Aug 15, 2007

Boycotting Israel

Boycott Movement Targets Israel

EXCERPT
When does a citizen-led boycott of a state become morally justified?

That question is raised by an expanding academic, cultural and economic boycott of Israel. The movement joins churches, unions, professional societies and other groups based in the United States, Canada, Europe and South Africa. It has elicited dramatic reactions from Israel’s supporters. U.S. labor leaders have condemned British unions, representing millions of workers, for supporting the Israel boycott. American academics have been frantically gathering signatures against the boycott, and have mounted a prominent advertising campaign in American newspapers - unwittingly elevating the controversy further in the public eye.

Israel’s defenders have protested that Israel is not the worst human-rights offender in the world, and singling it out is hypocrisy, or even anti-Semitism. Rhetorically, this shifts focus from Israel’s human rights record to the imagined motives of its critics.

But “the worst first” has never been the rule for whom to boycott. Had it been, the Pol Pot regime, not apartheid South Africa, would have been targeted in the past. It was not - Cambodia’s ties to the West were insufficient to make any embargo effective. Boycotting North Korea today would be similarly futile. Should every other quest for justice be put on hold as a result?

In contrast, the boycott of South Africa had grip. The opprobrium suffered by white South Africans unquestionably helped persuade them to yield to the just demands of the black majority. Israel, too, assiduously guards its public image. A dense web of economic and cultural relations also ties it to the West. That - and its irrefutably documented human-rights violations - render it ripe for boycott.

What state actions should trigger a boycott? Expelling or intimidating into flight a country’s majority population, then denying them internationally recognized rights to return to their homes? Israel has done that.

Seizing, without compensation, the properties of hundreds of thousands of refugees? Israel has done that.

Systematically torturing detainees, many held without trial? Israel has done that.

Assassinating its opponents, including those living in territories it occupies? Israel has done that.

Demolishing thousands of homes belonging to one national group, and settling its own people in another nation’s land? Israel has done that. No country with such a record, whether first or 50th worst in the world, can credibly protest a boycott.


Full Article

The United States government, its' Republicans as well as its Democrats, will not do anything to prevent Israel's terrorist actions. Other nations such as Britain, France, Germany, and Russia note Israel's atrocities but do not act for fear of American repercussions.

Stop Terror. Boycotting Israel is the first step in stopping the world's biggest sponsor of terror in the world today.

6 comments:

mirth said...

How can such a boycott proceed?!

The pursestrings of our government are controlled by enablers of Israel, regardless their crimes against humanity. We sponsor these crimes. We vilify anyone who speaks against these crimes. And we are getting ready to elect another champion of their crimes.

old hack said...

yea the Jews are just being pilgrims. The Palestinians know they're being extradited. I don't expect that fire to burn itself out anytime soon.

have you heard about the war in Iraq?

We WON! Iraq has surrendered and are now willing to talk peace aggreements. I knew teh surge would work. Bush is genius Cammander in Chief. we just needed to stick with it a little longer and show the Iraq insurgents what we're made of. Yea we did it! Ticker tape parade in New York!

check out the video a friend made for me of my song "have you heard about the war" on my blog. :/

Faded said...

I figured if I just bitch enough about them on my blog, the world would take notice and smite them with bad karma...

Or do you mean I need to get some links up? Shit... almost off work- and moving another load of stuff to the new casa this evening...

Well, that wil be mission for tomorrow- finding productive ways to chastise/boycott/sanction Israel and get the word out. It looks as if you are right on about U.S. govt not doing anything- which means this is a GLOBAL grass roots effort that people in many different countries are going to have to support- Hey, it worked to vilify South Africa globally.

If we could only get those damn Palestinians to engender more sympathy... Why those guys cant move forward under a united front, I can't understand. That rampant tribalism sure is a bitch of an achilles heel when it comes to working against Empires...

Anonymous said...

Y'know, if Americans had suffered as the Palestinians have suffered, for 60 years no less, we would be all over ourselves with reasons, legit ones, for our dysfunction.

BadTux said...

Y'know, Fade, if you had substituted "Negro" for "Palestinian", "NAACP" for "Fatah", and "Nation of Islam" for Hamas, the screed you wrote about the Palestinians needing to create a united front could have been written 40 years ago by some white Massachusetts liberal upset that his favorite civil rights hobby-horse wasn't getting the full and undivided attention of an oppressed population.

Just sayin'.

-- Badtux the History Penguin

Faded said...

Uh.. so what's your point? Are you saying that 40 years ago, activists didn't help the Black people in this country get rights they fully deserved ? Should I just shut the fuck up about it so as not to offend the smartass bloggers out there who use phrases like "white Massachusetts liberal" and "civil rights hobby-horse". I hope your post was tongue in cheek becuz if not you come off like just another penny-ante, dime-a-dozen bushbot cocksucker.

just sayin'.