"....so that no one could buy or sell unless he had the mark, which is the name of the beast or the number of his name." Revelation 13:17

Boycotts against Israel

Academics, professors, and the other participants of Israel Apartheid Week are working hard to get bring down Israel economically by a practical campaign, which known as B.D.S.

Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions.

The aim is to bring Israel to its knees economically, by stopping consumers buying products originating in Israel.

The cause is popular on campuses and with leftist activists.

Activities include invading supermarkets to make a noisy protest and remove Israeli products from the shelves. Personally, I see this as illegal activity against the shops but not much action appears to have been taken.

Interestingly the Buycott campaign (Note carefully the spelling) has turned the situation against the activists and resulted in increased sales of Israeli goods due to good people turning out to buy Israeli goods in defiance of the anti-Israel activists. However, the campaign is still a poisonous influence in free countries.

 

Boycotts within Judea & Samaria

A Palestinian from Bethlehem was arrested and charged with "carrying out commercial transactions with residents of a hostile state." His purported crime was purchasing wood products from an Israeli community located beyond the 1949 armistice lines.

This man's arrest is part of what the unelected, U.S.-supported Palestinian Prime Minister Salam Fayyad has touted as his "National Honor Fund." The goal of this project is to ban all economic contact between Palestinians and Jews who live and work beyond the 1949 armistice lines.

Speaking to The Jerusalem Post, Palestinian Labor Minister Ahmed Majdalani said the PA hopes that by the end of the year all the thousands of Palestinians who are employed in Israeli communities in Judea and Samaria will quit their jobs. What he didn't mention is that if they don't quit, they will be arrested.

 

 

 

Doing Boycotts properly

It should be pointed out that carrying out a proper and comprehensive boycott of Israel is more difficult and costly than most activists realise.... A humourous video on YouTube explained this, but is no longer available.. It challenged the boycotters over all the inventions and medical discoveries they would have to manage without to boycott Israel properly - like no mobile 'phones.

Seriously, Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaigns have much darker and more sinister implications, as pointed out in a recent Israel Today article.

On April 1", 1933, the Nazi persecution of the Jews in Germany began with the call for an economic boycott. The pattern was the same everywhere. Uniformed Nazi activists stood in front of Jewish shops and businesses, preventing customers from entering. Storefronts were marked with the word "JEW," the Star of David, and posters bearing the words, "Germans! Resist! Do not buy from Jews!" This appeal was the trigger for the annihilation of 6 million Jews.

Nazi stormtroopers bar the Berlin entrance to a Jewish shop. Their signs read: "Germans, defend yourselves against the Jewish atrocity propaganda, buy only at German shops!" and "Germans, defend yourselves, buy only at German shops!" (1933)
[Photo Credit: U.S. National Archives, William Blye Collection]

April 1 1933 in Germany is similar to what took place on a global scale at the annual Israeli Apartheid Week in March 2010. In 40 cities around the world, crowds paraded through the streets, burned Israeli flags, and called on the world to boycott Israeli products, academics, universities and research institutes. This is the latest version of Hitler's "Don't buy from Jews!"

Israel Today pointed out that such a boycott, driven by pro Muslim forces, will extend to Christians sooner or later.

What happened next? See Holocaust.

Do a Google Image search on "Boycott Israel" and you will see a multitude of clever and/or emotive images that will get people all fired up with loathing for Israel, but they are all based on false accusations (blood libels). You will need to be very well informed to be able to answer these lurid accusations.

What can I do about BDS?

There are practical resources with ideas for understanding and challenging this Bullying, Delegitimisation and Sabotage.

Very helpful web site about BDS - . http://www.ngo-monitor.org/bds/

 

To combat Apartheid Week by detailing sources of delegitimization campaigns.

www.stopbds.com  

www.standwithus.com/BDS/

Engage - http://engageonline.wordpress.com

Divest This ( www.divestthis.com ) offers this guide, written by Jon Haber and serves up a regular, cogent critique of the BDS campaign. It distills into a few really readable pages key arguments, history and resources for understanding the true nature of BDS and how best to combat it.

Then there is the Buycott approach

Go and make a point of buying Israeli goods where the BDS people are promoting a boycott.

Beyond Boycotts

This is from one of many pages on http://www.ism-london.org.uk/107 boasting how their activists have been blockading the Ahava store in London's Covent garden, using intimidating and even illegal tactics to prevent lawful trade.

"ISM activists participated in an action to shut down an Ahava store in Covent Garden on Saturday January 10th, timed to coincide with the national demo in London.

Ahava, an Israeli cosmetics company, sells produce from apartheid settlements in the West Bank (all Israeli settlements are illegal under international law).

The shop was closed from 11am, and the police didn’t managed to remove the activists from the shop until 4.30pm, they shop was forced to close for the duration of the action. Three activists were arrested and, as they refused to give their names to police, only to a judge, have skipped the police bail stage of the legal process and have already been charged with aggravated trespass."

Members of the Zionist Federation have attempted to make a presence outside the Ahava shop to explain the error of the ISM action. ISM have described them as racists!

Apparently the EDL has also staged a counter demonstration; which hardly helps.

The only line of opposition appears to be to make a point of buying Ahava products in defiance of these ignorant, intimidating and self righteous activists!

( ISM London is a group of activists in London and around the UK volunteering with the International Solidarity Movement in Palestine. )

The BDS movement does not always win

Scarlett Johansson - Oxfam - SodaStream

When the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement launched its latest campaign against SodaStream, it never could have imagined the level of defeat it would suffer in the process. Instead of drawing attention to Israeli abuses of Palestinians, the BDS campaign generated discussions about just the opposite – that Palestinians actually benefit from the economic cooperation generated by companies like SodaStream.

In the process, the BDS managed to bring into question one of the sacred cows of the movement – that settlements are the “obstacle to peace” in the region. A reasonable person following the news might conclude that the real obstacle is the sort of blanket boycotting advocated by the BDS.

The SodaStream CEO Daniel Birnbaum told reporters he was keeping the factory in Ma’ale Adumim open out of loyalty to the hundreds of Palestinians who work there. If he moved inside the Green Line, as the BDS demands, the workers would lose their jobs.

“I just can’t see how it would help the cause of the Palestinians if we fired them,” he told The Forward.

The BDS has targeted SodaStream for years because of its production plant near Ma’ale Adumim, just over the Green Line. But the campaign kicked into first gear a few weeks ago when SodaStream announced that Hollywood starlet Scarlett Johansson would be its first “brand ambassador.”

But the Johansson-SodaStream partnership proved superior in the sort of tactics the BDS has used effectively in the past – setting the terms of debate for its own agenda.

After being attacked for associating with SodaStream, Johansson issued a carefully crafted statement lauding SodaStream’s labor practices:

SodaStream is a company that is not only committed to the environment but to building a bridge to peace between Israel and Palestine, supporting neighbors working alongside each other, receiving equal pay, equal benefits and equal rights.

That is what is happening in their Ma’ale Adumim factory every working day.

The message had already shown resonance with the public. When BDS attempted to counter the claims with reports from Palestinians workers that the conditions at the plant were not as strong as the company presented, the media investigated. The Christian Science Monitor, for example, discovered something interesting:

Those most familiar with the factory – Palestinians who work there – largely side with Ms. Johansson.

“Before boycotting, they should think of the workers who are going to suffer,” says a young man shivering in the pre-dawn darkness in Azzariah, a West Bank town cut off from work opportunities in Jerusalem by the concrete Israeli separation wall. Previously, he earned 20 shekels ($6) a day plucking and cleaning chickens; now he makes nearly 10 times that at SodaStream, which also provides transportation, breakfast, and lunch.

Others joined in. Philadelphia Daily News columnist Stu Bykofsky wrote, “BDS claims it wants only what’s good for the Palestinians, no matter how many of them it has to hurt.”

The message is clear: boycotting a company like SodaStream has real impact on the Palestinians.Calling a company like SodaStream a negative element that needs to be boycotted is a myopic viewpoint that people are starting to see through.

And that’s the real problem with the entire Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement. It seeks only to destroy, without concern for the human consequences. And ultimately, nothing good is going to come from that.

(Some YouTube videos previously embedded here have been taken down for copyright reasons)

Updated 06/02/14