BDS-mania takes over Israel — for a week...

[Israeli]

Boycott is all anybody can seem to talk about this week in Israel but neither side should be declaring victory quite yet. Israel still refuses to see that the occupation is the problem and boycotters have yet to make any real gains.

By Michael Schaeffer Omer-Man |Published June 5, 2015

If you got your news exclusively from the Israeli media over the past two weeks it would be entirely reasonable to wonder if the sky is falling. It seems like there has been near-24-hour coverage of the attempt to boot Israel from FIFA, university presidents warning that the academic boycott is snowballing toward a point of no return, a boycott endorsement by the UK’s largest student union, and now, international telecom giant Orange announcing that it will pull its brand out of Israel.

We have seen similar moments in recent years — when Stephen Hawking announced he would stay away from Israel, for example — but there is something that feels more serious this time around. The country’s best-selling newspaper, Yedioth Ahronoth, announced it was enlisting in the war against boycott (a rather cynical considering the Israeli news media is probably the only industry that actually profits from BDS via increased ratings). Israeli President Reuven Rivlin described BDS as a “strategic threat of the first degree,” saying that he is a soldier in the fight against it. And just weeks ago, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu appointed a senior government minister, Gilad Erdan, as the country’s anti-boycott csar.

So what is happening? You wouldn’t know it from the internal Israeli discourse but the writing has been on the wall and the font has been getting bigger and bolder over the past year. With the collapse of the U.S.-led peace process, Netanyahu’s repeated disavowal-turned-indefinite-shelving of a two-state outcome, and the election of Israel’s most right-wing government ever, the world — and Europe in particular — has simply run out of patience.

Continued @
http://972mag.com/bds-mania-takes-over-israel-for-a-week/107437/

[shira]

1. Good - Israelis have run out of patience, are mad as hell...

....and they aren't taking this BDS bullshit & demonization campaign anymore.

[grossproffit]

2. AMEN!.

I'm mad as hell too.
It's utterly unbelievable that it's gone this far.

[shira]

5. The 2 situations are nothing alike. To equate them is to trivialize real Apartheid. n/t

[leveymg]

8. Perhaps you have a point. White South Africa didn't bomb Lesotho every two or three years.

Israel's level of sustained violence against the Palestinians makes Apartheid seem almost trivial.

[shira]

12. Black S.Africa didn't threaten & act upon killing all the Whites...

When presented the opportunity to end Apartheid, both sides agreed peacefully.

OTOH, the Palestinian leadership has rejected every proposal to end the occupation & settlements - as well as rejecting the opportunity to control their own destiny with their own state. This is due to the fact that the I/P conflict isn't about equality and freedom, it's about ending the Jewish state altogether. They feel they have a good chance of ending Israel with all the help they're getting from their anti-Israel western friends.

[leveymg]

14. If Israel accepted peace on the same basis as S Africa - one citizen one vote - then your analogy

might hold up. That would be a one-state solution, which the Palestinians would gladly accept. It is in fact Israel that has been responsible for rejecting that approach and it is Israel that carries out the vast majority of violence and killings to enforce their own preferred political solution. Israel also has nuclear weapons, and will never be forced to part with them, so there is little or no chance of "ending Israel", as you put it.

The Israelis need dial back their defensive rhetoric and relax - neither the Palestinians nor Iran nor BDS present an existential threat, and the more reasonable Israelis know it, but think they're getting political mileage out the siege mentality they have created. In reality, it's Palestine and Iran that are under blockade of various kinds, an action that Israel carries out and strongly encourages.

No. Israel is not a normal country, but it could be if they let themselves be one.

[shira]

22. A Palestinian majority state with Hamas, Fatah, Islamic Jihad ruling....

....over 6 million Jews is going to be a very hard sell to the Jews of Israel. They'll never accept that. As we can see in France, Jews cannot trust even western democracies to protect them - let alone a Palestinian majority state led by fascists from Hamas, Islamic Jihad, and Fatah.

I think we all know how 1-state would turn out, and it's not pretty. Civil war, with one side overcoming the other but at a huge cost of lives lost. This isn't even debatable, it's common sense.

The one-state solution is a call to war & the very antithesis to peace. It'd be nice if the vast majority of Palestinians wanted to live in a western style liberal democracy with equal rights for all (women, gays, minorities) but it turns out only 10% support a secular democracy.

===============

I take it you reject every 2-state proposal Israel has agreed to or offered since 1937? Because if so, it means you support the status quo. In every 2-state scenario since 1937 the Palestinians would have their own state free of occupation and settlements.

[leveymg]

29. The ANC used to be called "communist terrorists." So did Irgun, for that matter. Today's statesman

is yesterday's terrorist - someone said that, and it's true in many cases.

As for Israel never accepting a South Africa solution, on that we agree. They simply don't have to. Maybe if there was more accountability and incentive, as a vastly expanded BDS with US and European state-enforced economic sanctions might provide. But, I think that is merely pie in the sky. For the foreseeable future, BDS will remain essentially symbolic.

Personally, I think a 2-state solution is the only workable plan, but the Israelis will likely continue to thwart that.

[shira]

30. In the real world, we know that Hamas will never turn into liberals...

....who believe in equal rights for women, gays, and religious minorities. Neither will Islamic Jihad or Fatah.

As for Israel never accepting a South Africa solution, on that we agree. They simply don't have to. Maybe if there was more accountability and incentive, as a vastly expanded BDS with US and European state-enforced economic sanctions might provide. But, I think that is merely pie in the sky. For the foreseeable future, BDS will remain essentially symbolic.

Why should Israel accept 1 state that would lead to war and untold loss of life? Why should they be forced to accept this?

Personally, I think a 2-state solution is the only workable plan, but the Israelis will likely continue to thwart that.

The Israelis have offered 2 states while the Palestinian have rejected.

[DetlefK]

4. So, I guess Israel will become a normal country any day now?

A country where religion doesn't determine how police treats theft and destruction of private property?
A country without a massive military presence holding a sizable population of non-citizens in line?
Any day now?

Will Netanyahu hand the Westbank over to the Palestinians for building their own state?
Or will he make all the Palestinians full israeli citizens so they can take part in shaping the nation of Israel?
What will he do?

Or will he do neither of those and keep the status quo of a master-race and a slave-race?

[shira]

6. It already is, despite your ridiculous allegations.

Or will he do neither of those and keep the status quo of a master-race and a slave-race?

Shameful.

[DetlefK]

7. If Israel is a normal country, name another country that is like Israel.

A country with a population of 8.5 million citizens and 2.5 million non-citizens held in line by military force. A country that shows no incentive to change that.

A country where the military protects thieves.

A country with religious extremism in the highest branches of government.

A country that denies other people the right to live in a certain territory because the religion says that they don't have the right to live there.



You call my comparison shameful? I'm not defending a country that wants to conquer Lebensraum it claims to deserve because its people are inherently superior to all other people in the world.

[oberliner]

11. "Lebensraum"

People really love to use Nazi-era German words in relation to Israel for some reason...I wonder what it is.

[shira]

23. Yeah, for some reason I doubt that Nazi-era German words are ever used....

...to describe the policies and actions of other countries worldwide that make Israel's actions look angelic in comparison.

Only the Jewish state.

[DetlefK]

31. It's not the actions, it's the nature of the actions.

Pick an extremist islamic country where deviation gets you killed, or pick the slavers of Qatar, or pick Russia with its emerging fascism, or pick China with its sytsematic oppression of dissent, or pick Brazil with its massive empoverished underclass...

None of them fits the comparison to a Nazi-Germany that discriminates for ethnic reasons and lays claims to land inhabited by other people because it's the Germans who really deserve it.

There surely are other comparisons that could be made to Israel instead of this particular view on Nazi-Germany.

It's not meant as an insult or as an anti-semitic or anti-israelic attack. And I'm astonished that the people of Israel don't say: "Ghettos? Military occupation? Ethnic cleansing for re-settlement? I think I have heard this before."

[oberliner]

36. Well at least you make no bones about comparing Israel to Nazi Germany

Some folks try to be more circumspect about doing so, but you come right out with it.

[shira]

39. Except that non-Jews in Israel are guaranteed equal rights by law.

So there goes the absurd charge of ethnic supremacy and a slave state.

[DetlefK]

46. If Jews and Palestinians do have equal rights...

Why does the israeli military destroy illegal palestinian settlements in the Westbank while protecting illegal jewish settlements?


And please, PLEASE, don't say that the Westbank isn't part of Israel. That's like saying that the US has no control over what's going on in Guantanamo Bay.

[shira]

47. They do have equal rights in Israel. And the W.Bank, like Gaza, is not....

.....part of Israel. Even in the parts Israel annexed (Golan and E.Jerusalem) the non-Jews have equal rights as Israelis.

The PA controls the lives of over 95% of all Palestinians in the W.Bank. They have their own elections. Are you even aware of that?

You probably believe Gaza is part of Israel. That it's still occupied. Is that right?

[DetlefK]

50. Who is calling the shots in Gaza and in the Westbank?

Can they levy their own taxes? Can they make their own laws? Can they shape their societies to the will of their inhabitants? Can they travel their own borders? Do they have their own courts, their own police, their own military?

[shira]

53. Hamas in Gaza calls all the shots. They tax Gazans, make up laws....

....and shape their society however they wish. They have their own courts, police, and military. If Egypt is compliant, Gazans can cross over the border and go there.

The PLO does the same thing in the W.Bank, just without the military. They can cross over into Jordan when they wish.

[King_David]

54. It's also very much against DU rules Nazi comparasin

Read the DU IP rules.

It's not Antisemitic you say?

[DetlefK]

57. What if I leave out the Nazi-part?

"Remember when the european Jews had trouble with this one particular country that employed discrimination, ghettoization and ethnic cleansing? I wonder why Israel doesn't bring up comparisons with that particular country at that particular time up when a country in the present resorts to discrimination, ghettoization and ethnic cleansing."

[leftynyc]

58. I don't even bother to alert that crap anymore

Let the hate for Israel be right out in the open where the poster can't hide behind anything. That it's strictly against DU rules doesn't seem to bother the poster at all. Not antisemitism? Yeah, right.

[shira]

15. Take Turkey for example, with Cyprus & the Kurds....

Turkey is a close friend of the USA. It's a democracy & also part of NATO.

It's 100x worse than anything you can accuse Israel of doing.

Where's your outrage?

A country with a population of 8.5 million citizens and 2.5 million non-citizens held in line by military force. A country that shows no incentive to change that.

Israel has offered the Palestinians their own state free of occupation several times. Imagine the Kurds or Tibetans turning down offers for their own state, free of occupation. Can't do it, can you? They'd accept such proposals immediately, but not the Palestinians.

A country where the military protects thieves.

A country with religious extremism in the highest branches of government.

Sounds like the USA.

A country that denies other people the right to live in a certain territory because the religion says that they don't have the right to live there.

Palestinians aren't being denied the right to live anywhere. It's just the opposite in that the Israel sucks crowd doesn't believe indigenous Jews have any right to live in Gaza or the W.Bank. BDS activists enthusiastically endorse & support a Jew-free W.Bank & Gaza.

You call my comparison shameful? I'm not defending a country that wants to conquer Lebensraum it claims to deserve because its people are inherently superior to all other people in the world.

Ridiculous.

In the real world, Israel has already pulled out of the Sinai (making peace with Egypt), pulled out of Southern Lebanon & Gaza, and has offered the Palestinians their own state free of occupation & settlements.

Do you agree with Palestinian leadership rejecting each and every 2 state proposal since 1937? You should if you're really against the occupation & for Palestinian sovereignty in their own land. Otherwise you're for the status quo.

[DetlefK]

34. What was that deal the Palestinians rejected?

"A country where the military protects thieves. "

When was the last time the US-military took sides in a land-dispute on US-soil?



"A country with religious extremism in the highest branches of government. "

When was the last time a high-ranking member of a US-government called the US a christian country and that it's God's chosen country and that people of other religions don't really have a place in it?

[shira]

40. The Clinton Initiatives of 2000. Olmert's offer in 2008.

And just recently when Abbas rejected the Obama proposal by saying no to recognition of a Jewish state, saying no to end-of-conflict (what's a peace deal without end-of-conflict?), and not budging on a fake right of return of millions of Palestinians.

"A country where the military protects thieves. "

When was the last time the US-military took sides in a land-dispute on US-soil?

There are hardly any First Nations still living because America did such a thorough job killing almost all of them off. If you're American, you live on stolen land. When are you going to give it back?

"A country with religious extremism in the highest branches of government. "

When was the last time a high-ranking member of a US-government called the US a christian country and that it's God's chosen country and that people of other religions don't really have a place in it?

It's simply amazing that you're here on a Democratic forum & totally unaware of America's religious whackos in the GOP.

[DetlefK]

51. The extremists in Israel aren't fringe. They are in the government.

The GOP has nutjobs, but they are not in power! That's the difference between the US and Israel.

And the British split Israel/Palestine into a jewish and an arabic part, followed by a civil-war. If you are living in Israel, you live on stolen land. (And I doubt there is much land on this planet that hasn't changed hands due to military conflict.)

I'm not talking about the past. I'm talking about the present. Right now.
"When was the last time the US-military (or any other military of your choice) took sides in a land-dispute between private citizens on domestic soil?"

[shira]

55. Netanyahu would be a moderate Republican here in the USA...

In fact, most rightwingers in Israel would fall into the moderate/liberal spectrum here in America. So you have no idea what you're talking about.

And the British split Israel/Palestine into a jewish and an arabic part, followed by a civil-war. If you are living in Israel, you live on stolen land. (And I doubt there is much land on this planet that hasn't changed hands due to military conflict.)

The Jews have been living on their so-called "stolen" land for the past 3500 years. It's not exclusively Palestinian land. Besides, the Palestinians rejected the Partition Plan, meaning the W.Bank is still disputed land. It's very much part of the Jews' historic and ancestral homeland. You cannot be serious arguing that Jews have no right to be in their historic, ancestral homeland. Try that with any other ethnic or nationalist group. You can't.

I'm not talking about the past. I'm talking about the present. Right now.
"When was the last time the US-military (or any other military of your choice) took sides in a land-dispute between private citizens on domestic soil?"

You still think Gaza and the W.Bank are part of Israel, which makes your question silly.

[leveymg]

9. Again, you have a point. The proper description isn't slavery, it's ethnic cleansing and

military blockade that systematically destroys the displaced population's economy, cities, and ability to sustain itself. Perhaps, one has to go back to the wars of antiquity where blockades sometimes lasted for years. Isreal's occupation of Palestine is perhaps unparalleled in modern history.

[oberliner]

13. Nearly two million ethnic Palestinians live in Israel

And their numbers have been growing substantially. Israel is one of the most ethnically diverse countries in the region.

[DetlefK]

18. And what about the other 2.5 million Palestinians?

Are they somehow, magically, not part of Israel? If they are not part of Israel, what are they?

[shira]

25. They're not citizens of Israel. Same laws don't apply to them.

Maybe you should try to persuade them to accept any one of the 2-state offers Israel has made in the past 15 years. They'd have their own state free of occupation and settlements.

[oberliner]

35. Their numbers are growing as well

There are sizable Palestinian populations within Israel as well as in the West Bank and Gaza.

[shira]

42. How can their numbers be growing while in concentration camps & ghettos.....

....and in addition being ethnically cleansed and genocided out of existence?

Israel's doing a lousy job being Nazi-like.

[leveymg]

19. If Israel were a true representative Democracy, one-third to a quarter of the Knesset would be Arab

There are currently only 16 Arab MKs out of a total of 120.

Also, a true Democracy wouldn't tolerate efforts to disenfranchize a third of its citizens - please read, http://972mag.com/knesset-approves-bill-that-could-push-arab-parties-out/76755/

Shameful

[shira]

26. Many Arabs in Israel vote for Jewish parties, not just Arab ones.

There's no reason Israel's Arab citizens can't vote if they want to. They're free to do so. Maybe you should go there and encourage them to vote.

[leveymg]

33. Wrong again. 82% of Arab Israelis voted for the joint list.

http://www.jpost.com/Israel-Elections/Arab-sector-turnout-for-recent-elections-reached-635-percent-polling-data-shows-394878

Makledeh said that 82% of Israeli Arabs voted for Arab parties in the Joint (Arab) List compared to 77% who voted for Arab parties in 2013. The institute’s polling had predicted 81.5% four days before the election.

In 2013, the Arab parties together received 349,000 votes compared to 444,000 in this election, an increase of 27.3%.

A Statnet survey prior to the election had predicted 430,000 Arab votes and 12,000 Jewish votes for the Arab parties.

The Joint List ended up with 13 seats in the Knesset.

Apart from the Joint List, Arab voters supported in descending order: the Zionist Union with 22.8% (25,806 votes), the Likud 15.3% (17,394), Yisrael Beytenu 13.7% (15,538), Kulanu 11.8% (13,432), Meretz 11.2% (12,752), Shas 8.8% (10,016), and Yesh Atid 4.1% (4,662).

The remainder of the parties received less than 3% from the Arab public.

[shira]

41. That's still a significant % of Arabs voting for Zionist parties.

It must be mind-blowing to see them voting for racist, supremacist, neo-Nazi style, pro-Apartheid political parties that want them ethnically cleansed and obliterated out of existence.

But what do they know, right?

[leftynyc]

59. Ethnic cleansing?

If so, then the Israeli's suck at it as the Palestinian population continues to grow unabated.

[oberliner]

10. "a master-race and a slave-race"

Amazing the things people believe.

[DetlefK]

16. Believe???

One part of the population has civil-rights, including the vote. The other part of the population lives in front of the barrel of a gun and the only thing it can vote for is some ersatz-government that is at the mercy of the government elected by real voters.

And just by pure coincidence, those two parts of the population can be neatly told apart along ethnic and religious lines.

How often does it happen that Palestinians start building illegally on the property of a Jew?
How long do Jews have to wait in line in front of a military-checkpoint to get to their workplace?
How many members of the current israeli government think that Israel belongs to the Jews and that Palestinians have no place in it?



Tell me: What do you believe about Israel?

[King_David]

17. The third biggest party in the Knesset

is the Joint list , predominantly Israeli Arab party.

[leveymg]

20. Arab MKs 16 out of 120 seats - Arabs are 1/4 to 1/3 of the population. Not at all proportionate or

representative.

[King_David]

45. Third largest party in the Knesset

THIRD largest party in the Knesset .

Jews are much more representative in the USA by numbers. Is that proportional or representative? Nope it's just democracy.

[DetlefK]

21. If your house gets bulldozed and your field stolen...

and there is nothing, NOTHING, NOTHING you can do about it, I doubt that you would care who's in parliament.

[leveymg]

24. The reality of group punishment is ingrained in that Israeli policy of destroying houses and crops

Group punishment is a violation of traditional international law, human rights doctrine, and is a war crime in the context of military occupation.

[shira]

28. Group punishment? And I'll bet you support BDS, which is collective punishment....

Right?

And you support a settler free W.Bank, meaning no Jews? That's also collective punishment and ethnic cleansing.

[DetlefK]

49. How are foreign corporations and foreign countries supposed to punish israeli criminals???

Those illegal settlers are israeli citizens and it's Israel's job to keep them from doing illegal stuff. How are foreign countries supposed to punish them and exclusively them? And what about their enablers?

[shira]

52. Those foreign corporations should be "encouraging" Palestinian leaders....

....to accept a 2-state deal rather than say no to everything in the hopes they'll eventually get everything they want - all Israel.

If Israel's harshest critics really wanted an end to occupation and settlements, they'd be pressuring Abbas and Hamas to accept Obama's recent 2-state parameters.

[King_David]

44. But your post was inaccurate and incorrect

So another change in topic?

Poor strategy , as demonstrated.

[DetlefK]

48. What was incorrect?

What would it take for all the Palestinians and all the Jews currently living under the "aegis" of the IDF to gain the human right of self-determination and to become their own democratic sovereign?


Only part of the Palestinians has a vote. And they are in the minority, meaning they won't able to produce change on a parliamentarian basis.
In a totally unrelated question: Why do women not enjoy the same freedoms and rights as men in the US? Half the population is female!

[shira]

27. You mean that Israeli citizens (including Arabs) have one set of rights....

...while non-citizens have another.

Sounds like the rest of the world. Maybe you should fight for Canadian equal rights in America, whether they're citizens or not. See how far you get. Or German equal rights in France, etc... Why are Canadian and German citizens suffering Apartheid in America and France? Time for a flotilla....

[oberliner]

38. Yes

There is not a "master-race / slave-race" situation going on in Israel. That is something you believe but isn't actually true.

Literally nothing you've written here is accurate.

[DetlefK]

43. Care to correct some of my points?

Just correct me on these:

* Jewish settlers steal palestinian land in the Westbank and the Palestinians have no legal tool to rectify that situation.

* The israeli military protects illegal jewish settlements in the Westbank while bulldozing illegal palestinian settlements in the Westbank.

* The current israeli government does neither support a one-state-solution nor a two-state-solution but instead aims for conserving the status quo of a neverending military occupation of palestinian territory.

[deathrind]

32. Good.

Israel needs to realize that no matter what an old book says they do not have the right to take land whenever they like that is not theirs.

[giftedgirl77]

37. Good, Israel needs to realize they can't just go around stealing

people's land & livelihoods based on bullshit. I'm glad the rest of the world is actually doing something about it & hope in time the US steps up & does the same. First off they can stop coddling them like a bunch of poor bullied children when they bring on 99% of their problems & 2d we can stop supporting them financially. Just think of how much money we could funnel back to us if we weren't supporting another country.

[MisterP]

56. I think that the Israel government's always known that the honeymoon won't last

look at all the regimes that Washington's burned through: from Trujillo and Saddam to Marcos and Noriega, Washington starts by crushing any media or academic complaints and lauds the beribboned thug as better than God Himself, runs arms and rugs through him, and then in come the bombers to stop this bloodthirsty trafficking madman; eventually every US "ally" needs an "exit plan" because the relationship WILL go south

accusations against the US have been constant for decades, with the goal of winning concessions from Washington, setting up a smokescreen for itself and the two-sided hypocrisies of the "special relationship," and (ironically enough) keep the relationship going as long as possible like some sort of bad boyfriend

remember that Washington didn't even LIKE Israel until Entebbe let it pose itself as a mini-me: from Suez to the Liberty to the mere fact that, y'know, it's full of the exact sort of people they want to keep out of their country club (and didn't Nixon have some war plans drawn up in '73?); and even with the firm new alliance, Europe's still "fair game" under the Samson Option

Jerusalem spearheaded the notion that "terrorism" was an existential threat to civilization itself and that the West is in it together, and made counterinsurgency theory look good in Lebanon and Guatemala after it'd failed in Vietnam: but making Singlaub and Daniel Pipes all tingly only gets you so far with the USSR gone; the US backed Oslo's half-measures, which sparked a very hardline turn for Likud (harder than Begin's crackdown on Israelis ~1982) that let them tie in to 9-11's Islamophobia