"cultural boycott" of israel c/d

- The transsexual that won Eurovision
- ???

in all seriousness this seems more impotent and counterproductive than anything. considering the leftward-to-moderate sociology of "cultural" and academic types worldwide, breaking ties in this manner i think does edge into racism (tarring all israeli citizens with the same brush) and speaks to having little real leverage to do anything else.

Courtney, Andrew (artist)
Cox, Molly Hankwitz (artist and writer)

Boycotts are not a matter of morals, but of tactics. Boycotting the USA is unlikely to accomplish anything, so don't bother. Full on cultural boycotts of small nasty countries like Israel might be more effective, but they might also be counter-productive. Put another way, I doubt the likes of Mr Kurdi Bear is going to be too pushed about Amos Oz not getting invited to literary conferences.

The quote from Gordon Brown has relevance.

p.s. i thought more of brian eno.

Boycotts are not a matter of morals, but of tactics. Boycotting the USA is unlikely to accomplish anything, so don't bother.

This is anti-liberalism of the highest degree ... so basically, we shouldn't bother with corporate bohemoths like Wal-Mart that steadfastly refuse to give benefits to their employees or allow them to unionize. Instead, we should speak out against local businesses that expect their employees to work until 9PM on most weekends for $8/hr. Make a difference in your community! Fight the power!

Yes, a "cultural" boycott just stinks of the realization that a full boycott would be practically unfeasible, unless the douchebags proposing it plan to destroy their computers, stop using Skype and RSA protocols, and quit buying pharmaceuticals. I guess it's best to pick on the socially conscious artists and writers who presumably don't contribute any monetary value to the economy. Stand up for human rights!

Actually, I think a government that has a massive bias to a particular religious sect is a pretty black and white issue (see difference in how right of return is applied to any random jew vs. palestinian natives). Sure it won't accomplish anything, but it is hard not to see that there is a massive gap in actual quality of life between Jews and Arabs.

As for changing the minds of Israelis, that's such a strange non-issue: if everyday Israeli state actions actually followed the opinions of the public, we'd have a very different situation. Same goes double for Palestinians.

Muslim countries are given a certain leeway for acting ridiculous and Israeli's expected to act like your average Western democracy, when in truth it tends to act more like the countries it's at war with.

This isn't supposed to be about which US citizens were born in Israel. This is about grown politicians throwing mantrums when people so much as DARE to mention the word 'Palestine'.

if the palestnians will have the right to return, and will do so, they will be an arabic majority in Israel, and thats what the Israelies are trying to avoid - the actual meaning is the end of Israel as the land of the jews.

"Muslim countries are given a certain leeway for acting ridiculous and Israeli's expected to act like your average Western democracy, when in truth it tends to act more like the countries it's at war with. " otm.Israel i think, cant act different (your average Western democracy),otherwise it wont survive.

don't forget psytrance :/

I say all this as a person who is fairly disgusted with the behavior of the Israeli government - the last few administrations at very least. I have given money to the Palestinian Red Crescent and to Tikkun - a very leftist Jewish org with a strong anti-occupation stance. I've written letters, I've argued with my Dad and with my wife's parents' friends. I want there to be more that I can do.

But seriously, my wife is fucking Israeli - a cultural boycott for me would mean, like, not buying the foods my wife grew up with, or refusing to take an interest in the new Israeli novelist she likes, or refusing to see the Israeli film her parents recommended. Which, to me, just emphasizes the ridiculousness of a cultural boycott.

I'm sure all the Israel haters would get a lot more sympathy in the west if they advocated changing Israel to a secular nation rather than a Jewish nation -- as opposed to asking for its destruction

Sometimes even I'm not sure if it should. I'd never argue the birthright angle, or the Holocaust angle. The only argument I ever do make is "well, it's there now." It's been there almost 60 years in its official capacity as a nation. Multiple generations have been born there, gone to school there, started businesses there, farmed land, done all the things involved in building a society, and at that point it just becomes very difficult to move people other than by force. Which I realize is not a very fair argument since a bunch of other people WERE moved by force from the same land 60 years ago.

Seriously, the real question: what *can* be done to further the creation of a Palestinian state, which is the only politically possible solution. This thing has gone on for so long due to a total lack of pragmatism on both sides. Which is what I was referring to with my Israeli cultural argument above.

WTF does this mean? Israel *is* a secular state with no official state religion. Plz learn basic facts about Israel.

Maybe Iran would get more sympathy from the West if they changed from a Muslim nation to a secular one?

Hi, 1970 called, it wants its Middle East issues back.

It is way past time for people on this thread (not just yourself by any means) to actually read the original link, and see that it's exactly not that kind of boycott. It's the South African sporting boycott rather than the produce one (insert Airplane joke here).

The challenge of apartheid was fought better. The non-violent international response to apartheid was a campaign of boycott, divestment, and, finally UN imposed sanctions which enabled the regime to change without terrible bloodshed. Today Palestinians teachers, writers, film-makers and non-governmental organisations have called for a comparable academic and cultural boycott of Israel as offering another path to a just peace.

It's quite clear that they're advocating the current "cultural" boycott as a necessary first step, not an endgame.

Seriously, isn't this the sort of thing that schmucks like John Berger do so they can feel like they were "on the right side" without having to take any real risks?

After looking at the thread again, I realized that this is the most OTM comment on here.

But, I don't know - a boycott like this isn't designed to have much of an economic effect, it's supposed to shame Israel into behaving better (look, a group of left-wing uk academics, writers, and sundry guardian readers disapprove of you!), but surely that kind of thing doesn't make yer average Israeli student think "Prof x isn't lecturing here because of our actions in Palestine: gosh, he's right, I'd better agitate for a mutually beneficial settlement, so the international academic community will re-embrace the Israeli nation"; surely they're much more likely to go "fuck a sanctimonious set of academics," and feel hard-done-by and resentful at being lectured to by this distant group of people who don't really mean anything to their lives.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel

In 2003, the infant mortality rate in the Arab sector was 8.4 per thousand, more than twice as high as the rate 3.6 per thousand among the Jewish population. [33]

The Follow-Up Committee for Arab Education notes that the Israeli government spends an average of $192 per year on each Arab student compared to $1,100 per Jewish student. The drop-out rate for Arab citizens of Israel is twice as high as that of their Jewish counterparts (12 percent versus 6 percent). The same group also notes that there is a 5,000-classroom shortage in the Arab sector. [82]
ETC

Fuck you, you stupid asshole!

As a group, Black Americans have shorter life expectancies than the national average and often higher mortality rates for certain disease conditions. They suffer disproportionately from heart disease, AIDS, hypertension, stroke, sickle cell anemia, and diabetes. The rate of blacks organ and tissue donation in the U.S. is currently on par, percentage-wise, with that for whites; however, because as a group they require a disproportionately higher number of organ and tissue transplants, the result is a net deficit. Lower-income blacks’ lack of access to quality health care, a general and well-documented pattern of race-based discrimination in health care delivery, as well as deep-seated distrust of the medical establishment occasioned, in part, by the Tuskegee syphilis study all are contributing factors to these

Hi Jon, fuck you too, you worthless piece of Yankee horseshit. Merry Xmas, btw, asshole.

Some of the worst poverty in Israel is to be found in the religious Jewish communities. Sorry to blow sand up the ass of your shadowy Jewish cabal theory, which states that all Israeli Jews are well taken care of while the Israeli Arabs uniformly suffer in poverty. Think about that and then read Ethan's link.

There's no point arguing with someone as stupid as you until you bother learning even the most basic facts about the subject at hand, so maybe you can start here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_religion

particularly this part:

Israel is defined in several of its laws as a Democratic Jewish state, however the term "Jewish" is a polysemy which can equally relate to the Jewish people or the Jewish religion ... At present Israel cannot be said to have an established religion.

Now look at the substantial list of countries that DO have established religions, and ask yourself if all of them are as racist as you seem to be.

Fuck you and piss off.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jewish_state

I NEVER said Israel was a theocracy, just not secular:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secular

1. It asserts the freedom of religion, and freedom from religion, within a state that is neutral on matters of belief, and gives no state privileges or subsidies to religions.

So even if Israel has no state religion, the bias privilege afforded to Judaism disqualifies it from being secular.

Now, the Basic Laws of Israel provide some support for pluralism, such as protected the holy places of all religions, which is pretty admirable. But even if the law itself prescribes equality, the reality of the situation in Israel is anything but. I totally agree that America has a somewhat similar sort of disadvantage for many of its minorities. However, the disparity in Israel goes beyond any reasonable economic explanation (although this is somewhat also true in America). Furthermore, the separate schools systems, as I mentioned upthread, while likely a concession to realpolitik, is clearly not "separate but equal" as per the statistics I cited about educational funding, etc.

FWIW, I think Ethan was having a bit of laugh at your expense. At least in the united states, our systemic racism is practiced through school/congressional districting and not under apartheid/segregation.

Oh and fuck you for assuming I celebrate Christmas and for calling me racist. There is a huge distinction between the criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism which you feel like you can confound since you dislike me and I'm a bit of a dick. "Some of my best friends are jews!"

Been reading about some of the Nazis theories of race/civilization and the idea that a nation is the highest achievement of a culture and stateless peoples (gypsys, jews, etc) are the lowest peoples. The formation of the state of Israel and its success in conflict in the mid-east almost make it admirable if you interpret those beliefs right... lol nazis

Anyway, I'm way past this now, I'm busy studying up on hostile javascript. If all goes well, your home computer will start mass production of candy canes sometime on Wednesday afternoon. Have a nice day.

... TIME PASSES ...

- it's frightful really, how these Jews behave. Shape up you Jews!
- O stop I shall die of laughter

Brought to you by 400 years of genteel anti-semitism. Thanks for playing, brits.

there was also an odd incident where they were talking about changing the university admission rules because too many Palestinian Israelis were getting in.

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u posh

we all lose.

The following speech was given at the Rabin memorial ceremony, Tel Aviv, November 4, 2006, in the presence of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

At the annual memorial ceremony for Yitzhak Rabin, we pause to remember Yitzhak Rabin the man, and the leader. We also look at ourselves, at Israeli society, at its leadership, at the state of the national spirit, at the state of the peace process, and at our place, as individuals, within these great national developments.

We had a war. Israel brandished its huge military biceps, but its reach proved all too short, and brittle. We realized that our military might alone cannot, when push comes to shove, defend us. In particular, we discovered that Israel faces a profound crisis, much more profound than we imagined, in almost every part of our collective lives.

I speak here, this evening, as one whose love for this land is tough and complicated, but nevertheless unequivocal. And as one for whom the covenant he has always had with this land has become, to my misfortune, a covenant of blood. I am a man entirely without religious faith, but nevertheless, for me, the establishment, and very existence, of the state of Israel is something of a miracle that happened to us as a people—a political, national, human miracle. I never forget that, even for a single moment. Even when many things in the reality of our lives enrage and depress me, even when the miracle disintegrates into tiny fragments of routine and wretchedness, of corruption and cynicism, even when the country looks like a bad parody of that miracle, I remember the miracle always.

That sentiment lies at the foundation of what I will say tonight.

"See, land, that we were most wasteful," the poet Shaul Tchernichowski wrote in 1938. He grieved that in the bosom of the earth, in the land of Israel, we have interred, time after time, young people in the prime of their lives. The death of young people is a horrible, outrageous waste. But no less horrible is the feeling that the state of Israel has, for many years now, criminally wasted not only the lives of its sons and daughters, but also the miracle that occurred here—the great and rare opportunity that history granted it, the opportunity to create an enlightened, properly functioning democratic state that would act in accordance with Jewish and universal values. A country that would be a national home and refuge, but not only a refuge. It would also be a place that gives new meaning to Jewish existence. A country in which an important, essential part of its Jewish identity, of its Jewish ethos, would be full equality and respect for its non-Jewish citizens.

Look what happened to this young, bold country, so full of passion and soul. How in a process of accelerated senescence Israel aged through infancy, childhood, and youth, into a permanent state of irritability and flaccidity and missed opportunities. How did it happen? When did we lose even the hope that we might someday be able to live different, better lives? More than that—how is it that we continue today to stand aside and watch, mesmerized, as madness and vulgarity, violence and racism take control of our home?

And I ask you, how can it be that a people with our powers of creativity and regeneration, a nation that has known how to pick itself up out of the dust time and again, finds itself today—precisely when it has such great military power—in such a feeble, helpless state? A state in which it is again a victim, but now a victim of itself, of its fears and despair, of its own shortsightedness?

One of the harsh things that this last war sharpened for us was the feeling that in these times there is no king in Israel. That our leadership is hollow, both our political and military leadership. I am not speaking now of the obvious fiascos in the conduct of the war, or of the way the rear echelon of the army was left to its own devices. Nor am I speaking of our current corruption scandals, great and small. My intention is to make it clear that the people who today lead Israel are unable to connect Israelis with their identity, and certainly not with the healthy, sustaining, inspiring parts of Jewish identity. I mean those parts of identity and memory and values that can give us strength and hope, that can serve as antidotes to the attenuation of mutual responsibility and of our connection to the land, that can grant meaning to our exhausting, desperate struggle for survival.

Today, Israel's leadership fills the husk of its regime primarily with fears and intimidations, with the allure of power and the winks of the backroom deal, with haggling over all that is dear to us. In this sense, our leaders are not real leaders. They are certainly not the leaders that a people in such a complicated, disoriented state need. Sometimes, it seems that the public expression of their thinking, of their historical memory, of their vision, of what really is important to them fills only the tiny space between two newspaper headlines. Or between two police investigations.

Look at those who lead us. Not at all of them, of course, but all too many of them. Look at the way they act—terrified, suspicious, sweaty, legalistic, deceptive. It's ridiculous to even hope that the Law will come forth from them, that they can produce a vision, or even an original, truly creative, bold, momentous idea. When was the last time that the Prime Minister suggested or made a move that could open a single new horizon for Israelis? A better future? When did he take a social, cultural, or ethical initiative, rather than just react frantically to the actions of others?

Mr. Prime Minister, I do not say these things out of anger or vengeance. I have waited long enough; I am not speaking on the impulse of a moment. You cannot dismiss my words tonight by saying "a man should not be held to what he says when he is mourning." Of course I am mourning. But more than I am in pain, I hurt. This country, and what you and your colleagues are doing to it, pains me. In all sincerity, it is important to me that you succeed. Because our future depends on your ability to rise up and act. Yitzhak Rabin turned to the path of peace with the Palestinians not because he was fond of them or their leaders. Then also, if you remember, the common wisdom was that we had no partner among the Palestinians, and that there was nothing for us to talk about with them. Rabin decided to act because he detected, with great astuteness, that Israeli society could not long continue in a state of unresolved conflict. He understood, before many people understood, that life in a constant climate of violence, of occupation, of terror and fear and hopelessness, comes at a price that Israel cannot afford to pay.

All this is true today as well, and much more sharply. In a bit we'll talk about the partner that we do or don't have, but first let's look at ourselves. For more than a hundred years we have lived in a conflict. We, the citizens of that conflict, were born into a war, we were educated within it, and in a sense we were educated for it. Perhaps for that reason we sometimes think that this madness that we've been living in for a century now is the only true thing, that it is the life we are destined for, and that we have no way, even no right, to aspire to a different kind of life. We will live and die by the sword, and the sword shall devour forever.

Maybe that explains the apathy with which we accept the total cessation of the peace process, a moratorium that has lasted for years now, and has cost ever more casualties. That can also explain how most of us have failed to respond to the brutal kick democracy received when Avigdor Lieberman was appointed a senior cabinet minister. It's the appointment of a compulsive pyromaniac to head the country's firefighters.

And these are some of the reasons that, in an amazingly short time, Israel has degenerated into heartlessness, real cruelty toward the weak, the poor, and the suffering. Israel displays indifference to the hungry, the elderly, the sick, and the handicapped, equanimity in the face of, for example, trafficking in women, or the exploitation of foreign workers in conditions of slave labor, and in the face of profound, institutionalized racism toward its Arab minority. When all this happens as if it were perfectly natural, without outrage and without protest, I begin to fear that even if peace comes tomorrow, even if we eventually return to some sort of normality, it may be too late to heal us completely.

The calamity that my family and I suffered when my son Uri fell in the war last summer does not give me any special privileges in our national debate. But it seems to me that facing death and loss brings with it a kind of sobriety and clarity, at least when it comes to distinguishing the wheat from the chaff, between what can and cannot be achieved. Between reality and fantasy.

Every thinking person in Israel— and, I will add, in Palestine as well— knows today precisely the outline of a possible solution to the conflict between the two peoples. All thinking people, in Israel and in Palestine, know deep in their hearts the difference between, on the one hand, their dreams and wishes, and on the other, what they can get at the end of the negotiations. Those who don't know that, whether Jews or Arabs, are already not part of the dialogue. Such people are trapped in their hermetic fanaticism, so they are not partners. Let's look for a minute at our potential partners. The Palestinians have placed Hamas in their leadership, and Hamas refuses to negotiate with us, refuses even to recognize us. What can we do in such a situation? What more can we do? Tighten the noose even more? Continue to kill hundreds of Palestinians in the Gaza Strip, the great majority of them innocent civilians, like us?

Appeal to the Palestinians, Mr. Olmert. Appeal to them over Hamas's head. Appeal to the moderates among them, to those who, like you and me, oppose Hamas and its ideology. Appeal to the Palestinian people. Speak to their deepest wound, acknowledge their unending suffering. You won't lose anything, and Israel's position in any future negotiation will not be compromised. But hearts will open a bit to each other, and that opening has great power. Simple human compassion has the power of a force of nature, precisely in a situation of stagnation and hostility.

Look at them, just once, not through a rifle's sights and not through a roadblock. You will see a people no less tortured than we are. A conquered, persecuted, hopeless people. Of course the Palestinians are also guilty of the dead end we've reached. Of course they bear part of the blame for the failure of the peace process. But look at them for a moment in a different way. Not just at their extremists. Not just at those who have an alliance of mutual interest with our own extremists. Look at the great majority of this wretched nation, whose fate is bound up with ours, like it or not.

Go to the Palestinians, Mr. Olmert. Don't look for reasons not to talk to them. You've given up on unilateral disengagement. And that's good. But don't leave a vacuum. It will fill up immediately with violence and destruction. Talk to them. Make them an offer that their moderates can accept (there are far more of them than the media shows us). Make them an offer, so that they will have to decide whether to accept it or instead remain hostages to fanatical Islam. Go to them with the boldest, most serious plan that Israel is able to put forward. A plan that all Israelis and Palestinians with eyes in their heads will know is the limit of refusal and concession, ours and theirs. If you hesitate, we'll soon be longing for the days when Palestinian terrorism was an amateur affair. We will pound ourselves on our heads and shout, why did we not use all our flexibility, all our Israeli creativity, to extricate our enemy from the trap in which he ensnared himself?

Just as there is unavoidable war, there is also unavoidable peace. Because we no longer have any choice. We have no choice, and they have no choice. And we need to set out toward this unavoidable peace with the same determination and creativity with which we set out to an unavoidable war. Anyone who thinks there is an alternative, that time is on our side, does not grasp the profound, dangerous process that is now well underway.

Perhaps, Mr. Prime Minister, I need to remind you that if any Arab leader sends out signals of peace, even the slightest, most hesitant ones, you must respond. You must immediately test his sincerity and seriousness. You have no moral right not to respond. You must do so for the sake of those who will be expected to sacrifice their lives if another war breaks out. So if President Assad says that Syria wants peace, even if you don't believe him—and we're all suspicious—you must propose a meeting that very same day. Don't wait a single day longer. After all, when you set out on the last war you didn't wait for even an hour. You charged in with all our might. With every weapon we have. With all our power to destroy. Why, when there is some sort of flicker of peace, do you immediately reject it, dismiss it? What do you have to lose? Are you suspicious of the Syrian president? Go offer him terms that will reveal his trickery. Offer him a peace process lasting several years, only at the end of which, if he meets all the conditions, lives up to all the restrictions, will he get the Golan Heights. Force him into a process of ongoing dialogue. Act so that his people will be made aware of the possibility, help the moderates, who must exist there as well. Try to shape reality, not to be its collaborator. That's why you were elected. Precisely for that reason.

Of course not everything depends on what we do. There are great and strong forces acting in this region and in the world, and some of them, like Iran, like radical Islam, wish us ill. Nevertheless, so much does depend on what we do, and what we will be. The differences between right and left are not that great today. The decisive majority of Israel's citizens now understand—of course, some of them without enthusiasm—what the shape of a peaceful solution will look like. Most of us understand that the land will be divided, that there will be a Palestinian state. Why, then, do we continue to sap ourselves with the internal bickering that has gone on now for almost forty years? Why does our political leadership continue to reflect the positions of the extremists and not of the majority? After all, we'll be much better off if we reach this national consensus on our own, before circumstances—external pressures, or a new Palestinian uprising, or another war— force us to do so. If we do it, we will save ourselves years of erosion and error, years in which we will shout again and again, "See, land, that we were most wasteful."

From where I stand at this moment, I request, call out to all those listening —to young people who came back from the war, who know that they are the ones who will have to pay the price of the next war; to Jewish and Arab citizens; to the people of the right and the people of the left: stop for a moment. Look over the edge of the abyss, and consider how close we are to losing what we have created here. Ask yourselves if the time has not arrived for us to come to our senses, to break out of our paralysis, to demand for ourselves, finally, the lives that we deserve to live.

—Translated from the Hebrew by Haim Watzman