Boycott goes prime-time in Israel

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Written by Larry Derfner Larry Derfner

Published: 21 January 2014 21 January 2014

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The following article by Larry Derfner was published by +972 Magazine on 19 January 2014.
"Boycott goes prime-time in Israel"

On Saturday night the boycott of Israel gained an impressive new level of mainstream recognition in this country. Channel 2 News, easily the most watched, most influential news show here, ran a heavily-promoted, 16-minute piece on the boycott in its 8 p.m. prime-time program. The piece was remarkable not only for its length and prominence, but even more so because it did not demonize the boycott movement, it didn’t blame the boycott on anti-Semitism or Israel-bashing. Instead, top-drawer reporter Dana Weiss treated the boycott as an established, rapidly growing presence that sprang up because of Israel’s settlement policy and whose only remedy is that policy’s reversal.

In her narration, Weiss ridicules the settlers and the government’s head-in-the-sand reaction to the rising tide. The segment from the West Bank’s Barkan Industrial Park opens against a background of twangy guitar music like from a Western. “To the world it’s a black mark, a symbol of the occupation,” she reads. “But here they insist it’s actually a point of light in the area, an island of coexistence that continues to flourish despite efforts to erase it from the map.” A factory owner who moved his business to Barkan from the other side of the Green Line makes a fool of himself by saying, “If the state would only assist us by boycotting the Europeans and other countries causing us trouble …” The Barkan segment ends with the manager of Shamir Salads saying that between the European and Palestinian boycott, he’s losing about $115,000 to $143,000 a month in sales. “In my view,” he says, “it will spread from [the West Bank] to other places in Israel that have no connection to the territories.”

Weiss likewise ridicules Deputy Foreign Minister Ze’ev Elkin, who runs the government’s “hasbara war,” as he puts it. Weiss: “Yes, in the Foreign Ministry they are for the time being sticking to the old conception: it’s all a question of hasbara. This week the campaign’s new weapon, developed with the contributions of world Jewry: (Pause) Another hasbara agency, this time with the original name ‘Face To Israel.’” She quotes the co-owner of Psagot Winery saying the boycott is “nothing to get excited about,” that people have been boycotting Jews for 2,000 years, and concluding, “If you ask me, in the last 2,000 years, our situation today is the best it’s ever been.” That final phrase, along with what Weiss describes as Elkin’s “conceptzia,” are the same infamous words that Israelis associate with the fatal complacency that preceded the surprise Yom Kippur War.

The Channel 2 piece features abortive telephone calls with boycott “victims” who didn’t want to be interviewed for fear of bad publicity. The most dramatic testimony comes from Daniel Reisner, an attorney with the blue-chip law firm Herzog Fox Neeman who advises such clients. He explains:

    Most of the companies victimized by the boycott behave like rape victims. They don’t want to tell anybody. It’s as if they’ve contracted some sort of disease and they don’t want anyone to know.

    More and more companies are coming to us for advice – quietly, in the evening, where no one can hear them – and they say: ‘I’ve gotten into this or that situation; is there something you can do to help?’”

Without giving the names of his clients or the extent of their losses, Reisner says the boycott is causing Israeli businesses to lose foreign contracts and investors. “My fear is of a snowball effect,” he says. Prof. Shai Arkin, vice president for R&D at Hebrew University, says there are many cases of Israeli candidates for research fellowships at foreign universities being turned down because their resumes include service in the Israeli army.

Advice from a friend abroad comes from Matthew Gould, the British ambassador to Israel: “I love Israel. And I’m worried that in another five years Israel will wake up and find that it doesn’t have enough friends.”

Weiss asks the EU ambassador here, Lars Faaborg-Andersen: “If Israel would change its policy, all this would go away?” The ambassador replies: “Yes. It is about Israeli policies. If the settlement business continue[s] to expand, Israel will be facing increasing isolation.”

The piece presents Tzipi Livni as the country’s would-be savior. She says the current negotiations with the Palestinians (in which she represents Israel, along with Netanyahu confidant Isaac Molho) are holding back the boycott’s expansion, but that “if there is a crisis [in the talks], everything will break loose.” She says she is “shouting at people to wake up.”

    Weiss: “What does this all mean? What is it going to be like here? South Africa?”

    Livni: “Yes. I spoke with some of the Jews who are living n South Africa now. They say, ‘We thought we had time. We thought we could deal with this. We thought we didn’t need the world so much for everything. And it happens all at once.’”

Sixteen minutes of prime time on Israel’s all-popular TV news show on Saturday night, the end of the week in this country. Bracing stuff. A wrench thrown into the national denial machine – and by Channel 2. Definitely a sign of progress – and of life. Another reminder of why this country is worth fighting for – which, for many of us Israeli boycott-supporters, if not necessarily most of us, is what the boycott, strange as it may sound, is all about.

It is not anti-semitic to side with Palestinians

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Written by Ned Rosch Ned Rosch

Published: 18 January 2014 18 January 2014

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[This op-ed appeared in the Oregonian]

With Ariel Sharon’s passing, I pause to consider my own journey through the Israel-Palestine conflict. Named after a Holocaust victim, I grew up in a family where commitment to traditional Judaism was only exceeded by our reverence for Zionism, and where Israel was the remarkable manifestation of a 2000-year-old dream come true.  Zionism was in the air, and Israel was a significant part of what it meant to be Jewish, for if the Holocaust broke our hearts, the creation of Israel was our redemption.

I thought I was being open-minded when I held to the conviction that there were two legitimate claims to the same land, and that was why it was so unsolvable. What was really unsolvable was the battle that raged in my heart. I had become a progressive on every issue, except one. I marched for civil rights, women’s rights, and an end to war.  But when it came to Israel-Palestine, internally I was torn up. Israel had ethnically cleansed the indigenous population, but how could I turn my back on my people after the thousands of years of suffering Jews had endured?

My dual-narrative world began to unravel when a friend challenged me to see not two conflicting narratives, but one history of what actually happened. His challenge took me on one of the great journeys of my life – the struggle to fundamentally reconcile my politics around Israel-Palestine with my values. I came to understand that my liberation as a Jew is intrinsically bound up with the liberation of Palestinians, and that the Jewish tradition of “justice, justice thou shall pursue” required me to stand with Palestinians in their struggle. In doing so, I was not only not turning my back on my people, I was upholding Judaism’s highest values, and reclaiming them for myself in a deeply meaningful way.

It is imperative to understand that being critical of Israel is not tantamount to anti-semitism. If people are engaged in this struggle because they dislike Jews, they likely are anti-semites. If, however, they do this work because they believe in justice, that is hardly anti-semitic. It’s called having a conscience. What part of supporting an oppressed people is against Jewish teachings?

The Palestinian struggle has become a profound moral issue, a successor to the struggle against South African apartheid. For Jews, this issue cuts to our core, for at some point, it will break your heart. The question is will it break our hearts into pieces so wounded that they can’t be put back together, or will it break our hearts open, to be more sensitive to suffering. Perhaps the redeeming part of this whole tragedy is how we reconfigure our lives, politics, and values to stand for justice for Palestinians, and in doing so create new and more deeply meaningful connections to ourselves and our Jewish roots. It's about untangling Judaism from Zionism to see the immense beauty of the former and the intense contradictions of the latter. It’s about reclaiming the deepest parts of ourselves as the battle around us - and in us – rages.
Sharon never woke up, but more and more Jews are.

In video: Israeli military accompanies settler attack

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Written by Ma'an News Ma'an News

Published: 09 January 2014 09 January 2014

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pogrom: Mob attack, condoned by authorities, against persons and property of a religious, racial, or national minority. (Merriam Webster Concise Encyclopedia)
 

[Photo: An image grab showing a settler throwing stones next to an israeli soldier.(B'Tselem)]
 
BETHLEHEM (Ma'an) -- Israeli human rights group B'Tselem on Wednesday released video footage which shows Israeli soldiers standing among settlers while they attack a Palestinian school with stones in the Nablus village of Urif.

The incident took place on Monday when a group of settlers raided the village and started throwing stones at the Safadi family home, adjacent to the site of a USAID funded water reservoir project.

The settlers then threw stones at a village school.

The video footage, which was filmed by local resident Usama Safadi, clearly shows settlers throwing rocks in the presence of Israeli soldiers.

"The soldiers took no measures to arrest the settlers, to remove them from the area, or at the very least to put an end to the stone-throwing. Several students at the school threw stones back at the settlers and the soldiers fired teargas at the students," B'Tselem said.

The settlers appeared to also be accompanied by a security guard from a settlement.

Read more: In video: Israeli military accompanies settler attack

Dutch pension fund quits Israeli banks over settlements

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Written by AFP AFP

Published: 08 January 2014 08 January 2014

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The Hague (AFP) - Dutch pension asset manager PGGM, one of the largest in the country, said on Wednesday it was divesting from five Israeli banks because they finance Jewish settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories.

"PGGM recently decided to no longer invest in five Israeli banks," said the company, which manages about 153 billion euros ($208 bn)in funds.
The announcement comes a month after a major Dutch water supplier ended a partnership with an Israeli water company which supplies Israeli towns and Jewish settlements in the occupied West Bank.

"The reason for this was their involvement in financing Israeli settlements in occupied Palestinian territories," PGGM said in a statement.

PGGM said there was "a concern, as the settlements in the Palestinian territories are considered illegal under humanitarian law," and regarded by international observers as an "important obstacle to a peaceful (two-state) solution of the Israel-Palestinian conflict."

It said it would no longer do business with the Hapoalim and Leumi banks, the First National Bank of Israel, the Israel Discount Bank and the Mizrahi Tefahot Bank.

PGGM added it based its decision on a 2004 UN International Court of Justice ruling that the Jewish settlements were in breach of the Geneva Convention relating to occupying powers transferring their own citizens into occupied territories.

The group said it had been discussing the issue with the Israeli banks "for several years" but that the banks "have limited to no possibilities to end their involvement in the financing of settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories."

"Therefore, it was concluded that engagement as a tool to bring about change will not be effective in this case," PGGM said.

All investment in the banks ended on January 1 "as concerns remain and changes are not expected in the foreseeable future," it added.

PGGM’s investments in Israeli banks amount to a few tens of millions of euros, Israeli newspaper Haaretz reported.

"But its decision is liable to damage the banks’ image, and could lead other business concerns in Europe to follow suit," the paper said.

Last month Dutch water supplier Vitens ended a partnership with Israeli water company Mekorot due to the "political context."

The decision came days after a visit to the Mekorot offices in Israel by Dutch trade minister Lilianne Ploumen was abruptly cancelled.

The visit was part of a larger tour of Israel by Prime Minister Mark Rutte that was marred by a dispute over a Dutch-made security scanner intended to check goods leaving Gaza for the West Bank.

Rutte was to have inaugurated the scanner on the isolated territory's border with Israel, but the ceremony was broken off after Israel said it did not want Gazan goods going to the West Bank.

Israel's defence ministry wants to isolate the two Palestinian regions, while Dutch officials had hoped the scanner might boost commerce between them.

Israeli deputy Foreign minister Zeev Elkin last month said he was "blindsided" by Vitens' pullout "and a few more European companies have made similar decisions in the past months, which have blindsided us exactly in parallel with the peace process."

Zeev, speaking to Israeli military radio, said that peace initiatives should mean "that people don’t breathe down our neck", but "unfortunately this doesn’t work."