucher disease occurs in 1 in 50,000 to 100,000 people in the general population. Type 1 is the most common form of the disorder, and occurs more frequently in people of Ashkenazi (eastern and central European) Jewish heritage than in those with other backgrounds. This condition affects 1 in 500 to 1,000 people of Ashkenazi Jewish heritage. The other forms of Gaucher disease are uncommon, and do not occur more frequently in people of Ashkenazi Jewish descent.”

Protalix is based in Carmiel, in the Galilee. No doubt someone, somewhere, would claim it sits on the site of a former Arab village or land thereof and therefore is equally a valid target for a boycott, or should be boycotted just because it is an Israeli company. And it would not surprise me to learn that the “someone” was an “as-a-Jew”.

It occurred to me to wonder whether any of the “as-a-Jews”, who are, for the most part, Ashkenazi Jews living in the USA and Europe, would refuse treatment if they suffer from Gaucher’s disease, or whether self-interest might overcome their politically correct scruples. Or, perhaps, just as some “as-a-Jews” have joined those calling for a boycott of, for example, Caterpillar because its equipment is used by the IDF, would they overcome their personal medical needs and call for a boycott of Pfizer as some encourage others  to boycott  the giant Israeli pharmaceutical firm, TEVA, just because it is Israeli?

An interesting question, I think.

See also this for another ineffectual example of BDS lunacy:

British Food Retailer Hit With Jewish Counter-Boycott

“Boycotting Israeli products can be a sticky business where boycotters can end up with egg on their faces as the British food retailer the Co-operative Group discovered today.

The Group learned that its Israeli boycott is inadvertently banning goods from Palestinian farmers, and the co-op is now officially the target of a counter-boycott by Jews and their supporters in England.

In a confused statement to the Jerusalem Post, the co-op declined to make an assessment on the impact this boycott might have toward Palestinian farmers in the Gaza Strip, saying instead that the co-op will actively work to increase trade with Palestinians in the disputed Gaza territories, while also doing business with Israeli companies.”

Or this for a fascinating glimpse into the impact of BDS on Palestinians and the inability of the BDS movement to consult a map:

Boycott Israel Effort Leads to Increased Sales for An Israeli Shoemaker

“According to the protestors, “Naot’s soles come from the industrial zone of Gush Etzion, which is an illegal settlement located in the heart of the West Bank on occupied territory.”

 If the protesters had checked the facts before raising their placards, they’d know that claim is false. The CEO Illouz says Teva Naot shoe soles are made in Germany and Spain. What’s more, for 20 years, the company has employed hundreds of Palestinian workers – whom the activists purportedly support — in Hebron and Jerusalem who do sewing work via Palestinian subcontractors. The rest of the shoes are constructed on the Israeli kibbutz Neot Mordechai which is not located in the West Bank. Therefore, if the boycotters were successful, a sales decline could potentially place in jeopardy the jobs of hundreds of Palestinians.”

Kibbutz Neot Mordechai is located in the Upper Galilee, near Kiryat Shmona; nowhere near Gush Etzion, which is near Jerusalem.

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May 3 2012

BDS-promoting Palestine Festival of Literature supported by British public funding.

Last December CiF Watch published an article about the Palestine Festival of Literature (or ‘PalFest’ as it is more frequently known), its origins and its connections to the Guardian. For those wishing to refresh their memories, the article is here. 

Unsurprisingly then, the Guardian’s culture section carried an article by Alison Flood on May 2nd about this year’s PalFest which is scheduled to begin this weekend in Ramallah, and then to travel to Gaza and Cairo. 

The May 5th event in Ramallah will feature, among others, Guardian employee Rachel Holmes and BBC World Service producer Bee Rowlatt. Among those appearing at the events in Gaza starting from May 6th will be PalFest founder and Guardian writer Ahdaf Soueif, Alaa Abd el-Fattah (who has also contributed to the Guardian and is Ahdaf Soueif’s nephew), Suad Amiry (whose books are available via the Guardian bookshop) and Selma Dabbagh, (who has also written for and been reviewed by the Guardian). 

The interesting parts of Flood’s article are these: (emphasis added) 

“PalFest, a festival of public events, student workshops and meetings with civil society leaders, is set to run from 5 to 9 May in Gaza, with an initial event in Ramallah on the 5 May and a finale in Cairo on the 11 May. Supported by organisations including Arts Council England and the British Council, with patrons including Chinua Achebe, Seamus Heaney and Philip Pullman, it endorses the Palestinian call for the academic and cultural boycott of Israel, and states as its mission the reinvigoration of “cultural ties between Arab countries, ties that have been eroded for too long”. Soueif is its founding chair.”

“Dr Haidar Eid, a literature professor at Gaza’s Al-Aqsa University, said the festival was “a sign of the growing solidarity across borders in our struggle against racism and oppression”.

“Intellectuals and writers played a key role in ending apartheid in South Africa; likewise, Arab cultural figures are visiting Gaza this year to show solidarity with Palestinian academics and artists in support for their call to increase the global BDS [Boycott Divestment and Sanctions] campaign against apartheid Israel,” he said. “On behalf of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, we deeply appreciate the Arab writers’ principled and consistent support for the Palestinian civil struggle for justice and peace in Palestine.” “

 The Arts Council England receives funding from the British government’s Department of Culture, Media and Sport to the tune of £350 million after the recent cuts. It also enjoys further public financial support via National Lottery funding.

The British Council received £196 million in government grants via the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 2010-11. It is a registered charity and comes under UK embassy and Consular auspices. 

The BBC World Service (Bee Rowlatt’s employer) is also publicly funded, amongst others by DFID – the Department for International Development – and at present, the Foreign and Commonwealth Office.  

On the other hand, in 2008 the British Council’s CEO Martin Davidson said that:

“The British Council is firmly opposed to an academic boycott of Israeli universities. Academic boycotts are bad in principle, and would be bad in this specific case… dialogue is unlikely to be sustained without exchange between academics and academic institutions…”   

And in 2009 the British Embassy in Israel claimed on behalf of the previous government that:

“The British government is opposed to any kind of boycott of Israel.”

So which is it? For boycotts or against? 

Unfortunately, the publicly-funded Arts Council made its stance more than clear last November when, in response to criticism of its funding of an event featuring proud anti-Semite Gilad Atzmon, it issued a statement saying:

“It is not the Arts Council’s role to dictate artistic policy to a funded organisation, or to restrict an artist from expressing their views. What our policies and procedures do ensure is that we fund a wide range of organisations and individuals who, collectively, present a diverse view of world society.”

It would, however be interesting to hear what the tax-paying British public thinks about the fact that organizations and government departments which it funds even in these difficult economic times see fit to support a project such as PalFest which openly declares its aims to be contrary those expressed at least by the former British government.

It would also be interesting to hear representatives of the FCO, DFID and DCMS explain their departments’ involvement – albeit indirectly – in promoting the aims of the BDS movement and PACBI, which rejects normalization of any kind and aspires to dismantle the Jewish State.  

Until they do, many may continue to think that ambivalent British government policies, actions and statements do much to contribute to the increasingly unpleasant atmosphere on the streets of the UK as well as undermining Britain’s stance as an honest broker in the Middle East. 

 

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