Time to boycott Israel For the sake of our children, I am convinced that an international boycott is the only way to save Israel from itself
Neve Gordon
Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokeswoman, an actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is gaining many followers around the world.
Not surprisingly, many Israelis – even peaceniks – aren't signing on. A global boycott can't help but contain echoes of antisemitism. It also brings up questions of a double standard (why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights?) and the seemingly contradictory position of approving a boycott of one's own nation.
It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organisations, unions and citizens to suspend co-operation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.
I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country's future.
The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews – whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel – are citizens of the state of Israel.
The question that keeps me up at night, both as a parent and as a citizen, is how to ensure that my two children as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbours do not grow up in an apartheid regime.
There are only two moral ways of achieving this goal.
The first is the one-state solution: offering citizenship to all Palestinians and thus establishing a binational democracy within the entire area controlled by Israel. Given the demographics, this would amount to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state; for most Israeli Jews, it is anathema.
The second means of ending our apartheid is through the two-state solution, which entails Israel's withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders (with possible one-for-one land swaps), the division of Jerusalem and a recognition of the Palestinian right of return with the stipulation that only a limited number of the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, while the rest could return to the new Palestinian state.
Geographically, the one-state solution appears much more feasible because Jews and Palestinians are already totally enmeshed; indeed, "on the ground," the one-state solution (in an apartheid manifestation) is a reality. Ideologically, the two-state solution is more realistic because fewer than 1% of Jews and only a minority of Palestinians support binationalism.
For now, despite the concrete difficulties, it makes more sense to alter the geographic realities than the ideological ones. If at some future date the two peoples decide to share a state, they can do so, but currently this is not something they want.
So if the two-state solution is the way to stop the apartheid state, then how does one achieve this goal?
I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren't citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics is moving more and more to the extreme right.
It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.
I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.
In Bilbao, Spain, in 2008, a coalition of organisations from all over the world formulated the 10-point campaign meant to pressure Israel in a "gradual, sustainable manner that is sensitive to context and capacity". For example, the effort begins with sanctions on and divestment from Israeli firms operating in the occupied territories, followed by actions against those that help sustain and reinforce the occupation in a visible manner. Along similar lines, artists who come to Israel to draw attention to the occupation are welcome, while those who just want to perform are not.
Nothing else has worked. Putting massive international pressure on Israel is the only way to guarantee that the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians – my two boys included – does not grow up in an apartheid regime.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/21/israel-internat...
Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokeswoman, an actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is gaining many followers around the world.
Not surprisingly, many Israelis – even peaceniks – aren't signing on. A global boycott can't help but contain echoes of antisemitism. It also brings up questions of a double standard (why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights?) and the seemingly contradictory position of approving a boycott of one's own nation.
It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organisations, unions and citizens to suspend co-operation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.
I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country's future.
The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews – whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel – are citizens of the state of Israel.
The question that keeps me up at night, both as a parent and as a citizen, is how to ensure that my two children as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbours do not grow up in an apartheid regime.
There are only two moral ways of achieving this goal.
The first is the one-state solution: offering citizenship to all Palestinians and thus establishing a binational democracy within the entire area controlled by Israel. Given the demographics, this would amount to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state; for most Israeli Jews, it is anathema.
The second means of ending our apartheid is through the two-state solution, which entails Israel's withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders (with possible one-for-one land swaps), the division of Jerusalem and a recognition of the Palestinian right of return with the stipulation that only a limited number of the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, while the rest could return to the new Palestinian state.
Geographically, the one-state solution appears much more feasible because Jews and Palestinians are already totally enmeshed; indeed, "on the ground," the one-state solution (in an apartheid manifestation) is a reality. Ideologically, the two-state solution is more realistic because fewer than 1% of Jews and only a minority of Palestinians support binationalism.
For now, despite the concrete difficulties, it makes more sense to alter the geographic realities than the ideological ones. If at some future date the two peoples decide to share a state, they can do so, but currently this is not something they want.
So if the two-state solution is the way to stop the apartheid state, then how does one achieve this goal?
I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren't citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics is moving more and more to the extreme right.
It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.
I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.
In Bilbao, Spain, in 2008, a coalition of organisations from all over the world formulated the 10-point campaign meant to pressure Israel in a "gradual, sustainable manner that is sensitive to context and capacity". For example, the effort begins with sanctions on and divestment from Israeli firms operating in the occupied territories, followed by actions against those that help sustain and reinforce the occupation in a visible manner. Along similar lines, artists who come to Israel to draw attention to the occupation are welcome, while those who just want to perform are not.
Nothing else has worked. Putting massive international pressure on Israel is the only way to guarantee that the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians – my two boys included – does not grow up in an apartheid regime.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/aug/21/israel-internat...
Comment
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Comment by Tara on August 25, 2009 at 12:27am
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NICE!!!!!! Thanks James!
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Comment by truth on August 25, 2009 at 12:12am
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'Barcode Boycott' of Israeli products with '729' UPC code
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ISRAEL: LAT opinion piece on boycott makes waves
In an L.A. Times opinion piece last week, Israeli professor Neve Gordon wrote of his painful conclusion that the only way to advance the two-state solution that would save Israel from becoming an apartheid state was massive pressure through boycott. Gordon, who teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University, is not shy about his personal politics.
His extreme position angered many in and outside of Israel. Education Minister Gideon Saar decried the article and called it repugnant. Gordon's own university has conveyed its displeasure too. A statement from its president, Rivka Carmi, expressed shock and outrage at Gordon's "irresponsible and morally reprehensible" remarks, saying the institution "strongly dissociates itself from Gordon's destructive views" and adding that "academics who entertain such resentment toward their country are welcome to consider another professional and personal home."
But the bigger debate this has provoked in Israel is a discussion of academic freedom and freedom of speech. Carmi said Gordon had abused the freedom of speech availed to him in Israel and the university as well. On radio, she said academic freedom was the freedom to research and teach, not the freedom to make harmful and inciting remarks.
The Assn. for Civil Rights in Israel issued its own statement, defending Gordon's right to express his political views and expressing dismay at the university's reaction, which the group urged the academic community to denounce. In a letter sent to university President Carmi, the association's legal advisor, attorney Dan Yakir, said the university's response paid lip service to academic freedom while bluntly trampling it.
The boycott tool, as Gordon himself acknowledged, is a problematic one. Some argue it is a legitimate, nonviolent means of pressuring parties into doing the right thing; others see an inherent flaw in achieving peace through a method that boils down to "don't force it, get a larger hammer."
The university is concerned that the institution could suffer for Gordon's stance. "This kind of Israel-bashing detracts from the wonderful work that is being done at BGU and at all Israeli universities," said Carmi's statement. School officials worry that the only boycott following Gordon's pronouncement could be a boycott of the university, affecting about 25,000 students and faculty and possibly undermining research and work carried out for the enhancement of the diverse communities of Israel's southern Negev area. Such an occurrence would be an ironic disservice to coexistence, they say. Carmi herself, for example, is a geneticist who has focused much of her work on stemming the spread of hereditary diseases among the area's Bedouin community.
Yaakov ("Yaki") Dayan, Israel's consul general in L.A., wrote Carmi a letter, portions of which were quoted in Israel daily newspaper Haaretz. He warned her in the letter that he'd been contacted by "people who care for Israel," including benefactors of the university who were unanimous in threatening to withhold donations. His attempts to explain to them that "one bad apple" wouldn't affect hundreds of researchers were futile, he wrote.
Outrage at the private politics of academic faculty or over academic institutions hosting provocative speakers is common in a country where political passions run high. These incidents could be seen as indications of healthy academic freedom. Earlier this year, left-leaning academics petitioned Tel Aviv University to protest the appointment of Colonel Pnina Sharvit-Baruch as a law-faculty lecturer and demanded the appointment be revoked (it wasn't). She headed the Israeli military's international law division during the Gaza operation; the appointment met with opposition on the grounds that she had legitimized controversial strikes against Palestinian civilians during the operation.
Then-Prime Minister Ehud Olmert blasted the petitioners as "self-righteous hypocrites."
So far, only around 100 people have signed an online petition calling for Gordon's dismissal from his tax-payed position, compared with more than 10,000 who signed one Sunday to boycott Swedish companies, including Ikea, over a separate issue. Now there are calls for boycotting the university. The university says it is "exploring its options concerning Gordon's actions."
-- Batsheva Sobelman in Jerusalem
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2009/08/israel-lat-op...
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Comment by I811st on August 23, 2009 at 4:21am
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Solution: Israel Nukes Israel,flase-flag It as Iran, maybe nuke london at the same time so to divert "conspiracy theories". the zionist masterminds along with the banking elite will then cash in their Israel chips with the rothschildrens.since they got the U.S. by the balls in debt, who better to do the dirty goose-chase ,in yet another never-ender?our domestic security force will be weakend because of the mass deployment to occupy Iran .that will allow Israeli intel to ASASSINATE OBAMA!
Problem Solved. Oh, yeah until it's blamed on the Internet "hate networks" and The "2nd ammendican civil war" begins. which might be kinda fun , depending on how you see it.
"Egypt me, so Iraq'd 'em, then Iran. Israel, i swear. Kuwait a minute?"
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I did not know that either Marklar....WTF????
Get this.....at work last year around Christmas time, I was putting away some dollar or less chocolate items away and lo and behold, I had this mesh bag of chocolate US coins in hand. Well, I just had to look and see if it was made in China........NOT!!!!! It was made in Israel! I coudn't believe it but then again it should be no shock to any of us. There's a faction in the Israeli govt that think they do own our money and our lives, don't they?????
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Comment by Marklar on August 21, 2009 at 10:51pm
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,... and they'll probably continue for the moment to only go after business people who are inquiring with their vendors about whether goods are Israeli in origin but as I said that could change if a boycott actually became effective.
I say this not to discourage but if someone is going to do it anyway they should be aware of the possible legal pitfalls one might encounter.
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Oh I'm afraid it so KLC, at least here in the states. It's been some time since I have seen an article on this but there were a number of them being written and distributed on alternative news sites about the time that the apartheid wall was just starting and Rachel Corey was murdered.
I've been looking for link but "israel boycott goods illegal" and any other keyword combinations I can think of simply regurgitate way to much stuff that is not quite what I'm looking for.
This is what the Commerce Department has to say though and I believe this is the same legislation that the articles were referring to. The penaltieas are actually greater than I stated though (I'm pretty bad with remembering specific numbers and statistics so I DO get them wrong at times). Thinking about it now I believe one of the articles used available statistics on the number of cases and total fines levied to come up with a figure of around $10,000 in fines per case on average and I think that's where I had that number stick in my head.
But if an Israeli friend were to post a good comprehensive list and people simply acted on that list rather than trying to actually organize a boycott under some umbrella organization it would be a charge that would be nearly impossible to prove as long as you're not shouting about boycotting Israel in the middle of your local department store.
http://www.bis.doc.gov/complianceandenforcement/antiboycottcomplian...
I've seen boycott lists before but some of the companies are so large that they obviously have thousands of products under dozens of subsidiaries. Such lists can be rather useless unless they are broken down to the specific products with a focus on those you might actually find in your local grocery, hardware or variety store on a daily bases.
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Comment by TheLasersShadow on August 21, 2009 at 5:57pm
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Fines for asking where the products from? Really?
Well I have to say a propaganda campaign is much more effective than a boycott seeing as we have already given those interests bailout money and if we were successful in making the boycott hurt our own government would destroy our efforts by giving them more of our money as a further bailout.
Spreading the truth about the Israelis will hurt them more in the long run. Maybe get our elected goof's to stop giving them billions of aid each year.
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What we need is a really good comprehensive list of Israeli products sold in the United States provided by Israelis like the author if we are to pull this off in the US since even asking if a product is made in Israel is punishable by up to a $10,000 fine and one year in prison not to mention all the other fun stuff that goes with being a felon ex-con when you get out. So far millions in fines have been collected under this law but so far no prison sentences the last I heard some years ago but I'm sure that would change swiftly if US participation in the boycott started to actually hurt Israel.
Otherwise - avoiding Kosher Pickles and Hebrew Nation brand hotdogs is about all many of us can do without risking quite a lot.
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