Olympia, WA. A lawsuit, filed Friday in Thurston County Superior Court, aims to punish the Olympia Food Co-op for enacting a boycott of Israeli Goods. Plaintiffs, including several candidates who's recent Co-op Board of Directors campaigns failed by large margins, threaten financial harm unless the local food cooperative rescinds its boycott.

An ultimatum from the plaintiffs sent to the Co-op before the lawsuit was filed reads: "If you do what we demand, this situation may be resolved amicably . If not this process will become considerably more complicated, burdensome, and expensive than it has been already."

Groups opposed to the boycott of Israeli goods have repeatedly refused to bring the issue to a vote of the Co-op membership - a democratic option available to any Co-op member - and have instead turned to the court system, prompting some to question the legality of bringing suit at all. Laws prohibiting "strategic lawsuits against public participation" or SLAPP suits aim to protect individuals and organizations that participate in protected speech. SLAPP suits have frequently been used as means of repressing public participation by way of legal and financial intimidation.

According to leaked documents, the Northwest chapter of the international pro-Israel and anti-boycott lobby group StandWithUs and Akiva Tor, the Israeli Consul General for the Pacific Northwest, have been working closely with the plaintiffs to bring the lawsuit forward. In an interview with the online news publication The Electronic Intifada, director of StandWithUs Northwest Robert S. Jacobs acknowledged advising the plaintiffs to focus on procedure rather than substance, noting that trying to persuade the Co-op Board to reverse their decision on the basis of political and moral arguments would "probably not very successful."

StandWithUs Northwest is also actively combating community boycott initiatives at several other food cooperatives, including a local initiative in Port Townsend, where StandWithUs recently brought Israeli Deputy Consul General Gideon Lustig to speak against the proposed boycott.

When asked about the lawsuit, Olympia Food Co-op Staff Representative Jayne Kaszynski remained focused on the Co-op's commitment to social justice: "We can assure you that this lawsuit will not diminish our commitment to the rule of law and universal human rights for all people."

The Co-op's boycott of Israeli products was enacted on July 15 last year by a consensus decision by the Board of Directors. The boycott urges Israel to comply with international law, end its occupation of Palestinians, and respect the rights of refugees. The Co-op's decision to boycott Israeli products sparked several months of constructive discussion on the store's relationship to social justice, on Jewish identity, anti-Arab racism, anti-Semitism and Islamophobia. Last November, the election for the Co-op Board demonstrated widespread support for the boycott among the membership when five publicly pro-boycott candidates won by a large margin in a record turnout election.

"As as Palestinian refugee and a member of the Olympia Co-op I wholeheartedly support the boycott, as a way to save Israel from its own excesses, and to end the continued dehumanization of the Palestinian people under Israeli control," says Farihan Bushnaq, Co-op member since 1983.

The Olympia Food Co-op is a cornerstone of the community in Olympia, WA, bringing healthy food to over 15,000 members. The Co-op draws connections between food sovereignty, local production, democracy, and collective management, and strives to "make human effects on the earth and its inhabitants positive and renewing and to encourage economic and social justice". The boycott in question is follows various other boycotts and measures intended to promote these values.

The plaintiffs, who allege that procedural violations on the part of the Co-op's Board led them to "sustain irreparable injury," are seeking "an award of damages in an amount to be proved at trial" and that the Co-op's boycott of Israeli goods be "declared unenforceable, null, and void." The Co-op, an organization largely supported by community engagement and volunteer work, could be economically devastated by such a process.

"We're all just shocked that the boycott opposition would risk closing the store just to make their point. It's disgraceful," says Andrew Meyer, a member of the local activist group Olympia BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions).

Contact:
Olympia BDS
Andrew Meyer: 360 628 3087
David Langstaff: 919 260 8209
contact@olympiabds.org
www.olympiabds.org

By Alan Hart * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Anders Behring Breivik

In his summary of what the monster had stated behind closed doors in court, Judge Heger said he had argued that he wanted to create "the greatest loss possible to Norway's governing Labour Party", which he accused of failing the country on immigration and opening the door to the "Muslim colonization" of Norway and all of Europe.

There could not have been a more effective way of inflicting at a single stroke a great loss than gunning down many members of the Norwegian Labour Party's youth wing, the Workers Youth League (AUF), which was assembled on Utoya Island.

Two days before the massacre there, and as Gilad Atzmon has researched and noted, the AUF's leader, Eskil Pedersen, gave an interview to Dagbladet, Norway's second largest tabloid newspaper. In it he said:

"The AUF has long been a supporter of an international boycott of Israel but the decision of the last Congress demands that Norway impose a unilateral economic embargo on the country… I acknowledge this is a drastic measure but I think it gives a clear indication that, quite simply, we are tired of Israel's behaviour."

(My own view is that behind closed doors all Western governments, including the one in Washington D.C. in the person of President Obama, are tired of Israel's behaviour).

There are two things we know for sure.

One is that Breivik is fanatically anti Islam and pro Zionism.

The other is that Zionism's propaganda machine has been set to work at full speed, day and night, eight days and nights a week, to demonize, discredit and destroy all who are calling and campaigning for Israel to be boycotted.

From the obscenity of the Nazi holocaust to the present, Zionism's success in selling its propaganda lies as truth is the reason why the search for peace based on an acceptable amount of justice for the Palestinians has been, and remains, a mission impossible.

I describe the Israel-Palestine conflict as the cancer at the heart of international affairs which threatens to consume us all. It's bad enough that Zionist propaganda has prevented a cure for it, but if now that same propaganda is inspiring Europeans in Europe to slaughter their own, the future is very, very frightening.

I don't know the answer to my headline question but I think investigators in Norway, prosecutors and psychiatrists, must dig deep enough to find it.

* Alan Hart is a former ITN and BBC Panorama foreign correspondent who covered wars and conflicts wherever they were taking place in the world and specialized in the Middle East. Author of Zionism: The Real Enemy of the Jews. He blogs on www.alanhart.net and tweets on www.twitter.com/alanauthor

A Global Day of Action Set for November 26, 2011

by Stephanie Westbrook* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

This past weekend in the Montpellier, France, over 100 activists from 9 countries gathered for the first ever European Forum Against Agrexco. Delegates from Italy, UK, Switzerland, Belgium, Netherlands, Spain, Germany and Palestine joined the French organizers for two full days of workshops aimed at strengthening the boycott campaign against the Israeli agricultural export giant.

Agrexco is Israel's largest fresh produce exporter and European markets account for the vast majority of their sales under the brand Carmel. The Israeli government's 50% stake in the company as well as their marketing of 60-70% of the fruit and vegetables grown in illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank have made Agrexco a prime strategic target for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

Rafeef Ziadah, representative of the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC), recalled that the campaign against Agrexco includes all three components of BDS: boycott of Agrexco products, divestment via suspension of commercial agreements and sanctions through legal procedures. Agrexco's complicity in a broad range of human rights violations, profiting from crops grown on stolen land, irrigated with stolen water and worked with child labor, also provides the campaign with ample opportunities to reach out beyond the Palestine solidarity networks to find allies in other social justice movements.

The forum centered on two parallel tracks with the objective of ridding European supermarkets of Agrexco products: boycott campaigns and court actions.

During the boycott workshop, activists presented a review of the campaigns and actions taking place in the various countries, including lobbying retail chains and co-op member meetings, actions at supermarkets and trade fairs, airport blockades and Italy's very first BDS flash mob . In Belgium last May, over 400 people in 22 cities filed a complaint with the police citing Agrexco's complicity with violations of international law. In France, the new Agrexco terminal at the port of Sète became a catalyst for the movement, with a mass demonstration of over 1500 people , a remarkable number for a BDS action! Campaigns are also under way in Sweden and Norway, who were unable to send delegates to the forum. In Sweden activists presented the national co-op with a dossier on Agrexco's activities who promised to investigate. In Norway, the campaing instead focuses on the local importer, who is consulting their attorneys on the question.

Michael Deas, European coordinator for the BNC, underlined the importance of boycotting Agrexco as a company and not just the products it exports from the illegal Israeli settlements. Aside from problems of traceability – Agrexco has been caught on numerous occasions mislabeling products or mixing settlement produce with that from the Israeli side of the Green Line – purchasing any Agrexco products means supporting a company profiting from the occupation and apartheid policies of the Israeli government.

The involvement in the French campaign of farmers unions, Confédération paysanne and Via Campesina, keep the issues of sustainable agriculture and food sovereignty at the forefront. Michael Deas also underlined the role Palestinian farmers unions have and can play in the campaign against Agrexco. In fact, Palestinian farmers unions were crucial in helping to expose a propaganda stunt organized by Agrexco in France, claiming that boycotts of Agrexco products damaged Palestinian farmers in Gaza.

The legal workshop, with the presence of three Palestinian attorneys from the Palestinian Bar Association, concentrated on possible court actions against Agrexco. While several countries – Belgium, UK, Italy – are currently exploring legal action, the French case has already produced an important result. An agent of the court inspected customs documents for the Agrexco ships docking at Sète and found clear cases of fraud . A 2010 decision of the European Court of Justice ruled that products from Israeli settlements are not eligible for preferential trade tariffs under the EU Israel Agreement. Yet here were invoices for dates from the Jordan Valley declared to be "Israel Preferential Origin." This proof of fraud, from none other than a court official, will be vital to campaigns throughout Europe.

The two-day forum succeeded in bringing together campaigns across Europe with the goal of coordinating our actions and strengthening the movement for an Agrexco-free Europe. The first step of the newly formed European-wide network will be a Global Day of Action Against Agrexco set for November 26, 2011.

With all the extremely useful, though highly technical, talk of legal cases, corporate structures, local affiliates, commercial trade agreements, distribution networks, etc., it's important to remember that behind the data and numbers, this is about people's lives.

The land confiscations, the stolen water, the house demolitions, the checkpoints, make it impossible for Palestinians to develop their own economy. A reasonable person can draw but one conclusion, these policies serve to drive the Palestinians from their land. And companies such as Agrexco not only turn a profit, but also provide a direct economic incentive to maintain the occupation and continue the apartheid policies.

Rafeef talked about the first time she saw a Jaffa orange in a UK supermarket. She could smell the sweet aroma, but she couldn't buy it. She thought of her grandfather, evicted from his land, but who returned to work for the new owner because he just couldn't give up his land. And how Palestinian produce figures in the minds of refugees, denied their right of return.

Rafeef concluded the forum with an open invitation to all to her house in Haifa, once Palestine is free. Once she can return home.

And the campaign to boycott Carmel Agrexco is a step along the way.

* Stephanie Westbrook is a US citizen who has been living in Rome, Italy since 1991. She is active in the peace and social justice movements in Italy and traveled to Gaza in June 2009. She can be reached at steph A T webfabbrica D O T com

By Uri Avnery * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

In a rare late-night session, the Knesset has finally adopted two obnoxious racist laws. Both are clearly directed against Israel's Arab citizens, a fifth of the population.

The first makes it possible to annul the citizenship of persons found guilty of offences against the security of the state. Israel prides itself on having a great variety of such laws. Annulling citizenship on such grounds is contrary to international law and conventions.

The second is more sophisticated. It allows communities of less than 400 families to appoint "admission committees" which can prevent unsuitable persons from living there. Very shrewdly, it specifically forbids the rejection of candidates because of race, religion, etc. – but that paragraph is tantamount to a wink. An Arab applicant will simply be rejected because of his many children or lack of military service.

A majority of members did not bother to show up for the vote. After all, it was late and they have families, too. Who knows, some may even have been ashamed to vote.

But far worse is a third law that is certain to pass its final stages within a few weeks: the law to outlaw the boycott of the settlements.

Since its early stages, the original crude text of this bill has been refined somewhat.

As it stands now, the law will punish any person or association publicly calling for a boycott of Israel – economic, academic or cultural. "Israel", according to this law, means any Israeli enterprise or person, in Israel or in any territory controlled by Israel. Simply put, it is all about the settlements. And not only about the boycott of the products of the settlements, which was initiated by Gush Shalom some 13 years ago, but also about the recent refusal of actors to perform in the settlement of Ariel and the call by academics not to support the so-called University Centre there. It also applies, of course, to any call for the boycott of an Israeli university or an Israeli commercial enterprise.

This is a fundamentally flawed piece of legislation: it is anti-democratic, discriminatory, annexationist and altogether unconstitutional.

Everybody has the right to buy or not to buy whatever he or she desires, from whomsoever he or she chooses. That is so obvious that it needs no confirmation. It is a part of the right to free expression guaranteed by any constitution worth its salt, and an essential element of a free market economy.

I may buy from the store on the corner, because I like the owner, and shun the supermarket opposite, which exploits its employees. Companies expend huge sums of money to convince me to buy their products rather than others.

What about ideologically motivated campaigns? Years ago, while on a visit to New York, I was persuaded not to buy grapes produced in California, because the owners oppressed the Mexican migrant workers. This boycott went on for a long time and was – if I remember right – successful. Nobody dared to suggest that such boycotts should be outlawed.

Here in Israel, rabbis of many communities regularly paste up posters calling upon their flock not to buy at certain shops, which they believe are not kosher, or not kosher enough. Such calls are commonplace.

Such publications are fully compatible with human rights. Citizens for whom pork is an abomination, have the right to be informed about which shops sell pork and which do not. As far as I know, no one in Israel has ever contested this right.

Sooner or later, some anti-religious groups will publish calls to boycott kosher shops, which pay the rabbis – some of them the most intolerant of their kind – heavy levies for their certificates. They support a vast religious establishment that openly advocates turning Israel into a Halakha state – the Jewish equivalent of a Muslim Shari'ah state". Many thousands of Kashrut supervisors and myriads of other religious functionaries are paid for by the largely secular public.

So what about an anti-rabbinical boycott? It can hardly be forbidden, since the religious and the anti-religious are guaranteed equal rights.

So it appears that not all ideologically motivated boycotts are wrong. Nor do the initiators of this particular bill – racists of the Lieberman school, Likud rightists and Kadima "centrists" – claim this. For them, boycotts are only wrong if they are directed against the nationalist, annexationist policies of this government.

This is explicitly stated in the law itself. Boycotts are unlawful if they are directed against the State of Israel – not, for example, by the State of Israel against some other state. No Israeli in his right mind would retroactively condemn the boycott imposed by world Jewry on Germany immediately after the Nazis came to power – a boycott that served as a pretext for Josef Goebbels when he unleashed on 1 April 1933, the first Nazi anti-Semitic boycott (Deutsche wehrt euch! Kauft nicht bei Juden!)

Nor does any upright Zionist find fault with the boycott measures passed by Congress, under intense Jewish pressure, against the late Soviet Union, in order to break down the barriers to free Jewish emigration. These measures were hugely successful.

The Palestinian prime minister, Salam Fayyad, promotes the Store to Store campaign, part of drive to boycott of goods produced by Israeli settlements in the occupied West Bank. Photograph: Jaafar Ashtiyeh/AFP/Getty Images

No less successful was the worldwide boycott against the Apartheid regime in South Africa – a boycott warmly welcomed by the South African liberation movement, though it also hurt the African workers employed by the boycotted white businesses (an argument now repeated by Israeli settlers, who exploit Palestinian labourers for starvation wages).

So political boycotts are not wrong, as long as they are directed against others. It's the old "Hottentot morality" of colonial lore – "if I steal your cow, that's right. If you steal my cow, that's wrong".

Rightists can call for action against left-wing organizations. Leftists cannot call for action against right-wing organizations. It's as simple as that.

But the law is not only anti-democratic and discriminatory, it is also blatantly annexationist.

By a simple semantic trick, in less than a sentence, the lawmakers do what successive Israeli government did not dare to do: they annex the Palestinian occupied territories to Israel.

Or maybe it's the other way round: are the settlers annexing Israel?

The word "settlements" does not appear in the text. God forbid. Much as the word "Arabs" does not appear in any of the other laws.

Instead, the text simply states that calls for the boycott of Israel, which are forbidden by the law, include the boycott of Israeli institutions and enterprises in all territories controlled by Israel. This includes, of course, the West Bank, East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights.

This is the core of the matter. Everything else is camouflage...

Recently, the folly of the law was demonstrated by a French judge in Grenoble. This incident concerned the quasi-monopolistic Israeli agricultural products export company, Agrexco. The judge suspected the company of fraud, because products of the settlements were falsely declared as coming from Israel. This could well be fraud, too, because Israeli exports to Europe are entitled to preferential treatment which the products of the settlements are not.

Such incidents are occurring more and more often in various European countries. This law will cause them to multiply.

In the original version, boycotters would have committed a criminal offence and been fined. That would have caused us great joy, because our refusal to pay the fines and and subsequent imprisonment would have dramatized the matter.

This clause has now been omitted. But every single company in the settlements and, indeed, every single settler who feels hurt by the boycott can sue – for unlimited damages – any group calling for the boycott and any individual connected with the call. Since the settlers are tightly organized and enjoy unlimited funds from all kinds of casino owners and sleazy sex merchants, they can file thousands of suits and practically paralyze the boycott movement. That, of course, is the aim.

The fight is far from over. Upon the enactment of the law, we shall call upon the Supreme Court to annul it, as contrary to Israel's fundamental constitutional principles and basic human rights.

As Menachem Begin used to say: "There are still judges in Jerusalem!"

Or are there?

* Uri Avnery is an Israeli journalist, writer and peace activist. Author of 1948: A Soldier's Tale - The Bloody Road to Jerusalem.

By Stephen M. Walt* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Illustration by Yaser Ahmad

Last Friday the United States vetoed a U.N. Security Council Resolution condemning Israel's continued expansion of settlements in the occupied territory of the West Bank. The resolution didn't question Israel's legitimacy, didn't declare that "Zionism is racism," and didn't call for a boycott or sanctions. It just said that the settlements were illegal and that Israel should stop building them, and called for a peaceful, two-state solution with "secure and recognized borders. The measure was backed by over 120 countries, and 14 members of the security council voted in favor. True to form, only the United States voted no.

There was no strategic justification for this foolish step, because the resolution was in fact consistent with the official policy of every president since Lyndon Johnson. All of those presidents has understood that the settlements were illegal and an obstacle to peace, and each has tried (albeit with widely varying degrees of enthusiasm) to get Israel to stop building them.

Yet even now, with the peace process and the two-state solution flat-lining, the Obama administration couldn't bring itself to vote for a U.N. resolution that reflected the U.S. government's own position on settlements. The transparently lame explanation given by U.S. officials was that the security council isn't the right forum to address this issue. Instead, they claimed that the settlements issue ought to be dealt with in direct talks between Israel and the Palestinians, and that the security council should have nothing to say on the issue.

This position is absurd on at least two grounds. First, the expansion of settlements is clearly an appropriate issue for the security council to consider, given that it is authorized to address obvious threats to international peace and security. Second, confining this issue to "direct talks" doesn't make much sense when those talks are going nowhere. Surely the Obama administration recognizes that its prolonged and prodigious effort to get meaningful discussions going have been a complete bust? It is hard to believe that they didn't recognize that voting "yes" on the resolution might be a much-needed wake-up call for the Israeli government, and thus be a good way to get the peace process moving again? Thus far, all that Obama's Middle East team has managed to do in two years is to further undermine U.S. credibility as a potential mediator between Israel and the Palestinians, and to dash the early hopes that the United States was serious about "two states for two peoples." And while Obama, Mitchell, Clinton, Ross, and the rest of the team have floundered, the Netanyahu government has continued to evict Palestinian residents from their homes, its bulldozers and construction crews continuing to seize more and more of the land on which the Palestinians hoped to create a state.

Needless to say, the United States is all by its lonesome on this issue. Our fellow democracies -- France, Germany, Great Britain, Brazil, South Africa, India, and Colombia -- all voted in favor of the resolution, but not the government of the Land of the Free. And it's not as if Netanyahu deserved to be rewarded at this point, given how consistently he has stiffed Obama and his Middle East team.

For more on this latest sad chapter in the annals of American Middle East diplomacy, see M.J Rosenberg here and here, the Magnes Zionist here and here, and Gideon Levy here.

As these commentators recognize, the real reason for Obama's misguided decision was the profound influence of the Israel lobby. Indeed, few observers have missed this simple and obvious fact. One can only conclude that Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton's repeated claims that they are "friends of Israel" and devoted to its security are nothing more than empty, politically expedient rhetoric. Whatever they may say, the policies they are pursuing -- including this latest veto -- are in fact harmful to Israel's long-term future. The man who declared in Cairo on June 4, 2009 that a two-state solution was "in the "Israel's interest, the Palestinians' interest, America's interest, and the world's interest" must have changed his mind, because his actions ever since have merely hastened the moment when creating two viable states will be impossible (if that is not already the case). Then remember what former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert said in 2007, "if the two-state solution fails, Israel will face a South African style struggle for political rights." And "once that happens," he warned, "the state of Israel is finished."

If Obama were a true friend of Israel, in short, he'd be doing whatever he could to keep it from expanding its ruinous occupation and making the Zionist vision unsustainable. And given that Congress remains hopeless on this issue, he could have shown he was a true friend by instructing his U.N. Ambassador, Susan Rice, to vote for the resolution, as a diverse array of foreign policy experts had suggested. He would also have devoted some portion of his first two years in office to explaining to the American people why some "tough love" was needed on both sides (i.e., not just the Palestinians), and he would have recruited America's democratic allies in a genuine effort to bring the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to a fair and stable end. Had he done these things, most Americans would have supported him. Instead, his lame actions are just enabling the occupation, and for the most cynical domestic political reasons (like safeguarding his re-election prospects in 2012). Even worse, he did it at a moment when the Arab world is in ferment, and when the voice of the Arab street is beginning to be heard. But instead of aligning itself with international law, basic principles of justice, and its own stated position, the Obama administration caved. Again.

If the United States hopes to be on the right side of history, it is time to start thinking about what its policy should be when everybody finally acknowledges that "two states for two peoples" is no longer a practical possibility. This is going to happen sooner or later, and anyone who is still advocating for a two-state solution at that point is going to sound like an ignorant fool. Not because of the flaws in that option, but simply because it will be impossible to implement. What alternative solution will the president and secretary of state support then? Ethnic cleansing? A binational, liberal democracy in which all inhabitants of Israel/Palestine have equal civil and political rights? Or permanent apartheid, in the form of disconnected Palestinian Bantustans under de facto Israeli control? That awkward reality may not be apparent while Obama is president (which is probably what he is hoping), but it will be a damning legacy to leave to his successor, as well as a tragedy for two peoples who have already known more than their share.

Postscript: Some readers may think I am being too defeatist here, and they might cite in evidence Bernard Avishai's New York Times Magazine essay detailing the alleged "near-miss" peace talks between Olmert and Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas in 2008. Avishai's account portrays the two leaders as close to a deal and suggests that it would not be that hard to resurrect a similar deal today. It's an interesting article, but there are at least four problems with his optimistic account. First, Olmert was the lamest of lame ducks by 2008, because he was due to be indicted on corruption charges and everyone knew it, so the talks themselves were something of a side-show. Second, even had this not been the case, it is by no means clear that Olmert could have sold the Israeli public on the proposed deal. Third, it is not even clear that the two sides were that close to an agreement, given Olmert's insistence that Israel could not withdraw from Ariel and Maale Adumim (two settlement blocs that thrust deep inside the West Bank). Fourth, and probably most important, political trends in Israel are headed the other way (among other things, Avigdor Lieberman wasn't foreign minister back then), which makes the Olmert/Abbas talks even less relevant. For excellent critical responses to Avishai's piece, see Noam Sheizaf, Matthew Taylor, and Ilene Cohen.

* Stephen M. Walt is the Robert and Renée Belfer professor of international relations at Harvard University.

Nima Shirazi * | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

"The gradual abolition of the slave trade: or leaving of sugar by degrees in 1792" by Isaac Cruikshank

Last week, Indypendent journalist and frequent Mondoweiss contributor Alex Kane noted:

"As the boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement continues full-steam ahead in its efforts to force Israel to comply with international law, pro-Israel hawks are increasingly attempting to link the movement to anti-Semitism and Nazi Germany-era policies."

The latest example of this disingenuous and intellectually dishonest smear campaign comes (unsurprisingly) from Jeffrey Goldberg, the former IDF prison guard, unabashed warmonger, and Zionist apologist and propagandist, who recently cheered the New Israel Fund for, in his words, leaving the "BDS swamp."

Despite Goldberg's claim to be "running a campaign on this blog against the cheap deployment of Nazi imagery in argument-making," he does just that, stating that "it's a fair analogy" to liken the boycott of Israeli goods to the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses in 1933, explaining that "the BDS movement, like no other anti-Israel propaganda campaign, has sent chills down the collective Jewish spine precisely because economic boycotts have been, throughout history, used to hurt Jews."

Kane, in his cogent response, accurately points out many of Goldberg's errors. For example, Kane notes that the BDS campaign is not a "European-centered campaign," as Goldberg writes, but rather is "a Palestinian-led civil society movement that has spread to the Western world." He also points out that Goldberg is "guilty of conflating Israel with Judaism, and Jews with Israelis," continuing:

"The BDS movement is not an economic boycott directed against Jews; it is a boycott movement directed against the State of Israel, which labels itself the Jewish State, because of its flagrant violations of international law and its continued occupation of Palestinian land."

As per the Nazi analogy, Kane writes that while "Nazi Germany instituted a blanket boycott...directed at a persecuted minority just because of their religious faith...[t]he BDS movement is targeting a state, asking Israel to comply with their obligations under international law, because of their unjust and oppressive policies towards the Palestinian people."

But this is not the limit of Goldberg's spurious claims and specious equivalency. What could - and should - also be addressed is Goldberg's blanket contention that "economic boycotts have been, throughout history, used to hurt Jews."

This statement follows Goldberg's pattern of labeling any and all human rights efforts as "anti-Semitic" whenever they happen to address war crimes, contempt for international law, rampant and aggressive discrimination, land and water theft, ethnic cleansing, and collective punishment routinely committed by the Israeli government and military and widely supported (or ignored, or justified) by the Israeli public.

Goldberg not only traffics in knee-jerk emotional blackmail, as usual - yelling "Nazi!" in a crowded blogosphere - but also relies on a very selective historical memory regarding the history of boycotts and campaigns to educate the public about ongoing injustice and mobilize it against such atrocities.

Even leaving the most obvious, and historically recent, connection of the boycott of Apartheid South Africa to the BDS call aside, Goldberg's contention still falls flat.

In what the BBC describes as "one of the earliest examples of consumers using their purchasing power to reject the trade in goods which have not been ethically produced," British civil society widely boycotted sugar produced by slaves in the Caribbean in 1791. Spurred by the distribution of thousands of pro-boycott pamphlets by the London Society for Effecting the Abolition of the Slave Trade, eventually some 300,000 Britons boycotted sugar, resulting in sugar sales dropping by anywhere from a third to a half during that time. Many shops even advertised goods produced by 'freemen,' while sales of sugar from India, where slavery was not used, increased tenfold over two years.

BBC reports that "Hundreds of thousands of people also signed petitions calling for the abolition of the slave trade. Many supported the campaign against their own interests. For example, in Manchester (which sold some £200,000 worth of goods each year to slave ships) roughly 20% of the city's population signed petitions in support of abolition. The size and strength of feeling demonstrated by these popular protests made even pro-slavery politicians consider the consequences of ignoring public opinion. One pro-slavery lobbyist of the time noted that the 'Press teems with pamphlets upon the subject...The stream of popularity runs against us.'"

Also, during this time, even artists joined the fight to expose injustice. Poet Robert Southey spoke of tea as "the blood-sweetened beverage," and Sir William Fox urged the tea drinker "As he sweetens his tea, let him...say as he truly may, this lump cost the poor slave a groan, and this a bloody stroke with a cartwhip."

One wonders what could be written today about every dollop of Sabra hummus or each squirt of Ahava moisture-enhancing face "cleanser."

As Goldberg invokes the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses to disingenuously link BDS to anti-Semitism, he doesn't address the fact that the boycott lasted (at most) three days, was widely ignored by the German public and abandoned due to its damaging effect on the economy. He then deliberately ignores the historical record, which shows that the ineffective (though unquestionably appalling and racist) Nazi boycott was actually preceded by an anti-Nazi boycott of German business, organized by the American Jewish community.

On March 23, 1933, less than two months after Hitler was sworn in as Chancellor, less than one month after the infamous Reichstag Fire of February 27 (the false-flag operation which paved the way for massive Nazi gains in the parliamentary elections six days later) and the exact same day that the parliament voted overwhelmingly to gave Hitler dictatorial powers, New York City's Jewish War Veterans, after considering the consequences for the already persecuted German Jewry, became the first American organization to announce a trade boycott of the Third Reich and organize a massive protest parade, in which over 4,000 veterans marched on City Hall and were welcomed by Mayor John P. O'Brien.

Soon thereafter, a coalition of the American Jewish Congress, the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League, and the Jewish Labor Committee sponsored simultaneous protest rallies in New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland and numerous other locations, encouraging the boycott of German goods. The New York rally, held at Madison Square Garden, was broadcast worldwide and featured speeches delivered by American Jewish, Christian, and labor leaders, along with Senator Robert F. Wagner and former New York governor Al Smith, calling "for an immediate cessation of the brutal treatment being inflicted on German Jewry." Four years later, another rally sponsored by the AJC and the Jewish Labor Committee was held at Madison Square Garden, at which union leader John L. Lewis, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, and Rabbi Stephen Wise all spoke in support of boycott.

Nevertheless, the boycott movement - both in the US and worldwide - was largely unsuccessful, in part due to governments' unwillingness to cut economic ties with the heavily industrialized Germany, but also because the Jewish community itself was divided on the issue. Historian Lenni Brenner writes that "there were those in the Jewish community in America and Britain who specifically opposed the very notion of a boycott. The American Jewish Committee, the B’nai B’rith (Sons of the Covenant) fraternal order and the Board of Deputies of British Jews refused to back the boycott. However, of all of the active Jewish opponents of the boycott idea, the most important was the World Zionist Organisation (WZO). It not only bought German wares; it sold them, and even sought out new customers for Hitler and his industrialist backers."

The WZO, intent on pursuing policies which would promote the establishment of a Zionist state in what was then Mandatory Palestine, "saw Hitler's victory in much the same way as its German affiliate, the ZVfD [Zionistische Vereinigung fuer Deutschland, or the Zionist Federation of Germany]: not primarily as a defeat for all Jewry, but as positive proof of the bankruptcy of assimilationism and liberalism," Brenner tells us. These sentiments were enthusiastically expressed by the renowned German biographer Emil Ludwig during a visit to the United States at the time. "Hitler will be forgotten in a few years, but he will have a beautiful monument in Palestine," he said. "Thousands who seemed to be completely lost to Judaism were brought back to the fold by Hitler, and for that I am personally very grateful to him.” (Meyer Steinglass, "Emil Ludwig before the Judge," American Jewish Times, April 1936)

Clearly, Zionist opposition to morally-justifiable boycott - in service of its ethnocentric ideology - is nothing new. But as history has shown, boycotts can succeed despite libelous opposition and propaganda - it just takes time.

*****

A portion of this article was previously published in my September 10, 2010 piece, "The Thin Green Line," here on Wide Asleep in America.

* Nima Shirazi is a writer and musician from New York City. His political commentary is published on his website, Wide Asleep in America.com. His analysis of United States policy and Middle East issues, particularly with reference to current events in Iran, Israel, and Palestine, can also be found in numerous other online and print publications.

The University of Johannesburg's Senate will next week meet to decide whether to end its relationship with an Israeli institution, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, on the grounds of that university's active support for and involvement in the Israeli military. Archbishop Desmond Tutu supports the move. He explains why.

By Archbishop Desmond Tutu | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Archbishop Desmond Tutu (Photo: ROBYN BECK / AFP)

"The temptation in our situation is to speak in muffled tones about an issue such as the right of the people of Palestine to a state of their own.

We can easily be enticed to read reconciliation and fairness as meaning parity between justice and injustice. Having achieved our own freedom, we can fall into the trap of washing our hands of difficulties that others face. Yet we would be less than human if we did so. It behoves all South Africans, themselves erstwhile beneficiaries of generous international support, to stand up and be counted among those contributing actively to the cause of freedom and justice." - Nelson Mandela, December 4 1997

Struggles for freedom and justices are fraught with huge moral dilemmas. How can we commit ourselves to virtue - before its political triumph - when such commitment may lead to ostracism from our political allies and even our closest partners and friends? Are we willing to speak out for justice when the moral choice that we make for an oppressed community may invite phone calls from the powerful or when possible research funding will be withdrawn from us? When we say "Never again!" do we mean "Never again!", or do we mean "Never again to us!"?

Our responses to these questions are an indication of whether we are really interested in human rights and justice or whether our commitment is simply to secure a few deals for ourselves, our communities and our institutions - but in the process walking over our ideals even while we claim we are on our way to achieving them?

The issue of a principled commitment to justice lies at the heart of responses to the suffering of the Palestinian people and it is the absence of such a commitment that enables many to turn a blind eye to it.

Consider for a moment the numerous honorary doctorates that Nelson Mandela and I have received from universities across the globe. During the years of apartheid many of these same universities denied tenure to faculty who were "too political" because of their commitment to the struggle against apartheid. They refused to divest from South Africa because "it will hurt the blacks" (investing in apartheid South Africa was not seen as a political act; divesting was).

Let this inconsistency please not be the case with support for the Palestinians in their struggle against occupation.

I never tire of speaking about the very deep distress in my visits to the Holy Land; they remind me so much of what happened to us black people in South Africa. I have seen the humiliation of the Palestinians at checkpoints and roadblocks, suffering like we did when young white police officers prevented us from moving about. My heart aches. I say, "Why are our memories so short?" Have our Jewish sisters and brothers forgotten their own previous humiliation? Have they forgotten the collective punishment, the home demolitions, in their own history so soon?

Have they turned their backs on their profound and noble religious traditions? Have they forgotten that God cares deeply about all the downtrodden?

Together with the peace-loving peoples of this Earth, I condemn any form of violence - but surely we must recognise that people caged in, starved and stripped of their essential material and political rights must resist their Pharaoh? Surely resistance also makes us human? Palestinians have chosen, like we did, the nonviolent tools of boycott, divestment and sanctions.

South African universities with their own long and complex histories of both support for apartheid and resistance to it should know something about the value of this nonviolent option.

The University of Johannesburg has a chance to do the right thing, at a time when it is unsexy. I have time and time again said that we do not want to hurt the Jewish people gratuitously and, despite our deep responsibility to honour the memory of the Holocaust and to ensure it never happens again (to anyone), this must not allow us to turn a blind eye to the suffering of Palestinians today.

I support the petition by some of the most prominent South African academics who call on the University of Johannesburg to terminate its agreement with Ben-Gurion University in Israel (BGU). These petitioners note that: "All scholarly work takes place within larger social contexts - particularly in institutions committed to social transformation. South African institutions are under an obligation to revisit relationships forged during the apartheid era with other institutions that turned a blind eye to racial oppression in the name of 'purely scholarly' or 'scientific work'." It can never be business as usual.

Israeli Universities are an intimate part of the Israeli regime, by active choice. While Palestinians are not able to access universities and schools, Israeli universities produce the research, technology, arguments and leaders for maintaining the occupation. BGU is no exception. By maintaining links to both the Israeli defence forces and the arms industry, BGU structurally supports and facilitates the Israeli occupation. For example, BGU offers a fast-tracked programme of training to Israeli Air Force pilots.

In the past few years, we have been watching with delight UJ's transformation from the Rand Afrikaans University, with all its scientific achievements but also ugly ideological commitments. We look forward to an ongoing principled transformation. We don't want UJ to wait until others' victories have been achieved before offering honorary doctorates to the Palestinian Mandelas or Tutus in 20 years' time.

(Times Live - South Africa)

By Nima Shirazi* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

"Before their eyes we turn into our homestead the land and villages in which they and their forefathers have lived...We are a generation of settlers, and without the steel helmet and gun barrel, we shall not be able to plant a tree or build a house."

- Moshe Dayan, Israel Defense Forces Chief of Staff, speaking at the funeral of an Israeli farmer killed by a Palestinian in April 1956

The public debate over the Israeli Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign was reignited recently with the news that the illegal West Bank colony of Ariel would soon be opening its newly-constructed, multi-million dollar cultural center and would host performances by several of Israel's leading theater companies in its auditorium, built - tragically - by the very Palestinian construction workers that Israel has occupied and dispossessed. The announcement marked the first time these notable Israeli drama groups would be performing outside of the 1949 Armistice Line in Israeli-occupied Palestine.

Within days of the report, over 50 Israeli actors, directors, playwrights, and producers had signed onto a letter addressed to the boards of Israel's repertory theaters declaring their refusal to perform in Ariel, which is the fourth largest settlement in the West Bank. The letter stated:

"We wish to express our disgust with the theater's board's plans to perform in the new auditorium in Ariel. The actors among us hereby declare that we will refuse to perform in Ariel, as well as in any other settlement. We urge the boards to hold their activity within the sovereign borders of the State of Israel within the Green Line."

Condemnation and outrage were quick to come from the Israeli government, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu criticizing what he called the "international delegitimization assault" on Israel through academic, cultural, and economic boycotts and stating, "The last thing we need now is an attempt of boycotts from within." Other ministers chimed in with their own often fascist statements, all implicitly (some explicitly) treating the militarized and messianic Jewish communities in the Palestinian West Bank as part of Israel, which they are not. (Though, this should hardly be surprising considering that Netanyahu himself referred - with a straight face and utter contempt for international law - to Ariel as the "capital of Samaria" and an "indisputable" part of Israel during a visit to the colony early this year. Additionally, Israel's racist, child-beating Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, who openly calls for the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians, lives in the illegal West Bank settlement of Nokdim.)

Israeli Finance Minister Yuval Steinitz called the boycott letter "unthinkable" and "a case of unfounded hatred," before suggesting that the government withdraw funding from theater companies which refuse to perform in Ariel. He also expressed his desire for the dissenting performers to be fired. "I hope that those who fail to fulfill their contracts will be removed from the theater," he said, continuing, "There's a limit to everything." Everything, that is, according to Steinitz, except decades upon decades of land theft and apartheid.

Science and Technology Minister Daniel Hershkowitz, regretful of "the fact that people mix culture with politics," called the boycott "inappropriate" and scolded one of the signatories for not serving in the Israeli military. It can be assumed that Hershkowitz doesn't find it inappropriate for Israel to use its science and technology to harvest and traffic human organs and spy on the telephone calls and emails of "governments, international organizations, foreign companies, political groups and individuals" in the Middle East, Asia, Africa and Europe.

Echoing Hershkowitz, the mayor of Ariel, Ron Nachman claimed that "Culture has nothing to do with politics. If the actors and artists want to deal with politics, let them go to the Knesset. The vileness, baseness and hypocrisy of those who work in culture and call on a boycott of us, is intolerable," while Naftali Bennett, the Director-General of the Yesha Council which speaks collectively for the municipal organizations of illegal West Bank settlements (which is all of them), blamed the motion on the "unfounded hatred and factionalism" that have historically affected the Jewish people. A counter-campaign by a group called Our Land of Israel declared that the "'liberals and enlightened" are "always on the Arabs' side," called the letter's signers "traitors," and suggested these enemies of Israel should perform in Gaza.

In one of the more ironic condemnations, Tel Aviv mayor Ron Huldai opined, "Those who work in a theater financed with public funds cannot refuse to perform in places decided by the theater's management," and expanded on his broader belief that, "A person who is part of the public system and works must respect the management's decisions." One wonders if Huldai extends this responsibility to Nazi soldiers and concentration camp guards who were "just following orders." Perhaps he should bone up on his knowledge of the Nuremburg Principles, the fourth of which affirms,

"The fact that a person acted pursuant to order of his Government or of a superior does not relieve him from responsibility under international law, provided a moral choice was in fact possible to him."

The Israeli signatories of the boycott letter are clearly better versed in international law than the mayor of Tel Aviv. Citing both Article 49 of the Fourth Geneva Convention ("The Occupying Power shall not deport or transfer parts of its own civilian population into the territory it occupies.") and the very first Nuremberg Principal ("Any person who commits an act which constitutes a crime under international law is responsible therefore and liable to punishment."), Israeli dramaturgist Vardit Shalfi, one of the letter's initiators, clearly explained,

"Ariel is not a legitimate community, and as such, is against international law and international treaties that the State of Israel has signed. This means anyone performing there would be considered a criminal according to international law. The theater's boards should inform their actors that there are apartheid roads for Jews only that lead into the settlement of Ariel. The moment we perform there, we are giving legitimization to this settlement's existence."

Despite the aggressive condemnation (including the heckling of two actors who signed the letter by an Israeli parliamentarian and his aide during the performance of a play in Tel Aviv), the boycott quickly received support from influential sectors of Israeli society, as well as internationally. By the following week, over 150 Israeli academics, including professors Zeev Sternhell, Shlomo Sand, and Neve Gordon, signed a letter in solidarity with the Ariel boycott which states, "We will not take part in any kind of cultural activity beyond the Green Line, take part in discussions and seminars, or lecture in any kind of academic setting in these settlements." In another supportive statement signed by several dozen noted Israeli authors David Grossman, A.B. Yehoshua, and Amos Oz, the signatories warn that "legitimization and acceptance of the settler enterprise cause critical damage to Israel's chances of achieving a peace accord with its Palestinian neighbors."

Additionally, about 300 people gathered outside the Habimah Theater in Tel Aviv to protest its decision to perform in Ariel. Protest participants included current and former Knesset ministers, actors, playwrights, veteran peace activists, and the former editor-in-chief of the Israeli daily newspaper Maariv. "Where there is occupation, there is no culture," read some rally banners.

Perhaps even more impressive, and certainly surprising, is the support for the Ariel boycott coming from over 150 stage and screen actors, directors, writers, producers, and composers in the United States. Organized by Jewish Voice for Peace, a "national membership organization dedicated to a just peace in Israel/Palestine based on equality and international law," a statement has been released, calling the Ariel boycott "brave" and "courageous" and correctly noting the clear illegality of the West Bank colonies "by all standards of international law." The statement continues,

"Most of us are involved in daily compromises with wrongful acts. When a group of people suddenly have the clarity of mind to see that the next compromise looming up before them is an unbearable one -- and when they somehow find the strength to refuse to cross that line -- we can't help but be overjoyed and inspired and grateful.

It's thrilling to think that these Israeli theatre artists have refused to allow their work to be used to normalize a cruel occupation which they know to be wrong, which violates international law and which is impeding the hope for a just and lasting peace for Israelis and Palestinians alike. They've made a wonderful decision, and they deserve the respect of people everywhere who dream of justice. We stand with them.

The signatories, among them "four Pulitzer Prize winners, several recipients of Guggenheim Fellowships, a MacArthur Fellowship, a National Medal of Honor, and scores of recipients of the highest U.S. acting honors, including Tony Awards, Emmy Awards, Grammy Awards, Obie Awards, Drama Desk Awards," include Tony Kushner, Vanessa Redgrave, Stephen Sondheim, Roseanne Barr, Julianne Moore, Ed Asner, Cynthia Nixon, Mary Rodgers, Jennifer Tilly, Mandy Patinkin, Wallace Shawn, Theodore Bikel, Stephen Webber, Mira Nair, Hal Prince, Bill Irwin, James Schamus, Eve Ensler, and Sheldon Harnick.

A story in Yedioth Ahronoth, Israel's leading daily newspaper, reported that, once news of the Jewish Voice for Peace letter surfaced, several noted Hollywood actors asked the Israel consul general in Los Angeles whether or not they should sign the statement. They were told, "Instead of getting involved in such matters it would be more helpful to support Israeli culture which needs such help. They shouldn't involve themselves in domestic Israeli politics. What's more, Ariel is within the Israeli consensus." The consulate then turned to "key members of the Hollywood entertainment industry asking them to persuade others not to sign."

Beyond the sheer creepiness of these American actors taking their marching orders from the Israeli consulate (not to mention the willingness of the consulate to give those orders), the hypocrisy of the consul general is staggering. For instance, when actor Jon Voight, who is a fervent Zionist, declared his support of Jewish colonization of Palestine and opposition to Palestinian self-determination by stating, "God gave this land to the Jewish people," later accusing President Barack Obama of lying "to the Jewish people" and promoting anti-Semitism by pursuing policies that, in his mind, are "putting Israel in harm's way," the Israeli consul general was silent. Clearly, Voight's opinions are in line with official Israeli policy and didn't constitute unnecessary interference in Israeli affairs. Furthermore, the consul's statement that "Ariel is within the Israeli consensus" is a lie. It's not. It's illegal under international law and is, at present, undoubtedly not a part of Israel proper, regardless of what any future bogus "peace" agreement may determine.

Actor Wallace Shawn, a Jewish Voice for Peace statement signatory and one of the letter's drafters, explained his view on the ongoing efforts to legitimize West Bank settlements, saying, "Most of us, including actors, just want to lead a quiet life. And most of us go through our entire lives without doing anything really courageous, without risking anything important to us. But when asked to perform in an illegal settlement for an all-Jewish audience, as if this were one more ordinary theater, they had the guts to say no." He continued, "To do a play in that new theater helps to make the settlement seem like a permanent part of the landscape, but the settlements are obstacles to peace and morally unjustifiable on top of that," adding, "Theater is the art of truth, and the Israeli artists are following their own truth."

Boy Oh Boycott!

While the frustrated reactions of those who encourage garrison-colonialism and support in Jewish exceptionalism and supremacy over the inalienable human rights, sovereignty, and self-determination of Palestine's indigenous population is both predictable and easily dismissed, the debate now raging within so-called progressive circles, among the alleged advocates of "peace and justice," is far more important.

While the Israeli artist boycott of Ariel (and its supporters worldwide) has been widely praised as an unprecedented act of courage and conscience, the morality and effectiveness of a broader international campaign is still a hotly-contested subject. Essentially, regardless of the absurd attacks one might receive from the Eretz Yisrael crowd, the condemnation and even symbolic boycott of West Bank settlements like Ariel, is relatively easy. After all, funding for such illegal projects comes, in part, from Christian Zionists like pastor John Hagee, who has donated at least $500,000 to the Ariel colony. In return for his financial (and ideological) support, "a special dedication ceremony was held naming the main building of the [Ariel settlement's] Lowell Milken Family Sports & Recreation Complex in honor of John Hagee Ministries" prior to Ariel's "Night To Honor Those Who Honor Israel" celebration in April 2008. The settlement's own website states that "those in attendance gave resounding applause as Mayor Ron Nachman and Pastor John Hagee uncovered the sign naming the almost completed building" and quotes Nachman as telling those gathered, "Here in the hills of Samaria, in the heart of Biblical Israel, you are now well-rooted in the Land. Not just by talking but by doing, you have made this possible." One can be sure that the subsequent ovation for Hagee, who has said that "turning part or all of Jerusalem over to the Palestinians would be tantamount to turning it over to the Taliban,'' was, well, rapturous.

The settlement's website lays the hasbara on thick when describing its vital support from organizations like Hagee's Christians United for Israel:

"Ariel has been so very fortunate in developing strong relationships with Christian Zionist communities around the world whose deep and abiding love for Israel and the Jewish people is completely unconditional. These dear friends visit us frequently, (despite the fact that we live in a tough neighborhood), are often the first to call when times are particularly difficult, express interest in the needs of the residents of Ariel, respect our choice to live in an area of Israel that is sometimes disputed and fund projects that truly make a difference in our city and in our everyday lives. In short, they are true friends of Israel and Ariel."

It's probably safe to say that the Israeli consulate general hasn't told Hagee and his flock to mind their own business and refrain from involving themselves in "domestic Israeli politics."

If the militant, messianic, and wholly illegal aspects of West Bank settlements aren't enough to demand a boycott, basic morality might do the trick. Beyond stealing Palestinian land for colonization, settlers also steal natural resources, such as water, which is also a gross violation of Israel's obligations as an occupying power. So offensive are these settlements and so racist their residents, that, not only do they and the occupying infrastructure upon which they rely obviously discriminate against the native Palestinian population from whom they steal via an apartheid highway system, checkpoints, road blocks, and curfews, they also discriminate against each other. For instance, the Israeli Education Ministry has recently upheld a request by a religious school in the illegal Israeli settlement of Immanuel to segregate white Jewish students from non-white Jewish students in classrooms. As such, "74 white girls who have been studying in a building next to the school will now be allowed to study in whites-only classrooms that are privately funded, as their parents claim they do not want their girls to study in racially-mixed classrooms."

To oppose and rightly boycott exclusive and stockaded Jewish settlements on Palestinian land is, to be quite frank, unimpressive. The clear illegality of the colonies makes any argument to the contrary irrelevant, not to mention wholly immoral, regardless of whatever arcane religious land deed one happens to personally believe in. After all, despite its ongoing actions of encouraging and facilitating, the Israeli government itself recognized this unequivocal contravention of international law back in 1967, a mere three months after aggressively (not defensively) conquering and occupying East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza.

However, campaigns to boycott Israel itself - whether economically, militarily, diplomatically, culturally - are a different story. The Jewish community worldwide, for example, has long had mixed reactions to calls for both international and domestic boycott.

In early 1933, less than two months after the Reichstag Fire, but more than half a decade before the German annexation of Austria and the Sudetenland, the terror of Kristallnacht, the invasion, occupation, and ghettoization of Poland and the extermination camps, and almost nine years before the Final Solution, American Jews were already mobilizing against racist Nazi programs. In response to the then-rising threat of anti-Semitism and the horror of discriminatory policies within Germany, New York City's Jewish War Veterans, after considering the consequences for the persecuted German Jewry, became the first American organization to announce a trade boycott of the Third Reich and organize a massive protest parade, in which over 4,000 veterans marched on City Hall and were welcomed by Mayor John P. O'Brien.

Soon thereafter, a coalition of the American Jewish Congress, the Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League, and the Jewish Labor Committee sponsored simultaneous protest rallies in New York, Chicago, Boston, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Cleveland and numerous other locations, encouraging the boycott of German goods. The New York rally, held at Madison Square Garden, was broadcast worldwide and featured speeches delivered by American Jewish, Christian, and labor leaders, along with Senator Robert F. Wagner and former New York governor Al Smith, calling "for an immediate cessation of the brutal treatment being inflicted on German Jewry." Four years later, another rally sponsored by the AJC and the Jewish Labor Committee was held at Madison Square Garden, at which union leader John L. Lewis, New York Mayor Fiorello LaGuardia, and Rabbi Stephen Wise all spoke in support of boycott.

Nevertheless, the boycott movement - both in the US and worldwide - was largely unsuccessful, in part due to governments' unwillingness to cut economic ties with the heavily industrialized Germany, but also because the Jewish community itself was divided on the issue. Historian Lenni Brenner writes that "there were those in the Jewish community in America and Britain who specifically opposed the very notion of a boycott. The American Jewish Committee, the B'nai B'rith (Sons of the Covenant) fraternal order and the Board of Deputies of British Jews refused to back the boycott. However, of all of the active Jewish opponents of the boycott idea, the most important was the World Zionist Organisation (WZO). It not only bought German wares; it sold them, and even sought out new customers for Hitler and his industrialist backers."

The WZO, intent on pursuing policies which would promote the establishment of a Zionist state in what was then Mandatory Palestine, "saw Hitler's victory in much the same way as its German affiliate, the ZVfD [Zionistische Vereinigung fuer Deutschland, or the Zionist Federation of Germany]: not primarily as a defeat for all Jewry, but as positive proof of the bankruptcy of assimilationism and liberalism," Brenner tells us. These sentiments were expressed with staggering enthusiasm by the renowned German biographer Emil Ludwig during a visit to the United States. "Hitler will be forgotten in a few years, but he will have a beautiful monument in Palestine," he said. "Thousands who seemed to be completely lost to Judaism were brought back to the fold by Hitler, and for that I am personally very grateful to him." (Meyer Steinglass, "Emil Ludwig before the Judge," American Jewish Times, April 1936)

Israel's "Right to Exist"...But As What?

Recent evidence that the international BDS campaign is gaining traction includes the Olympia Food Co-op, TIAA-CREF meetings, and the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign (IPSC) in which over 175 Irish creative and performing artists have pledged not to accept invitations to perform in Israel. The boycott in Chile, divestment in Norway, and the recent cutting off of diplomatic relations by Mauritania, Qatar, Venezuela, Nicaragua, and Bolivia are all proof that the movement is having an effect. Still, the boycott divide has resurfaced in the Jewish academic community, though the arguments employed are strikingly similar to those considered over 70 years ago.

In condemning the academic boycott of West Bank settlements by Israeli scholars, authors, and lecturers, Professor Yossi Ben Artzi, Haifa University's outgoing rector and one of the founding members of the Israeli anti-occupation advocacy group Peace Now, stated his belief that "academics should not use an academic boycott as a tool to further ideological or political agendas," the Israeli daily Yedioth Ahronoth reported.

"I too believe that settlements are the source of all evil in Israel," he stated, continuing, "Nevertheless, the use of a boycott is not only ineffective but bolsters the target of the boycott." Ben Artzi also accused the Israeli academics of "throwing stones and shattering the basis for their existence."

Ben Artzi is wrong. The settlements are not the root of the current Israeli dilemma, often cast by Israeli intellectuals as a supposedly stark choice "between two terrible options: Jewish-dominated apartheid or non-Jewish democracy."

These scholars, exemplified recently by Gadi Taub, an assistant professor of communications and public policy at Hebrew University in Jerusalem and author of "The Settlers," argue that "the status quo cannot last" and that the settlements are not merely "obstacles to a final peace accord, which is how settlement critics have often framed the issue," but, rather, that they are a "danger [that] will doom Zionism itself."

In his August 29 OpEd in The New York Times, Taub argues that "the settlement problem should be at the top of everyone's agenda, beginning with Israel's. The religious settlement movement is not just secular Zionism's ideological adversary, it is a danger to its very existence," claiming that "the secular Zionist dream was fundamentally democratic." Well, democratic for Jews, at least. Taub explains, "Its proponents, from Theodor Herzl to David Ben-Gurion, sought to apply the universal right of self-determination to the Jews, to set them free individually and collectively as a nation within a democratic state."

Taub's conceptions of both "freedom" and "democracy" here are seriously flawed. As Joseph Agassi, professor of Philosophy at Tel Aviv University, notes, "[The Zionist] ideology deems anti-Semitism unavoidable and Israel the only place where a Jew can be safe. This view is essentially undemocratic: it denies a priori any value of the emancipation of Jews in the modern world...As an Israeli patriot and a philosopher, I find it imperative to make Judaic anti-Zionism a part of the badly needed debate about Israel's past, present and future." The idea that the Jewish communities of the world could only achieve their right to self-determination, freedom, and political representation under the banner of fierce nationalism based on ethnicity and consolidated by the so-called "Arab threat," is inherently paranoid, jingoistic, racist, xenophobic, and, ultimately, ethnocentric and supremacist in its inception. Secular Zionism, as described by Taub, therefore confirms the prescient late 19th century warning of Moritz Gudemann, chief rabbi of Vienna, who predicted that "the Zionists would ultimately create a Judaism of cannons and bayonets that would invert the roles of David and Goliath and would end in a perversion of Judaism, which never glorified war and never idolized warriors," and who, quoting from an Austrian poet, concluded that the Zionist leadership was following a path that leads "from humanity through nationality to bestiality."

Additionally, Taub deliberately omits that the Zionist goal of a "Jewish state" relied heavily - some may argue, primarily - on denying the indigenous population of Palestine the very "universal right of self-determination" that these European immigrants were claiming for themselves. Nevertheless, Taub later claims, "In Israel proper, the Arab minority represents about a fifth of its 7.2 million citizens, and they have full legal equality."

To call this last statement disingenuous would be an insult to that word's actual definition. The claim is an outright lie.

For starters, whereas the Israeli Proclamation of Independence (unilaterally declared on May 14, 1948, in defiance of the international community and the "universal right" of Palestinian self-determination) declared that the new state would "ensure complete equality of social and political rights to all its inhabitants irrespective of religion, race or sex" and "guarantee freedom of religion, conscience, language, education and culture," the Israeli Supreme Court has repeatedly stated, in a series of decisions, that "the proclamation does not have constitutional validity, and that it is not a supreme law which may be used to invalidate laws and regulations that contradict it." Furthermore, the Israeli "Basic Law: Human Dignity and Liberty," enacted in 1992 and which carries with it the ostensible force of a bill of rights (as Israel has no Constitution), tellingly makes absolutely no mention of "equality," and affirms "State of Israel as a Jewish and democratic state," a concept which explicitly grants legal and collective superiority upon Jewish nationals to the implicit detriment of other Israeli citizens.

In its concluding observations on Israel's compliance with the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, published on July 29, 2010, the UN Human Rights Committee noted with concern that Israel's Basic Law "does not contain a general provision for equality and non-discrimination."

The US State Department's 2009 Human Rights Report on Israel and the Occupied Territories, released in March, states that: "Institutional, legal, and societal discrimination against Arab citizens, Palestinian Arabs, non-Orthodox Jews, and other religious groups continued, as did societal discrimination against persons with disabilities. Women suffered societal discrimination and domestic violence. The government maintained unequal educational systems for Arab and Jewish students."

The 2003 "Official Summation of the Or Commission Report," an Israeli government-sponsored investigative finding, even categorized the government's treatment of its Palestinian citizens "primarily neglectful and discriminatory."

Back in 1998, the United Nations Human Rights Committee observed that, in Israel, there exist "deeply imbedded discriminatory social attitudes, practices and laws against Arab Israelis that have resulted in a lower standard of living compared with Jewish Israelis, as is evident in their significantly lower levels of education, access to health care, access to housing, land and employment." Continuing, the Committee noted "with concern that most Arab Israelis, because they do not join the army, do not enjoy the financial benefits available to Israelis who have served in the army, including scholarships and housing loans. The Committee also expresses concern that the Arab language, though official, has not been accorded equal status in practice, and that discrimination against members of the Arab minority appears to be extensive in the private sector."

Israeli Professor Uzi Ornan, writing in Ha'aretz almost twenty years ago, explained that the "blatant discrimination against non-Jews" is evidence that "Apartheid is so powerful a mindset in this society, that its existence and preservation is championed by all the members of the 'Zionist parties,' including those who believe themselves to be in the vanguard of the struggle for socialism, peace and equal rights." ('Apartheid Laws in Israel - The Art of Obfuscatory Formulation', Ha'aretz, May 17, 1991)

Not only have conditions in Israel not improved in the past two decades, they have actually worsened. Three months ago, Avishay Braverman, Minister of Minority Affairs, described Israel as "the most unequal society amongst western nations." In March, a report by two prominent Israeli civil rights groups found that, in the last few years, "the Israeli government passed at least 21 bills aimed at discriminating against the country's Arab citizens making the current Knesset...the most racist Israeli parliament since the country's founding." In the first three months of 2010, an additional 21 racist laws had already been proposed. The report's authors Lizi Sagi and Nidal Othman said, "There has never been a Knesset as active in proposing discriminating and racist legislation against the country's Arab citizens."

Recently, Professor Mordechai Kremnitzer, vice-president of the Israel Democracy Institute, stated that the "ugly trend" of discrimination and delegitimization of Israel's Palestinian citizens is comparable to "a McCarthyite campaign against civil society," while Ilan Saban, a law professor at Haifa University, said that, "Unlike most - if not all - other democracies, Israel lacks a political culture that respects limits on the power of the majority."

As such, in Israel today, "only Jews enjoy full rights," observes George Bisharat, professor at Hastings College of the Law, explaining that "Palestinian citizens of Israel endure more than 35 laws that explicitly privilege Jews as well as policies that deliberately marginalize them." This is not an exaggeration and may, in fact, be a gross understatement, considering Israel's two-tiered legal system.

The Israeli Knesset has proposed loyalty oaths meant to affirm Jewish superiority. There is separate citizenship status for Jewish and non-Jewish Israelis. There is discrimination in real estate laws (especially the fact that about 93% of pre-1967 Israel is deemed the "inalienable property of the Jewish people" and the rights of residency, business ownership, and often even employment is explicitly denied to all non-Jews solely because they are not Jewish). Interfaith marriage is prohibited. The legacy of military control looms over the Palestinian Arab community's public education system, in which there is overt apartheid and funding inequity. Israeli police officers and soldiers kill Palestinians with impunity and Palestinian men are convicted of rape for "claiming to be Jewish" and having sex with Jewish women. The erasure of Palestinian history, culture, and identity is both profound and deliberate. Palestinian cemeteries are desecrated. The Shin Bet security service is authorized to "thwart the activity of any group or individual seeking to harm the Jewish and democratic character of the State of Israel, even if such activity is sanctioned by the law." Racism is systematic and institutionalized. These are the policies and realities of life within the Green Line and all are evidence of the "fundamental" injustice in Israeli society.

B.D.yeS?

Mitchell Plitnick, a former editor of the online information service Jewish Peace News and former co-director of Jewish Voice for Peace, who has worked for the Israeli human rights organization B'Tselem, recently applauded Norway's divestment from an Israeli company involved in "building settlements in the West Bank and working on construction of the Separation Barrier." Nevertheless, he made clear that his support for BDS stops abruptly at the Green Line, because, in his opinion, "the movement as a whole has become associated with one-state ideologies and support for the Palestinian Right of Return, two points that fall well outside the international diplomatic consensus and are non-starters for most of Europe's elites."

Arguing, essentially, that a "Jewish Israel" should not be affected in any way by some future, hypothetical peace agreement, Plitnick claims that "the problem is the settlements" and that the way to "address the historic, and massive, injustice done to the Palestinians" is not "by promoting a single state where Jews lose their political self-determination and quickly become a minority in the area in question."

Another Jewish Peace News editor, Lincoln Z. Shlensky, agrees. He writes that, to be effective and compelling, a clear distinction "between the settlements and Israel proper" must be made by the BDS movement, which he claims "implicitly anticipates the end of Israel as a predominantly Jewish, democratic state and therefore serves to radicalize Jewish Israelis against it and to make its aims unacceptable to almost all Western governments." That way, he suggests, "such a strategy can succeed if the occupation, and not the existence of Israel itself, is the clear target."

In his new article, "The New Zionist Imperative Is to Tell Israel the Truth," published in Rabbi Michael Lerner's Tikkun Magazine, J Street head Jeremy Ben-Ami refers to the BDS campaign as an approach "that rel[ies] on anger" and one that will not encourage the "very difficult and painful compromise that is necessary to achieve peace." Are we to infer that the hard choice Ben-Ami, who mentions his commitment to a "Jewish, and democratic" Israel four times in his short piece, believes that Israel - its government and public - must make is to actually respect international law and human rights? To most reasonable observers, this might seem to be a "compromise" that Israel shouldn't have the choice not to make.

Incidentally, Rela Mazali, another editor of Jewish Peace News, is quick to point out that "there isn't and never has been "a Jewish Israel." What there is, what I live in, is a Jewish-controlled Israel. Which is not a democracy."

Ben-Ami's claim that the BDS movement is born of anger has historic parallels. During deliberations among American Jewish leaders in 1933 as to whether or not to support a boycott of Nazi Germany, Joseph Proskauer and Judge Irving Lehman of the American Jewish Committee publicly opposed the move. Lehman pleaded, "I implore you in the name of humanity, don't let anger pass a resolution which will kill Jews in Germany." Sound familiar?

Also, it should be noted that, if a century of colonialism, over six decades of ethnic cleansing, 43 years of occupation, and systemic discrimination, intolerance, and racism aren't enough to elicit "anger," either one has no morality to speak of, or the word itself has lost all meaning. It is not the "anger" that is the problem, here, it's the historic - and unabated - injustice.

Huffington Post blogger M.J. Rosenberg does "not support boycotting the State of Israel," because he believes it would hurt "those brave Israelis (B'tselem, Peace Now, Rabbis for Human Rights, Gush Shalom, Machsom Watch, Gisha, Israelis Against Home Demolitions, etc.) who fight the occupation with everything they have."

"These Israelis (I particularly think of Rabbi Arik Ascherman of Rabbis For Human Rights) actually put their bodies on the line to fight settlers and soldiers when the need arises. I think of Uri Avnery, the old Haganah fighter, who has struggled against the occupation from the beginning."

Apparently, Rosenberg considers supporting Israelis who "fight" and "put their bodies on the line," more important than respecting the non-violent tactics of the actual Palestinians who have lost their homeland to a militarized, colonizing enterprise, who fight oppression, dehumanization, and degradation on a daily basis, and whose bodies are actually in the line of fire from Apache helicopters, F-16 jets, Predator drones, white phosphorous and tank shells.

Similarly, Israeli historian and writer Bernard Avishai, a longtime critic of Zionism and its effects, also opposes a substantial boycott campaign directed at Israel. In his June 2010 article in The Nation, entitled "Against Boycott and Divestment," Avishai argues that academic and economic boycotts and international divestment are "seriously counterproductive...Because those actions generally undermined the very people who advanced cosmopolitan values in the country. To get social change, you need social champions, in management as in universities."

"Even under apartheid," Avishai writes, "you had enlightened people who needed the world's backing, and B[oycott] and D[ivestment] cut the ground out from under them."

For some reason, Avishai's concept of life inside the Green Line runs parallel to Taub's when he states that "despite institutionalized discrimination and the disquieting excesses of its security apparatus - the Israeli state still accords its citizens, including about 1.5 million Arabs, a functioning democracy, the right to vote, a free press and an independent judiciary."

"Democratic Israel is under threat from growing numbers of rightists for whom settling "Eretz Yisrael" is of a piece with containing, if not disenfranchising, Israeli Arabs and Jewish dissenters skeptical of their version of the Jewish state. But, then, how to strengthen dissent? By isolating dissenters?"

Avishai omits that Israel's democracy functions only by disempowering its minority citizenry, as already discussed, and that great pains are taken to punish internal dissent and stifle media coverage of its illegal and inexcusable behavior.

Echoing Defense Minister Ehud Barak's concern regarding a potential Israeli brain-drain, Avishai writes, "Polls show that about 40 percent of Israeli Jews have abidingly secular and globalist (if not liberal) attitudes. Who gains from economic decline and the inevitable consequence of most educated Israelis fleeing to, well, the Bay Area?"

Interestingly, Avishai does allow that, "Targeted sanctions against the occupation are another matter, however. Foreign governments might well ban consumer products like fruit, flowers and Dead Sea mineral creams and shampoos produced by Israelis in occupied territory, much as Palestinian retail stores do."

A 'Jewish State' of Mind

So, when allegedly progressive commentators write "Yes to Israel. No to settlements," and favor the boycott of West Bank colonies, but oppose the same campaign when its targets fall inside Israel's borders (which aren't even internationally recognized), what do they see as the ideological difference between the two, and where is the evidence that there really is one? What kind of state do these commentators actually wish to preserve and protect: one that privileges one demographic group over another or one that represents all its citizens equally?

For instance, in a recent Ha'aretz article, Yossi Beilin, a former leader of the ultra-dovish Meretz party and an architect of Oslo, spoke for the Zionist left in Israel, calling a one-state solution "nonsense," adding, "I'm not interested in living in a state that isn't Jewish." Similarly, in the very same issue, Hanan Porat, one of the iconic founders of the ultra right-wing, messianic settler movement Gush Emunim, dismissed the idea of a single, democratic state. "There is no point in threatening us with the idea of a state of all its citizens," he scoffed.

Neither governmental policies of discrimination and racism nor the declarations of left or right-leaning activists need speak for the Israeli public. Yet numerous opinion polls from the past few years give the distinct impression that the majority of Israelis have questionable attitudes towards concepts like equality and democracy.

In March 2010, a poll conducted by the Maagar Mochot research institute revealed that while 80% of Israeli high school students prefer a democratic form of government (while 16% actually desire a dictatorship), over 49% do not support equal rights being granted to both Jewish and Arab citizens of the State of Israel. 56% of the high school students polled believed Arabs should not be allowed to vote, while 32% said they would not even want to have an Arab friend. One out of every six students would not want to study in the same class with an Ethiopian or an immigrant from the former Soviet Union, and 21% of them think that "Death to Arabs" is a legitimate expression. Additionally, 48% insisted they would refuse official orders to evacuate illegal West Bank settlements if they were serving in the Israeli military (for which 91% of respondents were eager to enlist).

Perhaps these results should not be surprising, considering that a 2008 poll cited by Yediot Ahronot discovered that "40 percent of Jewish Israelis did not believe that Arab Israelis should be allowed to vote."

In late April 2010, a survey commissioned by the Tami Steinmetz Center for Peace Research at Tel Aviv University found that over 57% of the respondents agreed that human rights organizations that expose immoral conduct by Israel should not be allowed to operate freely, the majority felt that "there is too much freedom of expression" in Israel, 43% said "the media should not report information confirmed by Palestinian sources that could reflect poorly on the Israeli army," 58% opposed "harsh criticism of the country," 65% thought "the Israeli media should be barred from publishing news that defense officials think could endanger state security, even if the news was reported abroad," and 82% said they "back stiff penalties for people who leak illegally obtained information exposing immoral conduct by the defense establishment."

The poll also found that "most of the respondents favor punishing Israeli citizens who support sanctioning or boycotting the country, and support punishing journalists who report news that reflects badly on the actions of the defense establishment." Additionally, of those polled who described themselves as right-wing, 76% said "human rights groups should not have the right to freely publicize immoral conduct on Israel's part."

"Israelis have a distorted perception of democracy," said pollster Daniel Bar-Tal, a professor at the Tel Aviv University's School of Education, as he analyzed the survey's findings. "The public recognizes the importance of democratic values, but when they need to be applied, it turns out most people are almost anti-democratic."

In 2006, according to the Israel Democracy Institute, 79% of Israelis trust the IDF more than any other institution. This poll came shortly after the Israeli devastation of Lebanon, in which the IDF killed over 1,180 people (about a third of whom were children), wounded over 4,050, and displaced about 970,000 others as direct result of the more than 7,000 air attacks by the Israeli Air Force and an additional 2,500 bombardments by the Israeli Navy in the short span of a month. The assault, with its utter contempt for international humanitarian law and willful commission of war crimes, also deliberately targeted the civilian infrastructure of Lebanon, destroying or severely damaging airports, seaports, water and sewage treatment plants, electrical facilities, power plants, fuel depots, over 200,000 meters of road, 120 bridges, 900 commercial enterprises and factories, and over 30,000 residential properties, offices and shops (including 15,000 civilian homes, houses, and apartments). Israel bombed a milk farm and grain silos. Two government hospitals were completely destroyed, while three others were severely damaged.

Another 2006 poll found that 68% of Israeli Jews fear that Palestinian Arab citizens of Israel would "initiate an intifada" and 64 % believe that "Arabs endanger the security of the state because of their high birth rates." Other polls from 2006 and 2007 revealed that 50% of Israeli Jews support the "transfer" of Arabs out of the country, 42% desire the "nullifying Arab Israeli citizens' right to vote," and 55% supported the "notion that the government should encourage Arab emigration." The Israel Democracy Institute's June 2007 report found that 55% of Israeli Jews surveyed support the idea that the government should encourage Arab emigration and 78% are opposed to Arab political parties (including Arab ministers) joining the government.

Additionally, surveys found that 75% of Israeli Jews "oppose living in the same apartment buildings as Arabs," 55% believe that "Arabs do not have the ability to reach the same level of cultural development as the Jews," 61.4% were unwilling to have Arab friends visit their homes, 55% supported segregated recreational facilities for Jews and Arabs, while 37% of them "view Arab culture as inferior."

A few years ago, the Association for Civil Rights in Israel reported that 49.9% of the Jewish population feels fear when hearing Arabic spoken in the street, 31.3% feels revulsion, 43.6% senses discomfort and 30.7% feels hatred.

A different poll, conducted by KEEVOON Research and Strategy company, showed overwhelming support in the Hebrew-speaking Jewish population of Israel for the Jewish National Fund's policy of selling land to Jews only. 81% of respondents favored the 100-year old policy, with only 10% opposed.

Is it any wonder, then, that the 2007 Israel Democracy Index Survey, conducted by the Israeli Institute for Democracy, revealed that 54% of the Arab Israelis polled felt that it was "impossible to trust the Jewish majority," while 51% believed that Jews were racist?

That year, Ha'aretz journalist Bradley Burston wrote of the Jewish inclination to demonize Palestinian citizens of the Israel:

"Too many of us want our Arabs to be traitors. Too many of us see Israeli Arabs, as a group, as hypocrites, parasites, their dual-loyalty a thin disguise for support of terror in the service of Palestine.

There is a quiet sense among many of us, that Israeli Arabs are fleecing the state, even as they grouse about inequality and nurse plans to de-Judaize the national home of the Jewish People.

It is, in many ways, a form of classical anti-Semitism in which the Semites in question happen to be Israeli Arabs.

We complain that they live off the rest of us, that they flaunt our zoning laws and evade the taxes we pay, that they are happy to take our welfare while spurning the notion of defending the country.

It makes us feel somehow more secure in our own identity as Jews in a Jewish state. It makes our dislike of them, our educational, economic, and social discrimination against them, seem more of a reasoned response than what it actually is, which is institutional racism."

These sentiments echo those of the distinguished South African sociologist Stanley Cohen, who was the Director of the Institute of Criminology at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem in the 1980's. In 2001, The Guardian quoted Professor Cohen as stating, "Denial of the injustices and injuries inflicted upon the Palestinians is built into the social fabric...There are, of course, good historical reasons why Israeli Jews should have a defensive self-image and a character armour of insecurity and permanent victimhood. The result is a xenophobia that would be called 'racism' anywhere else, an exclusion of Palestinians from a shared moral universe and an obsessional self-absorption: what we do to them is less important than what this does to us."

Aharon Barak, Israeli Supreme Court President from 1995 to 2006, summed up the conundrum thusly: "We have still not worked out properly the interrelationship between the Jewishness of the state and the fact that it is a state of all its citizens."

Sadly, many years later, these findings and observations hadn't changed much.

Just last month, Gideon Levy, the brilliant, truth-telling Ha'aretz commentator, wrote, "Defining Israel as a Jewish state condemns us to living in a racist state." He continued,

"Does anyone actually know the meaning of the term "Jewish state" that we bandy about so much? Does it mean a state for Jews only? Is it not a new kind of "racial purity"? Is the "demographic threat" greater than the danger of the state's becoming a religious ethnocracy or an apartheid state? Wouldn't it be better to live in a just democracy? And how is it even possible to speak about a state being both Jewish and democratic?"

How, indeed? These are questions J Street's Ben-Ami and Hebrew University's Taub should answer. Instead, as we have seen, they -as representatives of the so-called "left" - suggest compromise. Does the Jewish Israeli population polled above really seem like the compromising type? How exactly should Palestinians be expected to compromise when, at best, they are being told to accept the "generous offer" of 42% of the 80% of the 22% of 100% of their original homeland? Should those demanding justice and equality really just sit back and wait for their oppressors and occupiers to suddenly change their minds, especially when 77% of Israeli Jews even oppose the artist boycott of settlements?

Just like Ben-Ami, Taub, Avishai, Plitnick, Shlensky, and others, a new Ha'aretz editorial laments that there is a growing international movement that "no longer distinguishes between the settlements and the Green Line, between the "occupation" and Israel's very right to exist."

This statement once again blames Israel's current crisis of conscience on the consequences of the Six Day War. But the 42-year occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, East Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights accounts for almost 70% of Israel's entire existence. It is not a simple anomaly, a misstep off the path of righteousness. The occupation, land theft, colonization, displacement, dispossession, and disenfranchisement of and violence against Palestinians is not anathema to Zionism, it is Zionism.

Levy is essentially emulating the honesty of his journalistic predecessor Yeshayahu Bar Porath who, in 1972, wrote, "It is the duty of Israeli leaders to explain to public opinion, clearly and courageously, a certain number of facts that are forgotten with time. The first of these is that there is no Zionism, colonialization or Jewish State without the eviction of the Arabs and the expropriation of their lands."

Zionist leaders from Herzl to Ben-Gurion, have all understood and acknowledged this.

In 1898, Theodor Herzl recognized that, in order to establish a "Jewish state" in Palestine, the inconvenient indigenous population would have to be removed. "We shall try to spirit the penniless population (i.e. Arab) across the border by procuring employment for it in the transit countries, while denying it any employment in our own country," he suggested.

Vladmir Jabotinsky, in his 1923 Zionist manifesto, The Iron Wall, wrote, "Zionism is a colonization adventure and therefore it stands or it falls by the question of armed force. It is important to speak Hebrew but, unfortunately, it is even more important to be able to shoot - or else I am through with playing at colonization," adding, "Zionist colonization, even the most restricted, must either be terminated or carried out in defiance of the will of the native population."

In 1938, years before Jewish terrorist organizations and Zionist militias rampaged through Palestine, blowing up hotels, massacring Palestinians and destroying entire villages, David Ben-Gurion, Israel's beloved first Prime Minister, said, "Let us not ignore the truth among ourselves. Politically we are the aggressors and they defend themselves. The country is (the Palestinian's), because they inhabit it, whereas we want to come here and settle down, and in their view we want to take away from them their country."

Nevertheless, many in the Israeli left (and their counterparts here in the US) still insist on differentiating between the nobility and righteousness of "Herzl's Zionist vision" and the frustrating, "unhelpful" post-1967 occupation.

Levy, as usual, is able to tell it like it is. Earlier this year, he explained that the problem is "rooted in the left's impossible adherence to Zionism in its historical sense. In precisely the way there cannot be a democratic and Jewish state in one breath, one has to first define what comes before what - there cannot be a left wing committed to the old-fashioned Zionism that built the state but has run its course. This illusory left wing never managed to ultimately understand the Palestinian problem - which was created in 1948, not 1967 - never understanding that it can't be solved while ignoring the injustice caused from the beginning. A left wing unwilling to dare to deal with 1948 is not a genuine left wing."

In a just-published interview, Levy elaborates: "I think there could be a solution, but it requires Israel to have good will - which it doesn't have. It would involve, first of all, Israel recognising its moral responsibility. That's the first condition. It's about time for Israel to take accountability for what happened in '48 and realise and recognise that there was a kind of ethnic cleansing..."

The Nakba and Beyond

"It's not a matter of maintaining the status quo. We have to create a dynamic state, oriented towards expansion." -David Ben-Gurion

That the creation of Israel and the guarantee of establishing complete hegemony of a Jewish minority in 1948 required the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from most of their homeland is neither a secret nor a matter of debate. It is a known fact.

The forcible removal of the indigenous Palestinian population by Zionist violence and intimidation was not an unhappy accident of history, nor was it an unforeseen consequence of the Zionist dream; it was integral to Zionism's success and a well-planned, non-negotiable aspect of its implementation. As scholar Norman Finkelstein wrote in Image and Reality of the Israeli-Palestinian Conflict, "One can imagine an argument for the right of a persecuted minority to find refuge in another country able to accommodate it; one is hard-pressed, however, to imagine an argument for the right of a persecuted minority to politically and perhaps physically displace the indigenous population of another country. Yet...the latter was the actual intention of the Zionist movement."

The United States-sponsored King-Crane Commission in 1919 concluded that the Zionist project demanded and anticipated "a practically complete dispossession of the present non-Jewish inhabitants to Palestine."

In 1937, Ben-Gurion declared that "In many parts of the country new Jewish settlement will not be possible unless there is a transfer of the Arab peasantry...The transfer of the population is what makes possible a comprehensive [Jewish] settlement plan." He is also credited with saying, "Land with Arabs on it and land without Arabs on it are two very different types of land."

Moshe Sharett, Israel's second prime minister, said, "We have forgotten that we have not come to an empty land to inherit it, but we have come to conquer a country from people inhabiting it...if we cease to look upon our land, the Land of Israel, as ours alone and we allow a partner into our estate - all content and meaning will be lost to our enterprise."

After the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire following World War I, and the expiration of the British Mandate, the Palestinian people have, for over 63 years, been denied self-determination and sovereignty in their own land. In 1947, the United Nations recommended that the indigenous majority (then consisting of about 70% of the population in historic Palestine) establish a state of their own on 44% of its homeland, while the 30% minority (consisting mostly of recent Jewish immigrants from Europe) would get 56% of Palestine, despite the fact that the minority owned less than 8% of the land at the time. When that suggestion was unsurprisingly rejected by Palestinian representatives, a unilateral declaration established a Jewish State of Israel in Palestine and, in the ensuing war, Israel grabbed an extra 22% of Palestine as its own.

During what Israelis proudly refer to as their "War of Independence," over 450 Palestinian towns were destroyed, including villages that had signed non-aggression pacts with their Jewish neighbors, and over 750,000 Palestinians were driven from their own homes. The terror campaign of Plan Dalet, put into effect in early 1948, consisted of "large-scale intimidation; laying siege to and bombarding population centres; setting fires to homes, properties, and goods; expulsion; demolition; and finally, planting mines among the rubble to prevent any of the expelled inhabitants from returning."

Denying refugees their legal right to return to their homes after the war's end was necessary for Israel to steal Palestine away from its inhabitants. As Ben-Gurion said, "We must do everything to ensure they [the Palestinians] never do return...The old will die and the young will forget." Unfortunately for him and his Zionist followers ever since, they did not forget.

Following the massacre of Deir Yassin in April 1948 during which over 100 unarmed villagers were murdered by commandos of the Zionist terror groups Irgun and Lehi (The Stern Gang), journalist and author Jonathan Cook tells us that Ben-Gurion trained his sights on the Galilee, "where some 100,000 Palestinians, as well as tens of thousands of refugees from the fighting, were living on land that had been assigned to the Palestinian state under the Partition Plan. 'Then we will be able to cleanse the entire area of Central Galilee, including all its refugees, in one stroke,' he announced."

In mid-July 1948, over 60,000 Palestinians were expelled from the twin towns of Lydda and Ramle at gun point and tank muzzle, upon the orders of future Israeli Prime Ministers Ben-Gurion and Yitzhak Rabin and under the direction of future IDF generals and Israeli politicians Yigal Allon (commander of the Palmach militia) and Moshe Dayan (commander of the 89th Armoured Battalion).

A few months later, the large village of al-Dawayma of about 3,500 residents, located northwest of Hebron, was invaded and captured by Israeli forces. The villagers were unarmed. Palestinian scholar Nur Masalha has revealed that the massacre of at least 80 Palestinians was carried out, "not in the heat of the battle but after the Israeli army had clearly emerged victorious in the war. Various evidence indicates that the atrocities were committed in and around the village, including at the mosque and in the cave nearby, that houses with old people locked inside were blown up, and that there were several cases of the shooting and raping of women."

Despite the mythology perpetuated about Israel's miraculous birth, Zionist fighters were not struggling against devastating odds for the survival of their nascent state. Not only had the Palestinian fighting forces been "decimated by the British in the 1936-1939 revolt," during which over 10% of the Palestinian population had been killed, wounded, imprisoned or exiled, but the violent British repression also affected the Palestinians' ability to resist further assaults in the future as Rashid Khalidi explains, a "high proportion of the Arab casualties include the most experienced military cadres and enterprising fighters."

Scholars John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt have also pointed out that, "Israel is often portrayed as weak and besieged, a Jewish David surrounded by a hostile Arab Goliath. This image has been carefully nurtured by Israeli leaders and sympathetic writers, but the opposite image is closer to the truth. Contrary to popular belief, the Zionists had larger, better‐equipped, and better‐led forces" than their Arab opponents. In fact, "the Zionist/Israeli fighting forces outnumbered the Palestinians between December 1947 and May 1948, and they outnumbered the Arab armies from May 1948 to January 1949, when the fighting stopped." As Israeli historian Benny Morris put it, "it was superior jewish firepower, manpower, organization, and command and control that determined the outcome of battle."

For the next 17 years, Palestinians in Israel lived under martial law.

Nur Masalha has found evidence of further Palestinian expulsion from Israeli-controlled territory for years following the creation of Israel. For example, 2,000 inhabitants of Beersheva were expelled to the West Bank in late 1949, while 2,700 inhabitants of al-Majdal (now Ashkelon) were driven into Gaza a year later; as many as 17,000 Bedouins were forced out of the Negev between 1949 and 1953; several thousand inhabitants of the Triangle were expelled between 1949 and 1951; and more than 2,000 residents of two northern villages were driven into Syria as late as 1956.

In the early 1950's, Ben-Gurion stated, in two separate state documents, his belief that that Israel was created "in a part of our small country" and "in only a portion of the Land of Israel," later noting that "the creation of the new State by no means derogates from the scope of historic Eretz Israel." These statements harken back to his 1937 declaration that "the boundaries of Zionist aspirations are the concern of the Jewish people and no external factor will be able to limit them," as well as his 1948 proclamation that "We are not obliged to state the limits of our State," thereby affirming the tenet of territorial expansion and compulsive land theft in Zionist doctrine and practice.

That the State of Israel exists almost exclusively on stolen Palestinian land is indisputable. In an article in Ha'aretz, Israeli scholar Dan Rabinowitz wrote, "What happened to the Palestinians in 1948 is Israel's original sin...Between the 1950s and 1976, the state systematically confiscated most of the land of its remaining Palestinian citizens." In 1969, Moshe Dayan was quoted in Ha'aretz:

"Jewish villages were built in the place of Arab villages. You do not even know the names of these Arab villages, and I do not blame you because geography books no longer exist. Not only do the books not exist, the Arab villages are not there either. Nahlal arose in the place of Mahlul; Kibbutz Gvat in the place of Jibta; Kibbutz Sarid in the place of Huneifis; and Kefar Yehushua in the place of Tal al-Shuman. There is not a single place built in this country that did not have a former Arab population." (Edward Said, 'Zionism from the Standpoint of Its Victims,' Social Text, Volume 1, 1979)

According to the Israeli Custodian of Absentee Property, by exploiting the authority of the Absentee Property Law of 1950, the Jewish National Fund Law, through the establishment of the Development Agency and Israel Lands Authority, almost 70% of the territory of pre-1967 Israel consists of lands classified as 'absentee property' which had been confiscated from its Palestinian owners and residents. The Jewish National Fund, perhaps in an effort to brag, estimates as much as 88% was taken from Arab landowners.

The 22% of Palestine that remained was conquered in 1967 and remains occupied territory under international law. Following the Six Day War, several Israeli leaders refused to turn the armistice lines into permanent borders. Prime Minister Golda Meir said the pre-1967 borders were so dangerous that it "would be treasonable" for an Israeli leader to accept them. Israeli Foreign Minister Abba Eban said the pre-1967 borders have "a memory of Auschwitz." Prime Minister Menachem Begin later described a proposal for a retreat to the pre-1967 borders as "national suicide for Israel."

So, is the founding Zionist ideology, which the anti-BDS progressive left pines for and fears the demise of, really a legitimate form of self-determination and a functioning democracy to be maintained and treasured? Perhaps the "Yes to Israel" crowd, which so abhors the occupation and the settlements, would respond as Golda Meir did in 1971: "This country exists as the fulfillment of a promise made by God Himself. It would be ridiculous to ask it to account for its legitimacy."

The Invisible and Voiceless Victims

"It's not just about occupation; it's also about the system of apartheid within Israel and the most important form of injustice, the denial of Palestinian refugees their UN-sanctioned rights to return." - Omar Barghouti

Through reading the articles and arguments of the progressive community against BDS, one thing becomes quite clear. The commentators feel like their grand design for a perfect Zionist future has been hijacked and sullied by the settler movement and its government (and foreign) backers. These forward-thinking humanitarians believe themselves to be the victims of a right-wing conspiracy to dash the hopes of any peace agreement. This is absurd. These Israelis and Americans suffered no actual injustice. Nothing has, in fact, been taken away from them, save perhaps their own integrity. They have been oppressed by no one. Unlike the Palestinians.

And yet, the progressive discourse consistently omits Palestinian perspectives in their appraisal of the current situation. What do they want? Almost nowhere does the "Zionist left" of J Street and Huffington Post discuss what the actual victims of past and ongoing Zionist atrocities, war crimes, and ethnic cleansing want, or what tactic they believe would be the most effective to reach an acceptable, democratic, just, and peaceful solution in which all parties would be afforded equal civil and human rights, the same economic opportunities, and full political representation, as determined by international law. Apparently, these viewpoints - the voices of the victims and their descendants - are unimportant in the intellectual sphere of Ha'aretz and New York Times opinion. As Gideon Levy wrote a decade ago, "For most Israelis, the Palestinians are almost non-existent. They're like thin air..." ('An existential exercise,' Ha'aretz, 16 October 2000)

In supporting the Ariel settlement boycott, the "Yes to Israel, No to settlements" crowd proves how easy it must be to praise the noble perpetrators and their subsequent beneficiaries, yet somehow not even give a moment's thought to supporting the demands of the actual victims. To advocate for a "Jewish and democratic" state, created through colonization and ethnic cleansing, is to explicitly encourage the victims of such atrocities to voluntarily relinquish their rights, forget their history, and accept second-class citizenry in their homeland out of deference to the sensibilities and sensitivities of their colonizers and cleansers. Does this seem like a reasonable request?

It is precisely here that a closer look at the BDS movement is necessary.

As described in a recent statement by leaders of the campaign itself:

"The BDS movement derives its principles from both the demands of the Palestinian BDS Call, signed by over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations in July 2005, and, in the academic and cultural fields, from the Palestinian Call for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, issued a year earlier in July 2004. Together, the BDS and PACBI Calls represent the most authoritative and widely-supported strategic statements to have emerged from Palestine in decades; all political factions, labor, student and women's organizations, and refugee groups across the Arab world have supported and endorsed these calls. Both calls underline the prevailing Palestinian belief that the most effective form of international solidarity with the Palestinian people is direct action and persistent pressure aimed at bringing an end to Israel's colonial and apartheid regime, just as the apartheid regime in South Africa was abolished, by isolating Israel internationally through boycotts and sanctions, forcing it to comply with international law and respect Palestinian rights."

As a result, the campaign urges "the morally consistent rationale and principles of the Palestinian boycott campaign against Israel," when addressing the question of boycotting institutions inside the Green Line that support the systematic discrimination within Israel and the continued colonization of the occupied territories. The call for BDS, according to PACBI founding member Omar Barghouti, "has as close to a consensus as you can get, and it's not just among Palestinians in the occupied West Bank, Gaza, including East Jerusalem, but also Palestinians inside Israel, and the largest component of the Palestinian people, those in exile in the Diaspora." The campaign focuses on affirming three basic rights of the Palestinian people, as already demanded by international law. These rights are: (1) Ending the 43 year old Israeli occupation and colonization of all Arab lands conquered in 1967 and dismantling the Apartheid Wall that illegally annexes large portions of the West Bank to Israel; (2) Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality, thereby ending the system of racial discrimination within Israel proper; and (3) Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in United Nations Resolution 194.

The refusal of advocates of Liberal Zionism, those alleged progressives who profess to want change yet ignore or re-imagine Israel's true history, to recognize the incompatibility of both a "Jewish" and "democratic" state or embrace the demands of the wronged party (Palestinians, not Israelis) in this conflict makes their arguments sound like little more than cowardly equivocation. They represent a sort of solipsistic intellectual narcissism, tranquilized by the "drug of gradualism," and talking into an echo chamber of pragmatism and compromise.

"The academic community in Israel," Omar Barghouti recently explained, is "very Israel-centric. I mean, the world revolves around them." The BDS campaign, he said, is "about Palestinian rights and Israeli oppression and injustice and the role of the Israeli academy as a partner in the system of oppression. In fact, no Israeli university has ever come out against the occupation, ever."

In Gideon Levy's estimation, "they lack courage, some of them," despite having good intentions. He elaborated, during a recent interview with Jamie Stern-Weiner of the New Left Project:

"I think that Oz and Yehoshua and Grossman, who I know very well personally, mean well. But in many ways they are still chained in the Zionistic ideology. They haven't released themselves from the old Zionistic ideology, which basically hasn't changed since '48 - namely, that the Jews have the right to this land, almost the exclusive right. They are trying to find their way to be Zionistic, and to be for peace, and to be for justice. The problem is that Zionism in its present meaning, in its common meaning, is contradictory to human rights, to equality, to democracy, and they don't recognise it. It's too hard for them to recognise it, to realise it. And therefore their position is an impossible position, because they want everything: they want Zionism, they want democracy, they want a Jewish state, but they want also rights for the Palestinians... it's very nice to want everything, but you have to make your choice and they are not courageous enough to make the choice."

Levy, in contrast to commentators like Avishai, Taub, Rosenberg, and Ben-Ami, has the conviction to envision Israel as "a state for Jews that will be a just state, a democratic state, and if there will be a Palestinian majority, there will be a Palestinian majority. The idea is that Jews have to have their place, but it can't be exclusively theirs, because this land is not exclusively theirs."

Courage, Truth, and Justice

There is hope. A growing number of Israeli intellectuals, scholars, and activists don't feel beholden to the 19th century colonial, exclusivist, and racist ideology of Zionism and stand with the Palestinian demand for BDS as a non-violent strategy to achieve justice.

Jeff Halper of the Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions explains that "the purpose of this effort is to deny Israel the ability to brand itself as a normal nation while flouting the law and suppressing an occupied people. Brand Israel is their strategy; ours is to insist on no business as usual with the regime, as was done successfully in the struggle against apartheid South Africa."

Professor Neve Gordon, who teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, understands that it is not simple for an "Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation 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."

Prime Minister Netanyahu's own nephew, Jonathan Ben Artzi, currently a PhD student at Brown University, recognizes that Israel "must give equal rights to all. Regardless of what the final resolution will be - the so-called "one state solution," the "two state solution," or any other form of governance." He suggests that the only way to encourage - no, force - Israel to comply with international law is for the United States to withdraw military funding, corporate investments, and diplomatic support.

Michel Warschawski, veteran Israeli activist, journalist, and co-founder of the Alternative Information Center in Israel, has recently written, in solidarity with the BDS movement, that "our goal is the fulfillment of certain values like: basic individual and collective rights, end of domination and oppression, decolonization, equality, and as-much-justice-as-possible." He continues:

"For us, Zionism is not a national liberation movement but a colonial movement, and the State of Israel is and has always been a settlers' colonial state. Peace, or, better, justice, cannot be achieved without a total decolonization (one can say de-Zionisation) of the Israeli State; it is a precondition for the fulfillment of the legitimate rights of the Palestinians - whether refugees, living under military occupation or second-class citizens of Israel. Whether the final result of that de-colonization will be a "one-state" solution, two democratic states (i.e. not a "Jewish State"), a federation or any other institutional structure is secondary, and will ultimately be decided by the struggle itself and the level of participation of Israelis, if at all.

"This is where the BDS campaign is so relevant: it offers an international framework to act in order to help the Palestinian people achieving its legitimate rights, both on the institutional level (states and international institutions) and the civil society's one. On the one hand it is addressed to the international community, asking it to sanction a State that is systematically violating international law, UN resolutions, the Geneva Conventions and signed agreements; on the other hand, it is addressed to the international civil society to act, as individuals as well as social movements (trade-unions, parties, local councils, popular associations etc) to boycott goods, official representatives, institutions etc. that represent the colonial State of Israel.

"Both tasks (boycott and sanctions) will eventually be a pressure of the Israeli people, pushing it to understand that occupation and colonization have a price, that violating the international rules may, sooner or later, made the State of Israel a paria-country, not welcomed in the civilized community of nations.

"The BDS campaign was initiated by a broad coalition of Palestinian political and social movements. No Israeli who claims to support the national rights of the Palestinian people can, decently, turns it back to that campaign: after having claimed for years that "armed struggle is not the way", it will be outrageous that this strategy too will be disqualified by those Israeli activists. On the contrary, we have all together to join 'Boycott from within' in order to provide an Israeli backup to that Palestinian initiative. It is the minimum we can do, it is the minimum we should do."

Ofer Neiman, contributing editor of Occupation Magazine and The Only Democracy? website, believes that a boycott that targets only settlers, and not Israeli society as whole, is not only myopic, but would be ineffective since, including those colonizing East Jerusalem, the settlers "make up only 7% of Israel's citizens. Most of the settlements are small communities, and many of their inhabitants make their living either through work in Israel (west of the green line) or as state employees in their communities."

As a result, he explains his support for the "morally justified" BDS campaign this way: "The Palestinian BDS call is first and foremost a call for the promotion of universal principles of human rights. From this universal perspective, it should not be difficult to see that there is something inherently flawed about Israel's entire constitutional fabric when it comes to the treatment of its Palestinian citizens, not to mention the specific policies pursued by successive Israeli governments on this issue."

Heeding Wise Words

The sole reason there exists an ongoing, bloody Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the ideology of Zionism. It is irrelevant to try and figure out what came first, the rejection of indigenous self-determination or resistance against ethnocentric, settler-colonialism, as they both follow the concept of Zionism. In order to truly seek peace with justice, the real root of the problem must be honestly identified as the Zionist ideology itself, and not, as Yossi Ben Artzi suggests, the settlement enterprise after 1967. Ironically, Zionism, though originally conceived to protect a persecuted minority against rampant persecution, inherently embodies the very worst aspects of human nature: ethnic superiority, racism, exclusivity, intolerance, xenophobia, jingoism, entitlement, and arrogance, to name just a few.

The ugly militarism, fierce nationalism, and fascist ideals required to achieve Zionist goals in Palestine have long been acknowledged by many Jewish intellectuals and humanists like Martin Buber and Hannah Arendt. Albert Einstein, for instance, denounced the Irgun-aligned Betar youth movement in 1935, describing it as being "as much a danger to our youth as Hitlerism is to German youth" and believed that "the essential nature of Judaism resists the idea of a Jewish state with borders, an army, and a measure of temporal power....I am afraid of the inner damage Judaism will sustain - especially from the development of a narrow nationalism within our own ranks."

Judah Magnes called the Zionist collective in pre-1948 Palestine an "artificial community" and he predicted that sanctions imposed by the United States would halt "the Jewish war machine."

Rabbi Stephen Wise, arguing that "the whole tradition of the Jewish people is against militarism," expressed disgust at what he saw as a slogan to fit the 1930s: "Germany for Hitler, Italy for Mussolini, Palestine for Jabotinsky."

In 1963, from the steps of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C., Martin Luther King, Jr. spoke of the "fierce urgency of now" in demanding that all people benefit from "the riches of freedom and the security of justice." He declared:

"Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quick sands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."

Three decades earlier, in a meeting to discuss holding a anti-Nazi boycott rally in Madison Square Garden in New York City, Rabbi Stephen Wise said much the same thing:

"The time for prudence and caution is past. We must speak up like men. How can we ask our Christian friends to lift their voices in protest against the wrongs suffered by Jews if we keep silent?...What is happening in Germany today may happen tomorrow in any other land on earth unless it is challenged and rebuked. It is not the German Jews who are being attacked. It is the Jews."

And now, decades upon decades later, both King's and Wise's sentiments are still relevant. The promises of democracy still must be realized, racial justice must still replace segregation, equal rights for all must still be demanded, and freedom must ring from every mountainside and through every wadi.

What's happening in Israel and Palestine today may happen tomorrow in any other land on earth unless it is challenged and rebuked. It is not the Palestinians who are being attacked. It is our collective humanity.

It is time to speak up.

* Nima Shirazi is a writer, musician, and political commentator from New York City.

By Lawrence Davidson* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Illustration by Carlos Latuff

Though this affair was domestic, it provided a jumping off point for Ha'aretz to go on and examine the larger international boycott of Israel which is indeed "gaining speed". It noted that Chile had recently pledged to boycott products from the Israeli settlements and Norway's state pension plan had divested itself of companies involved in construction in the occupied territories. The Ha'aretz article pointed out that these incidents (and there are others that can be named in such countries as Ireland and Venezuela) are signs that the boycott movement - so long the province civil society - is now finding resonance at the level of national governments. The Israeli paper declared that "the world is changing before our eyes. Five years ago the anti-Israel movement may have been marginal. Now it is growing into an economic problem."

The article puts forth two explanations for this turn of events one of which is problematic, and the other incomplete. Let's take a look at them.

1. "Until now boycott organizers had been on the far left. [Now] they have a new ally: Islamic organizations... The red side has a name for championing human rights, while the green side [the Islamic side] has money." I have some personal knowledge of the boycott movement and I find some of these particulars to be, at best, exaggerations. The term "far left" must be based on some arbitrary Zionist definition of the political spectrum. Worldwide community support for the growing boycott movement has gone beyond political alignments. Today, it is a reflection of real united front seeking the promotion of Palestinian human rights (in this Haaretz is on the mark). As for the "green side", there is certainly an understandable affinity here. Muslims too are concerned about the human rights of Palestinians (including the Christians ones). However, the claim of any significant flow of cash is, as far as I know, another exaggeration. The Ha'aretz piece cites the example of the aid flotilla to Gaza, with its link to Turkey. But this is just one case in a worldwide movement. And, there was nothing illegitimate (despite Israeli propaganda) about the involvement of Turkish charities. It might come as a surprise to the Israelis, but you can run a boycott movement without heavy outside funding - as was the case of the boycott against South Africa.

2. Ha'aretz continues: "but then came the occupation, which turned us into the evil Goliath, the cruel oppressor, a darkness on the nations". The article suggests that this is such a contrast with the righteous stand that helped convince the West to support the original formation of Israel that many have turned away from Israel in disappointment. "And now we are paying the price of presenting ourselves as righteous and causing disappointment: boycott." No doubt there is much disappointment. The horrors of Israeli expansionism and occupation are such that they draw worldwide attention. And rightly so. But, they are symptoms of some deeper cause. What might it be? The state of Israel was founded on an ideological programme called Zionism. That programme called for the establishment of a state designed to serve the exclusive interests of one religiously identified group. While the Zionists felt this aim was justified by the centuries of persecution suffered by European Jews, it actually carried within it the seeds of its own corruption. The simple truth is that you cannot successfully design a state for one group only unless you found it on some desert island. If you put it down in a place that is occupied by others who are not of your group, what is the most likely next step? You turn into racists, ethnic cleansers or worse. The Zionist adherence to their ideology and its programme is the cause of their turning into "cruel oppressors". The means dictated by their end made it so.

The Ha'aretz article does not go beyond these points, but there is plenty more to say. Those who wonder whether they should support the boycott should certainly consider the horrors of the Israeli occupation and its ghettoizing of the people of Gaza. They might also consider the following:

1. The non-Jewish population of Israel proper, that is Israel within the 1967 borders (the "Green Line") are subject to segregation and economic and social discrimination that is both de jure and de facto. Their overall standards of living are lower than the Israeli Jews, their educational facilities inferior and their economic prospects poorer. This is to be expected. If you are running your state based on a racist principle, by definition discrimination must infuse the home front. This fact does not appear to fit with the often heard claim that the Israelis are "just like us" Americans. However, in a rather anachronistic way they are "like us" - that is like the United States prior to our civil rights legislation. In other words, Israel is like, say, Georgia or Alabama circa the 1920s.

2. The second factor worthy of consideration is the negative international impact of Zionist ideology, for the harm of Zionism is not confined to either Israel or its occupied territories. The fact is that Zionist influence spreads far beyond Israel's area of dominion and now influences many of the policy-making institutions of Western governments, and particularly those of the United States. This influence is corruptive if only because it distorts both official and popular notions of national interests in the Middle East. When you have a powerful and single-minded lobby that is able to manipulate your government in such a fashion that it pours its national treasure into a racist state, arms it and protects it to the point of becoming an accomplice to its crimes, and by doing so wilfully alienates 22 per cent of the world's population, you know that your notion of national interest has been seriously mangled. This harmful influence makes it imperative that Israel's oppressive behaviour be singled out as a high priority case from among the many other oppressive regimes that may be candidates for boycott.

So no one in Israel, the US or anywhere else should be surprised that the boycott against Israel, in its many manifestations, is "gaining speed." If you are not yet a supporter you should become one. To join the boycott is good for the world's future in general. It is certainly good for the Palestinians, and yes, it is good for the Jews too.

For more information on how to join the boycott Israel campaign, visit the websites of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement website and the Boycott Israeli Goods campaign.

* Lawrence Davidson is professor of history at West Chester University. He is the author of numerous books, including Islamic Fundamentalism and America's Palestine: Popular and Official Perceptions from Balfour to Israeli Statehood.

By Stephen Lendman* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

In July 2005, a coalition of 171 Palestinian Civil Society organizations created the Global BDS movement for "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel Until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights" for Occupied Palestinians, Israeli Arabs, and Palestinian diaspora refugees.

The Tel Aviv-based Reut Institute (RI) provides "real-time strategic decision-making" support in areas of national security and socioeconomic policy. Its new report titled "The Gaza Flotilla: The Collapse of Israel's Political Firewall" suggests it's working. It followed an earlier one on "creating a political firewall" against Israel's "delegitimization challenge," recommending sabotage and subterfuge against growing global forces it fears, not an equitable solution it rejects.

Focusing now on the Gaza Flotilla, it called it "the tip of the iceberg" attempt along with the BDS movement and Durban conference against racism to cause "tangible and significant damage to Israel." Unmentioned was how expert Israel is in self-inflicting it by decades of occupation and crimes of war and against humanity.

Clearly they're having an effect, RI saying opposition "momentum is gaining," its aim "to delegitimize Israel in order to precipitate its implosion, inspired by the collapses of" apartheid South Africa and the Soviet Union. Calling the challenge global, systemic and political, RI blames two cooperating forces:

-- the Iran/Hamas/Hezbollah "Resistance Network;" and

-- the "Delegimization Network" based in cities like London, Brussels and San Francisco.

Their "constantly adapting" strategy requires Israel to adopt "a comprehensive systemic treatment" of the challenge it faces.

RI gave its version of the Gaza Flotilla interdiction, specifically against the Mavi Marmara mother ship, a "grave incident devlop(ing) during the takeover (when) Members of the Turkish IHH organization attacked Israeli forces with knives and metal bars, and in some cases with live fire. In the ensuing confrontation, nine Israeli soldiers were injured and nine Turkish activists killed."

An earlier article discussed the truth, not RI's revisionism, accessed through the following link:

http://sjlendman.blogspot.com/2010/05/brave-israeli-commandos-slaughter-aid.html

Israeli commandos (trained killers), planned and executed a premeditated attack in international waters against nonviolent, unarmed humanitarian activists, trying to deliver essential to life aid to besieged Gazans - to break Israel's attempt to suffocate and starve them.

RI ignored the crime, focusing instead on world outrage, including anti-Israeli demonstrations in dozens of major cities, increased BDS efforts, international investigations, and the "stronger perception of cooperation between Israel's Arab citizens and the Resistance and Delegitimization Networks." Turkey also "exploited" the incident, "deepen(ing) the crisis with Israel."

Israel followed with two inquiry commissions, an IDF one under reserve Major General Giora Eiland and another under retired Supreme Court Judge Jacob Turkel, both mandated to whitewash the crime, what RI won't admit, instead saying:

"The mandates of both commissions reflect the mindset that mistakes surrounding the Gaza Flotilla were technical-operational or tactical-political in nature. The commissions are thus focused on the reasonableness of the actions taken by decision-makers on existing laws, regulations, and accepted practices."

In addition, RI is conducting its own inquiry, "based on a methodology of systemic policy analysis and on its conceptual framework for confronting the delegitimization challenge....to contribute to understanding the strategic significance of the event and to suggest principles for preventing similar occurrences in the future."

RI, of course, means preventing world outrage from boiling over, followed by actions harming Israeli interests, not its repeated crimes of war, against humanity, and high seas outrages. It worries instead about a new challenge because of two developments:

-- Hamas' "increased sophistication and efficiency and the Resistance Network's 'Logic of Implosion.' " It aims to precipitate Israel's collapse from overstretch, benefitting from the unpopular occupation, promoting its delegitimization, and engaging in asymmetric tactics against Israeli civilians; and

-- the Delegitimization Network's evolution, aiming to portray Israeli as a pariah state, gaining support from "the Western liberal progressive elite (through) a variety of means aimed at blurring its true intentions."

In recent years, the Resistance and Delegitimization Networks have created connections able to accelerate the following dynamics:

-- "Promoting the one-state paradigm;" and

-- Foiling Israel's ability to contain or deny legitimacy to Hamas and Hezbollah.

Both lead "a systemic and systematic attack against Israel's political and economic model, which has already had strategic consequences and may become existential if ignored or inadequately addressed." In addition, Israel hasn't developed an effective response to this challenge.

Hamas gained "agility" from 2006 electoral victory. Israeli "rigidity" followed - policies unable to change Hamas' positions or precipitate its demise. "On the contrary, Hamas went from strength to strength" despite Israel's imposed siege and Cast Lead. It continually adapts to new circumstances, "demonstrating a relatively clear strategic logic....while strengthening its domestic and international status" and ability to promote Israeli delegitimization.

The Gaza Flotilla and others planned are "the latest manifestation of a systemic and systematic attack" to undermine Israel's legitimacy with considerable support from the BDS campaign, the "lawfare" war against senior Israeli officials, and effect of the Goldstone Commission.

The Flotilla was "a first-of-its-kind collaboration" between Hamas and the Resistance and Delegitimization Networks. Turkey's involvement was the "difference that made the difference." In addition, its organizers' ability to gain Western progressive elite support turned Israel's interdiction into a "global and politically explosive event." RI called it a "clash of brands," Israel tarnished and defeated in the eyes of world public opinion.

Indeed so but not enough. Still RI concludes that Israel's firewall is eroding because it's increasingly viewed as not "genuinely striving for peace, consistently and honestly committed to ending control over the Palestinians, or concerned with alleviating the humanitarian situation in Gaza."

Israel doesn't understand the gravity of the delegitimization threat, and hasn't addressed it effectively. The campaign promoting it will continue, perhaps in new forms. RI urges confronting it strategically by "systematically collect(ing) intelligence (and) identif(ing) key (delegitimization) catalysts," as well as adopting a:

"consistent and honest....commitment to end....control over the Palestinians, advance human rights (at least rhetorically), and promote greater integration and equality for its Arab citizens...."

"It takes a network to fight" one, says RI. Disrupting it is job one by training Israeli diplomats to work in delegitimization hubs, developing its own network, re-branding itself to promote a new image, and engaging "liberal progressive elite(s)." The objective - delegitimize, isolate and marginalize the delegitimizers and BDS movement.

Its earlier "delegitimize challenge" report recommended sabotage and subterfuge against growing forces it fears. Perhaps now it's softening but not enough. It omitted the right of return, East Jerusalem as Palestine's capital, the logic of a one-state solution, the renunciation of conflict, an admission of Israeli crimes of war and against humanity, accountability for those responsible, demilitarization as a show of good faith, legislation granting all Israeli citizens equal rights, an occupation end date, a full commitment to the rule of law, and restitution to compensate victims for decades of crimes and destructive harm for starters.

Short of fundamental change, Israeli delegitimization will prevail over half-hearted measures, more rhetorical than substantive the way they've always been for decades.

* Stephen Lendman lives in Chicago and can be reached at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net. Also visit his blog site at sjlendman.blogspot.com and listen to cutting-edge discussions with distinguished guests on the Progressive Radio News Hour on the Progressive Radio Network Thursdays at 10AM US Central time and Saturdays and Sundays at noon.

By Stuart Littlewood* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

A few weeks ago the Methodist Church's annual conference did a very courageous and praiseworthy thing. It voted to boycott products from Israeli settlements in Occupied Palestine, regarded as illegal under international law, and to encourage Methodists across Britain to do the same.

"The decision is a response to a call from a group of Palestinian Christians, a growing number of Jewish organisations, both inside Israel and worldwide, and the World Council of Churches," said the press release.

Christine Elliott, Secretary for External Relationships, remarked: "This decision has not been taken lightly, but after months of research, careful consideration and finally, today's debate at the Conference. The goal of the boycott is to put an end to the existing injustice. It reflects the challenge that settlements present to a lasting peace in the region."

Predictably the Board of Deputies of British Jews, which calls itself "the chief voice of British Jewry", blew a gasket. In a joint statement with the Jewish Leadership Council they said the Methodists should "hang their heads in shame". The Chief Rabbi led the verbal assault warning that the implications would "reverberate across the hitherto harmonious relationship between the faith communities in the UK".

What seemed to have inflamed the Chief Rabbi this time was the report 'Justice for Palestine and Israel' submitted to the Methodist Conference. Its recommendations include the following...

In listening to Church Leaders and our fellow-Christians in Israel Palestine as well as leaders of Palestinian civil society we hear an increasing consensus calling for the imposition of boycott, divestment and sanctions as a major strategy of non-violent resistance to the Occupation. The Conference notes the call of the WCC [World Council of Churches] in 2009 for an 'international boycott of settlement produce and services' and calls on the Methodist people to support and engage with this boycott of Israeli goods emanating from illegal settlements (some Methodists would advocate a total boycott of Israeli goods until the Occupation ends).

Elsewhere it says:

The Methodist Church has consistently expressed its concern over the illegal Occupation of Palestinian lands by the State of Israel. That Occupation continues not only compounds the state's illegal and immoral action but also makes any accommodation with the Palestinian people and future peace in the region much less possible.

The Chief Rabbi nevertheless denounced the report as "unbalanced, factually and historically flawed" without saying in what way it was inaccurate. Actually it is a very well put together document, which hits the mark and is hard to fault.

The Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council said the authors of the Methodists' report had "abused the goodwill of the Jewish community, which tried to engage on this issue, only to find our efforts were treated as an unwelcome distraction". Here is the full text:

Statement on the Flawed Document Endorsed by the Annual Methodist Conference

This is a very sad day, both for Jewish-Methodist relations and for everyone who wants to see positive engagement with the complex issues of Israeli-Palestinian relations. The Methodist Conference has swallowed hook, line and sinker a report full of basic historical inaccuracies, deliberate misrepresentations and distortions of Jewish theology and Israeli policy. The deeply flawed report is symptomatic of a biased process: The working group which wrote the report had already formed its conclusions at the outset. External readers were brought in to give the process a veneer of impartiality, but their criticisms were rejected. The report's authors have abused the trust of ordinary members of the Methodist Church, who assumed that they were reading and voting on an impartial and comprehensive paper, and they have abused the goodwill of the Jewish community, which tried to engage with this issue, only to find that our efforts were treated as an unwelcome distraction.

This outcome is extremely serious and damaging, as we and others have explained repeatedly over recent weeks. Israel is at the root of the identity of Jews and of Judaism, and as an expression of Jewish spiritual, national and emotional aspirations, Zionism cannot simply be ruled as illegitimate in the way that the Methodist Conference has purported to do. This smacks of breathtaking insensitivity, as crass as it is misinformed. That this position should now form the basis of Methodist Church policy should cause the Conference to hang its head in shame, just as surely as it will cause the enemies of peace and reconciliation to cheer from the sidelines.

Empty barrels, they say, make the most noise.

If arrogance is the only response to serious concerns about Israel's unending barbarity towards Muslims and Christians in the Holy Land, it's time that implications did indeed "reverberate" across the faith communities, not only in the UK but around the world.

Zionist cuckoos in the Methodist nest

Lo and behold, before the dust could settle another new product from the Zionist drawing-board popped up, calling itself Methodist Friends of Israel. "We are Christians who are members or adherents of the Methodist Church, who love Israel and want to bless her and who fully accept God's everlasting covenant with His chosen people," they announced. "While recognising that the nation of Israel is, like all nations of the world, an unrighteous nation that does not always get things right, we firmly stand with her at all times and continue to support her in an increasingly hostile world. We will not turn our backs as so many did in the 1930s.

We see that anti Semitism is on the rise throughout the world with synagogues and graveyards vandalised and Jews being attacked both verbally and physically and that there appears to be a direct relationship between the increased attacks on Jews and the blanket condemnation of Israel by the media, many charitable organizations and world bodies such as the UN. We are concerned that the whole, true picture of what life is like in Israel is given to the world rather than the biased half truths, distortions and lies that are presently reported.

We are concerned that many churches are going down the politically correct line of condemning Israel's policies and are thus contributing to the strong anti Semitic views of the world.

Note that they are concerned only with "what life is like in Israel", not the hell Israel has created in the Occupied Palestinian Territories for Christians and Muslims.

And what else do they believe in?

• They recognize that Israel is the land given by God to the Jews and Jerusalem is its only capital.
• They believe that God's word for, promises to, and covenants with Israel - people and land, through Abraham, Isaac and Jacob (Israel) are everlasting and that the church has not replaced Israel.
• They believe that Scripture prophesies the restoration of the Jews to the land of Israel and what they are seeing today is a fulfilment of prophecy. It is a privilege that they are witnesses to this fulfilment.
• They believe that Israel is central in the enactment of God's purposes as we move in these last days.
• They believe in finding out from many sources the whole picture of what is happening in Israel so that they can pass on the facts to those whose view is based solely on biased media coverage, and so correct mistaken beliefs (achingly funny, this).
• They believe in blessing Israel however possible including buying goods and produce from Israel and resisting all calls for boycotts.
• They believe in supporting Israel's defence of its people and their right to live without the threat of missile attacks, homicide bombings etc.
• They believe in standing against libelous attacks against Israel.
• They believe in fully supporting Israel's right to the land given them by God

According to The Jewish Chronicle, the group was set up by preacher Pam Smith from South Wales in reaction to her Church's call to boycott Israel. Naturally Jonathan Hoffman, co-vice chairman of the Zionist Federation, was overjoyed and said: "I hope this will be the start of a grass-roots movement within the Methodists to reverse the motion passed at the Methodist Conference, which was theologically invalid, maligned Zionism and demonised Israel."

Needless to say, the Methodist Friends of Israel website editorial reads like pages from some Israeli propaganda rag.

Have they not heard of The Jerusalem Declaration on Christian Zionism, a statement by the Latin Patriarch and Local Heads of Churches in Jerusalem issued in 2006? It is neatly summed up in its first sentence:

We categorically reject Christian Zionist doctrines as a false teaching that corrupts the biblical message of love, justice and reconciliation.

Those guys are on the ground, in the front line. They know the score. It's time Preacher Pam visited Gaza and the West Bank (not by Israeli tour bus or as guests of Israel's 'establishment') and got a grip on reality. She and others have allowed themselves to be hoodwinked into supporting a sinister political movement that is intent on stealing the Holy Land from under our noses.

I wonder how long these cuckoos will be allowed to foul the Methodist Church's nest.

* Stuart Littlewood is author of the book Radio Free Palestine, which tells the plight of the Palestinians under occupation. Read other articles by Stuart, or visit Stuart's website.

K6S2MA9DFMEQ Olympia, WA– The Olympia Food Co-op Board of Directors has decided to boycott Israeli goods at their two locations in Olympia, Washington. At a July 15th meeting packed with Co-op members, the Board reached this consensus. The Co-op becomes the first US grocery store to publicly join the international grassroots movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) on Israel for its human rights abuses.

Co-op board member Rob Richards explained, "My hope is that by being the first in the US to adopt the boycott we act as a catalyst for other co-ops to join in. Each additional organizational entity that joins may have a very small effect on the big picture, but drop by drop fills the tub."

Noah Sochet, a Co-op member and Olympia BDS organizer adds, "As a US citizen and as a Jew, I'm proud to say that my Co-op no longer underwrites the suffering in Palestine."

In accordance with its mission statement, the Olympia Food Co-op has a longstanding boycott policy, which includes a boycott of China (for its occupation of Tibet) and a previous boycott of Colorado (for legalizing discrimination against gays, lesbians, and bisexuals in 1992). The Co-op also has policies for rejecting items whose packaging feature exploitive or oppressive imagery.

One Israeli product is exempt from the boycott: "Peace Oil," a brand of olive oil fairly traded from Palestinian farmers in the West Bank and the Galilee, will continue to be carried by the Co-op.

The boycott follows on the heels of a similarly historic event at the nearby Evergreen State College. On June 2, students at the Olympia-based college voted overwhelmingly to approve two resolutions calling on the college's foundation to divest from companies profiting from the Israeli occupation of Palestine, as well as calling on the college to ban the use of Caterpillar equipment due to Caterpillar's complicity in Israeli war crimes. The college is the alma mater of Rachel Corrie, who was killed by a weaponized Caterpillar bulldozer in the Gaza Strip in 2003.

News of the boycott has drawn praise from around the world, including in Israel. "I salute the great work of the people in Olympia," said Yonatan Shapira, an Israeli Air Force captain and co-founder of Combatants for Peace. "The decision taken by the Olympia Food Co-op is an important step toward just peace for all people living in Israel/Palestine. It is also a step toward accountability for Israel's murder of Rachel Corrie."

The BDS movement began in 2005 when over 170 Palestinian civil society organizations in Israel and in Palestine issued a call for the nonviolent tactic of BDS on Israel until the country abides by international law and human rights standards. The BDS call has become an international movement, endorsed by renowned figures such as Desmond Tutu, Naomi Klein, and Alice Walker. The Co-op boycott comes two months after Italy's largest supermarket chains, COOP and Nordiconad, declared a boycott of products exported by Israeli Carmel Agrexco.

Israel has responded to the BDS movement by arresting prominent Palestinian endorsers. The Knesset is currently considering legislation to outlaw endorsement of BDS by Israelis.

Contact:
360-918-8665
contact@olympiabds.org
www.olympiabds.org

By Terry Crawford-Browne* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

Illustration By Pete Pasho: www.dollopsofirony.com

If international civil society is serious about urgently ending Israel's violations of Palestinian rights, including ending the occupation, then suspension of SWIFT transactions to and from Israeli banks offers an instrument to help bring about a peaceful resolution of an intractable conflict. With computerization, international banking technology has advanced dramatically in the subsequent 20 years since the South African anti-apartheid campaign.

Although access to New York banks remains essential for foreign exchange transactions because of the role of the dollar, interbank transfer instructions are conducted through the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT), which is based in Belgium. So, instead of New York -- as in the period when sanctions were applied on South Africa-- Belgium is now the pressure point.

SWIFT links 8,740 financial institutions in 209 countries. Without access to SWIFT and its interbank payment network, countries are unable either to pay for imports or to receive payment for exports. In short, no payment -- no trade. Should it come to a point where trade sanctions are imposed on Israel, it may be able to evade them. Instead of chasing trade sanctions-busters and plugging loopholes, it is both faster and much more effective to suspend the payment system.

The Israeli government may consider itself to be militarily and diplomatically invincible, given support from the United States, and other governments, but Israel's economy is exceptionally dependent upon international trade. It is thus very vulnerable to financial retaliation. South Africa's apartheid government had also believed itself to be immune from foreign pressure.

Without SWIFT, Israel's access to the international banking system would be crippled. Banking is the lifeblood of any economy. Without payment for imports or exports, the Israeli economy would quickly collapse. The matter has gained additional urgency with the bill now before the Knesset, Israel's parliament, to penalize any person who promotes the imposition of boycotts against Israel. Another important political factor is that SWIFT is not only outside American jurisdiction, it is also beyond the reach of Israeli military retaliation.

Israel has long experience in sanctions-busting since the 1948 Arab boycotts. Apartheid South Africa was also well experienced in sanctions-busting -- breaking oil embargoes was almost a "national sport." Trade sanctions are invariably full of loopholes. Profiteering opportunities abound, as illustrated by Iraq, Cuba and numerous countries against which for many years the United States unsuccessfully has applied trade sanctions. Iran conducts its trade through Dubai, which happily profits from the political impasse.

Suspension of bank payments plugs such loopholes, and also alters the balance of power so that meaningful negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians become even possible. This is because banking sanctions impact quickly upon financial elites who have the clout to pressure governments to concede political change. Trade sanctions, by contrast, impact hardest on the poor or lower-paid workers, who have virtually no political influence.

SWIFT will, however, only take action against Israeli banks if ordered to do so by a Belgian court, and then only in very exceptional circumstances. Such very exceptional circumstances are now well-documented by the UN-commissioned Goldstone report into Israel's winter 2008-09 invasion and massacre in Gaza and by the attack on the Gaza Freedom Flotilla on 31 May 2010. There is also a huge body of literature from Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and other organizations detailing Israeli war crimes and violations of humanitarian law.

The Israeli government, like that of apartheid South Africa, has become a menace to the international community. Corruption and abuses of human rights are invariably interconnected. Israel's long military occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip, for example, has corrupted almost every aspect of Israeli society, most especially its economy. The Organization For Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) reported in December 2009 that the Israeli government lacks commitment in tackling international corruption and money laundering.

The international financial system is exceedingly sensitive about allegations of money laundering, but also to any associations with human rights abuses. Organized crime and money laundering are major international security threats, as illustrated by the United States subpoena after the 11 September 2001 attacks of SWIFT data to track terrorist financing. The website Who Profits? (www.whoprofits.org) lists hundreds of international and Israeli companies that illegally profiteer from the occupation.

Their operations range from construction of the "apartheid wall" and settlements to agricultural produce grown on confiscated Palestinian land. As examples, Caterpillar, Volvo and Hyundai supply bulldozing equipment to demolish Palestinian homes. British supermarkets sell fresh produce grown in the West Bank, but illegally labelled as Israeli. Ahava markets Dead Sea mud and cosmetics.

The notorious Lev Leviev claims in Dubai that Leviev diamonds are of African origin, and are cut and polished in the United States rather than Israel. They are sourced from Angola, Namibia and also allegedly Zimbabwe, and can rightly be described as "blood diamonds." Israeli diamond exports in 2008 were worth $19.4 billion, and accounted for almost 35 percent of Israeli exports. Industrial grade diamonds are essential to Israel's armaments industry, and its provision of surveillance equipment to the world's most unsavory dictatorships. Such profiteering depends on foreign exchange and access to the international payments system. Hence interbank transfers are essential, and SWIFT -- willingly or unwillingly -- has become complicit, as were the New York banks with apartheid South Africa.

Accordingly, a credible civil society organization amongst the Palestinian diaspora should lead the SWIFT sanctions campaign against Israeli banks. And, per the South African experience, it should be led by civil society rather than rely on governments.

Each bank has an eight letter SWIFT code that identifies both the bank and its country of domicile. "IL" are the fifth and sixth letters in SWIFT codes that identify Israel. The four major Israeli banks and their SWIFT codes are Israel Discount Bank (IDBILIT), Bank Hapoalim (POALILIT), Bank Leumi (LUMIILIT) and Bank of Israel (ISRAILIJ).

Such a suspension would not affect domestic banking transactions within Israel and the occupied West Bank and Gaza Strip -- or international transfers to Palestinian banks that have separate "PS" identities. The campaign can be reversed as soon as the objectives have been achieved, and without long-term economic damage.

What is required is an urgent application in a Belgian court ordering SWIFT to reprogram its computers to suspend all transactions to and from Israeli banks until the Israeli government agrees to end the occupation of the West Bank including East Jerusalem, and that it will dismantle the "apartheid wall;" the Israeli government recognizes the fundamental rights of Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and Israel recognizes, respects and promotes the rights of Palestinian refugees.

* The writer is a retired banker, who advised the South African Council of Churches on the banking sanctions campaign against apartheid South Africa. He spent October 2009 to January 2010 in East Jerusalem monitoring checkpoints, house demolitions and evictions, and liaising with Israeli peace groups. He lives in Cape Town.

Source: EI

Palestinians call to boycott Israeli products (Photo: MaanImages/Mushir Abdelrahman)

By Sam Bahour* | Sabbah Report | www.sabbah.biz

When politicians face failure what do they do? Step down? No way. Not in Palestine at least. Over and over again the Palestinian leadership has hit a cement wall (no pun intended) in its attempts to lead the Palestinian people to freedom and independence. And with every colossal failure, the leadership looks to Palestinian civil society for direction.

The first intifada was adopted to cover for the failures in Lebanon, and the second intifada was adopted to cover for the collapse of Oslo. The current Palestinian Authority boycott of Israeli settlement products is no different. The boycott is the scaffolding that the PA is attempting to erect and climb in order to retake a leadership position. The dilemma PA leaders face is that it is very possible that they may be expending efforts to build a scaffold that others may climb to assume leadership of the Palestinian struggle for freedom and independence.

With an insignificant political constituency on the ground, a failed election campaign, and engaged in creating what many fear is a police state in the making, the PA finally jumped on the boycott bandwagon that civil society has struggled to assemble over the past several years, if not decades.

The PA's newly realized dedication to cleanse Palestinian markets of Israeli settlement products comes at a time when Palestinian markets are overwhelmingly dependent on the Israeli economy. This structural dependency is not new; it was nurtured over decades of direct occupation all the way up to the Oslo agreement. The Oslo period would have been an ideal time for the PA to set the tone that settlements--all settlements, but especially those in East Jerusalem--are not a negotiable issue but are illegal under international law and have no place in a peaceful solution. But that did not happen.

As a matter of fact, the PA not only ignored the illegal products from these settlements for many years, it also ignored the Israeli services that infringed on Palestinian markets, the most notorious being the unlicensed Israeli telecommunications operators who used their settlement-based infrastructure to provide service to all Palestinian areas, A, B and C. This infringement on the Palestinian marketplace not only caused real losses to the licensed Palestinian operators, who at the time had a monopoly license to provide services to the Palestinian areas, but it allowed for an economic fact on the ground to be created and take root. This fact was, and is, no less an obstacle to peace than the settlements themselves.

Today's boycott of settlement products is not a new effort, nor was it designed by the PA. It is a product of the hard work of dozens upon dozens of civil society players in Palestine and abroad. The build-up to today's boycott comes from a two-pronged civil society strategy.

The first prong is a global campaign that is much more comprehensive than just addressing settlement products. It is known as the BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) Campaign and emerged from a unified call from Palestinian civil society on July 9, 2005. The last few years have witnessed a series of successes for the BDS campaign that have surely not gone unnoticed by the PA.

The second prong of the strategy is a multitude of efforts that promote local production. The most notable of these efforts is the Intajuna ("our production" in Arabic) project: a donor-funded project that is managed by the Palestinian private sector player that designed it. This effort can be seen everywhere--retail points of sales, building and construction materials, and most recently in the produce markets. Intajuna provides a depth of analysis and campaigning that goes far beyond the traditional slogan of "Buy Palestinian".

It is on the backdrop of the BDS Campaign and efforts like Intajuna that the PA had its boycott awakening. The effort is welcomed by the public, and the PA is setting a good example of how non-violent efforts can be amplified when formal leadership assumes the role of leadership grounded in the community. Civil society leaders also welcome the PA's efforts, but are more cautious in their analysis because they understand that the Palestinian leadership has abruptly stifled mass civil society efforts in the past, the first intifada being the prime example when it ended with the Oslo accords.

But as this all plays out, Palestinians and those in solidarity with them are taking some satisfaction in watching the settlement enterprise run in circles trying to figure out a way to stop the boycott. Perhaps more interesting is that there are those in Israel itself, including the Knesset's Economic Committee, who are running in the same circles, most likely in an attempt to raise the stakes now so that the boycott does not expand to include all Israeli products and services.

If past experience is any guide, the Palestinian leadership will end up bear-hugging the entire BDS campaign approach in due time, given that the tools of boycott, divestment and sanctions are much more powerful non-violent methods than negotiating in vain with a government bent on ethnic cleansing.

* Sam Bahour is a Palestinian-American management consultant living in Ramallah.

Source: bitterlemons.org

By Nathan Guttman

Washington - It was a feather in the cap of pro-boycott activists, but for Israelis, a major setback.

With battle lines drawn across concert halls and stadiums hosting rock bands, the decision by mega-star Elvis Costello to cancel his planned concerts in Israel is being viewed as a game changer.

In a statement posted on his website, Costello described his decision as a "matter of instinct and conscience." Israel's culture minister, Limor Livnat, responded by saying that Costello "is not worthy" of performing in Israel.

The movement for a cultural boycott of Israel has increased its activity in recent years, strategically targeting selected artists who are scheduled to perform there. Until recently, the campaign has had limited success. It failed to dissuade musicians Paul McCartney and Leonard Cohen from giving concerts in Israel, but took pride in positive responses from several authors and poets.

Both Sides Now: Paul McCartney (1) played before Israeli audiences, and Elton John (3) still is scheduled to perform. But Elvis Costello (2) and Gil Scott-Heron (4) have joined the cultural boycott of Israel. Carlos Santana (5) canceled a large concert in Israel due to 'unforeseen scheduling conflicts.'

But Costello's action is the first open endorsement of the boycott movement by an A-list artist in protest of Israel's policies in the occupied West Bank and of its siege of Gaza. In a detailed statement, the performer argued that he could not perform in Israel because by doing so, "it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent.

"One lives in hope that music is more than mere noise, filling up idle time, whether intending to elate or lament," Costello wrote in his statement.

He suggested that his decision had been complex and difficult. "I must believe that the audience for the coming concerts would have contained many people who question the policies of their government on settlement and deplore conditions that visit intimidation, humiliation or much worse on Palestinian civilians in the name of national security," he wrote. "I am also keenly aware of the sensitivity of these themes in the wake of so many despicable acts of violence perpetrated in the name of liberation.

"I offer my sincere apologies for any disappointment to the advance ticket holders as well as to the organizers."

In reaction, a music industry insider confirmed that the winds could be shifting. The music executive, who spoke on condition of anonymity in light of his ongoing business ties with artists, said that in recent months he had approached more than 15 performing artists with proposals to give concerts in Israel. None had agreed. The contracts offered high levels of compensation. He called them "extreme, big numbers that could match any other gig."

Another successful boycott campaign was directed at poet and performing artist Gil Scott-Heron. Shortly after announcing his plan to perform in Tel Aviv on May 25, Scott-Heron, who is known for his political activism, was blasted by supporters of the boycott movement, who called on him to cancel his visit. Scott-Heron's April 24 concert in London was disrupted by pro-Palestinian protesters, and at the end of the show, he announced the cancellation of his Tel Aviv tour.

A letter sent to Scott-Heron by more than 50 pro-boycott groups and artists praised the decision as a moral one. "You have chosen to stand on the right side of history," the letter stated.

Scott-Heron's progressive views and his outspoken political stands have made him a prime target of the boycott movement. Organizers explained that they have been focusing on artists who they believe could be open to the idea of culturally boycotting Israel. "Obviously, we can't target everyone, so we single out those who we think will be more responsive and open to the issue," said Hannah Mermelstein, a spokesperson for Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel.

But the groups are also going after other performing artists whose planned concerts in Israel are expected to sell tens of thousands of tickets.

Currently, the focus is on singer Elton John, who is scheduled to perform in Tel Aviv on June 17. A video clip circulating on the Web shows a takeoff on Elton John's 1976 hit "Sorry Seems to Be the Hardest Word." The parody replaces the song's original lyrics with a call to cancel the planned show: "Always seems to me that boycott seems to be the hardest word."

The song criticizes Elton John for performing in South Africa during the apartheid era and claims that Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu is using gay tourism to Israel as part of the country's rebranding campaign. The clip urges John not to "let Bibi use you as his gay Band-Aid."

Other high-profile artists being targeted are Bob Dylan, who plans to give a concert in Israel at the end of May, and Joan Armatrading, who is scheduled to give two shows in the first week of June.

But in the battle over public opinion, many other names have also been thrown into the debate. These include artists who either scheduled concerts in Israel or indicated their wish to perform there, but who later withdrew without providing reasons for their decisions.

Such is the case of guitar legend Carlos Santana, who had planned a stop in Israel as part of his tour of Europe and the Middle East. Thousands of tickets to the concert, which was scheduled to take place in a large soccer stadium in Jaffa, had already been sold before Santana and his group announced that the concert had been canceled due to "unforeseen scheduling conflicts." The Israeli daily Yediot Aharonot quoted unnamed sources from the Israeli production company organizing the concert as saying that Santana had been under "pressure from anti-Israel figures" to cancel the visit.

Another no-show is rapper Snoop Dogg, who pulled out of a planned performance in Israel due to "contractual difficulties." It is not clear in this case whether the decision was a response to pressure to boycott Israel or the result of slow ticket sales.

Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions activists, however, have included these artists in a list of musicians who declined to perform in Israel, hinting that their decision to cancel was driven by political considerations.

Mermelstein, the Adalah-NY spokesperson, said that even when artists officially cite logistical reasons for canceling their shows, it could still be a sign that they are responding to boycott calls. "Most mainstream artists are not yet making public statements in support of BDS, but the movement is becoming a consideration, and artists are thinking twice before performing there," she said.

Some artists have come out clearly in support of the boycott and have declared their refusal to appear in Israel. These include mainly poets, authors and scholars rather than performing artists. Indian writer Arundhati Roy, British novelist John Berger, poet Adrienne Rich, director Ken Loach, and author and activist Naomi Klein are among them.

BDS activists in the United States stress that by calling on artists to boycott Israel, they are following demands from Palestinians on the ground who believe that this is an effective way of pressuring Israel. The movement also has supporters in Israel. Ofer Neiman, a Jerusalem activist, said the purpose is to show that occupation "has a price tag attached." He rejected the notion that having leading artists come to Israel in order to express their disagreement with the government's policies would be more effective than boycotting. "How many people have taken [rock musician] Roger Waters' anti-occupation statements to heart when he played here in 2006? The main thing people remember is that he performed here," said Neiman.

Despite recent successes of the boycott movement, Israelis still face a full slate of concerts and performances this summer. Elton John, Rod Stewart, Rihanna and the Pixies are among those confirmed to play in Israel. Also in the works are plans to host MTV's annual summer party, one of the music channel's top productions, in Tel Aviv.

Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com

Source: Forward