21 karma · joined October 13, 2021
After all, BDS campaigns may seem rather silly.
Would it possibly matter if you stop buying Sabre Hummus?
But these campaigns can be effective (for their proponents). They make US citizens aware of the conditions they would not otherwise be aware of.
In fact, I would have a hard time finding one Jewish friend who was even mildly Zionist.
His political opinion (and you can agree or disagree with it) is to boycott Israeli institutions as part of an international Boycott Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign because he disapproves of the treatment of Palestinian people living in the Occupied Territories. You can read about how Palestinians are treated in a recent Human Rights Watch report (just google, "Human Rights Watch Israel apartheid") and decide for yourself.
This seems to violate the First Amendment rights to free speech and this is what the lower courts have held. So while the right to "free speech" is not absolute (one can't yell "fire" in a crowded theater), you are free to hold (and talk about) any political views. And a state (or federal) entity cannot punish you for your thoughts and speech (outside of work, of course).
The reason this is important is that boycotts (and talking about and organizing them) have been a powerful tool for non-violent political action and have been used throughout the world since their origin in 1880's Ireland.
But why is this important now? If a state or federal agency can require employees to hold certain political views, they can create all sorts of requirements (via laws) for not only employment, but other benefits and or services they provide. Hope this helps.
But these laws would seem unconstitutional on the basis of the first amendment and precedent: (e.g. In NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982).)
And the boycott movement is not about targeting individuals or classes of individuals. BDS encourages supporters to select targets based on their complicity in Israel's human rights violations, potential for cross-movement solidarity, media appeal, and likelihood of success.
In 1966 African Americans in Clairborne County, Mississippi, participated in a sustained boycott of white-owned businesses to put pressure on local government and business leaders to meet their 19 “Demands for Racial Justice.” The document, drafted by the local chapter of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP), laid out specific measures to advance the civil rights of African Americans, from desegregation of bus stations to asking that blacks be addressed as “Mr.” and “Mrs.” rather than derogatory terms such as “boy.”
Three years later, a group of white business owners sued the NAACP and its leaders, who had organized and enforced the boycott, for the economic damages they had suffered.
The Supreme Court ruled that the NAACP’s boycott was composed of elements protected by the First Amendment: speech, assembly, and petition. The Court also paid particular attention to the end goal of the boycotters.
In that case, Justice John Paul Stevens compared the NAACP boycott campaign with the railroad association’s public relations campaign in Noerr and concluded that the boycott was entitled to even greater protection.
Do the recent reports on Israeli treatment of Palestinians go beyond criticism?
https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/isra...
What about B'Tselem's report? Is that beyond criticism?
"I am for compulsory transfer; I do not see anything immoral in it." --David Ben-Gurion to the Jewish Agency Executive, June 1938
''The cultivated land is probably 1 million dunam. According to international law, we cannot sell anything, so maybe we should buy from those Arabs who do not want to come back.... All we need is 400 tractors, each tractor can cultivate 3000 dunam - cultivating not just for the purpose of procuring food but in order to prevent anyone from returning to their lands. Land of lesser quality should be sold to private or public sectors....At least, let us say that this confiscation is an exchange for the property the Jews from the Arab world lost when they immigrated to Palestine." --Bechor Shitrit, head of the settlement department of the Jewish National Fund, Ben-Gurion's Diary, 18 August 1948.
--Vladimir Jabotinsky, The Iron Wall, (We and the Arabs) (1923)
How would a boycott destroy one of the most powerful military forces on earth?
BDS isn't trying to destroy Israel. It's only attempting to bring attention to the government's inhuman treatment of Palestinians.
Human Rights watch calls the situation in the OT "apartheid" (note the little ' A'). https://www.hrw.org/report/2021/04/27/threshold-crossed/isra...
B'Tselem Israeli Human RIghts group: https://www.btselem.org/topic/apartheid
Not all criticism of the Israeli government is antisemitism.
Where would the Civil Rights movement have been without boycotts?
I was once asked in an interview whether "The State of Israel had a right to exist". I replied that no state has a "right to exist" but that individuals have a right to self-determination. A human right that various international laws and conventions give both Israelis and Palestinians. Needless to say, I did not get that job.
BTW, there was a good documentary about this recently in DOC NYC: https://www.docnyc.net/film/boycott/
Here in the US, there is plenty of legislation at the state level that requires individuals and businesses sign agreements in order to gain employment or secure funding (advertisement, in the case of newspapers). For example, the law in Texas prevents an individual from being employed as a teacher (or contractor) if they support boycotts of Israeli companies. I'm not arguing for or against these boycotts but legislation preventing boycotts is now a condition of employment in some states.
There was a good documentary about this recently in DOC NYC: https://www.docnyc.net/film/boycott/
Coffee, Coffee, Coffee Sung to the tune of “Holy, Holy, Holy” ------------------------------------------------- Coffee, Coffee, Coffee, Praise the strength of coffee. Early in the morn we rise with thoughts of only thee. Served fresh or reheated, Dark by thee defeated, Brewed black by perk or drip or instantly.
Though all else we scoff we Come to church for coffee; If we’re late to congregate, we come in time for thee. Coffee our one ritual, Drinking it habitual, Brewed black by perk or drip instantly.
Coffee the communion Of our Uni-Union, Symbol of our sacred ground, our one necessity. Feel the holy power At our coffee hour, Brewed black by perk or drip or instantly.
In short, lawmakers are creating numerous anti-BDS laws attempting to defend freedom;-) as long they align with their own ideological positions.
I was actually asked whether "Israel had a right to exist" during an interview. I was astonished. I answered that no country has a "right to exist" and that individuals have a right to self-determination (among other human rights). I still got the job.
https://lib.qrz.ru/files/22_-Kristen_Haring.pdf
Ham radio is a great hobby for so many different reasons. Also, my local ham clubs are an amazing subculture of wonderful old men (OM) who love to share their technical knowledge.
But I digress.
The actual history, and this is the history of my family, is that the Haganah orchestrated a terror campaign in late 1947 and well into 1949 to ethnically cleanse Palestine of its Arab population. They did not discriminate between Christians, Muslims, or Jews. In Haifa, they rolled barrels full of explosives down the hilly roads. The Haganah also drove around the city in trucks with loudspeakers warning the residents in Arabic that they would be killed if they did not leave. They referenced the Deir Yassin massacre. Of course this worked. Haifa was emptied. This was repeated, although with different tactics, Jaffa, Lydda, and over 500 other smaller villages.
The simply fact was that a viable Israeli state was not possible with that many non-jews living there. Over 750,000 people were dispossessed of their land. Half the population was ethnically cleaned. This is a war crime. It's also immoral.
Depopulation, dispossession, and colonization are valuable tools in "state building". But in the case of South Africa, it didn't last.
The fact is that the Israeli leadership has been lying to its citizens for 73 years. The land was cleansed of its indigenous Arab population to make a Jewish state viable. The is ethnic cleansing. Many of these refugees are still alive (like my parents). At some point, Israeli citizens will see it for what it is: a crime against humanity. So we need to just admit it and move on to the truth commissions and get on with creating a truly democratic state. The colonial settler movement is in decline. Just ask Ben and Jerry's.
Let's be clear, forcibly removing an indigenous population of over 750,000 people (this included my parents) is a crime. These refugees and their decedents have a right to return to their land. This has to be acknowledged and only then will the region move on.
Here, South Africa is a great example of a peaceful coexistence: while it has its problems, the country has moved on after Apartheid.
This is the root Palestinian problem. It's not a complicated story.
Those today in the Greater Jerusalem area are undergoing ethnic cleansing as we speak. Those who live in the vicinity of the apartheid wall Israel is constructing, half completed, are likely to be next. Those who live under the greatest illusion of safety, the Palestinians of Israel, may also be targeted in the future. Sixty-eight per cent of the Israeli Jews expressed their wish, in a recent poll, to see them transferred'.
Neither Palestinians nor Jews will be saved, from one another or from themselves, if the ideology that still drives the Israeli policy towards the Palestinians is not correctly identified.
The problem with Israel was never its Jewishness. Judaism has many faces and many of them provide a solid basis for peace and cohabitation; it is its ethnic Zionist character.
Zionism does not have the same margins of pluralism that Judaism offers, especially not for the Palestinians. They can never be part of the Zionist state and space, and will continue to fight - and hopefully their struggle will be peaceful and successful.
The ethnic cleansing started before May 1948 and continued into the next year. My parents were forced to leave Haifa in early 1948, with my oldest sister (one year old at the time).
When I talk about this with friends, they mostly shrug and say, it's complicated.
In reality, it's not complicated at all. It is the simple but horrific story of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine, a crime against humanity that Israel has wanted to deny and cause the world to forget.
Retrieving it from oblivion is incumbent upon us, not just as a greatly overdue act of historiographical reconstruction; it is a moral decision, the very first step we must take if we ever want reconciliation to have a chance, and peace to take root, in the torn lands of Palestine and Israel.
Indeed, Israel is extremely effective. Especially in 1948. I find that there is a general lack of awareness of the history of Palestine and the indigenous people that lived there (and still live there) here in the US. The average American (in the US) is not aware that over 750,000 people were forced to leave their land in 1948.
My parents were among them. They were forced to leave with my 1 year old sister. Ask any older Palestinian. No one chose to leave in 1948. There was a clear understanding that the Haganah would kill them if they stayed.
Call it what you will but this is universally recognized as ethnic cleansing and dispossession of land and homes. It's simply settler colonialism (the number of settlements continue to grow every year).
This was well documented by Israeli historian Ilan Pappe (The Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine) among others. Most people simply hear news about violence, rockets, suicide bombers, etc. and do not understand the context. It's as if the Palestinians did not exist and the ethnic cleansing did not occur. There were over 500 small villages cleansed of inhabitants (see All That Remains by Walid Khalidi) and bulldozed over. Many now have settlers living nearby.
This is just history, not antisemitism.
This was well documented in Walid Khalidi's book All that Remains: The Palestinian Villages Occupied and Depopulated by Israel in 1948.
There were over 750,000 indigenous Palestinians forced to leave in 1948. It's as if the Palestinians did not exist and the ethnic cleansing did not occur.
As more and more tech workers became aware of the history and context of the Palestine/Israel "problem", they will hopefully consider the moral and ethical implications of their work and make their voices heard.
FYI, before the creation of modern Israel, the Negev desert was almost entirely populated by Arab Bedouins. Nearly 100,000 fled during the ethnic cleansing of 1948.
My parents were forced to leave Haifa in 1948 under threat of death and they were among the 750,000 forced out of the country and their land stolen.
Of the Bedouins still living in the Negev, half live in government-designated towns and cities, much like Native reservations in the United States, and the other half live in unrecognized villages.