Comments on: The Boycott Revisited

By: mary

mary — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 21:38:20 +0000

The boycott is growing!

Norway withdrwing from Elbit, US pensions fund divesting from Leviev’s Africa Asia Investments, Veolia, and now Brazil and Mercosur (see http://www.bdsmovement.net)

The BDS movement is picking up steam and really making an impact. Here is the Brazil story.

http://english.pnn.ps/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6930

By: Benjamin

Benjamin — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 12:50:16 +0000

In South Africa, many major white institutions took a strong stand against apartheid. By my understanding, the major English universities, for instance, had regular affirmations of their opposition to the racist system around them.

How about that as a minimum? We hear this talk of ‘liberal Israel,’ or ‘the liberal Hebrew University,’ but would such an institution separate itself from the settlements and the military? Would it even condemn the occupation, much less Zionism?

By: Mulga Mumblebrain

Mulga Mumblebrain — Wed, 09 Sep 2009 02:46:41 +0000

I’d better apologise to Tutu. I came across some recent criticism by him of Israel’s sadism, so the problem is plainly that the Judaic money-power controlled Western media sewer is simply suppressing his comments detrimental to the Holy State and its Herrenvolk, as it does with all others. Sorry Des, but you were still utterly wrong in the Truth and Reconciliation business. The best form of ‘reconciliation’ with apartheid would have been the sight of the top 100 or so political, military, intelligence and business scoundrels responsible hanging from light-poles.

By: Mulga Mumblebrain

Mulga Mumblebrain — Mon, 07 Sep 2009 03:10:32 +0000

Drawing on the odious Tutu as an example won’t wash. ‘The so-called ‘Truth and Reconciliation’ process in South Africa was a vile business, equating the violence of the African resistance with that of the Afrikaaner racists. A bit like blaming the Jews in the Warsaw ghetto equally for their violence, as the Nazis for theirs. Tutu once made a few noises in aid of the Palestinians, but he has clearly been got at by the Zionazis in recent years and appears to have learned how to keep his trap shut. Otherwise his friendly welcome in the West might turn to vilification as an ‘anti-Semite’. What is most plainly missing from Avery’s account, is a calculus of good and evil in the Palestinian/Israeli struggle. By any rational estimate Israeli crimes, of the vastly stronger party, against an imprisoned, impotent foe, clearly urged on by delusions of racial asupremacy, outweigh those of the Palestinians by orders of magnitude. But in the moral sewer of the West, where morality is exactly what the rich man says it is, we are instead endlessly hectored to see the victims as the aggressors and the violent ones, while their brutal and sadistic oppressors, we must agree, are the highest expression of superhuman morality. This discourse, that would have Orwell blushing, is enforced throughout the West without any hesitation, and those who disagree are vilified, threatened and silenced. That is the real truth about Israel-it is a cancer, moral and spiritual, that is poisoning the West with its brutish racist and fascist ethos.

By: kalidas

kalidas — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 21:48:36 +0000

Meet the new “Israelis,” same as the old “Israelis.”

By: Jack Fertig

Jack Fertig — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 19:18:31 +0000

Avnery states:
“I want my state to be democratic, secular, and liberal, ending the occupation and living at peace both with the free and sovereign State of Palestine that will come into being next to it, and with the entire Arab world.
“I want Israel to be a state belonging to all its citizens, without distinction of ethnic origin, gender, religion or language; with completely equal rights for all; a state in which the Hebrew-speaking majority will retain its close ties with the Jewish communities around the world, and the Arab-speaking citizens will be free to cherish their close ties with their Palestinian brothers and sisters and the Arab world at large. “
I think most reasonable people on all sides want that. It’s only a question of how we get there. The juggernaut of Israeli expansion into the West Bank, and the siege on Gaza both continuing with a few western powers shielding it from consequences is much seen as the biggest obstacle to peace. Watching these horrors much of the world sees it as ethnic cleansing. What is there to stop the settlers and the IDF? “I want peace and love and butterflies and happiness” without sacrifice, without work, with only going so far is not bringing peace. It is only spouting happy platitudes while the destruction continues, inciting more anger, and sadly, but inevitably, more hatred.

By: Jack Fertig

Jack Fertig — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 18:52:45 +0000

How odd, first of all, for Uri Avnery to confuse the Biblical story of Sodom with the Greek myth of Procrustes. But then he confuses and conflates a great deal here with a rich portrait of people who hate Israel, want it brought down, and can’t be talked with. . What of people who simply believe that Palestinians are entitled to basic human rights and dignity, and have been struggling for decades to talk with an Israeli government that “listens” only on its own terms? It’s not about hating Israel, but about acknowledging Palestinians as fully human beings and taking them more seriously than emptily wondering how they feel about being a captive people living in such conditions that the only employment available for them to feed their children is to build Pharoah’s pyramids. – oops, now I’m conflating – Germany’s weapons systems – oops, there I go again – Israeli settlements.

He argues that specific targeted boycotts are good, a general movement of “Boycotts, Divestment, and Sanctions” against all of Israel is bad. I agree collective punishment is not a good thing. But Israeli policies are decided by – yes, a complex, diverse society – in which a republic elects the leaders who decide the policies. That means that all Israeli citizens are participating in the establishment of those policies. It would be nice if the folks who were working for peace could be exempted from a broader BDS movement. Like it would have been nice if Americans who actively opposed Bush weren’t subject to the consequences of his horrors. Oh, well, we’re still much better off here than the Palestinians are – as the Israelis will certainly be in any foreseeable scenario.

Avnery starts off saying that the opposition can’t be talked with and then preaches at us as if we haven’t tried working with, building, supporting an Israeli peace movement. We have and we still do, and many elements of that peace movement also endorse BDS.

There’s another story about a farmer and his mule. It’s a good, obedient mule, the farmer says, but it has to be whacked across the head with a board to get its attention. It’s not unusual, even with progressive democracies that people need a whack to get their attention.

Avnery invokes principles of love in the face of hate. I ask him to look seriously at the conditions in Gaza, to talk with the Gazans who’ve lost children and homes in Operation Cast Lead, and to talk with the Palestinian laborers who have no way to support their families except by building the means of their own extinction – rather than to sit comfortably speculating about their feelings while he preaches love and speaks broadly about how Israel is hated. Admittedly, some people do hate Jews and Israel automatically without reason. We do our best to dismiss and isolate those haters. Many more have struggled with Israel and found it unyielding in its oppression of the Palestinians. So many Israelis like to talk about how Israel is hated. So few are willing to talk honestly about why. It is absurd to drop flechette bombs and white phosphorus into school yards, to build a wall between farmers and their crops, to keep obstructive checkpoints between sick people and their doctors; and then to complain about people hating you as if they have no reason. One has to be angry about the death and injustice, and it is a profound challenge to the soul to be so angry for so long without hating.

The BDS movement is an attempt to get Israelis to face the consequences of their actions. It’s not a matter of “Oh, it’s that company, that political party, those people; it’s not us.” It’s a matter for all Israeli citizens who have a vote in the polls, and a position in an army – and its reserves – that depend on nearly universal conscription. We are running out of options. If Avnery really wants peace and justice for Palestine, he is welcome to make other suggestions, but first I recommend that he talk with the Palestinians, not about them, and that he get his stories straight.

By: bozhidar balkas vancouver

bozhidar balkas vancouver — Sat, 05 Sep 2009 17:47:42 +0000

Avneri does not espy or chooses not see the obvious: the fact that physiologically one can’t hate israel; one can only hate what the christo-talmudic people do to pal’ns.

The label “israel” appears as an overgeneralization which cannot be hated. One can hate or rage against people who do abominable crimes against humanities.
And it is not solely one ethnicity which had been commiting crimes against indigenes; it is hundreds of nationalites and ethnicities who are doing these crimes.

And folks, solely in name the mosheic, talmudic, and mishnahic cults or in name of a cult called “jewishness” by ‘jews’ selves; meaning that such cultists deserve a country of their own in a place they have no connection with whatever, save the cult and hatred of all of us noncultists.

It is the cultists like avneri who hates with a passion and for no reason and not us!
Folks, a caveat! It is one of the oldest tricks to relabel the events “hate israel” and use new label as proof that we are wrong in ‘hating’ Israel.
Word “israel” appears as a phantom but the word “israelis” or “cultists” depicts reality.
Hate may be wrong or right but the rage against criminals is not!
Perhaps, avneri is not aware of anything i have said. But if he is and still tries to deceive, he shldn’n be allowed to defend criminals. tnx