The Glue That Holds Chaos Together

All excellent points, but let's be more specific and suggest that we need to get non-stop video feeds from Gaza sent to the States and the rest of the world, through government enforced media coverage.

Of course you are right. This should have been done years ago. I only hope its not too late...

We just need Bob Dylan, Ringo Starr , Lou Reed, Peter Gabriel, Jackson Browne , U2, Keith Richards, Ronnie Wood, Bonnie Raitt, and Joey Ramone to take a stand again.

Bet some of their mothers will be pretty disappointed.

On a more serious note Annie Lennox has been speaking up at protests in London.

The real trick is that the big money comes from the US taxpayers. Boycotting that will be about the same as saying I'm boycotting the Iraq war.

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"Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it, misdiagnosing it and then misapplying the wrong remedies. " Groucho Marx

"Nobody ever went broke underestimating the intelligence of the American people."
H. L. Mencken

Naomi Klein I bought that book. You are a crdit to the human race. I feel the UK and independent states in the EU must be targeted to break ranks. God help us all for allowing complicity in this to terrible venture to persist. There has to be justice and criminals must be confronted, whatever the cost. Some country must break ranks.

I tie this to The Lisbon Treaty in Ireland being given a re-run. Let the elites Sarkozy and Merkle the Dutch, Belgians, the Czechs and Poles know that Lisbon is dead and the Irish people will not allow some EU foreign minister represent us in war crimes as EU solidarity persists.

Campaign in Ireland before the vote and ask at what cost would Irish people representing the European populations who have no say vote, follow this dreadful EU relationship with the rogue state's crimes. Unless and until The European Union severs all ties with Israel till it fully complies with International Law it dies with its ally forthwith. How dare the elites in European capitals disgard their citizens voices? Let them rot and stew with their Zionist masters. They will make Gazians of us all soon enough if they can. Waken up to the terror of the situation everybody who is human and free!!! What is democratic about what is happening in Gaza? Ask around the world with truth and information about realities. Nobody who is a human being could condone or support such barbarity. Those who do are either ignorant or liars and psychopaths, thieves and deluded lunatics, greedy, insatiable, selfish and cruel, mean and vile, lost and powerful usurers. We support them? Who are we?

Not me, my friends, my family or my Palestinian brothers and sisters. I will fight for them to-day and forever confronting such bullies and such terrorism. Break EU and USA first. Country by country. Divide and rule like they do. Go for their wallets, they are ours anyway. Good luck Naomi and God Bless. Thanks!

Give 'em, gal! You're right on the mark. What's not to love about a really decent woman and intellectual it hitting right on the mark? Stand your ground. The struggle continues-- thanks for the leadership.

AD

I think this is a very good idea. Klein didn't mention that such a divestment and boycotting tactic would be portrayed as "antisemitic" by much of Israel's diehard apologists. Of course this has nothing to do with antisemitism since many Israeli Jews and Jews from around the world support divestment and boycotting Israel.

From 1948 to 1962, the U.S had an arms embargo on Israel. It would be great if it could be reinstated, although that seems extremely unlikely at this point. Besides the boycott, we must do everything we can to neutralize and expose AIPAC for what it is first, and other Zionist-Likudnik lobbying groups.

We have friends in Israel in the Peacenow movement - http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/homepage.asp

Don't forget the courageous Orthodox Jews against Zionism - http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/

Naomi Klein is right. The one thing more powerful than money is public opinion. And the strategy she is really advocating is not a bad one, not the boycott, that she rightly points out is just a tactic. But realistic reports and rational claims.

One of the most effective boycotts of apartheid South Africa was the sporting one. It succeeded, not just because South African teams could not play against other countries' teams (and South Africa are very very good at rugby union and cricket), but also because it hurt their pride. South Africans take their sport very seriously and the sporting boycott was taken seriously. And when SA was allowed back into the community of nations, and their rugby team was on the verge of winning the World Cup, the sight of President Mandela wearing a Springbok shirt and urging the team on was one of the great moments in sport.

The only way Israel and Palestine will stop fighting is if they are seperated by a policeable, defendable, no-person-land (PC?).

It is necessary for the UN, Israel & the US, Japan, etc. to purchase a tract of sand/land in one of the surrounding countries and turn it a state-of-the-art country with water desalination, solar power and light rail system to a number of the Arab countries and Jerusalem.

The "host" country that sells Palestine it's land would instantly become a major player in world politics.

All Palestinians would be resettled there, with homes, apartments, everything they need to survive in peace and moderate well-being. It would cost a fraction of what is being spent on terrorism and the military and cut off direct access to Israel by any die-hards. It would not have to be that large - perhaps the size of London or LA - a small country.

It is the only way, short of world war 3 that the situation will ever be solved.

Traveler

Its the right action but Jewish groups are probably going to have to lead the way.

I really dont expect many celebrities to come forward to endorse it however. Too many high level zionist supporters in Entertainment business.

Its a difficult hill to climb due to the money and power involved, and the Holocaust Industry.

I think Israelis like comfort and leisure, and being invited to foreign universities,

and divestment would make them very uncomfortable.
But they could be stubborn for a long time before seeing the light.

Buying land in an arab country makes no sense.
If French were driven out by French canadian migrants, would it make sense to have them relocate to Spain or Belgium and make a country there?

make the European Jewish settlers in palestine give up the dream of an an artificially jewish majority and things will be better--but having a UN police to protect the palestinian arabs from Israel is a good idea. Palestinians have been in favor of it for a long time-but not Israel obviously.

Adapted from JFK's address to the nation on civil rights, June 11, 1963:

"We are confronted primarily with a moral issue. It is as old as the scriptures and is as clear as the UN Deeclaration of Human Rights.

The heart of the question is whether all dwellers in Israel and Palestine are to be afforded equal rights and equal opportunities, whether Israel is going to treat all the citizens and those who live in territories under its control as they would want to be treated.

If a Palestinian, because his faith language, or customs, are different, cannot come and go as they please, or use any facilities or institutionhs intended for the public, if his children cannot be properly fed or educated, if he cannot vote for the public officials who represent him, if, in short, he cannot enjoy the full and free life which all of us want, then who among us would be content to stand in his place? Who among us would then be content with the counsels of patience and delay?

Sixty years of delay have passed since the establishmednt of the State of Isreal, Forty-one since they siezed territories that are not a part of their country, The UN did not create the nation of Israel in order to allow them to persecute the original dwellers in that land which they now occupy. Yet the Palestinian people not fully free. They are not yet freed from the bonds of injustice. They are not yet freed from social and economic oppression. And the nation of Israel, for all its hopes and all its boasts, will not be fully free until all its citizens as well as those who live in territories under its control are free."

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We have faced these issues before--the question before us is whether we will have the courage to face them again.

Poet

To boycott Israeli products one has to know what they are. In a supermarket there may be one soup packet labeled BING and another labeled BONG; BING might be Israeli (or even a settler colony) but the packet only names the local distributor, or it might be BONG. There needs to be a web page where one can ask if a product is from Israel or not. This would do much to increase the communication that Klein describes.

A boycott cannot be truly effective, as a friend astutely reminded me, unless all arms dealers, gangsters and small states AND the US (a prime market for Israeli military technology) are on board. True, massive commercial losses from such items as fruit, flowers, make-up, candy, chocolate bars, clothing, and especially tourism will make a dent. (As someone here pointed out, many commercial brands are disguised.)
But the real meat of Israel's economy is in the weapons and military technology industry and in the hiring out of military and security "consultants" and "advisors" (mercenaries and paramilitary trainers), as well as in tourism (mainly by Jews, who are for the most part knee-jerk supporters of "Eretz Israel right or wrong", and Christians, predominantly the masses of evangelical types). Both line items are big fat cash cows and it will be very hard, probably impossible, to wean much of the world from them.

Moreover, Israel has well-placed advocates in foreign governments, media and financial sectors around the world, who do not allow dissent and who play influential roles.
To head off my critics: I'm not blithely repeating the shibboleth about "Jewish-owned media", although the Aspers in Canada do a good job with their near-monopoly and many high-profile media personalities in the U.S. certainly keep a tight rein on criticism of Israel; nor am I echoing the Nazi paranoia about the "conspiracy of international Jewish bankers", although the likes of Mr. Madoff and Mr. Greenspan are pretty hefty pillars of the financial community and coincidentally do not appear to line up with progressive Jews against the excesses of the Jewish State.

I only wish to invite people to be realistic and practical.
Divestment, yes. And progressive Jews of the Diaspora need to move the debate into the synagogues and the Jewish charity organizations, front and centre, so these institutions are no longer automatically the channels they've been for pro-Israel propaganda and indoctrination. Progressive Jews now have to find the courage to challenge and confront their peers within congregations and associations, and not limit themselves to the safety of like-minded groups at demonstrations or on line. This is, I think, where the tough work needs to be done, because the politicians and the military establishment in Israel (one and the same, really) have always taken the Diaspora communities for granted, to keep on sending money (Israel bonds, etc.) and to keep on parroting the official line.

The Jewish nation has become a dysfunctional family, no different from the imperialist U.S. or the Catholic Church. We must confront the source of the dysfunctionality, which is the militarized state and the hubris and hypocrisy of its rulers and their enablers. At the same time we need to counter the shameless Holocaust industry and the exploitation of a very real anti-semitism, which is going to come back to bite all Jews in a big way as Israel's despicable actions continue to be identified with Jews worldwide. None of us want community centres, places of worship, or non-combatants (religious children in the streets of France or Argentina or India, Israel or Iran) to become targets of extremists, yet Israeli policies are increasing the vulnerability of those civilian sectors.

So it's up to us Jews to "clean house" and be leaders in setting Israel on a more righteous path.