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BOYCOTT_WHILE_YOU_WAIT
August 15-17, 2014
Also posted to the dailykos:
http://www.dailykos.com/doomvox/
NOT_PRO_ISRAEL
(a) US public opinion is turning against
Israel's military actions.
(b) US politicians have not yet followed suit:
there are no candidates you can vote for
to oppose the occupation.
(c) But the boycott and divestiture movement
is doing well, and is something you can
do now.
What interests me personally about the Israel-Palestine issue
is that there's such a vast gap between reality and officially
acceptable Serious opinion. How does collective madness like
this develop-- and last for decades!-- and how can we recover
from it?
It's always encouraging to hear about Israelis speaking out
against their government's military actions, but I'm afraid we ref
can't expect the people of Israel as a whole to come to their
senses on this any time soon: too much blood has been spilled
for them to admit to themselves what they've done.
Look at how hard it is for the United States to come to grips
with the fact that the rationale for the invasion of Iraq was
so weak-- even the people who admit that they called it wrong
want to believe they were wrong for the right reasons. In
terms of strength of ideological commitment, Israel has it
even worse.
There is, however, a very rapid shift in public opinion taking
place in the United States:
A story by Aaron Blake, at the Washington Post "Young
Americans take a dim view of Israel’s actions", ref
July 29, 2014, discusses two polls, making the point
that young people in particular are opposed to Israel's
actions:
"A new Pew Research Center poll is the second in the past week
to show a huge generational split on the current conflict in
Gaza. While all age groups north of 30 years old clearly blame
Hamas more than Israel for the current violence, young adults
buck the trend in a big way. Among 18 to 29-year olds, 29
percent blame Israel more for the current wave of violence,
while 21 percent blame Hamas."
"Gallup asked Americans whether they thought Israel's recent
actions were justified. While older Americans clearly sided
with Israel, 18 to 29-year olds said by a two-to-one margin
(51-25) that its actions were unjustified."
A few years back, Norman G. Finkelstein discussed a similar
trend among young Jewish intellectuals, (from a description of ref
"Knowing Too Much" (2012), subtitled, "Why the American Jewish
Romance with Israel is Coming to an End":
"... the support of America Jews for Israel has begun
to fray. This erosion has been particularly marked
among younger members of the community. A 2010 Brandeis
University poll found that only about one quarter of
Jews aged under 40 today feel “very much” connected to
Israel."
So: the case against Israel's miltary actions is rapidly being
won in the hearts and minds of anyone who has either, but this
has not yet penetrated far into what we euphemistically call
the "mainstream" media, nor has it translated into a political ref
change. Tim Mak, at "The Daily Beast", ("Even Left-Wing
Politicians Can't Quit Israel", July 30, 2014) comments:
"Much of the American left is critical of Israel,
particularly since its incursion into Gaza. But in the
halls of Congress, even progressive Democrats beloved by
grassroots activists are loath to criticize the Jewish
State’s ongoing military offensive."
"A Pew Research Center poll released Monday showed that a
plurality of Democrats across the country, 35 percent, and
liberals, 44 percent, said that Israel had 'gone too far'
in its response to its conflict with Hamas. Meanwhile 47
percent of Democrats told Gallup that Israel’s actions
during the current conflict were 'unjustified,' compared
to just 31 percent who thought the opposite."
"But these opinions are nearly impossible to find in Congress."
He makes the point that even the likes of Bernie Sanders refuses
to speak out against Israel, and indeed whenever the subject has
come before Congress, they fall over themselves to show support
for Israel.
So, we're not going to solve this just with some more Democrats.
It may require some better Democrats... and clearly Hillary
Clinton does not count as a better Democrat: In that
infamous interview in the Atlantic she engaged in some
terrible hair-splitting defenses of Israel's actions
(they weren't bombing a UN school, it was just the *annex*).
In the meantime, I suggest that the divesture movement is an
excellent way to attack this issue.
Boycotts are good ways to channel growing public
indignation-- the winner-take-all nature of our
democratic institutions necessarily dilutes the force
of public opinion on an issue until you have at least
half (and probably more) of the people on your side.
Even just the discussions that accompany a divestiture
movement are extremely important-- it always seemed to
me that the divesture movement against South African
Apartheid was most effective as a publicity campaign,
even more so than through it's economic effects.
So, some resources on that front:
This is a really fascinating site by the Palestinian
BDS National Committee (BNC), with a lot of in-depth
coverage of Israel-Palestine, in general:
http://www.bdsmovement.net
This site has a nice, easy-to-grasp display
of some boycott targets:
http://www.endtheoccupation.org
And from a story from Aljazeera, by Patricia Sabga, August
13, 2014, "Campaign to boycott Israel gains ground":
ref
On July 8, 2014, the day Israel launched its most
recent Gaza offensive, “Long Live Palestine boycott
Israel”, a Buycott app campaign that helps consumers
avoid purchasing products seen to profit from Israel’s
occupation of Palestinian lands, had attracted a mere
470 supporters. A little over a month later, with the
Palestinian death toll creeping toward 2,000, and
horrific images of dead and maimed Palestinians
filling mainstream and social media platforms, “Long
Live Palestine boycott Israel” had surpassed a
quarter-million followers, making it the fastest
growing campaign on Buycott’s platform.
Launched in 2005 by Palestinian groups frustrated by
the failure of Western governments to persuade Israel
to tear down the West Bank barrier (deemed illegal by
the International Criminal Court), the BDS movement
harnesses citizen power to advance its goals. “It’s a
way to put pressure on the Israeli government, similar
to the South African anti-apartheid movement, when
governments have been unwilling to do so, like our
government has,” said Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive
director of Jewish Voice for Peace, a nonprofit that
spearheaded the US-based BDS coalition We Divest.
The Buycott mentioned in the story: Buycott
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