Quick Comment on BDS

To remind ourselves:

a. The boycotting by Arabs as a weapon against Jews and Zionism began early during the Mandate period.

b. The boycott was directed not only against the idea and practice of Zionism but against Jews as Jews.

c. The boycott was not aimed specifically at an "occupation".

Examples:

1929

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Hilarious BDS Fail

You hopefully know about the Canada case, whereby a Jew has taken upon himself to effectively halt the import of Psagot Wines and other products that are produced in Judea and Samaria.

I mentioned it here, with a solution. The issue has been referred back to legal and political consultations which has angered the Pals.  Israellycool noted a problem with the Nadim Winery and it continues, as Daoud Kuttab has tweeted.

Read on, here:

‘PRODUCT OF PALESTINE WINE’ DELAYED 

IN ONTARIO OVER LABELLING

In a case of unexpected blowback, products from the Taybeh winery and Taybeh Brewing Co. in Ramallah are being withheld from shelves in Ontario, as officials work out whether they can be labelled as a “Product of Palestine.”
Taybeh products that have been delivered to Canada “are currently on hold due to uncertainty surrounding labelling of products from the Israeli-occupied West Bank,”...

 (and Haaretz did a story about the Nadim Winery two-and-a-hlaf years ago)

...In an Aug. 29 post on its website, Palestine Just Trade said the Liquor Control Board of Ontario’s (LCBO) World Destination Program arranged to include five “Nadim” wines from Taybeh and five varieties of Taybeh beer earlier this year – all labeled “Product of Palestine.” The products were ready for release in early August, when notification came that they were put on hold.

“… the LCBO informed Palestine Just Trade that ‘due to the recent decision by the Federal Court regarding labeling requirements for wines from this region, we have placed these products on hold,’ ” the group stated...

"...In an Aug. 28 letter to the president of the CFIA, Lascaris enclosed a certificate from the Palestinian Authority confirming that Taybeh is based in the West Bank city of Ramallah, “which is under the control of the Palestinian Authority. We can assure you that the Taybeh products that have been placed on hold have not been produced in any Israeli settlement.”

Lascaris also enclosed a list of 60 wines made in “the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan Heights or Israeli-occupied Palestinian territory” that are still sold in Canada, despite the Federal Court ruling.

“In our view, the manner in which the CFIA and LCBO are dealing with accurately labelled Taybeh products and falsely labelled products from Israeli settlements in occupied territory is plainly discriminatory,” Lascaris wrote.

Oh, well.

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Answering Barghouti

If I had any hope of having this letter to the editor of the NYTimes printed, I'd send it. 

Anyone who wants to adopt it with alterations, I welcome to try.

Send to: letters@nytimes.com

A phone number is requested.
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Omar Barghouti writes ("Views of a Founder of B.D.S." April 24), justifying his mislabeling of the Zionist movement as engaged in "colonialization", that it was Ze'ev Jabotiinsky who described in 1923 what Jews were doing in their national homeland as “Zionist colonization". That is a perversion of his language, his intent and his thinking.

That term, quite simply, was what was in popular use. No Jew ever thought, a century ago or a millenium ago, that returning and resettling the Land of Israel, home to the Jews which even the League of Nations gave "recognition...to the historical connection of the Jewish people with Palestine and to the grounds for reconstituting their national home in that country" was a foreign invasion. Indeed, that 1922 decision to award a Mandate to Great Britain did not mention the term "Arabs" but included all who lived there as "non-Jews", for Arabs were to have their Palestine state in Transjordan.

If anyone has colonized that territory, it was the Arabs who invaded and conquered the region in 638 CE.

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I Apologize to the Residents of Samaria

I didn't know until this Airbnb affair broke out, the delisting decision of accommodations in Judea and Samaria, that there was a Samaria Gorge National Park. 

In Crete.

I found that out by searching to see if indeed Judea and Samaria Jewish listings were delisted.

I hope they don't suffer due to geographical misunderstandings. I apologize.

There's a Bethlehem in Tauranga, New Zealand.  I hope they don't mixed up with the original in Judea.

There's a Shiloh, IL, USA.

In short, I want to express apologies to all those seeking guest rooms in places that can mistakenly be identified as in Judea and Samaria, the heartland of the Jewish people for over 3000 years, where there is a dispute which cause Airbnb to err by discriminating against the area (which they do not do in other areas of land disputes, as maybe it's a Jewish thing?).

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How To Solve the BDS Labeling Difficulty

You've read this?

Israeli farmers take fight against BDS to consumersThey plan to combat anti-Israel boycott efforts by more aggressively appealing to shoppers in Europe and America • Plan includes increasing product visibility, hosting public-opinion leaders in tours of Judea and Samaria, Golan and Jordan Valley.

My solution:

A previous 2009 idea.
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The Political Warfare of BDS

An extensive excerpt from an interview (thanks to BT) with with Jeffrey Herf, Distinguished Professor of History at the University of Maryland. His books include Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World, The Jewish Enemy: Nazi Propaganda during World War II and the Holocaust, Divided Memory: the Nazi Past and the Two Germanys, and Reactionary Modernism: Technology, Culture, and Politics in Weimar and the Third Reich with Alan Johnson, editor of Fathom:


AJ: What do you mean by the term political warfare?


JH: It’s a term that the British foreign office used in World War Two. Political warfare entails the specific use of propaganda to reinforce an ongoing armed attack. For example, East Germany and the Soviet Union were able to use the United Nations effectively to legitimatise their undeclared war on Israel, through dozens of UN General Assembly resolutions in the 1970s and 1980s in which East Germany played an important role.

Political warfare persists to this day in the Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement: never ever mention a terrorist attack on Israel, or, if there is an attack on Israeli citizens, refer to it as a form of ‘justified resistance’. Then, having refused to describe accurately the terrorist attack on Israel, focus instead on Israeli retaliation. And, because you have not discussed the previous terrorist attack, describe this Israeli retaliation as a form of ‘unjustified aggression’. All these rules were set down in this earlier period.

AJ: One fascinating part of the book examines how UN leaders, such as General Secretary Kurt Waldheim, ignored detailed reports from Israeli representatives about this political warfare campaign and about the Arab states’ armed attacks against Israel. Can you tell us about that?

JH: One of my great research discoveries was the extent of the UN’s bias, its unbalanced views and its indifference to attacks on Israel. The UN permits its members to send reports to the Secretary General and the President of the Security Council, which are then circulated to all members of the UN. Gideon Rafiah, Chaim Herzog, Yosef Tekoah and Yehuda Blum, all Israeli ambassadors to the UN during the 1960s and 1970s, made excellent use of this system by sending reports with details descriptions of the ongoing attacks on Israeli civilians to all member representatives to the UN. They are the most detailed record that we have, perhaps anywhere outside the Israeli archives, about the ongoing terrorist campaign that was being raged against Israel in those years. Yet the information in these reports was overwhelmingly ignored in the UN resolutions that were passed.

AJ: What was the response of the West to this undeclared war on Israel?

JH: The centrality of the US alliance to Israel’s security became obvious in the years following the Six-Day War and particularly during the Yom Kippur War in 1973. (Ironically, critically important American military assistance to Israel in 1973 came from US President Richard Nixon, who had minimal support among American Jews.) Over the course of Israel’s short history, when push came to shove, in the event of war and peace, Israel has had one ally with the will and ability to come to its defence – the US. At the UN , US Ambassadors Daniel Patrick Moynihan and Jeanne Kirkpatrick fought off waves of attacks on Zionism, vetoing many UN resolutions. But any hopes of Europe joining these US efforts were suppressed after the Oil Crisis, when the Europeans came under increasing pressure from the Arab states.

AJ: Having touched upon the what, I would like to now focus on the why. Why did East Germany wage this war against Israel? Was it a hangover of attitudes from the Nazi period? Was it about antisemitism? Was it more to do with developments in left-wing thought at the time? Or was it cynical geopolitics to keep the Arab states on side?

JH: The book is about the leadership of the East German government. I don’t know how ordinary people who were living in East Germany thought about Jews and Israel. The book is not about the aftereffects of Nazi Germany in the population of the 17 million or so people living in East Germany. Of course, for many of them, it would defy common sense to assume there was no after effect of Nazi propaganda. But the communists took the position that they did because they were communists. They were not Nazis. And I think this is important. The problem of the communists is not that they were like Nazis. It  is that they were communists. And it was as communists that they rejected Zionism. To them, Zionism was an  anachronism, a form of reactionary nationalism. Anti-Imperialist nationalism was fine but not Zionist nationalism.

So East Germany’s war against Israel was a matter of ideological conviction; they genuinely despised Zionism. But it was also a matter of power politics and strategic calculation – the two reinforced each other. The communists rejected Zionism as a form of nationalism and as a competitor to Marxism in some working class constituencies in Europe. And after the anti-Cosmopolitan purges of the 1950s, the decent, pro-Zionist left, vanished in the Communist world.

East Germany’s other reason to oppose Israel was to do with Cold War competition with West Germany, which was busy trying to isolate the East German government diplomatically. Bonn defined East Germany as illegitimate and threatened to cut off diplomatic and economic ties with all East Germany’s allies. This was called the Hallstein Doctrine. The primary goal of East German foreign policy was to counteract the Hallstein doctrine by establishing diplomatic and political relations with other countries outside the Soviet bloc. And how was this to be done? Otto Winzer, East Germany’s foreign minister in the 1960s, made the argument that the key to breaking the Hallstein Doctrine was to play the anti-Zionist card by siding with the anti-Zionist Arab states – and the Palestinians. The fruits of Winzer’s plan were seen in 1959 when Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Yemen and Libya all signed agreements to start diplomatic relations with East Germany, and each denounced Zionism.

The reinforcing interaction of those two components – power politics and ideology – accounts for the passion with which East Germany went along with Soviet policy against Israel. 

AJ: Today we find that ‘Holocaust Inversion’ – treating Zionism as the new Nazism, Israelis as the new Nazis, and so on – is spreading. Do its roots lie in this period? 

JH: Two Israeli historians, Meir Litvak and Esther Webman, wrote a book called From Empathy to Denial: Arab Responses to the Holocaust in which they point out that the idea of Israelis as the new Nazis has been a theme in Arab politics since the late 1940s and early 1950s. In this sense, the Stalinists took an idea that originated in the Middle East and spread it throughout all the communist movements in world politics. The Israeli-as-Nazi theme was enormously important because – and I made this point in Fathom about Ken Livingstone – what the communists accomplished by accusing the Israelis of being Nazis was to take the language of anti-fascism, ironically, and turn it against the Jews and against Israel. Of course, the Nazis despised Zionism and it is completely ridiculous to say the Nazis were in favour of Zionism. Anti-Zionism was a part of Nazi propaganda and Nazi policy.

This Nazi analogy broke into world politics in a very big way at the start of the Six-Day War in 1967 when the Soviet ambassador to the UN compared Israel’s air attack to the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941. The Soviet ambassador was associating the Soviet Union as a victim of Nazi Germany with the third world as the victim of British colonialism, manifested in the form of Zionism. This placement of the language of anti-fascism – which has enormous moral prestige around the world and in the British left and in the left of Western Europe and all over the world – into the discourse of the assault on Israel, was devastating. It was one of the greatest accomplishments of communist political warfare at the time, and it endures to this day in a variety of forms.

In Germany, of course, there was the added component of the Holocaust. Dieter Kunzelmann was a West German leftist who wrote an essay in 1969 about the need for the West German left to overcome what he called ‘the Jewish complex’. ‘The Jewish complex’, he wrote, stood in the way of making the revolution in West Germany because it burdened the left with so much guilt about the Holocaust that they were unable to make a revolution. To view Israelis as the new Nazis and the PLO as the new revolutionary brothers and victims of fascism, would unlock the path to revolution in West Germany. Kunzelmann’s essay was called ‘Shalom and Napalm’ and it was an important break with the West German government tradition of coming to terms with the Nazi past and remembering the Holocaust.

AJ: The use of the Nazi analogy is actually growing today in the UK.

JH: Well, I noticed in my research into this period that there are really no new ideas in the BDS movement. I read a review in the Times Literary Supplement a couple of months ago about the ‘new discourse’ of BDS. Actually, what’s really happened is the academicisation of an older discourse – the political warfare discourse of the Communists, the PLO and the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), and the UN anti-Israel resolutions of the 1970s. All that has now entered into universities.

AJ: You claim that East Germany pioneered a ‘Eurocentric definition of counterterrorism.’ What did that definition entail and how did it shape the UN’s attitude towards terrorism aimed at Israel?

JH: This is one the most interesting aspects of the book and it made me understand how complicated the world of intelligence is.

The Stasi, East Germany’s state intelligence service, had a serious problem. On the one hand, East Germany was the transit for young PLO members seeking military training and hoping to attack Jewish institutions in West Germany or Western Europe. East Germany had a reputation in the Middle East for being a supporter of the PLO and the Arab states in their wars with Israel. Young men, mostly, came from Beirut and Damascus and Cairo to the Soviet Bloc and to East Germany and received military training or university fellowships or they learnt German, or whatever. And then, they wanted to go to West Germany or West Berlin or Western Europe and attack the imperialists that were supporting Israel. Or they wanted to attack the Jewish institutions in West Germany.

On the other hand, the Stasi knew that if anybody travelled from East Berlin to West Berlin and committed a terrorist act, condemnation would inevitably and swiftly be placed at the doorstep of the East German government by the West’s security services. The Stasi understood that if this happened it was going to put détente at risk as well as the millions of deutschmarks that were coming to East Germany from West Germany.

So, the question was how to continue to support terrorism aimed at Western interests, and at Israel, but prevent terrorist attacks in West Germany. The Stasi tackled this problem by establishing a formal written relationship with the intelligence services of the PLO in order to locate and prevent the people who wanted to commit terrorist attacks in West Germany and Western Europe. Of course committing terrorist attacks anywhere else was encouraged – hence ‘the Eurocentric definition of counterterrorism.’

AJ: Was there opposition to the undeclared against Israel within East Germany itself?

JH: Within the Communist party after 1953, no. The last leading opponent of the East German communist party to oppose the undeclared war against Israel was Paul Merker. A non-Jewish member of the Communist Party politburo, Merker’s crime was to make the rational case that the communists – because they had fought against fascism and anti-Semitism in Europe – should be close allies with the new Jewish State, help fight anti-Semitism and the Arab governments who were attempting to destroy the Jewish state. Merker made these arguments in 1946 to the UN, as did Andrey Gromyko, the Soviet ambassador of the UN.

But with the beginning of the Cold War all of this became politically incorrect in the literal sense. Merker was an independent-minded communist, foolish enough to have put his brilliant views in print and therefore he could not deny it. Although Merker was one of the lucky victims of the anti-cosmopolitan purges not to be executed, his political career was effectively over. Most of the other people associated with support for Israel in the Communist Party left East Germany and went either to West Germany or other parts of the world. This was the moment when pro-Zionism ceased within the East German Communist Party.

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Seeking BDS Clarity

France led off a year and a half ago with secondary legislation against produce originating in Judea and Samaria:

An advisory notice on the French Government website said: "Under international law the Golan Heights and the West Bank, including east Jerusalem, are not part of Israel."
It said labelling goods simply as "from the West Bank" or "from Golan Heights" without providing more details is "not acceptable". Instead goods must be clearly marked as coming from an "Israeli settlement," when that is the case, to avoid "the risk of misleading the consumer". 

A question:

if Arabs produced the product, does it have have that added to the note? 

Or is it just a Jewish thing?

How misleading is to be tolerated?

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Canada Attempts to Halt Flow of Shiloh Wine

Shiloh is in the news, as is our wine [see Update below]:

LCBO CRACKS DOWN ON SALE OF ISRAELI WINESBy Ron Csillag, Staff Reporter -  July 13, 2017

In a replay of controversies seen in Europe, a federal agency in Canada has called for an end to the labelling of wine made in the West Bank as a “Product of Israel.”

The directive from the Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) came to light via the Liquor Control Board of Ontario (LCBO), which has asked its sacramental wine vendors to stop importing and selling wines labelled “Product of Israel” that are made in the West Bank and other “occupied” territories.

In a July 11 letter that lit up social media, the LCBO’s corporate affairs office requested that sacramental wine vendors – independent sellers who order wine used in religious ceremonies through the LCBO – stop any importation or sale of bottles labelled as a “Product of Israel” from two West Bank wineries, “or others located in the same region, until further notice.”

The LCBO says it is following a July 6 notification from the CFIA regarding products from the two Israeli wineries.

“The CFIA clarified that ‘Product of Israel’ would not be an acceptable country of origin declaration for wine products that have been made from grapes that are grown, fermented, processed, blended and finished in the West Bank and occupied territory,” states the letter to vendors from Vincent Caron, a policy advisor at the LCBO.

Named in the LCBO directive are the Psagot Winery in Psagot, north of Jerusalem, and the Shiloh Winery in Ma’ale Levona, a West Bank settlement southeast of Ariel.

Critics have angrily denounced the move as bowing to the international boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement against Israeli products made in lands captured in 1967.

Canadians for Justice & Peace in the Middle East, a pro-BDS group, has in the past placed stickers on Israeli wines, advising consumers not to purchase them.

The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs (CIJA) said it is “important to note that this does not appear to reflect government policy...”

The Friends of Simon Wiesenthal Center says it is contesting the move with both government bodies. “We consider any action which promotes the so-called BDS campaign against Israel as anti-Semitic. This would be out of step with the existing government policy, which has vigorously condemned the BDS campaign,” president and CEO Avi Benlolo said in a statement...

Yaakov Berg, Psagot Winery’s CEO, said he was “amazed” at Canada’s decision.

“We are living in Judea and Samaria by historic right,” Berg told the Times of Israel on July 12. “Canada, of all places, which was established and developed on basis of occupying and sacrificing the homeland of another people and which has no roots or historical validity to its existence there, doesn’t recognize the right of a Jew to live and cultivate vines on land inherited from his forefathers?”

I have been advised that

The legal basis of the LCBO's letter is mistaken. The non-recognition of sovereignty does not have any direct implications for labeling, or make labeling misleading. Indeed, a French appellate court and the UK Supreme Court have held that "Made in Israel" labeling for Judea & Samaria goods is not misleading under comparable labeling requirements. Thus the EU labels products from West Sahara "Made in Morocco" while not recognizing Moroccan sovereignty.

And

B'nai Brith Expects Disturbing Canadian Food Inspection Agency 

Decision Against Israeli Wines to Be Reversed Soon

UPDATE

The Canadian Food Inspection Agency (CFIA) regrets the outcome of the wine labelling assessment which led to the Liquor Control Board of Ontario's (LCBO) response regarding products from two wineries labelled as "Product of Israel".
In our assessment, we did not fully consider the Canada-Israel Free Trade Agreement (CIFTA).
Further clarification of the CIFTA (Article 1.4.1b) indicates that these wines adhere to the Agreement and therefore we can confirm that the products in question can be sold as currently labelled.
The CFIA will be following up with the LCBO to correct our original response.

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Don't Boycott This Shiloh Product

This product:

Sure Fit Shiloh Stretch Futon Slipcover

1 Piece slipcover

Description & Features Experience the depth and richness of Shiloh slipcovers. The soft and luxurious surface brings warmth and comfort to your room. Shiloh slipcovers create an elegant accent piece that transforms the look of your decor within seconds. 
Perfect for everyday living or special occasions, these stretch slipcovers go right over existing futon mattresses for an affordable, stylish update.

• 1-Piece form fit stretch futon cover 
• Durable fabric withstands activity from children and pets 
• Refreshes a room in seconds 
• Fits futon mattresses 75 in. length 54 in. wide and depth from 6 to 9 in.
• Made of 95% polyester, 5% spandex 
• Easy to install, remove and maintain 
• Machine washable

It is not manufactured in Shiloh, Mateh Binyamin, Israel.

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Dear Rabbi Cooper

A Rabbi David J. Cooper has published a piece entitled:

"I am a rabbi — but it may now be illegal for me to visit Israel

Rabbi Cooper has committed one error.

If it is a "may be", perhaps a vigorous review of the law and its exact meaning should have been his first responsibility?  Why leave your congregants and readers in doubt?  Either providing us with a 'yes' or a 'no' is your first job as a spiritual leader.

He writes that he prefers, at least "not knowingly", not

buying products from settlement industries in the West Bank...These words printed here may now possibly exclude me from visiting my beloved Israel..

Again, he leaves us with a doubt: "possibly exclude". 

What a Rabbi, sorry, Emeritus Rabbi as of last month.  What a flock of his in Piedmont, California.  Always in doubt. Always in a situation of a "may be".

Incidentally,

the ban applies to any foreigner “who knowingly issues a public call for boycotting Israel that, given the content of the call and the circumstances in which it was issued, has a reasonable possibility of leading to the imposition of a boycott – if the issuer was aware of this possibility.” It includes those who urge limiting boycotts to areas under Israeli control, such as the West Bank settlements.  Some backers of the bill say it would be used only against those active in organizations that support BDS, and would not block an individual for something she or he might once have said.

Of course, one need take his personal background into focus to understand his positions.

Throughout high school, college, law school and several years of practice as an attorney, David was involved in anti-war, anti-sexist, pro-LGBT and affirmative action struggles while becoming increasingly involved in the embryonic Jewish Renewal Movement.

Is his approach to such an agenda influenced by his Judaism, or the reverse: his Judaism is affected by a radical, progressive liberal menu?  And he has the chutzpa to employ the Megilla's “if you remain silent in this moment” verse to justify his position.

I just saw this article which deals with another issue entirely but still points toa problem: the weakness of liberal Rabbis adopting stands on issues that are inimical to Jews, in one form or another and in varying degrees.  In this Beinart age of watered-down Zionism, this Rabbis and others attempt to save themselves, just the opposite of the meaning of the verse he quotes.

They are in the radical camp and are afraid that too much Jewish nationalism will harm them, image-wise, social-wise, reputation-wise, financially or even physically.  The Arabs of Eretz-Yisrael lfor over 100 years have killed, maimed, raped, pillaged and torched Jews and their property but these Rabbis seek to embolden and strengthen the negative forces in the Arab conflict with Zionism.  They reward their violence because nothing the Arab terror does will halt these Rabbis' support for their cause.  But growing agricultural produce on Jewish land (if Rabbi Cooper can quote the Megilla, the books of the Bible should be enough of a proof who owns this land, no?), creating wine, manufacturing, together with local Arabs all sorts of things, and having local Arabs study at a university in Ariel, for example, is to be boycotted.

Rabbi Cooper, when did you last boycott a product of Arab Palestine?  

You are concerned with my supposed illegality and a law of the Knesset?

I am concerned at your lack of morality.

_____________

UPDATE

Just caught this:

A note from Rabbi Lerner:We at Beyt Tikkun have been struggling internally about how to deal with the Jewish violence and revenge that is part of the Purim story. We will be talking about it at our Shabbat morning service this coming Shabbat of Remembrance March 11 at 951 Cragmont Ave, Berkeley Ca. starting at 10:30 a.m.and followed by a veggie pot-luck (and then at 7 that night we will be joining the Aquarian Minyan for reading the Book of Esther and their Purim play which undoubtedly will deal with Trump (will he be the evil Haman or the buffoon kind Ahashverus?)The question we struggle with is: Should we boycott this holiday entirely? Is there a way to challenge its hurtful parts without discrediting the legitimate joy our people feels when it is saved from the intended violence against us?

And also read Liel's analysis here.  A portion:

I soon realized that while my colleagues would, if asked, go to great lengths to denounce anti-Semitism as vile, they had little patience for anyone, myself included, who believed that Jews were people who deserved basic rights. When I emailed a fellow professor and asked to participate in a weekend seminar she was organizing to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict—a subject I know a thing or two about—I was ignored, and eventually informed that the event was by invitation only, and that I wasn’t invited. It was, of course, dedicated to discussing the singling out of Israel for boycotts, divestments, and sanctions, a plot that would hardly benefit from the perspective of a proud Israeli-born Jew who insists his people have as much of a right to self-determination as everyone else in the world.
It was this kind of corrosive ideology—extolling the values of diversity while enforcing a crippling orthodoxy that had little patience for Jewish identity—that eventually drove me to get out of academia. It didn’t take long for me to learn the same lesson Chris does in the movie, namely that the point of this new strain of toxic liberalism isn’t really to help victims of racism or anti-Semitism or any other sort of discrimination; rather, it’s to reconfigure the identities of white people so that they may go on and enjoy the same exact comforts to which they’re accustomed. It’s the same prejudices wearing better clothes. And it works because it projects its disdain for the unruly lower orders onto poor whites—working stiffs like that hapless cop, schlubs who probably eat at Denny’s and listen to Toby Keith and vote for Donald Trump—while continuing to deny actual black people the right to cast themselves as the protagonists of their own dramas outside of the rigid scripts written for them by the white elite. The same is true for anti-Semitism, which the same elites can now project onto Israel: The Jewish State, our intellectual and moral betters insist, is the home of the bad Jews, murderous thugs who massacre innocent Palestinian babies and therefore can expect nothing less than the knife, the bomb, and the rocket, while the good Jews are those who nod in agreement, smile politely, think little, and say less.

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https://spectator.org/progressive-rabbis-naively-help-strengthen-the-real-alt-right/

France's Regulations Should Be Worded Exact & Correct

Here is a section of the new French regulations on goods produced in that part of the Land of Israel not yet under Israel's full sovereignty:

For products from the West Bank or the Golan Heights originating from settlements, a restriction to "product originating in the Golan Heights" or "product originating in the West Bank" is not acceptable. Although these expressions refer to the broad area or territory from which the product originates, the omission of additional geographical information to the effect that the product originates from Israeli settlements may mislead the consumer True origin of the product. In such cases it is necessary to add, in brackets, the expression "Israeli colony" or equivalent terms. Thus, expressions such as "product originating in the Golan Heights (Israeli colony)" or "products originating in the West Bank (Israeli colony)" may be used.

I was wondering: do products in that same geographical area but not produced in Jewish communities need to be registered/labeled as "hummus produced in Arab-occupied Samaria" or "olive oil originating in Arab-occupied Judea"?

The additional geographical information is that those areas, Samaria and Judaea, are the ones the United Nations used to describe the border of the Jewish and Aerab states to arise as a reult of the 1947 partition plan (which the Arabs rejected, launched a war of aggression and then had Jordan occupy and annex):

The boundary of the hill country of Samaria and Judea starts on the Jordan River at the Wadi Malih south-east of Beisan...

So, if the French want to be just and correct, let them employ the correct nomenclature and the genuine legal standing of the areas.

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Left/Liberal/Radical/Progressive Bias

Do you know what Left/Liberal/Radical/Progressive Bias if not racism is?

It's when CAIR's official spokesperson, who I heard now on CNN, the executive director of CAIR of Los Angeles, urges caution in guessing the suspects motive: "Is it work? Is it rage-related? Is it mental illness? Is it extreme ideology? We just don't know" and in the official press release contains this:

“We condemn this horrific and revolting attack and offer our heartfelt condolences to the families and loved ones of all those killed or injured,” said CAIR-LA Executive Director Hussam Ayloush. “The Muslim community stands shoulder to shoulder with our fellow Americans in repudiating any twisted mindset that would claim to justify such sickening acts of violence.”

and, on the other hand, those L/L/R/Ps blame all of Israel in their BDS campaiging - including a young teenager asking info on horses, sportsmen/women, wines, etc.

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Counter-Labeling Ideas Wanted

I think we could come up with ideas to counter the EU labeling campaign (although I think it might work in our favor: people will know where to find the better, healthier products).

How about labeling every street corner in Europe where a Jew was struck by an anti-Semite in the past 1000 years?

Anyone have other ideas?

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Scarlett Moves From A Horse to Asses

Scarlett Johansson politely declined an invitation to speak to the 14,000 people gathering here Sunday for the annual meeting of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac...She has to be in Paris to collect an honorary César film award, her publicist said...But the Hollywood actress will be at Aipac in spirit...Ms. Johansson has become a hero to pro-Israel activists — a living, breathing, deeply glamorous repudiation of the movement to boycott Israel.

My comment:- 

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Making Success Into Failure: Scarlett Is "Mackeyed"

The campaign, as far as I know at this writing, to dissuade Scarlett Johansson from participating in SodaStream's commercials is unsuccessful*.

So what does Robert Mackey, a non-supporter of Israel at The Lede blog of his at the New York Times, do to provide a negative spin?

Easy.  He writes this headline:

Scarlett Johansson’s Defense of SodaStream Factory 

in Occupied West Bank Fails to Sway Critics

Of course, the point could be, Robert, that either, or all together:

(a) those types of anti-Zionist critics could never be swayed

(b) that the point is freedom of expression

(c) that the critics are immoral no matter how much their politics are appreciated by you

(d) that who the hell cares about those critics anyway, if the product sells, it's a success.

Mackey staunchly notes that

The actress’s argument won her praise online from staunch defenders of Israel’s policies [as Scott Stringer, New York City’s comptroller - YM]

Why do Israeli defenders need to be described more than just being defenders?  And he adds 

Several critics of Israel’s settlement-building policy noted that Mr. Stringer’s comments seemed at odds with the long-held position of the United States government, which calls the movement of Israeli citizens into the occupied territory an obstacle to the creation of a viable Palestinian state.

Again, Mackey must include those less-than-numerous and who-cares-about-them "several critics" who deserve to be included in his post, who note that the comments "seem" to be "at odds with the long-held position of the United States government", a position which has nothing to do with the issue because a "position" isn't a law or legal judgment and in any case, the US is committed to recognizing a change on the ground which reflects the realities of ... Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, as well as the principle of Israel being a Jewish state:

The United States is strongly committed to Israel's security and well-being as a Jewish state...In light of new realities on the ground, including already existing major Israeli populations centers, it is unrealistic to expect that the outcome of final status negotiations will be a full and complete return to the armistice lines of 1949, and all previous efforts to negotiate a two-state solution have reached the same conclusion. It is realistic to expect that any final status agreement will only be achieved on the basis of mutually agreed changes that reflect these realities.

Blog +972 which represents radical, progressive viewpoints, and is standard reading for Mackey, is prominently quoted.  Rashid Khalidi and Diana Butto of the 'Palestinian Arab camp' and rabid Ben White and a mock ad are all included but no support is provided with a reasoned defense, other than her own statement and that Stringer tweet.

Not really a balanced post, Robert.  [UPDATE:  And your previous one was worse.  Unsubstantiated claims repeated without checking, piling on the anti disproportionately to the pro,and depending on politically-charged groups rather than an objective review]

Here's from Jonathan Tobin, however.  Maybe update from it?  There's more out there.  And now Michael Curtis, too.  And EOZ.

And what about the business pressure to censor the mention of Coke and Pepsi?  Not worthy of a side-bar?

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P. S.    Another Poster.

And this:

- The decision to locate SodaStream’s plant in this industrial park within the boundaries of the West Bank settlement Ma’ale Adumim did in fact predate Birnbaum’s arrival. It was a choice made by company founder Peter Weissburgh, back in the 1990’s
- Birnbaum said that its presence here is now a reality, and he won’t bow to political pressure to close it — even though the company is about to open a huge new plant in the Negev, within Israel’s internationally-recognized boundaries, which will replicate all functions of the West Bank plant, and dwarf it.
- The reason for staying is loyalty to approximately 500 Palestinians who are among the plant’s 1,300 employees, Birnbaum claimed. While other employees could relocate on the other side of the Green Line if the plant moved, the West Bank Palestinian workers could not, and would suffer financially, he argued.  “We will not throw our employees under the bus to promote anyone’s political agenda,” he said, adding that he “just can’t see how it would help the cause of the Palestinians if we fired them.”- But Birnbaum said that if a Palestinian state comes into being, as is the aim of current U.S.-brokered talks between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, SodaStream will also be happy to stay and pay its taxes to the new Palestinian state.  “We already have factories under the control of the Chinese, the Germans, the Americans and many other countries,” he said. “So what’s the problem to have a factory in the Palestinian state-to-be? We don’t give a hoot where the factory is going to be.”
- Birnbaum’s advisor, Maurice Silber, said that within the company “everybody is against the occupation.” But it does not follow, he said, that because SodaStream operates in an occupied area, it violates human rights. Eventually, he said, SodaStream could become the “seed of the future Palestinian economy.”

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My comments are up at The Lede:

Here and here.




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A Matter of Gradation

Substitute "anti-Israel BDS movement" for "Holocaust" and it still makes sense:

...issues of collaboration during the Holocaust. As you could hear from the lectures, this subject is a very complicated one. It involves more than just the collaboration of states, it involves more than just the collaboration of people who might have joined SS units from among the local population or people who might have been in the local police unit that participated in the crimes of the Nazi era and the murder of the Jews during the era of Nazi domination of Europe. The questions go right to the involvement of bureaucrats, the involvement of professionals, the involvement of individuals who for one reason or another were willing to participate in mass murder or to acquiesce in mass murder or to stand aside thinking that they were playing no role. But, of course, when crimes are being committed, when governments are engaging in the persecution of one group or another, people who stand aside are empowering the persecutors, empowering the perpetrators. To be a so-called bystander is not a neutral act. In fact it is enabling the killers to commit their crimes.

That was Paul Shapiro talking to Karl Pfeifer.  From here.


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