Israel to World: "Suck It."

http://i63.tinypic.com/2z4eg7p.png

I r confused

if you wanted to boycott Israel, why are you in Israel

for the story

i assume the vast majority of BDS ppl operate on the same emotional level as philly fans who take selfies at at&t stadium w/ middle fingers extended towards the field

that is a really snotty thing to say

tbf i love those philly pix

benny morris interview:
http://fathomjournal.org/there-is-a-clash-of-civilisations-an-interview-with-benny-morris/

that's an interesting interview, but the clash of civilizations idea seems very weak. having different social and politics ideas about human rights, the relationship between the individual and state etc. might make conflicts more intractable, but it is obviously not the source of the problem. lumping in kenya and southern nigeria as the west raises question marks over what his criteria are, especially when he highlights religious irredentism as a problematic part of islamism

I also don't buy the "clash of civilizations" theory and nothing he says changes my mind. I am actually often struck by how ignorant otherwise highly educated Israelis are of the muslim and arab spheres, of arabic language, etc. I had a conversation with a respected linguist who basically knew nothing about Arabic language, and I thought that was very odd.

Morris himself does not know Arabic, and you would think a historian of Palestinian refugees might want to learn it.

fair and i do think language skills are extraordinarily important in academia. however you'll notice that when he was challenging israeli orthodoxy on what happened in 48, no one was accusing him of not knowing enough arabic. gideon levy doesn't speak any arabic and he's one of the most important critics of israel in the israeli press. you'll notice that this critique tends to only go in one direction. i think morris knows enough about the history of the conflict that his opinion (that i think in many places is very well reasoned and relies on specific historical information) should be considered.

http://www.timesofisrael.com/pro-bds-student-group-builds-website-using-israeli-platform-wix/

you don't get to keep using the products of countries that you're boycotting and still consider it a boycott ffs

“Let us be clear: BDS is not abstention, nor an absolute moral principle. It is not isolation or withdrawal, and it does not entail a rejection of everything Israeli. It is not anti-Semitic, and it has nothing to do with the merits of Israeli technology. BDS is not the attempt of beautiful souls to avoid contamination with oppression and keep their own hands clean: it is a tactic within a larger strategy, and it is beginning to work,” the group posted from the Cornell statement on Facebook.

“The idea that supporters of BDS must avoid contact with anything Israeli not only misconstrues the nature of BDS, but also contorts the idea of politics in general,” SJP at Cornell wrote in its longer statement.

“Those who call us hypocritical for not adhering to a rigid logic of separation simplistically insinuate that if one believes in boycotting Israel one must do it absolutely and deprive oneself of all the innovative benefits of the ‘Start-up Nation’; since one is opposed to Israel, one must not be in contact with anything Israeli,” it added.

just embarrassingly dumb nonsense

avoid contamination

essentially it's not a boycott. it's a soft preference that when there are two equally convenient products the BDSer has a preference for not using the Israeli product. but even then not really bc I can't imagine that this website software is really the only one that would do the job.

I don't get it, Mordy, that quote seems a lot less dumb than "I oppose Israeli policy, thus everything having to do with Israel is morally contaminated and I won't touch it." People who want their universities to divest from coal companies still use tons of stuff that comes from coal, directly or indirectly. I am not a fan of BDS in any of its forms but I don't think this form is somehow particularly hypocritical or wrong.

i disagree. the entire premise of a boycott is that you don't use the service. using a piece of israeli software to design your israel boycott website would be like riding a bus to the bus boycott in montgomery. the excuse they give essentially boils down to that the boycott is not designed to make the boycotters uncomfortable.

for a boycott to work there needs to be a higher conviction than having a soft preference (that isn't even a particularly real preference as demonstrated in this example)

http://www.nytimes.com/2015/12/01/world/middleeast/muhammad-abu-khdeir-teenagers-convicted-murder.html

I have no problem with the statement in itself, but it doesn't really line up with a total academic boycott, which I believe BDS still pushes, correct?

BDS believes in a total Israel boycott! Academic or otherwise. There's no "this is too inconvenient" opt-out.

I was hanging out with an Israeli scholar a few weeks ago and I sorta hinted, the way one does, that I'd love to be invited to give a talk in Israel, and he said in surprise "oh, that's good, one thing we have to know is that you're willing to come" and I felt weirder than I usually do when I try to get myself invited somewhere. I would 100% love to be invited to Israel though in case anyone here has a hook-up.

BDS believes in a total Israel boycott! Academic or otherwise.

Again, I feel weird talking about "what BDS believes" when I am anti-BDS, but the people I know who are into it are totally fine with collaborating with Israeli academics, inviting Israeli academics to come visit and give seminars, using and citing scholarly work by Israelis, etc. -- they oppose institutional cooperation with Israeli state institutions, so they don't themselves travel to give talks at universities in Israel, don't review grants proposals for Israel, etc. I still think they're wrong on this.

the bleed-through between institutional boycotting and personal boycotting is a v real thing but i don't even think we need to go there to understand how nuts these students are. if you are boycotting products made in israel, such as sodastream or naot or sabra hummus, but you are not boycotting other products made in israel like medicine, technology, the website software you wrote your boycott israel website on, you are at the very least inconsistent.

it makes it seem like the entire BDS phenomenon is about leveraging a couple toothless symbolic acts (boycotting sodastream, passing a resolution recommending divestment for a particular institution) into press and media coverage. if American Jews weren't hysterics they'd probably just ignore them bc all the institutional fretting over BDS probably contributes the vast amount of any real traction they may get. the boycott itself is so inconsistent that it's worthless on its own. and if you think that you can pressure israel into abandoning the west bank through not even economic pressure but just some negative news stories about inconsequential non-economic pressure you are living in a dreamland.

(not you, eephus, just the anonymous strawman 'you')

BDS believes in a boycott of things have to do with the occupation of the west bank and the settlements. Which means Soda-stream and not WIX. The text from Cornell explains this. Of course, it doesn't, because it's severely contaminated by strains of anti-Israel and anti-semitism. But it's supposed to target the occupation and the settlements.

BDS; not the text. Is contaminated.

I don't think that's accurate. I believe it advocates for a total boycott of Israel. I know a few people who "boycott" the settlements and do not affiliate with BDS. That said, the BDS movement has kept their motivations and intent diffuse enough (just try to pin someone down about what a fair resolution of the refugees of 1948 entails) that I'm not sure you can say they're definitely one thing or another. But afaik their call for boycott is for all Israeli products.

* except when using a different product would be inconvenient in any way

Consumer Boycott
Individual consumers can show their opposition to Israel’s violations by participating in a consumer boycott of Israeli companies, goods and services or of international companies involved in Israeli policies violating Palestinian human rights and international law. A consumer boycott works in two ways: firstly by generating public awareness about Israeli apartheid and occupation as well as international support for it and secondly by applying economic pressure for change.

It differs from country to country, but the most common Israeli exports include:

– fresh fruit and vegetables such as Jaffa citrus fruits and Israeli Medjoul Dates
– Ahava cosmetics
– SodaStream drinks machines
– Eden Springs bottled water
– Golan Heights Wineries and other Israeli wines

There are many international companies that are complicit in Israeli violations of international law. Examples include HP, Caterpillar, Volvo, Hyundai, among many others.

Trying to boycott the products of every single company that participates in Israeli apartheid is a daunting task that has a slim change of having a concrete impact.

It makes more sense to focus on optimal targets that are being targeted as part of national or international campaigns. Consumer boycotts are most effective when part of a broader campaign against a particular product or aiming to pressure a retailer to stop selling a particular Israeli product.

Get in contact with a BDS organisation in your area to find out what companies and products are being targeted and how to support local campaigns. If no such organization exists, start your own campaign, in coordination with well-recognized BDS organizations.

While boycott is an individual act, it becomes much more powerful if it is promoted collectively and finds strong support in organisations, movements and communities willing to promote the boycott and forces retailers to stop selling particular Israeli products.

Across the world, supporters of Palestinian rights are advocating a boycotts adopting a number of diverse actions: Pickets of retailers, letter-writing campaigns, pressure from civil society organisations such as NGOs, faith groups and trade unions. Popular pressure has forced retailers to stop selling Israeli produce and produce from illegal settlements in particular. The consumer boycott is beginning to bite, too: a fifth of Israeli exporters reported a drop in demand as a result of the boycott in the wake of the Gaza massacre.

- See more at: http://www.bdsmovement.net/activecamps/consumer-boycott#sthash.LpjBDfOJ.dpuf

yeah right up there in the first sentence: "Individual consumers can show their opposition to Israel’s violations by participating in a consumer boycott of Israeli companies, goods and services"

Yup. I was going to post the part about not boycotting all products, but reread and thought it more honest to post it all.

two things

1) i talked to my mom over thanksgiving. she said she supported BDS, but it turns out she didn't know what it was; thought it was just boycotting israeli settlers in the occupied west bank (and their products etc.). she didn't realize it was a full boycott of all things israeli. i wonder how many other liberal jews have the same misinformation.

2) i'm glad israel caught & convicted the murders of the palestinian boy. now i am bracing for the israeli far right to celebrate them as heroes the way they have other murderers (including the murderer of rabin). i'll defend israel against the stupid left-wing charge of "genocide" any time, but there is a small margin of israeli society that really does advocate something like genocide, and they are very scary.

the second part of the sentence clearly says "...involved in Israeli policies violating Palestinian human rights and international law." now i know Mordy truly believes that no such violations exist, but that's another topic.

No, that's about international companies. I misread it the same way first.

if these boycotts ever catch on and started having business impact on those companies, the American right wing will stage a counter boycott and Rush Limbaugh (etc.) will have every one of his fans in America buying a sodastream. idk if he can convince them to eat hummus.

I hope someone finds out how to solve this problem real soon.

Sodastream closed its factories in the occupied territories because of the bad publicity, didn't it?

i think there's some disagreement over exactly why they moved from the WB to the Negev - iirc they didn't cite the boycott as being related (or said it had only a minor impact) but boycotters claimed it was. it's hard to imagine that there's a large enough group of people who will buy products in israel but won't buy products in the settlements that it made financial sense to move an entire factory.

idk if he can convince them to eat hummus.

initially read that as "...eat humans," and was thinking, i wouldn't be surprised if rush limbaugh has been there already.

idk, it picked up a lot of press. The Israeli government's reaction to the EU labelling goods from illegal settlements indicated they think it'll have an economic impact.

xp

I disagree. I think that the Israeli government's reaction to the EU labelling goods is political not economic. They explicitly want East Jerusalem and the Golan Heights recognized as Israel, and large parts of the current governing coalition feel the same way about the WB (or at the very least Area C).

If you listen to some of the voices coming out of places like the Golan, or the WB settlements, you hear more outrage over the idea that they don't live in Israel than fear over economic deprivation. After all they do consider themselves to be living in the Holy Land, even if it might not be jurisdictionally the State of Israel. Which isn't to say there's no economic component at all but that I'm skeptical of its actual impact on the issue.

the second part of the sentence clearly says "...involved in Israeli policies violating Palestinian human rights and international law." now i know Mordy truly believes that no such violations exist, but that's another topic.

― ey mk II, Tuesday, December 1, 2015 5:18 AM (4 hours ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

If you read the descriptions of the other campaigns, it's pretty clear that virtually anything Israeli is interpreted to be "involved in Israeli policies..." -- e.g. all Israeli universities and cultural institutions.

ffs what is wrong with these ppl?

I've long wanted to write a rap couplet rhyming Rabinovitch with "all up in a bitch". Not being Jewish or even remotely skilled at rap rhyming however, I've accepted it's not my place. So here I am putting it out into the world, in hopes a Jewish rapper stumbles across this thread in search of source material. Shalom.

honestly the correct answer to that girl's question is probably, "do your own damn homework."

"and p.s. justice for palestine."

except:

Dr Levine, who completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge's Department of Archaeology before taking up research posts at Columbia University and Syracuse University in New York, told The Telegraph that if a school student from a different country had got in touch with her to ask about horses, she would have responded differently.

“Kids have questions, I usually answer their questions,” she said. “But I have agreed to BDS [the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel], and I do want to see justice for Palestine.

“In Israel the majority of Israelis support the policies of the government which abuses the rights of Palestinians, so the fact is I don’t want to help Israelis, and if you don't start with children where do you start?

"You have to ask yourself: what is there to gain from not talking to a 13-year-old girl? How does that solve anything?"

“And she is not that young anyway, her English is pretty good. If people don’t stand up for justice, the world is going to come to an end.”

ftr she's 13yo