I have come as close as is humanly possible to feeling sorry for someone in the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement, which is aimed solely at Israel.
A week ago Frank Barat, who is behind the kangaroo court Russell Tribunal on Palestine, where BDS movement activists meet once a year to put Israel, and companies that do business with Israel, on trial for various “charges” and then finds them all “guilty” without hearing from the “defendants”, interviewed Norman Finkelstein, one of Israel’s biggest critics, about BDS.
Barat sat there for half an hour looking like a rabbit caught in headlights as Finkelstein tore apart every one of Barat’s flimsy arguments before, finally, hearing Finkelstein describe the BDS movement as “a cult” and “dishonest”.
Barat then shakes hands with Finkelstein and thanks him. At that point, if you were Barat, you’d have never let the interview see the light of day, but someone uploaded it to youtube. After realising the positive feedback it was receiving from the pro-Israel blogsphere, the clip was deleted but not before the guys at Huffington Post Monitor had downloaded it.
So here it is again. It has already been re-posted and discussed at places like CiFWatch, Harry’s Place and the JC (via Jonathan Hoffman). Hopefully, as many people as possible will watch it, if anything as further proof that those in the BDS movement are not very bright, and also because of the way Finkelstein lays bare the dishonesty of the movement.
Finkelstein describes the BDS movement as “a cult” because everyone in the movement just nods their heads in approval when told how successful they are, eventhough, as Finkelstein admits, he can count their successes on the fingers of his two hands, if that.
He accuses the BDS movement of only choosing those bits of “international law” that suits it. It doesn’t recognise Israel’s right to exist, which is also, he says, part of “international law”.
He also calls the BDS movement “dishonest” because of their refusal to admit that their real aim is the destruction of Israel.
However, he says, they know they can’t admit this because the wider general public would never agree to the destruction of another country, which would be the effect of six or seven million (even this figure Finkelstein views as artificially inflated) Palestinians “returning” to Israel; the latter being one of the requirements of the BDS movement. But for such dishonesty, Finkelstein says, the BDS movement doesn’t deserve to reach the mainstream.
As for Barat’s claim that the call for BDS against Israel originated from Palestinian civil society Finkelstein says the Palestinian organisations named are nothing more than one-man NGOs and that the BDS movement cannot galvanise more than a few hundred Palestinians to protest against Israel or even stop the Palestinians themselves buying produce from “the settlements”.
First is the full 30-minute unedited clip and below the 5 minute highlights:
Plonski, Pappe, Chalcraft, Weisfeld, Reider, Jones having a "discussion" at SOAS.
When I did my Masters at the School of Oriental and African Studies the Israel Society there was a genuine counter-balance to the anti-Israel propaganda being disseminated by the SOAS Palestine Society. Students of all political persuasions could question Israeli politicians and diplomats and watch superb Israeli films like Beaufort.
Now, sadly, the SOAS Israel Society has been taken over by anti-Zionist activists Sharri Plonski and Dimi Reider (of the anti-Zionist+972 Magazine website) who desire so-called Palestinian refugees (including many who were never born there but, what the hell, let’s call them “refugees” anyway) to be allowed into Israel and destroy its Jewish sovereignty. On Monday they held the event Is BDS Working?
“The global campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions against Israel almost always sparks polarized discussion on its legitimacy and desirability, but the nuanced question of its effect on the ground is often lost in the debate. Join our panel discussion as we explore the effectiveness of BDS and its stated goals: End of occupation, right of return, and equality for the Palestinian citizens of Israel.”
Plonski said she looked forward to a “discussion”, but warned (clip 1) that if there were any untoward interruptions she would call security (and you wouldn’t want to upset the dictatorial Plonski). Each speaker then slammed Israel after which they got asked compliant questions by a compliant audience. But there was no “discussion”.
The evening reached its Orwellian zenith when the panel was criticised for the lack of a Palestinian presence. Plonski agreed and said she would work hard to have one next time. But what about the Israeli government’s views, one might have asked? I doubt Plonski will be working too hard to have those aired on one of her “discussion” panels.
Where was the “discussion” in allowing an unchallenged Ilan Pappe to state:
“What do you do about a rogue state like Israel? How do you treat it? What is the right policy towards a country, a state, that violates systematically all the United Nations’ resolutions, that violates systematically and abuses civil and human rights? This is now the conversation, this is why all these pro-Zionist Jewish communites are so fidgety, this is why all the Israeli Embassies have nightly meetings ‘what do we do?’, not changing Israeli immoral behaviour, ‘how do we now justify Israeli immoral behaviour?’”
And in allowing him to demean what blacks went through in apartheid South Africa when he said:
“South Africa had the right to exist. And Israel has the right to exist. Apartheid had no right to exist. Therefore, we all worked for the change of regime in South Africa. The kind of regime Israel maintains in the occupied territories, the kind of regime it maintains towards its Palestinian minority in Israel and the kind of policies it pursies against Palestinian refugees has no right to exist. And I think that is what the (bds) campaign is all about…We are talking about a change of regime and we don’t even suggest bombing the Israelis to change the regime as we would have if it had been an Arab country.”
Where was the discussion in allowing Dr John Chalcraft to make the ridiculous assertion that BDS was responsible for loss of business amounting to $7bn? (I would be surprised if it were even $7)
Chalcraft thinks that organisations that are usually unconcerned about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict when conducting business with Israel will now start to be concerned about the prospect of “nasty, grungy looking campaigners” (clip 5) showing up on their doorsteps with pictures of murdered Palestinian babies (incidentally, see here for Daniel Hochhauser’s total demolition of Chalcraft’s arguments when they debated This House Believes in an Academic Boycott of Israel).
Chalcraft denied BDS was racist by simply stating:
“Is there any other state in the world that is, right now, engaged in a project which has all sorts of affinities with nineteenth century settler colonialism?”
But we know that just like Pappe, Plonski and Reider, for Chalcraft the real problem is not “the occupation”, but Jewish Nationalism.
Chalcraft spoke of:
“interesting rifts in both Israeli society and academia that are opening up right now that BDS can exploit, because if you have a non-violent strategy of resistance then you do have to divide, in this case, Zionism”.
He spoke of rifts between the settlers and the IDF, between the segregationist movements on the buses and the more liberal Zionists and also between Liberal Zionists in America, like Thomas Friedman, and other “Newt Gingrich-style-Adelson-casino-owning movements in the United States”.
Chalcraft’s mention of Sheldon Adelson with its strong implication of Jewish money and power (see CiFWatch for analysis on why this can be considered anti-Semitism) was a theme taken up by Dr Lee Jones of Queen Mary’s College. Jones was there as a sort of constructive critic of the BDS movement. He thought that BDS on its own wouldn’t succeed without some bigger overall strategy, so he gave advice:
“Attacking the idea that you must not ever criticise Israel in the United States, otherwise you are some kind of disloyal Jew, for example. That does need to be challenged in the US and opening up different options for US foreign policy could be a start…which then forces the government into changes. So that’s the kind of dynamic that I’m talking about.” (clip 4)
Hannah Weisfeld’s (from “pro-Israel” Yachad) main arguments were that Israel has a right to exist, that BDS has had little impact on Israel and that BDS wouldn’t work anyway as it keeps Israelis on the defensive. She didn’t think BDS was anti-Semitic, but she described what Israel was doing beyond the Green Line as “criminal”.
Weisfeld just wants Israel to end “the occupation”, even if that is achieved by BDS. But because she also doesn’t think BDS will succeed she also gave some advice to the BDS movement (clip 3):
“A unified Palestinan strategy is hugely important and you are much better placed than me to suggest whether BDS is having that impact on Palestinian society. I come from the perspective of what I think is going to end the occupation…I don’t think the BDS movement is racist. I think there are elements in it that are questionable and I think there are parts of its aims that are highly questionable in terms of whether you think Israel has a right to exist or not. I don’t think people who engage in BDS engage in it because they are anti-Semites.”
and:
“I think we would be having a very different conversation in this room if the BDS movement was about a targeted (settlement) boycott. I am not saying that I would necessarily support it, but I think the entire debate would be different, because I think the position would be a position that does not put people on the defensive because it recognises the legitimacy of the other side to exist and I think that the level of criminality that exists inside the Green Line, over the Green Line is not distinguished…is exactly the reason BDS will not succeed in ending the occupation.”
How disappointing that Weisfeld thinks that neither singling out the one country that just happens to be Jewish for a boycott nor the desire of BDS to end Israel’s Jewish sovereignty are racist. And neither does she totally dismiss the possibility of herself supporting a targeted boycott of Israelis who live on the West Bank.
On top of all this Weisfeld never articulated what she expected to happen after any such unilateral settlement withdrawal by Israel. What happens if rockets fired from the West Bank then start hitting Tel Aviv, for example?
And how has the Israel Society at SOAS been hijacked like this? You would have thought that university societies existed to reflect their subject matter in a positive light. However, students at SOAS are now being fed horrendous lies about Israel not only by the SOAS Palestine Society but now by the SOAS Israel Society as well.
Clips:
1. Plonski introducing event:
2. Weisfeld talks about Yachad and adresses BDS:
3. Pappe speaks of Israel’s “criminality” as an admiring Plonski watches on and Weisfeld ponders a targeted settlement boycott:
4. Dr Lee Jones of QMC on “the Jews”:
5. Chalcraft on anti-Israel activism:
6. Dimi Reider on the cultural and academic boycott:
Moshe Machover about to wake someone up with talk of wet dreams.
Last night the RMT union, which represents London Underground’s tube drivers, held a rally at SOAS under the pseudonym Palestine’s Fight for Freedom.
Speakers demonised Israel with accusations of “apartheid”, “ethnic cleansing” and being a “racist state”. There were also the usual racist boycott calls.
There was an incredible screaming rant by Steve Hedley, RMT’s London regional organiser, in which, addressing an audience member, he made remarks such as “your friends in the media”, “the attack on those innocent women and children who you starved and turned into the biggest concentration camp on the earth”, “you’re an absolute disgrace to the Jewish people” and “you’re a modern day Nazi”.
After he had sat down I asked him if he felt better, to which he replied:
“Better than you, obviously. But then again you’re one of the chosen people so you might feel better than me, huh?”
Here is the audio of Hedley’s rant, including his “chosen people” remark. He was cleared earlier this year of assault:
And here is some footage of the end of Hedley’s rant:
Hedley anger at “Chosen people” (www.richardmillett.wordpress.com)
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It wasn’t long after this that I felt a tug on my shirt collar and heard the words “You’ve got a right hook coming to you” menacingly whispered into my ear.
Here is another RMT official speaking about how Israel has “deformed the area”:
RMT official – “Israel has deformed the area” (www.richardmillett.worpress.com)
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Hedley had earlier more calmly refuted any accusations of anti-Semitism:
“If the Israeli people are going to tolerate the oppression of the Palestinian people, they will never be free themselves. And I’m an anti-fascist. I’ve been an anti-fascist since the early teens. I’ve got absolutely nothing against Israelis at all; nothing against Jewish people. It’s a clear line to draw because people have been throwing around labels ‘oh, you’re anti-Semitic’… and that’s not the case.”
Hedley – “I’m an anti-fascist” (www.richardmillett.wordpress.com)
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Well, that’s all clear and good, apart from calling a Jewish person “one of the chosen people”.
More depressing than that though was to hear a SOAS lecturer, Dr Adam Hanieh, calling for a racist boycott of Israel. Let’s be clear; he was not calling for a boycott of “settlement goods”, but everything Israeli.
I don’t wish to suggest that there is anything improper about Hanieh’s classes. I have never been in one. But do his students know of his vile politics before enrolling on to Development Studies at SOAS?
If you were parting with £9,000 a year wouldn’t you want to be informed that a lecturer supports racist action? I would. Even if he or she were the best lecturer in the world I wouldn’t want to have anything to do with them.
Hanieh’s SOAS biography gives no hint of his boycott activism. Here is Hanieh speaking about a boycott of Israel last night:
A SOAS lecturer supporting a boycott of Israel (www.richardmillett.wordpress.com)
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And here is Hanieh talking about “ethnic cleansing” and comparing the West Bank to the bantustans in South Africa:
Hanieh comparing Israel to apartheid South Africa (www.richardmillett.wordpress.com)
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Meanwhile, raunchy Moshe Machover bravely injected some sex talk into the event. Apart from calling for a “one-state solution” he said:
“The wet dream of all major Zionist parties is further ethnic cleansing. And this is what is on the cards.” (At 2 mins 43 secs.)
Moshe Machover talks of “wet dreams” (www.richardmillett.wordpress.com)
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And here is Hugh Lanning, Chair of the PSC and Deputy General of the Public and Commercial Services Union, complaining about BBC bias and refuting claims that criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic, despite the fact that no one makes such a claim. Calling for the destruction of Israel, which is the PSC position, is anti-Semitic though.
Hugh Lanning complaining about BBC and refutes claims of anti-Semitism (www.richardmillett.wordpress.com)
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During the Q&A a questioner asked whether the RMT has proposed boycotts of Iran, Syria, Zimbabwe, Bahrain, Saudi Arabia, China and Russia, while another asked whether the boycotts aren’t reminiscent of the Nazis boycotts of the Jews in the 1930s.
Ilan Pappe’s squirming answer was that Iran is already being sanctioned and, therefore, the RMT doesn’t have to boycott Iran and that everyone knows that the likes of Saudi Arabia are oppressive, unlike the media which presumes that Israel is democratic.
He finished off addressing the difference between the Nazi boycott and today’s boycott movement just by saying:
“How can someone who was the victim of Nazis stand in support of Israel today?”
It was left to Jonathan Hoffman to propose that Israel was a smokescreen for the failure of unions like the RMT to prevent the cuts, which didn’t go down with the Chairman of the event who said that he wouldn’t be taking any lectures on RMT’s efforts to represent the working man.
But is the same union that stops many a working man from getting to work when they launch one of their regular tube strikes?
If so then the sooner Mayor Boris introduces driverless tube trains, the better.
A new term and thousands of brand new students to brainwash and so it was to the University of London Union last night where Ilan Pappe, Karma Nebulsi and Mike Cushman spent two hours spreading poison and lies about Israel.
The event was called Why we need a boycott of Israel on our campuses. There must have been some 300 students in the hall at the beginning, although this had considerably thinned out by the end.
Cushman seemed particularly charged up. So much so that at the end of the two hours he siezed the microphone to hysterically shout “Free Palestine”:
Cushman screaming at ULU last night (www.richardmillett.wordpress.com)
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But the saddest aspect of last night was the presence on the panel of a Palestinian refugee. The footage you are about to see is shocking in the extreme. If you don’t wish to see images of a scared, emaciated, poverty-stricken woman fleeing for her life please look away now. This woman shames those cowardly Syrian civilians fleeing across the border into Turkey in order to escape being machine-gunned down by Assad’s army. But brave Rafeef Ziadeh repeatedly told us that she will eventually return to Haifa. This footage is bound to turn even the staunchest Zionist anti-Israel:
A “Palestinian refugee” speaks last night (www.richardmillett.wordpress.com)
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Mike Cushman lectured us on the difference between an Israeli, a Zionist and a Jew. He said he was “a Jew because my mother was a Jew. I didn’t have a choice in the matter”.
For Cushman being Jewish is just about eating smoked salmon bagels.
He said if you think that a “Jewish Israeli Zionist is scarey” wait till you meet a Christian Zionist:
“They want to gather the Jews together so they can be wiped out. They don’t want to tell the Jews that.”:
Cushman last night- “Jewish Israeli Zionists are scary” (www.richardmillett.wordpress.com)
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Karma Nebulsi cannot get through a sentence without mentioning “the right of return”. She is so obsessed with this one aspect of the conflict one can almost imagine her in Starbucks ordering “a tall latte with an extra shot and a right of return to go”.
Karma Nebulsi last night – A tall latte and a right of return please (www.richardmillett.wordpress.com)
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Finally, we had the “ethnic cleansing” maestro himself, Ilan Pappe. He said that it is important to know who benefits from “the occupation” and he called for the “racist, apartheid public in Israel to be replaced by a free state for all; those that live there and those who used to live there”.
I have a good idea who benefits from “the occupation”: Pappe doesn’t do badly for a start. The Palestine Solidarity Campaign does beautifully thank you very much. And walking in last night on every seat there was a glossy brochure produced by War on Want with the words Boycott Divestment Sanctions in red, white and green on the front cover. Amongst the chapter headings were Crisis in Palestine, Gaza: the world’s largest prison, Apartheid Walls, and Water Wars.
The Palestinian refugee industry is undoubtedly a billion pound industry out of which academics and charities have enriched themselves.
Here is Pappe on the Gilad Shalit deal saying how much more it benefits Israel as it allows the Israelis to feel that they have reclaimed a sense of morality:
Pappe on Gilad Shalit last night (www.richardmillett.wordpress.com)
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When I had a chance with the microphone I explained how the BDS campaign is simply racist for targeting one country alone. Then I asked each panelist if they would ever accept Israeli medicine if they fell ill.
Cushman called it “a non-question” and said: “Would I take medicines? Of course I would. It’s not saying that knowledge doesn’t exist. It’s saying how do we use our academic resources to support or not support the continued occupation of the Palestinian people. It’s really quite simple.”
Rafeef Ziadeh could only reply: “I hope I don’t get sick anytime soon but if I keep hearing this question I might”.
Nebulsi refused to even to address the question. Pappe refused to answer it instead taking the opportunity to claim that Palestinans would be forced to spy for Israel in return for cancer treatment:
Meanwhile, Ziadeh refused to accept that BDS was racist saying they were against all forms of racism, including anti-Semitism. Apparently, stating that one isn’t racist is enough evidence in itself these days.
At least on the way out two female students, one wearing a “Free Palestine” badge, told me they had left the event early as they didn’t like the vicious rhetoric about Israel.
More photos:
Pappe last night.
Mock Palestinian prisoners outside ULU last night.
Take That are currently touring the UK and during a recent concert at Wembley national treasure Robbie Williams approached a group of screaming teenage girls who were sporting cheesy Israeli head-wear and took away one of their Israeli flags, promptly kissed it and then took it on to the stage with him (see clip below).
It is, at least, a bit of welcome respite from the vicious antics of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which solely desires to kill off the Jewish state.
Meanwhile, the evil single Freedom for Palestine has, so far, reached number 79 in the charts. It is actually higher than I thought it would be. I am not sure how many purchases that equates to, but it would be interesting to find out.
Anyone in the UK who bought a copy should be ashamed of themselves considering its anti-Semitic/Holocaust-denying undertones.
Luckily, there are decent people around like Robbie.
A foul stench of hypocrisy hung in the air last night as Omar Barghouti spoke about his new book BDS: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions. The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights at the London Review Bookshop.
Barghouti unashamedly studies in Tel Aviv. He consumes Israeli goods en masse and says he would take Israeli live-saving medicine should he ever require it.
“I have no choice. I don’t know what you think about Arabs but we are not suicidal,” was his answer to my question on that last point. He was being slightly disingenuous as my question was not about Arabs, but him specifically.
That said, there are more than just a few Arabs who are suicidal and who think nothing of taking the lives of the innocent with them in the act, but when have you heard any condemnation of this from the so-called protectors of human rights within the BDS movement?
I couldn’t understand why, out of choice, Barghouti studies in a country that he so despises. He also studied in America, the one country he blames for its rock solid support of Israel. But he argued that he has the right to be in Israel because he is a refugee and has the right to return there. He was born in Qatar and spent his first eleven years in Egypt.
On the question of consuming Israeli goods, once again, he argued he has no choice as he lives in Israel.
He claimed that he couldn’t find anyone to debate him about the ethics of a boycott “so we are debating with ourselves”. But, he said, he had set out all the questions and answers about boycotting Israel in his book.
But it was only recently that Prof. Daniel Hochhauser destroyed Dr. John Chalcraft’s arguments on this exact same topic at the London (or is that Libyan?) School of Economics.
There are many more people who can also demolish Barghouti’s arguments and show up the BDS movement for the purely anti-Semitic movement that it is.
There I go playing the anti-Semitism card, which is exactly what Barghouti told the audience that Israel’s supporters do, but he implored them to be brave and to continue making the case for boycotts despite such allegations.
But if a movement does not propose a boycott of America, Britain, China, Russia and Turkey etc. for the occupations that they are all embroiled in then I really don’t know how a movement can consider itself to be anything other than anti-Semitic. Perhaps Barghouti addresses this point in his book.
So Barghouti consumes Israeli products but travels the world encouraging audiences to boycott those same products, and more, until the BDS movement achieves its three main objectives:
1. Ending the occupation and dismantling the wall.
2. Giving the Arab Palestinian citizens of Israel complete equality.
3. Respecting the rights of the Palestinians to return under UN Res. 194.
Like Chalcraft he claimed that the boycott only targets institutions, not individuals although, as Hochhauser, pointed out individuals belong to institutions and so people are, in effect, being targeted individually.
He described settlement products as “contraband”, which should be seized on entry to the UK, and claimed that the BDS movement had achieved “success beyond our dreams”.
The call, he said, was issued in July 2005 but the movement has so far achieved more than the anti-apartheid movement did in 20 years and now included a boycott by the Trades Union Congress that covers some seven million workers and a cultural boycott by the likes of Meg Ryan, Roger Waters and The Pixies etc.
Even if his claims were true, surely the boycott movement would be even more successful if he was also boycotting Israel.
Barghouti would, no doubt, argue that he is effecting change from within Israel. He is part of “Boycott From Within”, but claimed repression is on the rise against Israeli citizens who support BDS, although, apparently, the Foreign Ministry recognises that Israel “will lose its last veneer of democracy in the West” should this continues.
He cited Ilan Baruch who resigned from foreign service claiming that Israel needs to study “the South African experience”. Baruch had, however, recently been turned down for the post of ambassador to Egypt.
Barghouti claimed that mainstream Israeli officials, and even Mossad, now think Israel is “a pariah”.
The main problem for BDS is that, as Barghouti stated, Israel’s economy is “triple A rated” and so the movement must go for strategic victories like those against Veolia, which is responsible for building transport links in Israel. He claimed Veolia had been trying to sell its share in the Jerusalem light railway project, but that there were no buyers.
But he did reveal doubts over the so-called Palestinian right of return. He questioned “whether it is feasible or not”, despite this being one of the three main objectives of the BDS movement!
In summary, Barghouti is taking the very best that Israel has to offer and is allowed to publicly air his criticisms while, hypocritically, denouncing Israel as being undemocratic and an apartheid state.
Israel feeds him, educates him, houses him, clothes him and looks after him medically, all while he attempts to destroy it from within.
Clare Short helping to rebuild a demolished Palestinian house in east Jerusalem in summer 2010 (clareshort.co.uk)
Monday night was AsaJews night out in London.
AsaJews tend to define their Judaism by their total opposition to Israel and preface their criticisms with “As a Jew….”
Last night former Labour MP Clare Short hosted Yahav Zohar, an Israeli Jew, and Julia Alfandari, a German Jew, in St Botolph’s Church , Bishopsgate.
The event was put on jointly by Greenbelt, Amos Trust and ICHAD (Israeli Committee Against House Demolitions).
A small audience of 30, decimated by the tube strike, was packed with members of jfjfp (Jews For Justice For Palestinians), including Glyn Secker, who captained the recent Jewish Boat to Gaza.
Yohav, who gives tours around Jerusalem, and Julia, who is studying at SOAS, belong to Young Jewish Voices for Peace.
Julia believes Israel is a fascist state “sometimes worse than apartheid South Africa, sometimes better than apartheid South Africa”.
She said that just like there shouldn’t be any Muslim states Israel shouldn’t be a Jewish one and she welcomed the growing Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.
She told us how the German Jewish community is quite conservative, that people are scared to speak out against Israel and that she is famous in Germany for her anti-Israel activism.
Yohav said that he never quite fitted in as a teenager and was always looking to rebel.
He feels there can be a two state solution because Israelis and Palestinians are very nationalistic. However, he hopes that the two states will eventually become one.
He also welcomed the growing BDS movement which, he hopes, will pressurise Israel to leave the West Bank and Mick Davis’ comments in the Jewish Chronicle which, he feels, will encourage diaspora Jews to speak out more against Israel.
Clare Short told us about her time spent during the summer helping to rebuild Palestinian homes. I cannot recall her helping to rebuild Israeli hotels or restaurants blown up by Hamas suicide bombers.
But for just £2000 Amost Trust will take you to Palestine next April so you too can help rebuild a Palestinian home.
On numerous occasions Short referred to Israel as an apartheid state. After the meeting I tried to explain to her the difference between Israel, which has to take severe security precautions, and apartheid South Africa.
But she kept quoting Ehud Olmert, Ehud Barak and Jimmy Carter, who all “said the same thing about Israeli apartheid”.
I explained Hamas’ expressed intention in their Charter to killing Jews.
But while Short can give you verbatim accounts of controversial comments by Israelis like Avigdor Lieberman she is conveniently ignorant about the wording of the Hamas Charter.
She thinks we should speak to Hamas like we spoke to the IRA and the South African apartheid government and hoped for a two state solution although “time is running out”.
Meanwhile, other AsaJews were speaking at Queen Mary College, London.
They were Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, a school-teacher, and Mike Cushman, of JBig (Jews For Boycotting Israeli Goods).
Naomi can regularly be found in supermarkets imploring shoppers not to buy Israeli products.
The most sinister aspect about this talk though was the letter sent by Queen Mary Palestine Society to Queen Mary Jewish Society:
Dear Members of the Jewish Society,
The Queen Mary Palestine Solidarity Society would like to invite you to an event we are holding on this coming monday. If you could send out this invite to your members that would be great, details of the event are below. Hopefully we will see some of you soon.
QM PSS EVENT 29/11/2010
Why Jews and all others should boycott Israel – two Jews speak out
Monday 29th November • 5pm – 7pm • David Sizer LT, FB ground floor
David Sizer LT, Francis Bancroft Building, Ground floor
The Palestinian call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel is gaining more and more support across the world and even within Israel!
SPEAKERS
Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi, Jews for Boycotting Israeli Goods (J-BIG) ~ Naomi Wimborne-Idrissi is a school teacher,former Reuters journalist and secretary of J-BIG.
Mike Cushman, British Committee for the Universities of Palestine (BRICUP) ~ active BRICUP committee member and a founding member of J-BIG. He has spoken and written extensively in support of Palestinian rights.
Naomi and Mike will discuss why support for BDS is important for Jews as well as all others. They will describe the history of Israel’s actions that makes this call both moral and essential. They will talk about how attempts to describe BDS as anti-Semitic are not only false but also put all Jews, supporters and opponents of Israel’s actions at risk. They will describe the different aspects of BDS activity including the academic, cultural and consumer boycotts and the need for institutional divestment.
Imagine for one moment that the nasty Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) supported by the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign and all of its supporters was a success. Israeli industry would be on the verge of bankruptcy and all of the innovations and inventions that are constantly discovered by Israeli scientists would not be discovered for lack of funding and investment.
Like, for example, the Camera in a Pill that travels through the digestive tract sending back photographs of the intestines in someone’s body. There is now no need to use cables that are passed into the digestive system through the nose or mouth and which would normally require a patient to be sedated. Patients can now carry on their normal lives while a diagnosis of their condition can take place. All they need do is swallow the “Camera Pill” which is then excreted out after the 24 to 48 hours that the pill takes to go through the digestive system.
You only have to glance briefly at www.israel21c.org to see the range of innovations produced by Israeli scientists that seek to improve people’s lives. The many innovations include using music therapy to help deaf and hearing-impaired toddlers, developing alternative energy sources such as solar and hydro power and an Iphone App for finding free Parking in New York.
Yet, a successful boycott, particularly an academic boycott, would stop all this development in its tracks. One of the main aims of the sanctions is to “cut off trade and investments“. If an academic boycott succeeded then Israeli scientists would not be able to consult with international scientists over crucial developments.
And then there is Haiti. It could not have escaped anyone’s notice that the reports on Sky and the BBC have focused mainly on the Israeli rescue team. The pictures and footage coming from this tragedy are too much to bear but Israel is doing its best to save those buried under the buildings and still just about alive.
As soon as the quake struck last tuesday Israel prepared to dispatch a 220 man team on two El Al planes. The entourage brought with them a field hospital that can serve 500 patients a day and includes 40 doctors, 25 nurses, a children’s ward and an intensive care unit.
Sanctions would have seriously reduced the effectiveness of Israel’s ability to save these lives. The rescue mission should impress on the Palestinians that Israel would go anywhere in the world to improve conditions and health, even as far as Gaza!
The Israeli, British and all the teams are heroes for putting their lives at risk by going into terribly insecure buildings which could collapse any moment especially if the expected aftershocks occur.
Even the church has not been immune from the ignorance. It recently divested from Caterpillar on the basis that Israel uses its bulldozes to demolish illegal Palestinian homes. The church made a recent ineffectual gesture by dumping its shares in Caterpillar even though Caterpillar could now be playing a crucial role in helping Israel’s rescue mission by using its equipment to move swathes of rubble to get to the dead and dying.
But even as Israel does good the anti-Israel brigade will again attempt stir up an audience against Israel. In London tomorrow night there is an anti-Israel meeting. It is at Conway Hall, Red Lion Square from 7pm till 9pm.
You would hope that for one night the whole event could be turned into a “Help Haiti” evening. The hostilities against Israel could be resumed once every thing has been done to rescue Haitians.
The combined passion, intelligence and power of these people could be used to such positve effect, instead it will be wasted as Israel once again becomes the target:
