Sanctions Against Israel - A Campaign That Is Gathering Weight

[Purveyor]

Israel’s politicians sound rattled by the campaign to isolate their country

Feb 8th 2014 | JERUSALEM

ONCE derided as the scheming of crackpots, the campaign for boycotts, divestment and sanctions against Israel, widely known as BDS, is turning mainstream. That, at any rate, is the fear of a growing number of Israelis. Some European pension funds have withdrawn investments; some large corporations have cancelled contracts; and the American secretary of state, John Kerry, rarely misses a chance to warn Israel that efforts to “delegitimise” and boycott it will increase if its government spurns his efforts to conclude a two-state settlement of its conflict with the Palestinians. Israel, says Yair Lapid, Israel’s foreign minister, is approaching the same “tipping point” where South Africa found itself in opposition to the rest of the world in the dying days of apartheid. “Let’s not kid ourselves,” he told a conference of security boffins recently in Tel Aviv. “The world listens to us less and less.”

BDS has begun to grab the attention of some of the world’s largest financial institutions. PGGM, a big Dutch pension fund, has liquidated its holdings in five Israeli banks (though the Netherlands’ largest has affirmed its investments). Norway’s finance ministry has announced that it is excluding Africa Israel Investments and its subsidiary, Danya Cebus, a big building firm, from a government pension fund.

The campaign is drawing support from beyond northern Europe. Romania has forbidden its citizens from working for companies in the West Bank. More churches are backing BDS. An American academic association is boycotting Israeli lecturers. The debate turned viral after Scarlett Johansson, a Hollywood actor, quit her role as ambassador for Oxfam, a charity based in Britain, in order to keep her advertising contract with SodaStream, an Israeli drinks firm with a plant on the West Bank.

Mr Lapid, who favours a two-state solution, reels out figures to show how sanctions could hit every Israeli pocket. “If negotiations with the Palestinians stall or blow up and we enter the reality of a European boycott, even a very partial one,” he warned, 10,000 Israelis would “immediately” lose their jobs. Trade with the European Union, a third of Israel’s total, would slump—he calculates—by $5.7 billion.

more...

http://www.economist.com/news/middle-east-and-africa/21595948-israels-politicians-sound-rattled-campaign-isolate-their-country

[King_David]

1. Heres a good thread to read what motivates the Sanctions Movement.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/113456345

[Jefferson23]

2. Most already know what the motivation is, the occupation. But do keep trying otherwise.

The new anti-Semitism is whatever Israelis want it to be

Anti-Semitism exists today on the furthest margins of Western society, in obscure sinecures, on the Internet, but perhaps most prevalently in our feverish imaginations.

By Anshel Pfeffer | Feb. 7, 2014 | 7:19 AM

snip:

And despite the fact that honorable people are sometimes slimed by these accusations unfairly, in many ways, Jews are perfectly within their rights to be over-cautious and paranoid when it comes to detecting a hatred that within living memory decimated a third of their nation, and if Joseph Stalin hadn’t died when he did, may have led to the deaths of even more. Who can guarantee that these demons have disappeared, never to appear again?


Whenever a rabid Israel-hater whines that “the Zionists use the anti-Semitism card every time anyone criticizes Israel,” the hypocrisy and dirty conscience reeks to high heaven. But even if history is tragically on our side, is it healthy for us to be gripped by this paranoia?

Something funny happened to anti-Semitism on the way to the 21st century. It stopped being about persecution and open vilification of Jews, which was something the goyim did to us and we had no control over. It became something we define ourselves, something we discover and too often invent where it isn’t at all clear it even exists: in a cartoon in a perfectly respectable newspaper, in the campaign to treat African asylum seekers with a degree of humanity, and in the earnest attempt of a patrician Bostonian gentleman to bring peace to the region.

Anti-Semitism exists today on the furthest margins of Western society, in obscure sinecures, on the Internet, but perhaps most prevalently in our feverish imaginations. And in our generation that is where it constitutes the biggest threat.

In many ways our fear of anti-Semitism has begun to mirror the hatred itself in its irrationality and in the ways it hinders any serious debate. The Knesset is currently legislating a woeful new law that will make it illegal to call anyone a Nazi or to use Third Reich imagery. It would make much more sense if they could outlaw calling people anti-Semites. Not because there aren’t any anti-Semites out there, but because of the damage we do ourselves with this incessant searching and name-calling.

Manners and good form mandate that Yogev and all the other MKs and ministers apologize to Kerry, but they have done him no real harm. The damage they have caused, perpetuating our paranoias and traumas without offering any hope of redemption, is entirely self-inflicted.

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/jerusalem-babylon/.premium-1.572920#

[King_David]

3. Well did you read that thread ? Start with posts 1 to 3

[azurnoir]

4. seems you link to comments made by the OP what's your point here

you've done ths to the same two comments repeatedly why? What is your point6 we do not understand-care to very concise and clear about this?

[King_David]

5. ''care to very concise and clear ''

Sounds like a school teacher giving out an assignment.

[azurnoir]

6. well you keep linking to the same two comments there must be some reason

so should it be taken as there is none in which case the OP owes you than ks for kicking their thread or for some reason you wish to keep your reason(s) to yourself why ever would that be?

[Jefferson23]

7. Oh please, it's the same song you sing, repeatedly...no surprise. n/t

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

8. Kick.