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TechnoratiIsrael Boycott Movement Gains Momentum
RAMALLAH - "Standing United with the People of Gaza" is the theme of this week's Israel Apartheid Week (IAW), which kicked off in Toronto and another 39 cities across the globe Sunday.
![[www.apartheidweek.org]](http://www.commondreams.org/files/article_images/israeliapartheidweek.jpg "israeliapartheidweek.jpg")
A movement to boycott Israeli goods, culture and academic institutions is gaining momentum as Geneva prepares to host the UN's Anti-Racism Conference, Durban 2 next month amidst swirling controversy.
Both Canada and the U.S. are boycotting the Durban 2 conference in protest over what they perceive as a strongly anti-Israel agenda.
The first UN Anti-Racism conference, held in the South African city Durban in 2001, saw the Israeli and U.S. delegates storm out of the conference, accusing other delegates of focusing too strongly on Israel.
U.S. and Canadian support might have offered some comfort for Israel. However, international criticism of Israel's three-week bloody offensive into Gaza, which left more than 1,300 Palestinians dead and thousands more wounded, most of them civilian, has breathed fresh life into a Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS) campaign.
The BDS campaign followed a 2005 appeal from over 170 Palestinian civil society groups to launch a divestment campaign "as a way of bringing non- violent pressure to bear on the state of Israel to end its violations of international law."
In the wake of the BDS campaign, critics of Israel have lashed out at what they see as parallels between South Africa's former apartheid system and Israeli racism.
They point to Israel's discriminatory treatment of ethnic Palestinians within Israel who hold Israeli passports, and the extensive human rights abuses against Palestinians in the occupied territories by Israeli security forces.
During the apartheid era, ties between Israel and South Africa were extremely strong, with the Jewish state helping to train South Africa's security forces as well as supplying the regime in Pretoria with weapons.
Meanwhile, Toronto, where the Israel Apartheid Week movement was born, will hold forums, film shows, cultural events and street protests to mark IAW week. One of the guest speakers is former South African intelligence minister Ronnie Kasrils.
Kasrils is no stranger to controversy. His parents fled from Tzarist Russian pogroms carried out against Jews, and immigrated to South Africa at the beginning of the last century.
During white rule, as a member of the African National Congress (ANC), working both in exile and underground in South Africa, he was reviled by many white South Africans as a "terrorist".
He has also been labeled a self-hating Jew by many Israelis and South African Jews due to the strong stand he and the ANC have taken against Israel's policies.
Meanwhile, in New York, prominent IAW activist Nir Harel, a member of Israel's Anarchists Against the Wall, will also be courting controversy. His group regularly protests against Israel's separation barrier, which divides Israel proper from the Palestinian West Bank.
The barrier deviates significantly from the Green Line, the internationally recognized border, into Palestinian territory where it has swallowed huge amounts of land, dispossessing farmers from their agricultural crops.
Another Israeli activist, Matan Cohen, has been central in the first U.S. college implementing a divestment campaign against Israel. Hampshire College in Massachusetts called for divestment from over 200 companies that the college says is responsible for violating its socially responsible investment policies in Israel.
The companies which provide the Israeli military with equipment and services in the occupied West Bank and Gaza include Caterpillar, United Technologies, General Electric, ITT Corporation, Motorola and Terex.
A Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) petition for divestment was supported by more than 800 students, professors, and alumni at the college, that has only 1,350 students.
Hampshire college may be small but it has been big in social activism. It was also the first U.S. educational institution to divest from South Africa, ten years before other universities and colleges followed suit.
U.S. campus activism is spreading. The University of Rochester in New York and members of the community are also involved in boycott activities.
Students from Macalester College, a liberal arts college located in St. Paul, Minnesota, occupied the Minnesota Trade Office in January and then picketed there Feb. 6, demanding that the state end all trade with Israel. New York University students too began a divestment campaign.
Professors and university employees in Quebec, Canada, endorsed the Palestinian Federation of Unions of University Professors and Employees' call to boycott Israel.
SJP's actions at Hampshire College follow similar moves by the National Association of Teachers in Further and Higher Education in the UK.
In London, students held sit-ins at Goldsmith University and the London School of Economics, among other institutions. Similar protests have spread throughout the U.K., with some winning concessions from university officials.
At Manchester University, about a thousand students joined a campaign equating Israel with apartheid-era South Africa, and called on the administration and student union to boycott Israeli companies and support Gaza and the BDS movement.
In Australia the University of Western Sydney's Student Association recently joined the international BDS campaign. International trade union support for political action against Israel has been seen from Spain to South Africa.
The South African Transport and Allied Workers Union, under directive of the Council of South African Trade Unions, refused recently to unload an Israeli ship which docked in Durban, despite threats and pressure from both management and the Israeli lobby.
The Irish Congress of Trade Unions, with 600,000 members in 55 unions, is preparing to start a boycott of Israeli goods.
Meanwhile, the biggest trade union in Canada's Ontario province, the Canadian Union of Public Employees (CUPE), was forced under pressure to moderate its call for a boycott of all academic institutions in Israel. Instead it called for a boycott of Israeli institutions engaged in research which aided the Israel Defence Forces (IDF).
125 Comments so far
Show Allthong-girl here is info on boycotting:
http://home.pacbell.net/halnet/Boycott%20Israeli%20Products%20Campaign.htm
You know, I am not surprised at America's leaders taking sides with the Overtly racist AIPAC/Zionists - since they are basically our governments puppet masters, but I am greatly disappointed in Canada for siding with American and Zionist Israel. Usually Canada has played the part of the common sense, socially aware neighbor to the North, but I guess they have been influenced and corrupted to much by both the Americana way of life and the racist zionists. Oh well.
People this Ridiculous! We have a BLACK president that wants to boycott a conference on Racism?! Am I crazy or does this seem rather insane and totally against everything this country has struggled with in the Civil Rights movement here at home not to mention human rights around the world!
Barack Obama is siding with Overtly racist groups in the AIPAC/ZIONIST union and is going against the Majority, the REST OF THE WORLD Here - Something is SERIOUSLY Wrong with this people.
Wake Up America - We are Supporting Israel with Billions of Dollars per Year (while here at home people are losing their Jobs and Houses) and we are supplying them With WEAPONS OF MASS DESTRUCTION - Which, Mark My Words, They Are Going to Use to Attack IRAN and start a Major WAR in the Middle East - If Not WW3.
This Conference on Racism is a Move Toward Peace - And America and Israel and Sadly Canada - Have all decided to boycott a movement of talks to help spread peace in our world. How Sad and Wrong is that?!
please visit my blog @ http://enemyartistkristofer.blogspot.com
I agree, it is ridiculous and embarrassing. But you know, being from an oppressed group does not automatically make you against oppression. Witness Israel's policies. BTW Canada is no great shakes either when it comes to racism against Native Americans.
We are so outside the mainstream when it comes to signing agreements on let's see... cluster bombs, the environment, world court.
We are a nation that fits all the clinical definitions of narcissism. Like any narcissist, we believe the rules do not apply to us.
Joe
WE HAVE A BI-RACIAL PRESIDENT!
My policy is simple. Before I make any major purchase, I ask if the people running it, or the owners, support Israel. I do not and really don't care a whit what anyone labels that as. For things associated with larger companies, it would be good to have a list of companies that support them, so we could let them know why we no longer do. Course, I've essentially given up all things Hollywood, but have found that to be a positive, and so much clothing is linked to them. Banking wise, I'm looking for a bank that is not connected, but finding any financial concern that isn't tied to Israel is difficult. I would appreciate some tips. In truth, this is long overdue as we gave these "people" so much support and to learn how racist they really are is disheartening.
thong-girl
Bring America Back !!!!...Spititual and heartfelt support for all these stateside and global protests and boycotts of the Zionist criminals !!!
***Wish I could be out there on the Protest Lines with 'em, but rest assured I'll be lambasting the Zions from the best parts of the Internet !!!!
***Remember Gaza, Remember 9/11 !!!
jeffj
Aren't Arabs a Semitic people -children of Abraham. Then why is the ethnic cleansing in the West Bank and Gaza not anti-semitic? It is convenient for the Israelis to assume the role of victim. This entitlement allows them to continuously breach international law by invoking anti-semite claims and reminders of the atrocities of the past.However, I think it is pretty clear that Israel's treatment of a subjugated people, with the curious unquestioned support of the US, is illegal and anti-semitic.
Pan
Anti semetic , No! anti Israel Policys.
Anti humanity Policys.
I don`t buy Israel made or sold items started 12 years ago .
Will not defend Nazi`s and what they did and will not defend Jews and what they do.
Bait the resident peoples , them pummel them to react , when they fight back abuse them and steal their land by using their past suffering and chosen people B.S. to persecute as they were persecuted.
I will not participate or will my taxes and seek to stop the complicity of my Government that supports a State as the old South African State by Pac`s and Money sent to help them .
Billions and Billions Forever to the Greatest Welfare State in History.
Liberty and Justice for All .. ALLL not some.
OK so I am sorry this one statement is so offensive I have to respond:
"Will not defend Nazi`s and what they did and will not defend Jews and what they do."
I know what Nazis have done and do. What do "Jews...do?"
If you're claiming to be anti Israel, not antisemitic, then why to you compare Jews to Nazis??? One of the ways that antisemitism works, (not so different to how other forms of racism work) is to hold the Jewish people responsible for what the government of Israel does. I don't know if you can see that that is what such a statement as the one above does.
Who else would you hold responsible?
Do you and other Zionists who frequent this site forgive the German people for what happened? Do you hold them innocent?
Not all Jews are Israelis or Zionists. Many many Jews actively oppose what has happened and is happening to the Palestinian people. I have been on many demonstrations on the issue of Gaza where there were more secular Jews than Christians. Some Hasidic Jews have participated as well.
We should stick to talking about policies and not classify people by who their grandparents happened to be. Man, sometimes I cannot believe the things that still have to be said.
Joe
If the Nazi jackboot fits, wear it.
All Jews should go right to Israel and finish building the wall around themselves as high as is humanly possible. Then the rest of the world should help put a lid on it. Then we'll all be done with them.
thong-girl
Here is a link to a Boycott Israel website:
http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-israel.php
I'd appreciate any other sites that might be useful, we must try to stop Israel before they bring about world war three.
Thanks
(Is There Any Doubt Now?)
Gaza And The Warsaw Ghetto
same place
different time
as the world stood by
genocide
live
Just weighing in.Of course Israel is a racist, apartheid regime, and I think some progress is being made in getting Americans to wake up to that fact.
We can all start by boycotting the umbiquitous MCDonalds. Those billions of $$$ go to support the criminal IDF.
Then of course there is the "hang up on Motorola" campaign - motorola designs chips used in bombing raids on Gaza.
Our US congress has still not investigated the death of Rachel Corrie and Caterpillar still sends their humonguous bulldozers to Israel where they are outfitted to demolish family dwellings, olive groves, in fact anything the criminal zionists covet.
This is Israel Anti Apartheid week, you can find info on various anti apartheid wall web sites. Sorry, my mind is blank but I can look up links for those who want them.
Israel must be stopped...they are ratcheting up their confiscation of land in Jerusalem at present, I think they know they will hae to come to a peace agreement soon, & want to have as many "facts on the ground" as possible.
Yesterday I read an article about the IDF setting dogs on an 100 year old partially paralyzed bed-ridden Palestinian, they are truly monsters and worst of all they (Israelis) think they are justified. The 100 year old man wasn't killed, just bitten severly on face & neck. What vile ghouls.(article was on URUK.net)
t_g
I had family members who emigrated (aliyah, if you please) to Israel after WWII - from France and Hungary (some even before). They were fleeing a dead continent with dead societies that did them terrible harm. They were also idealistic: believed in equal pay for equal work and that every person has a right to do a job that is to his abilities. Right to work and yes, a privilege to work.
Where are these idealists now? Those relatives of mine are dead, their evil spawn is either living in Israel or the USA, some even went back to Germany!!!! What matters to them is to make money and to spread an ideology that is racist, exclusivist and totally unacceptable to their persecuted forefathers.
It pains me, as a Jew to say, that I am for the boycott. I will look at what I'm buying and if it or its components are made in Israel, I won't buy it.
Sem⋅ite
/ˈsɛmaɪt or, especially Brit., ˈsimaɪt/ Show Spelled Pronunciation [sem-ahyt or, especially Brit., see-mahyt] Show IPA
–noun
1. a member of any of various ancient and modern peoples originating in southwestern Asia, including the Akkadians, Canaanites, Phoenicians, Hebrews, and Arabs.
2. a Jew.
I'm gonna' say, door #2!
thong-girl
If being for truth is antisemitic,
if being for justice is antisemitic,
if being for compassion is antisemitic;
then we all should be antisemitic.
There is no truth, justice or compassion in being antisemitic. Just hate.
Not hate, more like disgust with the arrogance and self righteousness of people who claim superiority on the basis of a fairy tale, who perpetrate unspeakable violence and destruction with assumed impunity, and who flaunt an utter disregard for international law, and common decency, because they were victims once upon a time and are therefore beyond reproach. Israel, more than any other group, provides the best argument against its own right to exist.
There are people who post here that define as antisemitic any statement that Israel might, just might be doing any thing wrong no matter how gently stated. Or perhaps it is more personal, anyone who does not agree with them 100% is antisemitic. The way they use the word antisemitic could stir up hate. My suggestion is that they stop name calling. When they use the word antisemitic they are trying to mamipulate us and are at the same time closing their eyes and ears to all that is being written and said. Those who might, just might, be striving for some truth, some justice, and some compassion should not be dismissed so easily. Too many times the phrase "you are antisemitic" could be replaced by the phrase "I have turned my brain off now". To those who use the phrase in that manner I say, Please, don't turn you brain off.
All that being said, I agree with your statement. I used the word "if" three times for a reason. No one should be antisemitic. And no one should use the word "antisemitic" too easily.
How can any American boycott Israel without first boycotting the US?
You people are ridiculous and antisemitic!
Don't feed the Zionist troll.
Ridiculous post, as always Joe, but nonetheless true regarding the need to boycott the US.
The problem is that when corporations suffer a loss in profits they just lay off more workers. Your boycotts of the US and Israel amounts to collective punishment of working class families, and that's the wrong way to go about addressing your concerns.
I think the whole thing is absurd. How can Americans boycott America? Why would we want to do that to ourselves?
I just wanted to point out the hypocrisy of some posters who feel Israel is the most evil country in the world. I think that, for many of the comments here, people who virulently hate Israel are just thinly concealing their antisemitism. After all, how hard would it be for a neo-Nazi to blend in at a pro-Hamas rally?
I agree that something needs to be done to stop illegal settlements, but otherwise, why do people feel Israel doesn't has the right to self defense like all other nations?
Israel has no more right to self defense than a robber has against the robbed or terrorists against the police. Israel was created by and continues to take the land of the indigenous population through terrorism – the use of violence against a civilian population for political/personal gain. All those that support stealing in the holy land need to read Zachariah 5, the curse of God for doing so makes them dead souls walking.
You are truly clueless. What do you me how can US boycott US? Are you really that stupid? Only selected companies hands their profits to Israel. Corporations do not go under because of Israel. But Israel can go under because of divestment. Corporations are there to make money. If they realize that they are losing money because of their support of that zionist, racist, apartheid nation, guess what? They will divest. A lot of companies are starting to realize that Israel is not worth it. And you will see more over the coming months and years. Only clueless wonders like you are moronic enough not to realize that.
Israel is now THE most evil state because it does thing like what it did to Gaza and Lebenon. The world is not bling and beholden like the AIPAC whores in the capitol or like whores like you.
And BTW, idiot, how is building settlements in the West bank going to help the thieving jews in Israel? Are you really and truly a fucking moron?
Ok, let's say that there is a certain corporation, let's say Denny's, that is doing some things, let's say being racist. Boycotting them is absurd?
"I agree that something needs to be done to stop illegal settlements, but otherwise, why do people feel Israel doesn't has the right to self defense like all other nations?"
Obviously, there are anti-semites who wants to destroy Israel. But not everyone who criticises and wants to boycott Israel is necessarily an anti-semite who believes that Israel has no right to self defense.
As you say, something needs to be done to stop illegal settlements. What is being done?
Furthermore, how the hell does blocking shipments of pasta, targeting hospitals and universities, blocking academics / students from going abroad to study, help Israel defend itself? When people see pictures of women and children bleeding and dying on TV, they will react negatively. By doing things like this, Israel is only shooting itself in the foot. It is making people who are sympathetic to it disillusioned, disgusted.
Not when you go around stealing peoples lands, killing them and their children, and forcing them into neighboring countries.
I should know for i am from one of those countries where the colonials from Europe wiped out ever last one of the indigenous population move my fore fathers in from Asia India Africa Ireland all over the world to work their fields.
This should not be going on today , give the Palestinians back their Land and go back to Europe
Certain factions of the U.S. must be boycotted to make it effective. I think it's pretty obvious how to make it work for us.
thong-girl
I sleep so well at night knowing my tax dollars are used to kill these pigs over there, wish I was in control of IDF, I'd just kill'em all and let GOD sort the mess out. Long live Israel.
This is ridiculous.
Odysseus is no different than thong girl. They are both hateful idiots.
The job prospects for your future look really bright, but do you ever wonder if "GOD" might just "sort you out"?
Mr Chips. Hello.
"People" (sorry to abuse that word) who revel in sleeping well at night and mass murder conjoined, who say they would like to kill an entire race (then think they sleep well at night)
1. Have been sorted out. Judged. Look at their Hell, just a small precursor. And,
2. They don't REALLY 'sleep well at night,' as they dream of dead babies, of blood. Of Bodies. It rots them.
Neither a person or a country can enter the darkness, the void of no morality and killing, without it entering them.
It rotted the Nazi's, Cambodia, South Africa, Somoza, Sharon, Israel, Pinochet, Netanyu. Murderers kill more than their victims. And we are seeing this. Israel is a Pariah in the international community and it's own heart. It is Lost.
Joe.
Is there a national petition/site for an Israeli Boycott?
In a related manner, it is the ultimate irony that an administration headed by USans' first African-American president would boycott the UN conference on racism. When the Bush regime did the same in 2001, just before 9/11, i was horrified, but not surprised.
Why does our does our first racial minority President support racism against the Palestinans? He joins the Bush clone in Canada and Zionist Israel in the boycott.
This is similar to the continued support in Latin America for the purveyors of racism/classism in such nations as Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Nicaragua, and El Salvador. This work is carried out by the misnamed National Endowment For Democracy (which should be zero-funded), IRI, USAID, CIA, and the economic hitmen ( see John Perkins' Confessions of an Economic Hitman )
Sorry, if I over-segued from the topic.
Sharonsj, 12:25,
While I disagree w/the thrust of your remarks, you have a point regarding Saudi Arabia and Jordan, and i would add Egypt. The aid we send to these countries is mainly used to suppress their own people. USana hard-earned tax $ should not be spent in this way.
Chaim March III, 1:50,
While I also detest anti-Semitism, to stand against Zionism is not anti-Semitism, nor is a Jew who opposes Zionism a self-hating Jew.
Peace
It was Colin Powell who pulled the US delegation out of the first round and he did so b/c the conference was entirely aimed at Israel. IF a fair and intellectual debate would have been held Mr Powell wouldn't have pulled the staff. However it became clear that that wasn't the case.
Doesn't it strike you as a little odd that the ONLY nation in the world to be censored by the UN Human Rights Commission is Israel?
I do not deny that Israel has committed acts that warrant public denunciation but the notion that only Israel is guilty of human rights violations is intellectually dishonest.
Great to see the most important peace movement of the world.
Israel has always been for South Africa apartheid and was always right wing.
The USA used Israel and Israel used the USA to spearhead the latest evolvement of western Imperial Banking on War Economy ponzi scheme (code named democracy) to the world.
Israel does not want to live in the sea, so why do they keep asking for it???
They are lead by a group of paranoids who want the USA to help them bomb Iran.
Bush wouldn't even do it, The Zionists are crazier than Bush!
I bet they are even freakin out a lot of the Christian Zionists. Don't hear much out of them lately.
Just like Bush Israel is setting itself up as the stooges for the War Machine and Obama is not even aware how he is more and more diggin' the hole deeper. He might reach bottom yet.
The system is failing ... Israel will change eventually... or we may all go down the black hole of War Debt.
Or can we crawl out of the Black hole we are already in?
The planet will Boycott Israel for peace. No free billions and weapons no more.... Change we can make happen.
Shalom
Bush (and Cheney) wanted to bomb Iran, but a "rebellion" by his JCS demonstrated cooler minds.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb.
An Open Letter to Commondreams.org on its Troubling Perpetuation of Myths and Lies
Dear Commondreams.org
I am a progressive American who believes in the regulation of capitalism to honor human rights. I also believe in upholding the sanctity of civil liberties, including freedom of speech, expression, religion, and political affiliation. I consider myself a reasonable and justice-loving person, and I want to work to eliminate hatred, material privation, and suffering in our world.
However, I am a Zionist, and I feel that your website discriminates against me because I believe that the Jews have the right to self-determination and self-government. A much more egregious injustice than your one-sided depiction of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the one you do in perpetuating a variety of lies and myths about the history of the State of Israel. The Zionist state in Israel is not a colonialist or racist project; Jews bought land legally and wanted to make a state from the land that they had purchased from their Palestinian neighbors. This act does not constitute as an act of aggression or war and does not deprive Palestinians of rights; the Palestinians, however, interpreted the intent to establish a Jewish state in the Middle East as such because their leader, Hajj Amin al Husseini, the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem, was an ally of Hitler who advocated for the extermination of Jews in the Middle East. The Palestinians cried, "Itbach al Yahud" when the Jews tried to settle a peaceful agreement of side-by-side coexistence with them. The Palestinians fought the Jews in the hopes that their state would never be. How is this peace-loving or fair? Jews were immigrants, but some had always been in Palestine, and others had been kicked out by the Roman Empire and then kept out by a series of Islamic or Christian empires.
Israel is NOT an apartheid state; there are Christians and Muslims who live in Israel and have the full rights of citizenship. The Palestinians do not have civil rights because they are not citizens of Israel. I do not have civil rights in Mexico or Canada, but I do not claim either of these neighboring states to be racist, apartheid regimes. Palestinians who accept the right of Israel to exist and want to become citizens could -- and they could get their own state if they renounced violence and terror against Israel's citizenry. The Jews gained sovereignty over the Occupied Territories because Egypt and Jordan attacked Israel; the Palestinians can end the Occupation by agreeing to be peaceful.
Israel may be responsible for some of the misery of the Palestinians, and Israel's part in making Palestinians miserable is abominable. However, the Palestinians' leaders are also responsible for their suffering - for their abject poverty (material privation) and for their squalor; on separate occasions, Fatah and Hamas have stolen billions of dollars from their people and kept them in horrific conditions so that they would use Israel as a scapegoat. The Palestinians have also contributed to their own misery; the most recent example of this is evident in Gaza, where instead of building a viable economy and infrastructure, Palestinians tore down greenhouses, caused mayhem and destruction, and stole goods.
Jews believe that they need their own state because they have been second class citizens and bare life subject to violence and abuse in Christian and Muslim societies. In the early 20th century, Jews were made into refugees when various Muslim-Arab lands expelled them, and they were totally stripped of their rights. The fact that they had no recourse to challenge this injustice proves that Jews need their own state even more.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is complicated, and the Jews have not always been angels. I condemn the Occupation and illegal expansionism. However, I do not believe that making the Palestinians and their leaders out to be blameless victims of history is fair, just, or kind; neither does it forward a viable solution for peace for ALL SIDES. The Jews do NOT want to live with a population that denies their right to self-sovereignty.
Please, someone, read me and let me know that you are willing to participate in a more meaningful and sophisticated dialogue; you are fomenting hate by perpetuating lies and letting your website serve as a site for vitriolic invectives and rash demonizations. I do not want to dehumanize or demonize anyone in the conflict; both Israelis and Palestinians are human beings to me, and I want a two-state solution because it is the only solution for a lasting peace. Can you say the same?
Can we participate in a real dialogue about this instead of demonizing Israel? Can we acknowledge the complexity of the situation? There is no colonialism, and this does not fit into a colonialist paradigm. The Jews have a more just claim on legally purchased territories of Israel than white Europeans have on territories in the United States of America. The Jews' history of looking towards Zion is real and has been realized; this people, which had been doomed to wander, has finally come home and made their own destiny; can't I celebrate that and ALSO want the Palestinians to have peace, happiness, and self-rule?
Please find a way to respond. I am still in the university and have no time to spend all day fighting bloggers on your website, though the prospect of being a warrior for a two-state solution is tempting.
Israel perpetrates certain social ills against the Palestinians, and the Palestinians perpetrate certain social ills against Israel. NO country is blameless, and this special treatment of Israel smacks of something almost anti-Semitic.
I AGREE WITH MOST OF WHAT YOU SAY AND YOU SOUND SO FAIR MINDED BUT I PERSONALY KNOW PEOPLE FROM PALESTINE WHO DO NOT REMEMBER THEIR LAND BEING PURCHASED BY jEWS THEY REMEMBER IT BEING STOLEN AND THE HOMES ON THAT LAND AND THE POSSESSIONS IN THOSE HOMES - AS THEY AND THEIR FAMILIES WERE RUN OFF AT GUN POINT - NOT ONE FAMILY, MANY!
I suggest you do some more reading on the subject.
The policies of land grab, of demonizing Arabs, of claimed superiority
are well documented. Read comments of past leaders or the govt.
The new govt is well known to be ready to strike Iran should the U.S.
give them permission. Let's just hope they keep on seeking permission
before they do it on their own.
If you don't want to see a world conflagration, make it your task to
stop the policies of immigration, land grab, obfuscation, terroism
now being practiced. You can really do some humanitaian good.
You are young as we can surmise from your being a student. So far
you have probably been subjected to the one sided story that Israel
promotes.
Haven't you wondered why journalists weren't allowed in Gaza?
Work to stop the billions of weapons which are being stockpiled....
RebeccaDK wrote:
"Jews bought land legally and wanted to make a state from the land that they had purchased from their Palestinian neighbors."
Can you even see how absurd your argument is? How about this:
"i bought land legally and i want to make a state from the land i purchased from my Philadelphia neighbors."
You would be more intellectually honest to say what David Ben-Gurion, chief architect of the State of Israel and revered as the Father of the Nation, said:
“We must use terror, assassination, intimidation, land confiscation, and the cutting of all social services to rid the Galilee of its Arab population.”
“If I were an Arab leader, I would never sign an agreement with Israel. It is normal; we have taken their country. It is true God promised it to us, but how could that interest them? Our God is not theirs. There has been Anti-Semitism, the Nazis, Hitler, Auschwitz, but was that their fault? They see but one thing: we have come and we have stolen their country. Why would they accept that?”
To begin, a Zionist cannot be a progressive American. That's just one of a number of your contradictions, so no, you can't participate in a real dialogue, and yes, Israel must be called out for what it is.
So as a zionist Rebecca do you believe Israel should and some day will extend all the way to the Jordan river?
Do you also seriously believe that by buying some land it gives someone the right to hold dominion over a whole region? What about the people who refused to sell? What about absentee owners? Did Israel pay for the houses and businesses of the refugees? Have you heard of Irgun or Hagana or the Stern gang? What about Deir Yassin or the King David Hotel?
Since when are religions considered worthy of statehood. Would it be ok for say the Mormons to want their own country? In say Utah for instance? Would it be ok for the Catholic church to take over South America, an overwhelmingly Catholic region? Where do you stand on the United States policy of separation of church and state?
You say some Jews were kicked out of the middle east by the romans and kept out by the Christians etc. So what about the people that the jews destroyed, as is recorded in the old testament etc, why dont they have any rights to the land that the jews forcibly and cruelly took from them in ancient times? If you are going to use such arguments to support your case then you can hardly deny them to other people without looking rather hypocritical.
I find it offensive that you gloss over anything done by the, massively more powerful, Israeli military with "Israel MAY be responsible for some of the misery of the Palestinians" and then go on to illustrate that it is all hamas fault because they knocked down some greenhouses. Unbelievable that you have forgotten how many homes, schools, hospitals, offices, factories, power stations and yes greenhouses Israel knocked down recently in Gaza. It makes me sick to my stomach to think that people can be so blinkered and cruel.
You need to inform yourself of the full story behind this conflict and put yourself in the shoes of a Palestinian for a moment. There are many people in the world greatly alarmed by the violence and death meted out mainly by Israel in the middle east. The reason people seem to side with the palestinians is because they are the ones being killed by Israel. The palestinians have not killed very many jews now have they? I think the current score! is aroound 200 to 1 isnt it? People will not stand by and see thousands of people massacred and thousands more maimed and stay silent. Why cant you understand that and understand why people feel this way? Dont you feel the same about massive numbers of deaths of your fellow humans?
Oh I get it, if I criticize Israel then I must be an anti-Semite. I'll play my violin.
Rebecca's post is simply another example of the ongoing attempt to smear all critics of Israeli policy as anti-Semites. She just repeats the same tired arguements mixed with some or her own lies. She is doing nothing to advance the debate.
I seriously doubt that she is progressive.
q
Yawn.
Someone takes the time to write a long and detailed opinion peace and asks for input and/or constructive criticism and all your response is "Yawn."
Opeleboy again shows us his intellectual depth....
You need to go away. For some pathetic and juvenile reason you feel the need to single me out — twice — for some very tame comments. Others here have written things much more incendiary than "yawn."
Her goddamn propaganda deserves no response. It is bullshit. Worse, it is supremacism and racism. You people are your own worst enemies.
This my last response to you Mr Zionist. I would really enjoy telling you what I think of you and your ilk in terms that would be easy for even you to understand, but I choose not to be 86ed from this site.
Pull up your pink panties, get a flight on El Al to Israel, get a gun, and go shoot all the Palestinian children you want. But be warned: some of them have rocks.
I had no idea you were so sensitive. I didn't mean to get your knickers in a twist.
Also, if you don't want people to offer rebuttals to your remarks maybe you shouldn't comment multiple times on a single thread...just a thought.
Yawn may not be incendiary, though it is quite rude, but your remark about eating babies is pretty vile.
Seeing how you are only a lil 'boy' I won't hold you last paragraph here against you. You're just to fucking stupid to realize how dumb you are.
his steel gray eyes reflect the frozen depths of hatred.
MY eyes are blue/green.
… so the freeze is true, and you're just arguing color ?
Y-A-W-W-N...
I'd love to contact my congress persons to stop supporting Israeli Apartheid. Unfortunately my congressman and both senators are, are, are.....
They are what?
AIPAC whores
I absolutely agree that Israel needs to normalize relations with their neighbors. The neighbors will have to see Israel as something more than a tumor growing in their midst, and Israel will have to look at themselves as something other than a pearl in the midst of swine. I am afraid, though, that a paranoid Israel, with a radically right wing militaristic government armed with nuclear weapons standing (what they percieve as) alone against their "enemies", will begin launching in all directions and show the world what a REAL desert looks like.
This all started in Toronto, eh? Never thought hogtown was much good for anything but it's stock has just went way up with this new info. Hooray for TO!
Boycott, embargo, blockade, no truck no trade with Israel!
Sophie Scholl-The Final Days
StephenB
There is a substantial peace movement in Israel and a good deal more freedom of discussion in the press there than exists in the US. The problem is that the majority of Israelis have become more and more paranoid and right wing in their voting. Israeli politics, as the just completed election shows, has moved uniformly sharply to the right. From the political parties and the composition of the Knesset, you would not know a peace movement exists. It is strange and ironic to me that a country that has the fourth largest military in the world, that is far more powerful than all the Middle Eastern countries put together, is ever more and more paranoid about its security. This includes hysteria about Iran, as if that ancient country would engage in self annihilation by attacking Israel with a nuke. Israel has between one and two hundred nukes. But nobody is supposed to talk about that. The only way to counter Israeli militarism and oppression of its Palestinian neighbors and citizens is boycott and divestment. We cannot look to anyone in the US government to do anything other than enable Israel.
Israel's paranoia is that of a thief, they know the stolen lands will have to be returned one day, and justice will be done, even as it was done to their own oppressors sixty years ago.
Israel Terrorism Against The Palestinian People Is A Threat To Our Country
"The reason being?"
"9/11."
"And Israel's Zionist supporters here in America"
"Traitors."
"Why?"
"They put the interests of Israel before those of America."
"The answer being?"
"That our government demand justice for the Palestinian people."
"Brought about how?"
"Jewish colonizer sits down with colonized Palestinian for the purpose of figuring things out."
"Based on?"
"One equals one."
Boycott!
Hampshire College DID NOT divest from Israel, or from companies doing business in Israel. The board did leave a fund that didn't meet their social responsibility guidelines. That some of the companies in that fund did business in Israel was incidental, if not irrellevant to the decision. What happened is that the Students for Justice in Palestine at Hampshire College essentially hijacked the story in a move that is IMHO positively Rovian.
http://www.hampshire.edu/news/11321.htm
PS Please y'all please tone down the blatant antisemitism; aside from being deeply offensive, it cheapens the discussion
Hooray for the students of Hampshire College! Boycott, embargo and blockade the filthy country.
Full stop to the heirs of Hitler, down zionism, nazism, and fascism wherever found.
Should be at the fore of any anti-war protests too. The U.S. has an International audience. It cannot be left aside and must become central. Israel is a criminal barbaric state. It must be opposed now without compromise. Cultural and academic boycott would send a good message to its electorate. But Israel cannot hide behind its democracy in holding so many very vulnerable Palestinians to randsom.
Their situation is dreadful. This push cannot wait for governments to be formed and reformed in Israel. This must be done now!
Could we just stop being an enabler? Contact your congressperson and
say we do not want all this aid continued.
Please!
I've tried. My congressman - David Scott - is a complete whore. He'll support anyone and anything that sticks money in his pocket.
q
The response to my opposition to S. Res 10 from my senator, Daniel Akaka
"Thank you for contacting me regarding the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I noted your opposition to S. Res 10.
"As you may know, Israel initiated a military campaign against Hamas as a response to rocket and mortar attacks on Israel from Hamas-controlled Gaza. On January 18, 2009, both Israel and Hamas issued separate cease-fire declarations. According to George Mitchell, U.S. special envoy to the Middle East, "The United States is committed to vigorously pusuing lasting peace and stability in the region."
"On January 8, 2009, the Senate adopted S. Res. 10, a resolution recognizing the right of Israel to defend itself against attacks from Gaza and reaffirming the United States' strong support for Israel in its battle with Hamas, and supporting the Israeli-Palestinian peace process.
"I support efforts to bring peace and security to the region. Rest assured, I will continue to monitor the situation in Gaza and remain optimistic that the conflict in the Middle East can be resoved peacefully and through diplomatic means."
So even my liberal senator, who is right much of the time and too old to worry about re-election, is drinking the Kool-Aid.
How about boycotting Jordan and Saudi Arabia and Palestine for refusing to allow Jews to become citizens or to own land? I thought that's what apartheid is supposed to be.
How about dismantling illegal Jordan? After all, Jordan and Israel were created in the same way. Why should Jordan be treated differently?
The Palestinians, as miserable as their existence may be, still would rather steal food from each other (that's why the U.N. stopped sending in shipments, since Hamas was stealing them), use women and children as willing shields, and embrace propaganda that killing Jews is the fastest way to paradise.
Thank you for writing that. As a proud progressive lefty, I don't understand how the American Left has become so prejudiced and unfairly selective in its discussion of this conflict.
Rebecca I am sorry I tried to debate your previous post now. your reply of support to sharonsj shows you to be the same old ridiculous apologist for zionism and all its evil as commonly comes here and spouts the propaganda straight from pr dept of mossad. Do you get payed for this or is is just part of your religious duties?
Well boo hoo!
You forgot about them eating Jewish babies and completely left out the holocaust.
Are you dumb or just plain stupid?
sharon- what a stupid thing to write.
Your reactionary racist and prejudicial comments are clearly designed to incite useless argumentation and HATE toward Palestine ( while attempting to appear as somewhat equal handed and balanced on the totally asymmetric issue of additional "pro-Israeli" 'boycott'. )
What an OBSENE joke you are.
Namaste
Is Saudi attacking anyone and taking billions in aid er year?
How about Jordan??
I don't support either of these monarchies but they don't go about killing people in the fashion of the IDF do they?
Yes, saudi Arabia is recieving another $20 billion in military aid, the previous US military aid has been used to keep the House of Saud in power by opressing their own people...
Yes, Saudi Arabia (SA) is attacking other people, just not with a conventional military... Wahabbism was nurtured in SA, and the Saudi intelligence have carried out some pretty wicked deeds for their masters... The Saudi Royal family have funded terrorist training camps in SA, Sudan, Afghanistan, and elsewhere... Including funding the CIA $20 billion in the late 70's & early 80's to train and arm Osama Bin Laden and Al Queda to fight the USSR... The 19 hijackers on 911 were Saudi Arabian... As was International weapons dealer Karshougghi during Iran Contra when he was brokering weapons between Israel and Iran and the US with Ollie North...
Then stop sending them money for cheap oil!
Not sure what you mean... Who is the subject of your sentence?
So war is only reason now?
Well i guess we need to boycott every nation that engages in conflict too.
I love watching you change the rules every time someone points out the flaws in your logic....
"Well i guess we need to boycott every nation that engages in conflict too."
What a good idea!!! :)
SO you agree then that both the Israeli's and Palestinians need to be boycotted.
Excellent!
Dock workers in Durban refused recently to unload an Israeli ship, in sympathy with the Palestinians.
These same workers refused last year to unload a ship loaded with Chinese weapons and destined for Zimbabwe, a country where the old leaders stay in power due to their use of violence.
I admire greatly these actions by the dock workers of Durban R.S.A.
One of the reasons why dockside and transport unions have been systematically attacked and knackered here in the west. These unions were once the most powerful, but they never realized their potential before being effectively killed by the Govt. and corporations.
Yet another example of the emerging totalitarianism here in the west.
Never criticize a man until you've walked a mile in their moccasins - Native American proverb.
The ILWU is still strong on the west coast, organizing shutdowns of entire ports in solidarity with Mumia in SanFran, against the war in Tacoma and Olympia, even shutting down the entire west coast at one time...
While most AFL-CIO unions take their marching orders from the pink scarf & gucci wearing labor bosses, Longshoremen have remained true to the labor movement, willing to do slowdowns and stoppages in solidarity with environmental and social justice movements...