The true peace incubator that the Left and the hypocrites at the UN fear so much - by Nadav Shragai

Apparently, the UN's so-called Human Rights Council is done righting the wrongs of the world and has time to focus on Judea and Samaria businesses, which only prove that Israelis and Palestinians can peacefully coexist.

Nadav Shragai..
Israel Hayom..
13 February '20..
Link: https://www.israelhayom.com/opinions/debunk-the-unhrc-blacklist/

The United Nations' so-called Human Rights Council on Wednesday released a "database" of 112 companies it says are conducting business beyond the Green Line and whose activities "raise particular human rights concerns."

In doing so, the UNHRC infringed on the human rights of tens of thousands of Israelis and Palestinians who worked together daily on industrial parks and businesses across Judea and Samaria and in dozens of other places across the Jewish people's ancestral homeland.

Had Michelle Bachelet, the UN high commissioner for human rights, ever bothered to visit the settlements, she would realize that, as she fears, "There is serious concern of human rights violations," but not because of the daily operations of any business there, rather as a result of the fact the UNHRC has blacklisted them.

Truth be told, the list released on Wednesday is not a blacklist at all, but a gold list. It proves that it is in Judea and Samaria and east Jerusalem – areas ostensibly subject to dispute – Jews and Arabs coexist peacefully, fostering working relations and friendships.

This is the true peace incubator that the Left and the hypocrites at the UN fear so much. It is the most successful instrument for defeating terrorism, violence, prejudice, and hatred. Here lie the foundations of true peace and coexistence – not in the ridiculous institutions the UN runs that are so very detached from reality.

If this "blacklist" and any subsequent boycotts result in Palestinian workers losing their source of livelihood then the UN could chalk up another stellar result to its name, courtesy of its double standards.

One also has to ask: Is the UN and particularly the Human Rights Council so bored that they dedicate so much of their time on targeting the myriad of businesses that serve both the Jewish and Palestinian communities? Does the UNHRC really have nothing better to do? Is it done righting all wrongs elsewhere, in places where people are persecuted for their opinions or religion, executed without a trial, and silenced for opposing the regime?

Surprise! Absurd @Amnesty doesn't just hate Israel, but Jewish history, tourists who care about the Bible and TripAdvisor reviewers who visit Jewish historic sites

Does Amnesty want the tour guides to describe the extortionists, robbers, and filthy ruffians who were the historical Palestinian Arab residents of the area? OK, let's tell the City of David to emphasize this history. This report is all the proof you need - as if you needed more proof - that Amnesty is not interested in human rights of Arabs so much as they want to strip Jews of their own human rights to even visit the lands of their ancestors, let alone live there.

Elder of Ziyon..
30 January '19..

Today, Amnesty International released another incredibly biased report, about how Israeli tourism to Judea and Samaria is somehow a war crime..

The hate that Amnesty has for Jews who choose to live where their forefathers lived, and for the Jewish history that nearly all occurred there, is palpable.

This Amnesty report sheds no new light. NGOs keep trying to find new ways to demonize the Jews of Judea and Samaria and the flavor of the year is tourism.

Most of the report doesn't even mention tourism but is a rehashed litany of old, ridiculous accusations, such as Israel is violating "the right to adequate housing" - in an area where anyone can drive around and see opulent mansions belonging to Arabs.

Examples of the hate in this report:

Within East Jerusalem, the government is developing ambitious plans to build tourism infrastructure in Palestinian parts of the city.

Which were Jewish parts of the city 3000 years anyone ever heard of Palestinian Arabs.

In 2017, tourist arrivals grew by 25% to a record 3.6 million visitors, bringing in US$5.8 billion. This growth has brought financial benefits both to Israel and to businesses operating in occupied territory. This is because most foreign visitors also enter the OPT. The top three most visited places by foreign tourists in 2017 were all in Jerusalem’s Old City, which Israel annexed in 1967 along with the rest of East Jerusalem.

The footnote says that these three places are the Western Wall, the Jewish Quarter and the Church of the Holy Sepulchre. Yes, two of them are Jewish and one Christian. Apparently visiting these places is a terrible crime because it supports Israel's "occupation" of the areas - even in Jerusalem.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Airbnb is emotionally invested in boycotting Jews in the West Bank - by William A. Jacobson

...That fig leaf may do more harm than good to Airbnb’s legal defenses, because only in the West Bank does Airbnb distinguish between home owners based on religion or ethnicity. If Airbnb was delisting all homes in the West Bank, that would be one thing, but instead it is delisting only Jewish homes.

William A. Jacobson..
Legal Insurrection..
28 January '19..

In November, Airbnb announced that it would delist Jewish homes, and only Jewish homes, in Judea and Samaria (the “West Bank”).

As I explained at the time, the delisting nominally referred to homes in Settlements, but in the West Bank that is the only place Jews can purchase or rent homes because of Palestinian laws and threats against any Palestinian who rents or sells land to Jews:

The area was ethnically cleansed of Jews by the Jordanians after Jordan captured the area in Israel’s War of Independence. The 1949 Armistice Line was where the fighting stopped, and left many historically Jewish areas, including the Jewish Quarter of the Old City of Jerusalem, in Jordanian hands. Israel recaptured the area in 1967.

Israeli Jews in those areas live in settlements because the regular housing market is not available. Palestinians are forbidden by the Palestinian Authority and terrorist groups, often under threat of death, from selling or renting to Jews. And given the long history of violence, including stabbings and shootings, directed towards Jews in those areas, it would be too dangerous.

The West Bank is disputed territory. For a history of why the settlements are not illegal and the area is not illegally occupied, see our prior posts.

The campaign against Airbnb was led by groups like the extremist U.S. Campaign for Palestinian rights, the misleadingly named “Jewish Voice for Peace,” and Code Pink. The obsessive-compulsive anti-Zionist Ariel Gold of Code Pink even disrupted Airbnb meetings.

The anti-Israel Human Rights Watch, which is leading a UN effort to blacklist companies doing business in the West Bank, was about to come out with a report slamming Airbnb, according to an HRW executive.

Airbnb has capitulated. It will boycott Jews living in the West Bank. While it couches its language referring to “settlements,’ that is just another way of saying Jews because Jews only can live in “settlements” in the West Bank.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Which ‘Occupied Territories’ Are Still Available on Airbnb? Northern Cyprus, Western Sahara, Tibet ... by Ben Cohen

...Further north, in the coastal town of Girne, more than 300 properties were shown as available, with an equivalent number in Famagusta — ironically the port city from where the ships of the 2010 “Freedom Flotilla” to the “occupied” Gaza Strip, sponsored by a leading Turkish Islamist organization, began their journey.

Ben Cohen..
Algemenier..
20 November '18..

Travelers looking for a vacation on the wrong side of an internationally-recognized “Green Line” needn’t fret now that global rentals agency Airbnb is boycotting properties in Israeli communities in the West Bank — they can use Airbnb’s services in the “Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus” instead.

A Tuesday morning search of Airbnb’s listings for a last-minute Thanksgiving holiday vacation showed the availability of more than 1,000 apartments and villas in Northern Cyprus — a Greek territory invaded and occupied by Turkey in July 1974, in a brutal war inflicted by Ankara on Greek and native Turkish Cypriots alike.

More than 150,000 Greek Cypriots were driven from their homes during ethnic cleansing operations carried out by Turkish forces. Hundreds of Greek women were raped by Turkish soldiers, in what one Greek writer called “one of the darkest and most agonizingly painful aspects” of the 1974 invasion. Following the invasion, Turkey consolidated its hold over 40 percent of the island of Cyprus — but its satellite republic continues to be regarded by the entire international community as “occupied territory.”

For now, though, residents of Northern Cyprus — including thousands of Turkish “settlers” who moved to the island from mainland Turkey after 1974 — can freely advertise their properties on Airbnb.

In the Turkish part of Nicosia — known as the world’s last divided capital because of the physical, UN-supervised “Green Line” that cuts the city in half — 78 properties were displayed by Airbnb as available for rent between Nov. 23-30. Further north, in the coastal town of Girne, more than 300 properties were shown as available, with an equivalent number in Famagusta — ironically the port city from where the ships of the 2010 “Freedom Flotilla” to the “occupied” Gaza Strip, sponsored by a leading Turkish Islamist organization, began their journey.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Why does .@FIDE_Chess Federation violate its own standards, allow Israelis to be boycotted? - by Elder of Ziyon

...Other sports bodies have made it clear to Arab nations that if they boycott Israel they lose the privilege of hosting their events. In every case I am aware of, the Arab nations gave in to the demands of the organizations. One must wonder why FIDE so easily violates its own regulations in order to cave to the demands of bigots.

Elder of Ziyon..
23 July '18..

The FIDE/World Chess Federation Handbook says, "FIDE rejects discriminatory treatment for national, political, racial, social or religious reasons or on account of sex."

Yet...we have this:

Schoolgirl Liel Levitan from Haifa is unable to accept an invitation to play in the World Chess Championship because host nation Tunisia will not allow Israelis to compete, it was reported Thursday.

This is not the first time Israeli chess players have been denied the opportunity to participate in international tournaments due to their nationality.

Israeli athletes often face difficulties when competing in the Middle East or against Middle Eastern countries, due to hostility toward the Jewish state.

“Just a few months ago, a World Chess Championship was due to take place in Saudi Arabia,” chess player Lior Aizenberg told Hadashot news. “It was clear to everyone that outstanding Israeli chess players would not be able to participate.”

Let's look at what happened in Saudi Arabia:

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

Normalization, Boycotts and Palestinian "Treason" - by Bassam Tawil

...The Palestinians' anti-normalization campaign against Israel means that Palestinians are not interested in peace with Israel. What they seek is not peace with Israel, but peace without Israel. They want to see Israel gone from the Middle East. They want to see Jews vanish from the region. The Palestinians' problem is not with a settlement or a checkpoint or a fence. They have a problem with the existence of Israel in any borders.

Bassam Tawil..
Gatestone Institute..
30 May '18..

Palestinian leaders have spent the past few months calling for boycotts of Israel and the US. The most recent call came just a few weeks ago, when Palestinian Authority leaders and officials called on all countries to boycott the inauguration ceremony of the US embassy in Jerusalem.

One of the officials who called for boycotting the ceremony was Ahmed Majdalani, a member of the PLO Executive Committee, and a top advisor to President Mahmoud Abbas. Majdalani is also famous for his repeated calls in the past few years for boycotting Israel in all fields.

Now, it seems that Majdalani is being forced to taste the same medicine he has been prescribing for Israel and the US. His efforts to promote boycotts of Israel and the US have backfired. Ironically, the boycotter Majdalani is now being boycotted by his own people. This is what happens when all you preach to your people day and night is hatred, incitement and boycotts. Eventually, you yourself become affected by the same messages of hate and brainwashing.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

BBC muddies a story of anti-Israel bigotry in sport - by Hadar Sela

...Obviously the BBC could have done more to make this story comprehensible to audiences but instead, we once again see the corporation skirting around the issue of discrimination against Israelis in sport.

Hadar Sela..
BBC Wath..
04 March '18..

On February 28th an article titled “Iran wrestling officials resign over Israel competition ban” appeared on the BBC News website’s Middle East page and on the BBC Sport website’s wrestling page. Readers found the following description of the story in the opening paragraph:

“The head of Iran’s wrestling federation has resigned after criticising authorities for letting players be punished because of the country’s ban on athletes competing against Israel.”

Which “authorities” did he criticise? That only becomes clear later on in the report.

“Wrestler Alireza Karimachiani was banned for six months after throwing a match to avoid an Israeli opponent last year.

Earlier this month, Mr Khadem criticised Iranian authorities for their stance on Israeli opponents, and called for a “fundamental solution” to the ongoing problem.

“Forcing an athlete to accept defeat or run around all night looking for a doctor’s note is not right,” he said.

He suggested he was forced from the post in a cryptic letter posted on the body’s website on Wednesday.”

What the BBC euphemistically describes as “the ongoing problem” is of course Iran’s practice of pressuring its sportspeople to avoiding competing against Israelis at international events. The BBC’s report describes that practice in typically tepid terms.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

.

France's act of diplomatic arson against the Jewish state - by Michael Freund

...It is time to remind them of a very simple point: seven decades after the Holocaust, France and other European governments have no right to tell Jews where they can or cannot live. Especially in our ancestral homeland.

Michael Freund..
Pundicity/JPost..
01 December '16..
Link: http://www.michaelfreund.org/19419/france-labeling-jews

Last week, as Palestinian and Arab terrorists were busy setting fires all across Israel, France decided to join the fray by committing an act of diplomatic arson against the Jewish state.

In a move as hateful as it is hypocritical, French President Francois Hollande's government chose to become the first European Union state to begin to enforce guidelines which single out Jewish-owned businesses in the Golan, Judea and Samaria by requiring that their products bear special labels of origin.

French authorities published the guidelines in the official government gazette, and they require that items state, "product originating in the Golan Heights (Israeli settlement)," or "product originating in the West Bank (Israeli settlement)," a move they claim is intended merely to provide the consumer with more information.

That, of course, is complete hogwash.

To begin with, the requirement applies only to factories owned by Jews, whereas Palestinian Muslim-owned enterprises would not have their merchandise similarly labeled. In other words, at its root, the criteria being applied by France is the religious and ethnic identity of the manufacturer, and these conditions apply only to followers of Moses and not those of Muhammad.

Taking BDS to its logical conclusion while disregarding its own citizens' security?

...Europeans would be wise to wake up to the fact that when it comes to Israel, the policies that their governments pursue are not only wrong because they are anti-Israel and based on stubborn, often bigoted and anti-Semitic misperceptions, but that they may frequently be to the direct disadvantage of the European citizens that these governments were elected to serve. Clearly, a government that chooses to follow the principles of BDS rather than the best interest of its citizens is a government that has lost its moral compass entirely and is groping in the dark. Europeans should start asking some hard questions. The sooner the better.

Judith Bergman..
Israel Hayom..
27 April '16..

The boycott, divest and sanction movement, despite all its noise, has so far avoided the logical step of actually boycotting all Israeli products and inventions. This is because it would make life too difficult, as Israeli inventions and products are integral to so much of modern technology and are very often a necessary and unavoidable part of products that people simply cannot live without.

Boycotting Israel only to the extent that it suits you, while taking advantage of Israeli IT or medical technology is, of course, a particularly sickening form of hypocrisy and possibly a completely new breed of bigotry. Nevertheless, it would appear that some state officials on the European continent have indeed tried to bring BDS to its logical conclusion, even when it meant that they might find themselves at a considerable disadvantage in an area of grave importance to national security.

According to news reports, France was offered Israeli security technology to track terrorists, which might possibly have prevented the disastrous terrorist attacks in Paris in November 2015 and in Belgium in March 2016. The technology tracks terrorists by finding and matching intelligence reports from a number of national and international databases and employs powerful analytical tools and unique algorithms to navigate and process the information. According to an Israeli counter-terror specialist, French authorities liked the technology, but were told that there was a higher-level instruction to abstain from purchasing it. No official reason was stated for the rejection.

If true, this shows that not only has BDS made significant inroads into official France, but also that there is at least one European government willing to disregard its own citizens' security just to pursue the goals of the BDS movement. It should give every concerned European pause that a European government puts the twisted and basically racist policy of boycotting Israeli products before its obligations of securing its own citizens and keeping them safe from terrorism -- especially recently, with the Islamic State terror threat at an all-time high.

Being offered advanced terrorist-tracking technology from Israel – an indisputable leader in this field -- and refusing it simply because it is Israeli does not merely constitute a terrible form of mindless bigotry but also gross malfeasance toward the citizens of France.

Something old, something new, EU perversity boycotts the Jews

...The Nazis told the German people, "Kauft nicht bei Juden" ("Do not buy from Jews") in 1933. Clearly, over 80 years later, the urge to boycott Jews is still very strong on the European continent.

Judith Bergman..
Israel Hayom..
08 November '15..

On Tuesday, Deputy Foreign Minister Tzipi Hotovely spoke out against the European Union's decision to label Jewish-made products from Judea and Samaria. "Today the Foreign Minister is starting a battle against the idea of labeling," she said. "Labeling, it's very clear to say ... it's a clear boycotting [of] the State of Israel."

However, according to EU Ambassador to Israel Lars Faaborg-Andersen, the decision is merely "a strictly legal technical matter which doesn't really lend itself to any kind of negotiation." He added, "I think that's the framework in which it has to be seen, rather than any political move," rejecting the notion of discussing the move with Israel.

Labeling Jewish goods in order to protect squeamish and politically correct European consumers from the hazards of accidentally buying and ingesting an orange or a fig made in Judea and Samaria is obviously only "strictly legal and technical" if you are a technocrat like Faaborg-Andersen working for a bureaucracy like the European Union. For most straight-thinking people, however, it is a heavily biased, political move.

For scholars of international law, it certainly is not a "strictly legal" matter but in fact an illegal move. According to Professors Avi Bell and Eugene Kontorovich, the EU's proposed measures restrict Israeli trade in violation of international trade law: "The EU does not have a general set of rules for dealing with occupied territories, settlements or territorial administrations whose legality is not recognized by the EU. Rather, the EU has special restrictions aimed at Israel. This violates the fundamental rules of the GATT/WTO [General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade/World Trade Organization] system, under which even otherwise valid trade restrictions are void if not applied uniformly to WTO members."

For some reason, Israel has yet to use this powerful tool against the EU, and it would not be a moment too soon for it to do so now. Over the last few years, the EU has been steadily imposing sanctions of rapidly escalating severity, and, according to Bell and Kontorovich, the EU Commission is in the process of imposing what amounts to complete exclusion on agricultural products from Judea and Samaria.

There is a perversity about the labeling/boycott issue that seems to be completely lost on most Europeans, despite the obvious associations that it raises to Nazi Germany's measures against Jewish shopkeepers. Conceivably, this is because many Europeans abhor the reminder and prefer to cast Israelis as the "new Nazis." Perhaps this is why Faaborg-Andersen found it diplomatically opportune to make it sound as if the labeling issue is no big deal. "It's a question of whether you are talking this up or talking it down, and there the issue is what context do you see it in," he said. "We see it in a predominantly technical context and therefore we think that it's really not something that ought to create a major rupture in our relationship [with Israel]."

Racist Petitions, Boycott Letters and Academic Freedom

...The main response to the pro-boycott letter, however, may well be, "Who?" Who knew, for instance, that Israel -- or any state -- would be diminished if it could not gain from the wisdom of Professor Alex Callinicos, one of Britain's most obscure Marxist academics? He is the author of numerous interminable tracts; his efforts to bring his thoughts into mainstream politics reached their summit during his involvement with the Socialist Worker's Party, an entity too extreme even for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party. As almost nobody in Britain wants Prof. Callinicos's thoughts, why would anybody in Israel be begging for them?

JK Rowling, the author of the Harry Potter series,
 is one of 150 leading British writers, musicians
and others who have signed a public letter
opposing boycotts of Israel. (Image source:
White House video screenshot)

Douglas Murray..
Gatestone Institute..
30 October '15..

It is that time of year again. News arrives of 343 "university teachers" who signed a letter pledging that henceforth they will not cooperate with Israeli academic institutions. Their joint letter took up a full page advertisement today in Britain's left-wing Guardian newspaper (where else?) and has caused almost no stir in Britain. It comes days after a letter in the Guardian's letters page, signed by 150 leading British writers, musicians and others -- including JK Rowling, Simon Schama and Hilary Mantel -- opposed any and all such boycotts against Israel, and pointed out that in the eyes of most people, intellectual and cultural exchange is a good thing.

The anti-boycott letter was signed by some of Britain's leading intellectuals. The main response to the pro-boycott letter, however, may well be, "Who?" Who knew, for instance, that Israel -- or any state -- would be diminished if it could not gain from the wisdom of Professor Alex Callinicos, one of Britain's most obscure Marxist academics? He is the author of numerous interminable tracts; his efforts to bring his thoughts into mainstream politics reached their summit during his involvement with the Socialist Worker's Party, an entity too extreme even for Jeremy Corbyn's Labour party. As almost nobody in Britain wants Prof. Callinicos's thoughts, why would anybody in Israel be begging for them?

Or consider another figure on the letter, one Professor Jane Hardy who teaches at the University of Hertfordshire. It would come as a great surprise to most people in Britain -- and possibly to many people in Hertfordshire -- that such an institution exists. But a quick internet search reveals that it does, and that until 1992 it was known as "Hatfield Polytechnic." So what are the students in Israel unilaterally going to lose the right to know, thanks to the stance taken by Professor Hardy? Well, her own profile page says, "My research and publications on regional development, and the gender and class impacts of change have been underpinned by a concern with the lives of ordinary people and how they have contested neoliberalism." One tries to be polite, of course, but it is worth pointing out that this kind of "study" has never been helpful in finding a place in the job-market for British students (apart, possibly, in furthering their studies in low-grade academia). Why the withdrawal of Prof. Hardy's research on regional development, gender and class in a Hertfordshire context should be such a loss to students in Israel, one is at a loss to guess.

Others on the list comprise a list of the even more obscure and unknown. Perhaps their families know who some of them are? The majority are from Britain's second or third tier universities, former polytechnics misguidedly rebranded as universities, which have lowered the coinage of universities as a whole. Of course, there is, as usual, the requisite smattering of Jewish names, brought to the fore by the petition's organizers in an attempt to cover over the latent bigotry and racism of their letter. But what a chorus of presumption and self-importance is there.

Those who today revive the humanistic ardor of interwar Poland

...Rather than a boycott, the EU moves constitute the provision of indispensable consumer information – exactly as in prewar Poland. It’s chillingly the same sham. The Polish government didn’t officially send thugs to Jewish shops just as organized Europe sends no thugs to supermarkets at its official behest to spy out made-in-Israel produce, toss it to the floor and trash it to the accompaniment of sonorous expletives. Endek thugs did attack Jewish merchants but the government’s hands were clean. Today’s BDS thugs in some of the most civilized European urban centers attack emporiums selling any made-in-Israel wares (regardless from which side of the Green Line) but such hooliganism cannot be directly tied to the Brussels bureaucracy.

Jewish storefronts in prewar Krakow: the
mandatory name-sign decree was hardly innocuous.

Sarah Honig..
Another Tack..
30 July '15..

Poland made history on Monday morning, April 19, 1937. It taught the world how to implement a boycott without actually admitting that it’s doing anything of the sort.

Headliners of today’s European Union have learned the lesson well, even if few of the EU’s sanctimonious sermonizers can likely cite the source and inspiration for their very unoriginal charade.

The Polish non-boycott was no mean feat on the eve of WWII, when dark clouds of impending doom already gathered over the heads of European Jewry. Given the bestial goings-on and the brutish anti-Jewish boycotts next-door in the Third Reich, Poland appeared positively refined by comparison – the soul of sophistication.

The Poles never sank as low as the crude and vulgar Germans. They didn’t adopt the practice of daubing storefronts with giant Jude inscriptions, smashing windows or sending out storm troopers to form scary picket lines, carry offensive signs in the formidable Teutonic tradition and warn off the super-race away from subhuman Jewish shopkeepers.

Instead, Poland’s Minister of Industry and Commence Antoni Roman issued an edict that looked impeccably non-discriminatory. It ordered that all business signs boldly display the proprietor’s name, directly above any other incidental scrap information such as what was sold at the premises. Precise rules were stipulated regarding the size of the letters required.

What could possibly be wrong with that?

The measure applied to everyone throughout the republic. Surely nothing could be more equitable. No single community or grouping was targeted. Technically this was not an anti-Judaic decree. Quite the reverse: here was an exemplary act of public service born of the public-spirited conviction that the public was entitled to know the identity of each vendor everywhere.

No way could the Polish government be blamed for the fact that Jews – estimated (depending on the location) at between one-tenth to one-eighth of the population – on the whole had surnames that instantly betrayed their ethnic extraction.

Poland was already endemically anti-Semitic. From the early 1920s it had tolerated an unofficial numerus clausus geared to drastically reduce the number of Jewish students. It had also introduced innovations like the “Ghetto bench” – special seats in university lecture halls earmarked for despised and humiliated Jewish students. This started at the Lvov Polytechnic Institute on December 8, 1935 and quickly spread countrywide as the academic must-follow fad.

Hamas, Sandra Korn and academic totalitarianism

...I began by mentioning Hamas, and I should apologize to Ms Korn for comparing her to them, even in respect to their honesty. I’m sure she has never fired a rocket at a civilian population in her life. But there is something else that she shares with Hamas, which is a belief in ideology above all. That is about as pernicious an idea as you can get.

Fresnozionism.org..
19 February '14..

I’ve often said that the best thing about Hamas is that they say what they think. None of the two-faced English vs. Arabic stuff we get from the ‘moderate’ PLO. They say they want to kill us, because they mean it.

So for the same reason, I enjoyed the Harvard Crimson piece by Sandra Y. L. Korn, “The Doctrine of Academic Freedom.” Korn is not ashamed to put forth the idea that academic freedom should be limited when it conflicts with the political prejudices of the “university community”:

If our university community opposes racism, sexism, and heterosexism, why should we put up with research that counters our goals simply in the name of “academic freedom”?

Instead, I would like to propose a more rigorous standard: one of “academic justice.” When an academic community observes research promoting or justifying oppression, it should ensure that this research does not continue.

And how does it “ensure” this? She provides examples, such as disruption of classes “with a bullhorn and leaflets” and the academic boycott of Israeli institutions. The irony in advocating coercive action to oppose research or speech that she and her peers consider politically incorrect is palpable, especially since the bullhorns and boycotts are reminiscent of the SA tactics of the 1930s.

While she understands that the purpose of academic freedom is to see to it that research is not “restricted by the political whims of the moment,” she apparently fails to grasp that the reason for this is that political whims are just that — whims. During Mao’s Cultural Revolution, Chinese students took the lead in what Ms Korn must (at least, we hope she must) admit were terrible injustices. Their views were doubtless shared by most of the “university community,” but so what?

The principle of academic freedom does not require, as Ms Korn’s “academic justice” does, an omniscient and perfectly good community to decide which ideas may be discussed and which not. It says in effect “don’t suppress any ideas, let them compete on their merits,” because we are not smart enough to decide a priori (Korn thinks she and her friends are).

The fact that she chooses a boycott of Israeli universities as an example of a just limitation of academic freedom is a perfect example of the defect in her approach, because as a matter of fact, the ‘oppression’ of the ‘Palestinians’ is at bottom a whopper of a lie intended to cover up the desire of the Arabs to eliminate the state of Israel, and even in many cases to perpetrate a genocide of the Jewish population (viz., Hamas Covenant), something I am sure Korn would disapprove of.

One more reason for people of good will who love sports to ignore the Olympics

...The Olympics has consistently refused to commemorate the Munich massacre largely because of the resistance to any mention of the crime on the part of the movement’s Arab and Muslim countries. But Bach’s role in both boycotting Israel and supporting the IOC’s stonewalling of protests about its failure to have even a moment of silence puts him in the grand tradition of his predecessor Avery Brundage, the head of the movement from 1952-1972.

Jonathan S. Tobin..
Commentary Magazine..
12 September '13..

The history of the Olympics movement has long been marred by a persistent strain of anti-Semitism and bias against Israel. But those who thought the unhappy memories of Berlin in 1936 and Munich in 1972 should not influence our opinion of this behemoth of global sport were just sucker-punched by the election of a new head of the International Olympic Committee. German lawyer Thomas Bach won the presidency of the IOC on a second-ballot vote in Buenos Aires yesterday and began his reign over the sports empire by pledging neutrality in the political disputes that are part and parcel of the Olympics landscape. That notion was undermined by the fact that the first congratulatory phone call Bach received was from Russian President Vladimir Putin who is counting on the IOC head to protect the 2014 Sochi Winter Games from being derailed by protests over Russia’s anti-gay laws. But the pious talk about respecting the Olympic Charter and inclusion is also given the lie by a key fact about Bach’s biography.

Though Bach is being touted as a savvy veteran of Olympic legal tangles including leading anti-doping efforts as well as being a former Gold Medal fencer, the German lawyer’s day job is as chairman of Ghorfa, the Arab-German Chamber of Commerce and Industry. That sounds innocuous enough. But rather than just a straight-forward promoter of trade between Germany and the Arab world, as the Times of Israel reports, according to the American Jewish Committee’s Berlin Ramer Institute, Ghorfa was actually set up in the 1970s in order to facilitate the boycott of Israel:

Ghorfa helps German companies ensure that products meet the import requirements of Arab governments, some of which ban products and services from Israel.

The group continues to issue certificates of German origin for trade with Arab countries. Its earlier practice of certificates verifying that no product parts were produced in Israel stopped in the early 1990s when Germany enacted trade regulations forbidding the use of certificates of origin to enable de facto trade boycotts.

Such a record is hardly unusual in the Olympics hierarchy. Bach, who was a strong supporter of his predecessor’s refusal to hold even a moment of silence to commemorate the 40th anniversary of the slaughter of Israeli athletes at the 1972 Munich Olympics at last year’s London Games had strong support from the Arab world in the IOC election.

The Olympics has consistently refused to commemorate the Munich massacre largely because of the resistance to any mention of the crime on the part of the movement’s Arab and Muslim countries. But Bach’s role in both boycotting Israel and supporting the IOC’s stonewalling of protests about its failure to have even a moment of silence puts him in the grand tradition of his predecessor Avery Brundage, the head of the movement from 1952-1972.

The EU rules - What they are and what they're not

Eugene Kontorovich..
Times of Israel..
24 July '13..

On the last day of Sec. of State Kerry’s big push for talks between the Palestinians and Israelis, the European Union chimed in with its own contribution, which has deeply shaken Israel and may mark a new page in relations between it and Europe. The European Commission published administrative guidelines that severely restrict its dealings with any Israeli company, municipality or NGO based in, or even involved in activities, east of the 1949 Armistice line, including most of Jerusalem.

These guidelines have led to numerous misconceptions from all sides. Concerned Israelis worry that it represents the beginning of an economic boycott. European officials claim international law and a concern for Palestinian self-determination, demand such action. None of this is right.

First, the guidelines do not establish an economic boycott. The rules do not restrict trade between Europe and Israel, or even Israeli companies in the West Bank. Rather, they specify how the EU as an organization chooses to spend its largesse – prizes, grants, and so forth. There is a big difference: restricting one’s gifts saves the EU money; implementing trade restriction would directly hurt its economy as well. In economic terms, a boycott is not the logical extension of a no-gift policy, but rather its direct opposite.

Nor is this about the Palestinians – the rules also bar funding of any organization connected to the Golan Heights. It is not clear which Syria the Europeans think Israel should surrender the entire Golan to, Assad or his Islamist foes, but this broad and unreasonable restriction has nothing to do with “the occupation.” It also has nothing to do with “settlements” in the West Bank; any Israeli institution with a presence in Eastern Jerusalem is blacklisted.

But most importantly, the EU policy is not about international law, which the guidelines repeatedly claim requires such action. Even if one thinks Israelis residing in the West Bank raises international law concerns, this has nothing to do with the new European rules.

Abba Eban Proved Right Again - Boycotting A Better Future

Amb. Ron Proser..
Foreign Policy..
17 July '13..

Abba Eban, Israel's first ambassador to the United Nations, famously quipped that the Arabs never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity. It's been 40 years since Eban made his wry observation, but the Arab states have once again proved him right.

In December 2012, Israel introduced a U.N. General Assembly resolution titled "Entrepreneurship for Development" as part of its broader initiative to promote growth in the developing world. The resolution encourages governments to invest in entrepreneurs and create policies that can enable new businesses to take root and flourish. It passed with over 70 percent of member states raising their hands, including many countries without diplomatic ties to Israel. Not only did the entire Arab bloc vote against the measure, however, it waged a determined effort to undermine it from Day One. Arab states first tried to convince other member states to oppose the measure and then, when that failed, they sought to introduce politically charged and detrimental language into the resolution.

Most recently, on June 26, a group of Arab states boycotted a U.N. conference, co-hosted by the Israeli delegation, based on our December resolution. One would think that it's hard to find fault with bringing entrepreneurial innovation, creativity, and ingenuity to bear on some of the world's most pressing problems. Yet, the Arab bloc sought to undermine this event for one simple reason -- Israel was one of the co-hosts. It appears the Arab states would sooner keep their citizens shackled by hardship than accept the key to unlocking progress -- so long as Israel is the locksmith.

The EU’s Not Exactly, Not-Quite Settlement Boycott

So, just how earth-shattering are these guidelines? Tablet has acquired the official document containing the regulations, published today by the European Union, and we’ve spoken to an EU diplomat with close knowledge of its contents and drafting. As it turns out, there’s a lot less in these guidelines than most press coverage would have you believe. Here’s why:

Yair Rosenberg..
Tablet Magazine..
17 July '13..
H/T Lenny Ben-David..

The European Union has issued new guidelines for its cooperation with Israel which explicitly curtail its involvement in the Occupied Territories. Naturally, this has sparked a diplomatic firestorm. Prime Minister Netanyahu immediately condemned the regulations, which are set to be included in the 2014-2020 EU financial framework, saying “we will not accept any external dictates regarding our borders. That issue will be decided only in direct negotiations between the sides.”

So, just how earth-shattering are these guidelines? Tablet has acquired the official document containing the regulations, published today by the European Union, and we’ve spoken to an EU diplomat with close knowledge of its contents and drafting. As it turns out, there’s a lot less in these guidelines than most press coverage would have you believe. Here’s why:

They do not bind EU member states in their bilateral relationships with Israel.

The new regulations only apply to the institutions of the European Union itself. They do not restrict its member states in their bilateral ties with Israel, whether economic, cultural or diplomatic. “Member states don’t have to abide by this,” the EU diplomat explained. “It applies to EU-funded programs, and to EU programs as such. It doesn’t apply to national programs. So concretely, if France wants to fund the Ariel college, it can do it, and it’s not violating any European law.” In EU parlance, this is what is known as a “commission notice” or “soft law,” as opposed to a “directive,” which has to be translated into national law by all EU members. (Haaretz erroneously used the language of “binding directive” in its original report, fueling much consternation and mistaken reporting in and out of Israel.) As for the EU’s own funding: European officials estimate that less than 1 percent of it currently goes to “settlement entities,” far from a substantial loss.

Will the Boycott Also Apply to Israel's King of Slanderers?

...For years, Levy has been dining out as the go-to Israeli for Europeans in search of an authentic voice to denounce the Jewish State. No one has been a more reliable expositor of their preconceptions than Levy, who can always be counted upon to tell readers just how monstrous and racist his fellow Jews are.

James Kirchick..
Haaretz..
16 July '13..

“Anyone who really fears for the future of the country needs to be in favor at this point of boycotting it economically,” Gideon Levy wrote in these pages over the weekend.

I have a question for Levy, the self-appointed conscience of the State of Israel: Will the boycott apply to you?

For years, Levy has been dining out as the go-to Israeli for Europeans in search of an authentic voice to denounce the Jewish State. No one has been a more reliable expositor of their preconceptions than Levy, who can always be counted upon to tell readers just how monstrous and racist his fellow Jews are.

Yet, presumably under the full-scale boycott Levy champions, he would not be permitted to step foot in the very same European countries that have showered him with prizes and speaking engagements. He would not be able to bask in the praise of figures like the disgraced former columnist for the United Kingdom’s Independent newspaper Johann Hari, who, in addition to lauding Levy as “heroic,” ruminates on how Israel “discreetly ignores the smell of her own stale shit.” Boycotts, by definition, do not allow for exceptions, even for self-righteous left-wingers who consider themselves above their fellow citizens, “too brainwashed with nationalism to come to their senses.”

Levy dispenses with a limited boycott of the settlements – a path advocated by that other great friend of Israel Peter Beinart – in favor of boycotting the Jewish state itself. “All of Israel is immersed in the settlement enterprise, so all of Israel must take responsibility for it and pay the price for it,” Levy declares. “We are all settlers.”

Democratic allies tend not to boycott one another as a method of persuasion. That is the sort of measure reserved for dictatorships; countries that are ruled by a clique, not a polity. So the notion that Europe, never mind the United States, would institute a boycott against the Jewish State - with all of the fraught moral issues such a selective act would conjure - is remote. (Actually, not so remote at all. Y)

Steinberg - BDS and limited boycotts: A distinction without a difference?

Gerald M. Steinberg
NGO Monitor
July 21, 2011


Originally published in Bitterlemons


Since independence in 1948, Israel has been confronted by boycott campaigns, beginning with the Arab League's extensive embargo that continues in many countries. The objective of this form of warfare was and remains the rejection of the sovereign Jewish nation-state, regardless of boundaries.

In 2001, the Non-Governmental Organizations Forum of the United Nation's Durban "World Conference against Racism" expanded this campaign in the form of the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement. The NGOs at Durban, including global powers such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, adopted a final declaration, sponsored by Palestinians and written during a preparatory conference in Tehran, calling for "the imposition of mandatory and comprehensive sanctions and embargoes, the full cessation of all links (diplomatic, economic, social, aid, military cooperation, and training) between all states and Israel".

After Durban, the BDS movement's first action in 2002 focused on a boycott of Israeli academic institutions, led by British trade union activists and NGOs. Additional campaigns target large Israeli firms (including banks), export products, and tourism. The NGO boycott movement has become a major form of "soft power" warfare, reinforcing the ongoing security threats faced by Israel.

The language of the BDS campaign reflects its objectives: referring to all of Israel as "occupied territory" and exploiting the "apartheid" label, accompanied by crude allegations of "genocide", "ethnic cleansing", and war crimes. Boycott campaigns, including the widespread embargo on academic ties, were closely associated with the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa, and thus the use of this tactic is designed to reinforce the image. The Durban process also revived the 1975 UN "Zionism is racism" resolution that was repealed in 1991. BDS leaders, such as Sue Blackwell, refer to their campaign as a means of combating the "illegitimate state of Israel" and preventing Israelis from being treated as "normal citizens from a normal state".

NGOs involved in BDS also promote the Palestinian narrative, such as on refugee claims (the so-called "right of return") that are inconsistent with the two-state framework necessary for a stable peace. Similarly, the militant advocacy of a one-state formula, meaning the replacement of Israel by a Palestinian-Arab state, is part of the BDS agenda.

In this context, recent moves by influential NGOs on the Israeli Left, such as Peace Now and the New Israel Fund, to promote economic and cultural boycotts of communities beyond the green line (the 1949-1967 ceasefire line) are inseparable from the BDS movement. While NGO officials refer to "targeted boycotts", the use of this divisive tactic and symbol blurs the core distinction between the objectives of the two boycott campaigns. While the Zionist Israeli Left claims to oppose BDS, its use of selective boycotts adds more weight and recognition to the established BDS "brand-name" and suggests that Israeli peace groups are silent partners.

This wedge tactic and the blurring of opposition to settlements with the wider rejection of Israel's legitimacy, regardless of policies and borders, is a central BDS strategy. In many cases, anti-occupation language is used as a ruse to gain legitimacy. Boycott campaigns targeting Israeli banks, the export cooperative Agrexco, and other major economic enterprises, are explained by the claim that all Israeli firms contribute to the occupation. And disruptive demonstrators who invade stores in London and other European cities that sell Israeli creams and lotions from the Dead Sea claim that these are "products of the occupation" when in fact most of the western shore of the Dead Sea was part of Israel prior to the 1967 war and the occupation claim is part of the obfuscation.

As a result, in the framework of Israeli politics, the Left's use of boycott tactics has created a major backlash. This angry response is reflected in the Knesset's adoption of a law enabling Israeli victims of boycotts, regardless of where they are located, to bring suit against the promoters of these campaigns, claiming economic discrimination. (Many of the ideological attacks on this legislation as "anti-democratic" erroneously refer to "criminalization" of support for boycotts, but the mechanisms are strictly civil and will be challenged in the courts.)

The large-scale and often secret European government funding for boycott promoters--both BDS, such as the Coalition of Women for Peace, and settlement-linked including Peace Now--adds to the resentment among Israelis. This is reflected in opinion polls by the Tami Steinmetz Center at Tel-Aviv University and by support for politicians on the Right who promote legislation against foreign manipulation of Israeli democracy.

Thus, in the Israeli political arena, "limited boycotts" will not revive the Left, but rather increase the friction between the ideological poles and further alienate the Center. For groups claiming to promote peace, boycott campaigns in any form are counterproductive.

Gerald M. Steinberg is the founder and president of NGO Monitor and professor of political science at Bar Ilan University.


If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.
.

Honig - Boycott is beautiful

Sarah Honig
Another Tack
21 July '11

http://sarahhonig.com/2011/07/21/another-track-boycott-is-beautiful/



Only Sigmund Freud could probably account for why strains of “Suicide is Painless” (the M*A*S*H theme song – in both the 1970 movie and subsequent TV series) pulsated inside my cranium each time the anti-boycott bill was being rehashed on our airwaves.

Whatever the subconscious trigger, the lyrics (written by director Robert Altman’s 14-year-old son) evolved as they reverberated in my mind’s ear. The refrain “suicide is painless” soon morphed into “boycott is beautiful.”

Resorting to amateur psychoanalysis, I could vaguely work out what led me to regard boycotts as beautiful. I must have subliminally succumbed to all that high-minded leftist palaver about boycotts constituting a legitimate form of free speech. As such, boycotts become a positive expression of human rights.

My own appreciation was thoroughly grounded in historic precedent. The benefits of boycotts are undeniable.

For example, in the 1870s, the Anti-Coolies Association and the Supreme Order of the Caucasians initiated boycotts of Chinese businesses and laborers across America’s West.

Many immigrants sailed back to China. Others fled to San Francisco, home to the largest US Chinatown.

The northern California burgh of Truckee offers instructive insight into how a successful boycott functions. Members of the White Labor Club and the Caucasian League exercised their constitutional right to free speech when they declared “The Chinese Must Go.”

The Truckee Chinese Boycotting Committee adopted the following resolution: “We recognize the Chinese as an unmitigated curse to the Pacific Coast and a direct threat to the bread and butter of the working class.”

It’s sort of reminiscent of the terminology adopted by Israel’s renowned champions of democracy against “settlers.” Do our peaceniks attempt to end all Jewish presence outside the 1949 armistice demarcations, along the lines of what took place in Truckee? Most likely.

The upshot of the democratically declared Truckee boycott was that all its Chinese laborers were fired and Chinese businesses withered when customers stayed away. Every non-Chinese emporium in town refused to sell anything to the Chinese. It was their democratic right, wasn’t it?

All this forward-thinking culminated in America’s 1882 Chinese Exclusion Act, which barred Chinese entry into the US for 10 years, forced already-resident Chinese to reapply for visas, and permanently denied American citizenship to all Chinese. This boycott-born bounty was finally repealed in 1943.

Meanwhile, back in Europe, much the same sentiment raged against very veteran Jewish communities.

The 1882 International Anti-Jewish Congress in Dresden strove to boycott Jewish merchants and professionals. Freedom of speech, however, didn’t fare as well in Austria, whose authorities banned the slogan “Don’t buy from Jews.” But freedom’s clever defenders soon modified their motto to “Buy from Christians only.”

Poland managed virulent Judeophobia even before it gained independence in 1918. Its endemic anti-Jewish boycotts were always hatched in democracy’s name, many spearheaded by the National Democratic Party – notorious as Endek, its Polish acronym.