A Zionist case for boycotting Israel

Share:
An Israeli soldier detains a Palestinian boy during a protest in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh in August. (Mohamad Torokman/Reuters)
An Israeli soldier detains a Palestinian boy during a protest in the West Bank village of Nabi Saleh in August. (Mohamad Torokman/Reuters)

By Steven Levitsky and Glen Weyl

We are lifelong Zionists. Like other progressive Jews, our support for Israel has been founded on two convictions: first, that a state was necessary to protect our people from future disaster; and second, that any Jewish state would be democratic, embracing the values of universal human rights that many took as a lesson of the Holocaust. Undemocratic measures undertaken in pursuit of Israel’s survival, such as the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza and the denial of basic rights to Palestinians living there, were understood to be temporary.

But we must face reality: The occupation has become permanent. Nearly half a century after the Six-Day War, Israel is settling into the apartheid-like regime against which many of its former leaders warned. The settler population in the West Bank has grown 30-fold, from about 12,000 in 1980 to 389,000 today. The West Bank is increasingly treated as part of Israel, with the green line demarcating the occupied territories erased from many maps. Israeli President Reuven Rivlin declared recently that control over the West Bank is “not a matter of political debate. It is a basic fact of modern Zionism.”

This “basic fact” poses an ethical dilemma for American Jews: Can we continue to embrace a state that permanently denies basic rights to another people? Yet it also poses a problem from a Zionist perspective: Israel has embarked on a path that threatens its very existence.

As happened in the cases of Rhodesia and South Africa, Israel’s permanent subjugation of Palestinians will inevitably isolate it from Western democracies. Not only is European support for Israel waning, but also U.S. public opinion — once seemingly rock solid — has begun to shift as well, especially among millennials. International pariah status is hardly a recipe for Israel’s survival.

At home, the occupation is exacerbating demographic pressures that threaten to tear Israeli society apart. The growth of the settler and ultra-orthodox populations has stoked Jewish chauvinism and further alienated the growing Arab population. Divided into increasingly irreconcilable communities, Israel risks losing the minimum of mutual tolerance that is necessary for any democratic society. In such a context, violence like the recent wave of attacksin Jerusalem and the West Bank is virtually bound to become normal.

Israeli policemen patrol a street in the Arab east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabel Mukaber following clashes in Jerusalem  September 18, 2015. Israel deployed hundreds of extra police around the Old City of Jerusalem on Friday after Palestinian leaders called for a 'day of rage' to protest at new Israeli security measures. In an effort to limit the threat of violence, Israel also banned access to al-Aqsa for all men under 40 on Friday, the Muslim holy day. REUTERS/Ammar Awad - RTS1S1V
Israeli policemen patrol a street in the Arab east Jerusalem neighbourhood of Jabel Mukaber following clashes in Jerusalem September 18, 2015. Israel deployed hundreds of extra police around the Old City of Jerusalem on Friday after Palestinian leaders called for a ‘day of rage’ to protest at new Israeli security measures. In an effort to limit the threat of violence, Israel also banned access to al-Aqsa for all men under 40 on Friday, the Muslim holy day. REUTERS/Ammar Awad – RTS1S1V

Finally, occupation threatens the security it was meant to ensure. Israel’s security situation has changed dramatically since the 1967 and 1973 wars. Peace with Egypt and Jordan, the weakening of Iraq and Syria, and Israel’s now-overwhelming military superiority — including its (undeclared) nuclear deterrent — have ended any existential threat posed by its Arab neighbors. Even a Hamas-led Palestinian state could not destroy Israel. As six former directors of Israel’s internal security service, Shin Bet, argued in the 2012 documentary “The Gatekeepers,” it is the occupation itself that truly threatens Israel’s long-term security: Occupation forces Israel into asymmetric warfare that erodes its international standing, limits its ability to forge regional alliances against sectarian extremists and, crucially, remains the principal motive behind Palestinian violence.

In making the occupation permanent, Israel’s leaders are undermining their state’s viability. Unfortunately, domestic movements to avert that fate have withered. Thanks to an economic boom and the temporary security provided by the West Bank barrier and the Iron Dome missile defense system, much of Israel’s secular Zionist majority feels no need to take the difficult steps required for a durable peace, such as evicting their countrymen from West Bank settlements and acknowledging the moral stain of the suffering Israel has caused to so many Palestinians.

We are at a critical juncture. Settlement growth and demographic trends will soon overwhelm Israel’s ability to change course. For years, we have supported Israeli governments — even those we strongly disagreed with — in the belief that a secure Israel would act to defend its own long-term interests. That strategy has failed. Israel’s supporters have, tragically, become its enablers. Today, there is no realistic prospect of Israel making the hard choices necessary to ensure its survival as a democratic state in the absence of outside pressure.

For supporters of Israel like us, all viable forms of pressure are painful. The only tools that could plausibly shape Israeli strategic calculations are a withdrawal of U.S. aid and diplomatic support, and boycotts of and divestitures from the Israeli economy. Boycotting only goods produced in settlements would not have sufficient impact to induce Israelis to rethink the status quo.

It is thus, reluctantly but resolutely, that we are refusing to travel to Israel, boycotting products produced there and calling on our universities to divest and our elected representatives to withdraw aid to Israel. Until Israel seriously engages with a peace process that either establishes a sovereign Palestinian state or grants full democratic citizenship to Palestinians living in a single state, we cannot continue to subsidize governments whose actions threaten Israel’s long-term survival.

Israel, of course, is hardly the world’s worst human rights violator. Doesn’t boycotting Israel but not other rights-violating states constitute a double standard? It does. We love Israel, and we are deeply concerned for its survival. We do not feel equally invested in the fate of other states.

Unlike internationally isolated states such as North Korea and Syria, Israel could be significantly affected by a boycott. The Israeli government could not sustain its foolish course without massive U.S. aid, investment, commerce, and moral and diplomatic support.
We recognize that some boycott advocates are driven by opposition to (and even hatred of) Israel. Our motivation is precisely the opposite: love for Israel and a desire to save it.

Repulsed by the Afrikaners’ ethno-religious fanaticism in South Africa, Zionism founder Theodore Herzl wrote, “We don’t want a Boer state, but a Venice.” American Zionists must act to pressure Israel to preserve Herzl’s vision — and to save itself.

Steven Levitsky is a professor of government at Harvard University. Glen Weyl is an assistant professor of economics and law at the University of Chicago.

THE WASHINGTON POST

Share:

Comments

127 responses to “A Zionist case for boycotting Israel”

  1. Maborlz Ez-Hari Avatar
    Maborlz Ez-Hari

    Interesting article from yalibnan for once.

    1. And yet you’ve been coming here for years.

      1. Maborlz Ez-Hari Avatar
        Maborlz Ez-Hari

        I’m not here for the articles I’m here for some pig.

  2. David Sherman Avatar
    David Sherman

    The authors miss two basic points.

    The first is that there is no possible option in the near or middle term of a Palestinian state next door to Israel that will not threaten Israel and make normal life impossible. This has been conclusively demonstrated with Gaza.

    if Israel turns over land to a “Palestine”, such country will immediately be taken over by some combination of Hamas or ISIS or equivalent, and will shoot rockets and worse into Israel from right next door. Ben Gurion Airport will be unable to operate, and Israel will not be able to continue to function.

    Yes, discrimination against Palestinian Arabs, in the sense of not allowing them to have their own country, is not a good thing to have. But when the alternative is utter destruction and a repeat of what’s going on today in Syria or Iraq or Gaza, it’s better than the alternatives. Palestinian Arabs in the West Bank today are far better off than they are in Syria.

    Second, the settlements are the RESULT of ongoing Arab and Palestinian rejection of Israel’s existence, not the cause of it.

    The author are allowing Arab rejectionism to define Israel’s morality. Consider this: there is NOTHING wrong with Jews living in a possible future Arab Palestine, anything more than there is anything wrong with Arabs living in Israel. A future Arab Palestine should be a peaceful society like Canada in which Jews should be able to live peacefully with full rights, just as they do in Canada.

    What, it won’t be a civilized country? That’s no Israel’s fault.

    The real reason the “settlements” are objectionable is that Arabs want their future state to be Judenrein — as empty of Jews as Hitler wanted Europe to be. Is that a basis for boycotting Israel?

    Shame on supposed “Zionists” who seek no changes from the Palestinians, and use the Palestinians’ hate of Jews to judge Israel.

    I welcome a public response from the authors.

    1. David Sherman Avatar
      David Sherman

      In addition: a very significant majority of Palestinians have been raised with such hate and lies over the past decades that they do not accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, and are seeking a state not to live next door to Israel but as a base from which to seek to destroy it. And the Palestinian leadership follows this route. There’s no scope for peace until the incitement and teaching of hate stops, and Palestinians as a society recognize the Jewish historical connection to the land of Israel which they currently deny (even though 100 years ago it was never questioned).

      Israel has offered the Palestinians a state several times, but all such offers were rejected because they would require acceptance of Israel as a permanent, Jewish state.

      1. man-o-war Avatar

        “a very significant majority of Palestinians have been raised with such hate and lies over the past decades that they do not accept the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, and are seeking a state not to live next door to Israel but as a base from which to seek to destroy it.”

        Thats quite the assumption you make there, you have any proof to back up that outlandish statement? I’d like to know how you know what the “significant majority of Palestinians” think and feel.

        I guess I can easily say the same about some Israelis and definitely a “significant majority” of the illegal settlers occupying the West Bank.

        1. 1st, there is evidence that a substantial majority of Palestinians hold anti-Semitic views. According to a global survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League across 100 countries and territories (in 2014), the Middle East is far and away the most anti-Semitic region on earth; in particular, 93% of Palestinians anti-Semitic beliefs. (Interestingly, Muslims living outside of the Middle East and North Africa tend to be less anti-Semitic than the overall global average.)

          2ndly, concerning Palestinian views about acceptance of Israel as a Jewish state, a recent survey of Palestinian attitudes (June 2015) asked participants both in the WB and Gaza to select among three choices: reclaiming all of historic Palestine; a two-state solution; and one-state solution in which Jews and Arabs have equal rights. In the WB, 41% opted for reclaiming all of Palestine, 29% for two-states, and 18% for one-state with equal rights. In Gaza, the percentages were 50%, 44%, and 5%, respectively,

          The survey was conducted by the Palestine Center for Public Opinion in the West Bank and Gaza from June 7 to 19 and was based on personal interviews with a representative, geographic probability sample of 504 West Bankers and 413 Gazans, yielding a statistical margin of error of approximately 4.5 percent in each area.

          This seems to back up Mr Sherman’s claim.

          Let me comment as well on man-o-war’s claim that Israel did not give Gaza a fighting chance. “They set them up to become what it has become today. Instantly blockading them and essentially creating an open air prison.”

          If man-o-war checks the historical record, he (or she) will see that this is false. The blockade came after rocket attacks, not before. The open air prison claim is also nonsense.

          Little reflection is required to see that it is very much in Israel’s interests for Gaza to become an economically prosperous region–so long as it does not constitute a security threat to the residents of Israel. The problem is that Hamas is more interested in harrying the residents of southern Israel than it is in the prosperity of Gazans. (See. e.g., the fate of the greenhouses that Israel bequeathed to the Gazans.)

          1. David Sherman Avatar
            David Sherman

            Furthermore, Israel is an open society with a free press, rule of law, civil rights, freedom of religiion and Western values, while Hamas controls an Islamic society with none of those freedoms or rights. In any conflict to find the truth, who is more believable?

            If one wants to verify Israeli Jewish attitudes towards Gaza — and remembering that these are the same people who form the army — it’s trivial to do so, and the message is consistent: “We just want Gaza to leave us alone and stop shooting rockets at our children, and we’ll be delighted if they express peace and want to grow — we’ll be happy to support them in doing so.” Israel has ZERO interest in “imprisoning” or doing harm to Gazans, other than to stop them from maiming and killing Israelis.

            It’s sad that so many people in the West can’t see this obvious truth. People who understand that Islamist ISIS is evil and destructive can’t see the same for Islamist Hamas. (Would you want to live under Hamas, man-o-war? Or freely with full freedom of religion, freedom of speech and many other basic freedoms under Israel?)

          2. Why did Israel withdraw from Gaza but not the West Bank?

          3. David Sherman Avatar
            David Sherman

            To let the Palestinians demonstrate that they could be trusted with a state of their own. They demonstrated that they can’t. Instead of building Gaza into a flourishing state, they used it to launch rockets against Israel. How can Israel possibly vacate the West Bank now and commit national suicide?

            israel took strong measures to withdraw from Gaza: it forced out 8,000 Jews who were living in communities there, some for over 30 years. It did this in the hope of peace; instead, it got rockets. It won’t make the same mistake again. Until there’s a genuine willingness on the Palestinians’ part to accept Israel’s existence, it can’t happen.

          4. “To let the Palestinians demonstrate that they could be trusted with a state of their own”

            LOL I call BS!
            How does that even make sense while you are still occupying and colonising the rest of their land, ie: West Bank?

            Is gaza not considered part of “historical Israel”?

          5. 5thDrawer Avatar

            Nope. It’s Egypt, as he said… But leaving it, and then denying it any soda-pop, sure can make a problem. 😉
            People in the “West” Banks get the pop .. they just can’t drive much.
            (yes, that should be plural)

          6. Whoever decided on that list must be very vindictive and purely evil.

          7. And there is a reason I asked him why evacuate only from gaza. Be patient.

          8. 5thDrawer Avatar

            Oh .. I understand … it’s harder to throw rockets up to the mount from Gaza, but easier to thrown them down to the mount from the high banks. (Sort of a Physics thing …)
            The views looking over Jordan are better too.

          9. “West banks”

            Lol it actually is a good one.

          10. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            Israel never really left Gaza and is still in complete control.
            Israel created Hamas and built it up in order to competeas a rival to PLO whom they considered the greater enemy.
            Hamas gives Israel the great excuse to continually *defend* itself, thereby preventing Palestinian rights and a state, and gaining more land and water for

            At the time (2004-2005), it was before the elections that were held in the PNA (2006, where Hamas won), so the PNA was still in control.
            It was also before the military coup against Fatah (2007), so Fatah was still in control.

            The US demanded Palestinians hold Democratic elections, they voted for Hamas.
            They didn’t expect it.

          11. “Israel created Hamas and built it up in order to competeas a rival to PLO ”

            Is this the same Hamas that Iran funds and provides weapons to?

          12. man-o-war Avatar

            This is just simply Israeli fantasy they’ve been trying to feed the rest of the world. In my opinion, they left Gaza and sealed the borders knowing damn well that Hamas was going to take over. They wanted Hamas in control, that way they could use this line forever and ever, “Instead of building Gaza into a flourishing state, they used it to launch rockets against Israel. How can Israel possibly vacate the West Bank now and commit national suicide?”

            If it was a goodwill gesture, why not allow the fisherman to fish the sea off the coast? Why destroy the 300 hundred settler homes and destroy the greenhouses? Why allow them to farm, but not export their crops? Why not allow Egypt to open their side of the border?

            Done! How can anyone question the continued land grab and occupation? How can anyone ask Israel to find a two state solution?

          13. “They wanted Hamas in control, that way they could use this line forever and ever”

            So that’s where Assad got his idea from.

          14. man-o-war Avatar

            Different situation completely, but yeah I guess you could say that he is using ISIS to justify he’s continued offensive against more moderate groups.

          15. “Israel has ZERO interest in “imprisoning” or doing harm to Gazans,”

            That’s not how it looks to the informed outsiders. The following is just one of the examples.

            “Partial list of major attacks against Palestinian fishermen (September 2008 – December 2010)”

            http://fishingunderfire.blogspot.com.au/p/blog-page.html?m=1

          16. 5thDrawer Avatar

            I doubt there’s a need to ask that. We know what we prefer to have, and Autocracy isn’t it. And in a ‘democracy’ we ascribe to some ideals on freedoms and equality. As you do too. The real TRICK of ‘the people’ is in actually having those.

          17. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            Mister Sherman.. “Israel is an open society with a free press, rule of law, civil rights, freedom of religiion and Western values,”?

            Freedom of religiion and Western values are exemplar:
            -The effectiveness of the pro-Israel lobby to intimidate our press has reached new heights

            http://mondoweiss.net/2015/10/effectiveness-intimidate-reached?utm_source=Mondoweiss+List&utm_campaign=c8c8302d90-RSS_EMAIL_CAMPAIGN&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_b86

          18. man-o-war Avatar

            “1st, there is evidence that a substantial majority of Palestinians hold anti-Semitic views. According to a global survey conducted by the Anti-Defamation League across 100 countries and territories (in 2014), the Middle East is far and away the most anti-Semitic region on earth; in particular, 93% of Palestinians hold anti-Semitic beliefs. (Interestingly, Muslims living outside of the Middle East and North Africa tend to be less anti-Semitic than the overall global average.)”

            Straight up garbage!! ADL put this out, lol. What is considered anti-semitic anyway? ADL is the protection and strike force for Israeli interests in the US. They don’t hesitate to scream anti-semitism. You can’t even criticize Israeli actions or you get labeled anti-Semitic and they try to tarnish your reputation. Are you surprised by the findings of the ADL sponsored survey? LOL, give me a break

          19. LOLLLLLL

          20. man-o-war Avatar

            “A widespread opinion has it that Israel left Gazans with a generous endowment consisting of a rich infrastructure of greenhouses to assist their economic regrowth, and that this was immediately destroyed by the Palestinians.[41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48] Two months prior to the withdrawal, half of the 21 settlements’ greenhouses, spreading over 1,000 acres, had been dismantled by their owners, leaving the remainder on 500 acres, placing its business viability on a weak footing. International bodies, and pressure from James Wolfensohn, Middle East envoy of the Quartet, who gave $500,000 of his own money, offered incentives for the rest to be left to the Palestinians of Gaza. An agreement was reached with Israel under international law to destroy the settlers’ houses and shift the rubble to Egypt. The disposal of asbestos presented a particular problem: some 60,000 truckloads of rubble required passage to Egypt.[49]

            The remaining settlements’ greenhouses were looted after the transfer for 2 days for irrigation pipes, water pumps, plastic sheeting and glass, but the greenhouses themselves remained structurally intact, until order was restored.[32][48][50] Palestinian Authority security forces attempted to stop them, but did not have enough manpower to be effective. In some places, there was no security, while some police officers joined the looters.[51][52] The Palestine Economic Development Company (PED) invested $20,000,000 and by October the industry was back on its feet.[48] Subsequently the harvest, intended for export via Israel for Europe, was essentially lost due to Israeli restrictions on the Karni crossing which “was closed more than not”, leading to losses in excess of $120,000 per day.[51] Economic consultants estimated that the closures cost the whole agricultural sector in Gaza $450,000 a day in lost revenue.[53] 25 truckloads of produce per diem through that crossing were needed to render the project viable, but only rarely were just 3 truckloads able to obtain transit at the crossing, which however functioned only sporadically, with Israel citing security concerns.”

          21. 5thDrawer Avatar

            Has a faint smell of Rhodesian farms … or what was left of them after Mugabi ‘gave’ the land back to his ‘locals’.

          22. man-o-war Avatar

            “In a recent study entitled One Big Prison, B’Tselem observes that the crippling economic arrangements Israel has imposed on Gaza will remain in effect. In addition, Israel will continue to maintain absolute control over Gaza’s land borders, coastline and airspace, and the Israeli army will continue to operate in Gaza. “So long as these methods of control remain in Israeli hands,” it concludes, “Israel’s claim of an ‘end of the occupation’ is questionable.”[2]

            The respected organization Human Rights Watch (HRW) is yet more emphatic that evacuating troops and Jewish settlements from inside Gaza will not end the occupation: “Whether the Israeli army is inside Gaza or redeployed around its periphery, and restricting entrance and exit, it remains in control.”[3]

            The world’s leading authority on the Gaza Strip, Sara Roy of Harvard University, predicts that Gaza will remain “an imprisoned enclave,” while its economy, still totally dependent on Israel after disengagement and in shambles after decades of deliberately ruinous policies by Israel, will actually deteriorate.[4] This conclusion is echoed by the World Bank, which forecasts that, if Israel seals Gaza’s borders or curtails its utilities, the disengagement plan will “create worse hardship than is seen today.”[5]”

          23. But hey they gave the Palestinians freedom… to move around in a prison.
            He asked if one would live under Hamas. I ask him if he would live in an open air prison?

          24. Which Arab country would you like to live in?

          25. Avoiding the question? Lmfao.
            And like a typical chauvinist, you assume I am male. Time to get your head out of the dark ages

          26. What is the question Ms O. Tell us your story.

          27. Lol and now you assume I’m female. You assume a lot.

          28. The question is there in black and white. Unlike some, I don’t edit and can’t edit.
            I’m not repeating myself coz you can’t read. That is futile

          29. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            Pedantic Pedalust

          30. Maborlz Ez-Hari Avatar
            Maborlz Ez-Hari

            She is a sow.

          31. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            What’s the reason for this savagery? Is this how Zionists respect religion? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=thA63J319eA

          32. David Sherman Avatar
            David Sherman

            That’s a video with no context. We’re told by the captioner that he was “trying to pray” and the music is set to give that impression, but we don’t actually know where he was going or whose space he was attempting to violate, and whether he was armed.

            It’s well known that only under Israel are all faiths able to practice their faith openly and have full access to their holy sites. Israel, unlike ANY other country would have done, gave the keys to theTemple Mount back to the Arabs immediatly on taking over Jersualem in 1967. Yes under Muslim control, Jews never had access to the Western Wall from 1948-67. And under Muslim control today, non-Muslim sites are being destroyed (e.g. ISIS).

            It’s absurd to accuse Israel or preventing Muslims or Christians from praying when it’s Muslim countries that do exactly that. In many Muslim countries, non-Muslims are at best tolerated and severly oppressed, and in many Muslim countries it’s illegal (on pain of DEATH) for a Muslim to convert to another religion.

          33. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            You talk too much. Here’s one “without the music”.

            https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CIy8TcPkjro

          34. We know no amount of evidence will be admitted by Israeli extremists

          35. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            See my post on TIP. The Israel Project

          36. I will in about half an hour.

          37. 5thDrawer Avatar

            Yup … and you’d think going through one religion would have been enough pain. Weird.

          38. 5thDrawer Avatar

            I thought those were the Sweetmeats they smuggled through the tunnels …

          39. 5thDrawer Avatar

            Some just like Charts&Graphs …. 😉

          40. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            “To grasp the perversity of using Gaza as an explanation for why Israel can’t risk a Palestinian state, it helps to realize that Sharon withdrew Gaza’s settlers in large measure because he didn’t want a Palestinian state. By 2004, when Sharon announced the Gaza withdrawal, the Road Map for Peace that he had signed with Mahmoud Abbas was going nowhere.
            Into the void came two international proposals for a two state solution.

            The first was the 2002 Arab Peace Initiative, in which every member of the Arab League offered to recognize Israel if it returned to the 1967 lines and found a “just” and “agreed upon” solution to the problem of Palestinian refugees.
            The second was the 2003 Geneva Initiative, in which former Israeli and Palestinian negotiators publicly agreed upon the details of a two state plan. As the political scientists Jonathan Rynhold and Dov Waxman have detailed, Sharon feared the United States would get behind one or both plans, and pressure Israel to accept a Palestinian state near the 1967 lines. “Only an Israeli initiative,” Sharon argued, “will keep us from being dragged into dangerous initiatives like the Geneva and Saudi initiatives.”

        2. David Sherman Avatar
          David Sherman

          See Dedalus’s evidence below.. There’s no shortage of sources of this.

          The settlers are not “illegal”, by the way. The territory is disputed, not occupied. The last country to control it was Jordan, after conquering it by force of arms; previously Britain; previously Turkey; and all of those countries have renounced any claim to the land. Yes, there are Arabs living there who today call themselves “Palestinians” (a “nationality” that never existed until the 1960s-1970s; in 1948 everyone just called them Arabs, including they themselves). Those Arabs never had a country or a government there.

          1. “The settlers are not “illegal”, by the way.”

            According to international Law they are.

            “The international community considers the establishment of Israeli settlements in the Israeli-occupied territories illegal under international law,[1][2][3][4][5] however Israel maintains that they are consistent with international law[6] because it does not agree that the Fourth Geneva Convention applies to the territories occupied in the 1967 Six-Day War.[7] The United Nations Security Council, the United Nations General Assembly, the International Committee of the Red Cross, the International Court of Justice and the High Contracting Parties to the Convention have all affirmed that the Fourth Geneva Convention does apply.”

          2. O forgot to take out the footnotes before he copied his entry from Wikipedia. At least it is a step up from the graphic comix that he normally reads,

          3. Lol good refutation

          4. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            Zionists parroting same talking points all over the www.

      2. Hind Abyad Avatar
        Hind Abyad

        “The king of the World loves Israel”..children brainwashing begins in kindergarten.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WUU05ej4le0

        1. 5thDrawer Avatar

          Norway killed all the Salmon?? Gotta look THAT one up ….
          Do we have the class from the ‘Other Side’?? That one that makes ‘piggy’ cartoons?

          1. 5thDrawer Avatar

            In fact, there’s nothing I haven’t talked about for 5 years … Something named ‘Education’.
            What is learned ‘at the mothers’ knee never leaves a mind.
            If what follows after age 6 only reinforces those ‘first’ lessons, they become ‘factual’.
            Human nature. And that’s not an argument about which is right or wrong … but it’s what all ‘educators’ understand. SO, how many generations to get that out of heads when it’s wrong … IF ANYONE allows the correct yet neutral versions in – to allow a mind to make it’s OWN decisions … To teach it ‘how’ think, NOT ‘what’ to think.
            AND, by the way, it seems Norway Did Not kill all it’s Salmon.
            http://www.salmonfromnorway.com

          2. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            The children in the video are 6 years old.

          3. 5thDrawer Avatar

            The age of the Human Brain Sponge. You should hear what grandchildren ask ….
            (back to grass .. sigh … slave driver ..)

          4. 5thDrawer Avatar

            Although, I’m now certain that some in ‘the future’ will be looking for a line written somewhere on the net that says ‘Norway Kills Salmon’ …. They may actually find ‘Fishing’ in the Wiki and put it forward as a ‘proof’ – while then also saying: ‘If they are going to kill them, we must eat them …. after all, God said: ‘Waste Not Want Not’.

          5. 5thDrawer Avatar

            LOX …’Love Our Xenophobia’ … goes good in a Bagel OR a Fava-Bean wrap.

          6. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            Educate yourself..i thought you went to the sun cut the grass.
            “It’s not surprising that these cultural staples overlap,” says Niki Russ Federman, the fourth-generation heir of Russ and Daughters, a 100-year-old New York smoked fish shop. “Herring, smoked salmon and pickled lox aren’t just Jewish foods; these are shared by lots of cultures. Jews like to take ownership: ‘These are our foods.’ Then you get Scandinavians saying, ‘Wait, these are ours.’ ”

            Like hummus

            http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/A-Jewish-lox-lover-in-Norway-321197

          7. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            Go cut the grass,”Gotta look THAT one up ….
            Do we have the class from the ‘Other Side’??

            Was the other side the invader the ruler the oppressor the represser
            the depressor the powerful? Stop you’re insulting me now!

    2. man-o-war Avatar

      “The first is that there is no possible option in the near or middle term of a Palestinian state next door to Israel that will not threaten Israel and make normal life impossible. This has been conclusively demonstrated with Gaza.”
      Really? Did Israel even give Gaza a fighting chance? They set them up to become what it has become today. Instantly blockading them and essentially creating an open air prison. Then crying victim when the Palestinians in Gaza reach a boiling point and lash out against their oppressors. It’s really a big joke.

      1. David Sherman Avatar
        David Sherman

        Not at all. If the Gazans had a civilized peaceful government that said, “We would like to build Gaza into a flourishing state, and we do not seek to attack Israel”, Israelis would have been delighted. The borders would be open and Gaza could flourish like Singapore. That’s still true today. Instead it’s ruled by Hamas, which rejects Israel’s existence, seeks to destroy it and has repeatedly bombarded Israeli homes and schools with thousands of rockets. The Gaza blockade is to stop weapons and rockets (and tunnel building supplies) coming in. Israel sends hundreds of trucks a day of food and medical supplies to Gaza.

        Why not seek change from the Gazans, who are responsible for their own situation, rather than from Israel?

        Egypt blockades Gaza just as much as Israel does. Yet Gaza was part of Egypt until 1967.

        1. “The Gaza blockade is to stop weapons and rockets”

          “Soda, juice, jam, spices, shaving cream, potato chips, cookies and candy. Undoubtedly because of their dual use potential as military weapons. (Well, if you shake a bottle of soda really hard…) I cannot help wondering which particular segment of the population of Gaza was being targeted by the exclusion of cookies and candy.”

          1. 5thDrawer Avatar

            Wow .. one in a year … liked the soda-bottle … :-))

          2. Mr or Ms O, you don’t know what you are talking about:

            http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=1f3_1394442413

          3. man-o-war Avatar

            “Gaza is a captive market as Israel controls the formal movement from and to the strip, so it is easy for Israeli companies to control its market.

            While Israel makes a profit from selling its products within the Gaza strip, the citizens of Gaza are not given the same opportunities to sell their products. In 2007, after Hamas takeover of Gaza, Israel’s Defense Ministry banned the selling of goods from the Strip, though up until then, 85% of the Gaza-based merchandise was sold in Israel and the West Bank.

            Israel also controls the scope of traders who can travel in and out of Gaza using a procedure that explicitly encourages trade with Israeli companies only, and specifies rigid criteria defining who is permitted to enter Israel. The permits are given only to traders proving a large sale scope, the rest are not even allowed to send mail packages out of Gaza. This damages mainly women trying to maintain small businesses. The result – the scope of trade exiting Gaza stands at only 2%, resulting in the collapse of small businesses.”

            Did you read your link? It pretty much is saying that Israel is taking advantage of the blockade they’ve been imposing since their “goodwill” gesture in 2005 to make some money money money.

          4. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            I know him, he will never read you link to “self-hating Jews”.

          5. David Sherman Avatar
            David Sherman

            Remember that Gaza is ruled by a regime that preaches destruction of Israel and murder of all Jews, along with Islamic supremacy. The Gazans have made themselves into Israel’s enemy. If they were to elect a new government that preached peace, the borders would open and Gaza could flourish.

          6. man-o-war Avatar

            Why then “relinquish” control of Gaza in the first place? Are you saying Israel didn’t know that Hamas was going to take over and win the elections?

            “If they were to elect a new government that preached peace, the borders would open and Gaza could flourish.” You say that, but then we can easily look at the state of the West Bank and see that you’re clearly wrong. Hamas isn’t in control of the West Bank and they have yet to flourish from Israeli kindness. Instead their passiveness has lead to increase in settlements, loss of more Palestinian land, and more and more restrictions on their livelihoods.

          7. David Sherman Avatar
            David Sherman

            The West Bank Arabs were flourishing economically until the increase in attacks on Jews, which led the Jews to stop employing Arabs in most cases.

            The Palestinians were offered a state numerous times, leaving aside the period 1948-1967 when they weren’t “occupied” by anyone other than their fellow Arabs. Arafat rejected an offer in 2000. The US President (Clinton) made it clear that Arafat was the one responsible for things breaking down – he was given an offer and just walked away. Abbas did the same in 2008 when Olmert offered almost everything the Palestinians claim they want. The problem is, they don’t really want a state. They want to continue to be victims so that they can live off the world’s dole and complain about Israel. They only want a state if it’s built on Israel’s ashes, not as a neighbour.

          8. I like Norman but the way he talks bores the hell out of me.
            Actually he is even slower than Chomsky. Maybe they need captagon to speed them up.

          9. Norma: “It is admissible to acquire territory by war”

            But yet ben ami already admitted to territory being acquired by war in 48.

            Why didn’t Norman point out that fact to ben ami??

          10. 5thDrawer Avatar

            (sounds like American ‘Free Trade Deal’ with Canada. Even a bank here had to go down there and buy one out, to compete. ;-)))

    3. man-o-war Avatar

      “Second, the settlements are the RESULT of ongoing Arab and Palestinian rejection of Israel’s existence, not the cause of it.” Wow, utter BS, but nice try at making excuses.

      1. David Sherman Avatar
        David Sherman

        Is the settlements are the problem, why was no Palestinian state declared on the West Bank between 1948 and 1967?

        And why did the Arab League (the entire Arab world) reject Israel’s offer after the 1967 war to trade back the West Bank for peace? Instead, Israel got the 1970’s Khartoum conference three “no’s”: no negotiations, no recognition, no peace.

        So faced with that, Jews decided to move into empty land that was part of historic Israel — and in some cases, had been Jewish communities before 1948 when Jordan conquered some of the land (now called the West Bank) and killed or evicted all the Jews living there. (Why does land become “Arab” land after Arabs take it over and kiil or evict the Jews?)

        1. Maborlz Ez-Hari Avatar
          Maborlz Ez-Hari

          Talking to another donkey, is doron your cousin?

          1. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            More subtle..racist & bigot Zionist Israeli keyboard warrior full time job on all sites shouf D..they come with the Article.

          2. Maborlz Ez-Hari Avatar
            Maborlz Ez-Hari

            I don’t mind him being racist and a bigot so am I apparently, but the Zionist part is a problem.

          3. Two racist homophobic religious bigots are complaining about zionists. The hypocrisy is astounding

          4. Maborlz Ez-Hari Avatar
            Maborlz Ez-Hari

            Are your batteries out?

          5. No, your mother borrowed them

        2. “Jews decided to move into empty land that was part of historic Israel ”

          Stop your hasbara

          1. man-o-war Avatar

            It’s more of the same old garbage. They definitely believe that if they get out there and keep spreading this stuff that eventually people will tire out and except it as fact.

          2. And then he plays victim to justify his occupation of the West Bank.

          3. David Sherman Avatar
            David Sherman

            It’s a simple fact that it’s impossible for Israel to withdraw from the West Bank without ISIS or Hamas taking over and continuing attacks on Israel. Why would any country commit national suicide? Even the so-called “moderates” preach hatred, jihad and destruction of Jews. Jews have had enough experience of being murdered, thank you.

          4. man-o-war Avatar

            Well then annex it illegally like you did the Golan and make it part of Israel proper. Then grant all Palestinian Arabs equal rights as Jewish citizens. The IDF is already operating there illegally, Jewish communities already exist there illegally, just annex it already and quit playing these games of trying to slowly erase the Palestinian existence.

          5. His whole argument is based on lies, distortion and hypocrisy.
            Eg: “why didn’t Palestinians declare a state in WB blah blah”

            But then barks “Jews decided to move into empty land that was part of historic Israel ”

            So my question is, how could “empty land” declare a state unless there are people there?

            The idiot counters his own idiocy.

          6. David Sherman Avatar
            David Sherman

            I never suggested the West Bank was empty. But the specific places that Jews have moved to were empty. They haven’t evicted Arabs (except on rare occasions, e.g. to clear the plaza for the Western Wall in 1967 – those Arabs were moved to new homes nearby). Typical example: Mizpe Yericho, a so-called “settlement” on an empty hilltop in the Judean desert. I’ve visited there several times. The residents aren’t oppressing anyone or taking anyone’s land. They’ve taken a deserted hilltop and put people there, irrigated it and brought the land somewhat back to life. Similar to what the first Jewish settlers did from 1880 to 1948. All of Ottoman-Empire Palestine was a backwater, with maybe 250,000 people living there, in the mid-19th century. Today the population is something like 11-12 million including the West Bank.

            If it’s a problem for Arabs to have Jews living near them (and incidentally improving the economy, medical care, irrigation etc.), then that says more about the xenophobia and hatred of the Arabs than about the Jews. Israel has a million ARAB citizens who have full civil rights. (If it’s wrong for Jews to live in the West Bank, perhaps Israel should expel those Arabs?)

          7. man-o-war Avatar

            ” Arabs to have Jews living near them (and incidentally improving the economy, medical care, etc.), then perhaps that says something about the xenophobia and hatred of the Arabs. ” Hogwash, you can’t be serious. The settlements are enclaves of xenophobia and religious bigotry. Can Palestinians Arabs go buy an apartment in a Jewish settlement in the West Bank? Jewish only roads in the West Bank screams fairness. IDF protection in the West Bank for settlers only, but will stand by while Palestinians are harassed in their own country.

            What about in Israel? You claim Arab Israeli citizens have equal rights, but then you get articles like this…http://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/supreme-court-backs-jews-only-housing-in-jaffa-neighborhood-1.323421

        3. 5thDrawer Avatar

          Same Tribal Stuff. ‘West’ lost those feelings mostly – no longer understand it.

          1. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            No ..you are wrong, Zionists are not a tribe

          2. 5thDrawer Avatar

            I said ‘stuff’ – and the thinking is there.

          3. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            No again. HITLER AND ATATÜRK: HOW TURKISH NATIONALISM INSPIRED THE NAZIS

            http://tlv1.fm/the-tel-aviv-review/2015/07/17/hitler-and-ataturk-how-turkish-nationalism-inspired-the-nazis-2/

          4. 5thDrawer Avatar

            Ok. I give up. Out to cut grass .. got some sun.

          5. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            You give it Up!

          6. Lol a little editing there.

          7. David Sherman Avatar
            David Sherman

            Jews are a people who have a 3,000 year history. They’re the only people to keep a connection to their land for almost 2,000 years despite being exiled (by the Romans in the year 70 — well documented by Josephus and others). Zionism as the wish to return to the land of Israel has been in Jewish prayers for almost 2,000 years and it’s a constant refrain within the daily prayers that are still recited. Zionism as the active realization of that dream began in the mid-19th century and started in large numbers in 1880. The Jews of Israel have come back as a people from all over the world, including large numbers from Europe and from across the Mideast. Some 850,000 Jews were mostly forced out of their homes beginning in 1949 in countries like Iraq, Syria, Egypt, Tunisia, Algeria, Morocco, Yemen, Iran and other Middle Eastern countries, and have re-made their lives in Israel. Those countries are now largely empty of Jews.

          8. 5thDrawer Avatar

            “Jews are a people” …. of many tribes.

        4. Hind Abyad Avatar
          Hind Abyad

          “So faced with that, Jews decided to move into empty land that was part of historic Israel”
          Rabin was murdered by Irgun terrorist who founded Likud in 1950.
          Infatigable Mr Sherman

          “Michael Sherman jeff s • a day ago

          The Arabs sought to change it by rejecting the sharing of the land with Jewsin 1947 and 1948 and 1967.

          And this? Unlike the Palestinians in their actions towards Israelis and Jews, the
          French, the Poles, the Jews did not set out to exterminate or eradicate
          the Germans in Germany. Neither did they fire rockets and missiles into
          German towns and villages. Neither did they go around attacking and
          stabbing innocent German civilians. Neither did they claim Germany for
          themselves and the goal of diminishing the German presence in Germany.”

          Great comparison ???? And they did the “final solution”

          1. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            No France Vischy? No Poles Auschwitz?

          2. This is truly incoherent babble. I wonder if I could have some of the stuff you’ve been smoking.

          3. Lol congratulations, you’ve met the resident “daft mare”.

          4. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            Typical ‘I wonder if I could have some of the stuff you’ve been smoking’.
            Quoting your Zionist colleague .. Pedalled

          5. 5thDrawer Avatar

            I remember that Saturday morning cartoon …. famous lines like: ‘Ok Herc. Ok Herc.’ and ‘Help her Herc. Help her Herc.’ :-))) A curious Newt always heard ‘Herc will know.’
            As they change the names, character changes too. Just put it in a search-engine.
            “Dedalus is named for Daedalus a character from Greek mythology renowned for his skill in craftsmanship.”
            Of course, there’s a ‘Society’. Without the first ‘a’.
            THIS one might be representative: Check the ‘home-page’. :-)))
            http://dedaluswine.com/events/

          6. David Sherman Avatar
            David Sherman

            If they could, they would. It’s well known that if Israel had lost any of its wars, there would have been a massacre of all the Jews. Egypt trumpeted that desire before the 1967 war as well as others.

  3. man-o-war Avatar

    Israeli President Reuven Rivlin declared recently that control over the West Bank is “not a matter of political debate. It is a basic fact of modern Zionism.”

    1. David Sherman Avatar
      David Sherman

      I haven’t seen that quote, but it he said it, it’s for the simple reason that there’s no alternative short of national suicide. The vast majority of Israelis (including the Prime Minister) have accepted the concept of a two-state solution, but it doesn’t work when the state next door is committed to destroying Israel.

      1. lol please stop with your “victimhood”..

  4. arzatna1 Avatar

    I think the future of Israel looks very bleak and it will be of their own making.

    Time for Israeli leaders to seriously consider the 2 state solution. It is the only solution

    1. David Sherman Avatar
      David Sherman

      Israel has been considering it for years and has offered it several times, but there is no-one on the Palestinian side willing to genuinely work towards one.

      A two-state solution presupposes that Palestinians will give up trying to destroy Israel. As noted in other comments here, that’s not realistic unless and until the Palestinians change the narrative they’ve been teaching their children.

      1. Maborlz Ez-Hari Avatar
        Maborlz Ez-Hari

        You need to sing a different tune, the same old mindedness on your behalf is the problem. People can only take a certain amount of crap before they have enough. Get used to some changes as the months and years go ahead the Israeli cause has taken enough hostages, it’s been described over and over again as wrong, wrong, wrong. The people tolerance of the Israeli wrongdoing is shrinking and shrinking and today’s weather forecast isn’t favouring the Israeli ideal.

        1. Talk about singing a different tune! The Palestinians have been singing the same tune for almost a century now. Since the 1930s, they have rejected every partition compromise, starting with the 1937 Peel Commission Partition Plan and including the 1947 United Nations Plan of Partition and the 2000/2001 Camp David proposals. Instead of compromise, they always take the path of violence and terrorism, which has resulted in further misery in their own lives.

          Maybe its time for you to sing a new tune. Just saying.

          1. Yes you should never admit your actions and always blame the other side!
            Do they teach you that at school, the synagogue or at home?

          2. I think that O’s comment is supposed to be a reply to what I wrote, but it is hard to make sense of what he wrote.

            For the record, I am not blaming anyone for anything: I am simply pointing out that Marborlz Ez-Hari’s suggestion about looking at things in a new light applies as much to proponents of the Arab narrative as to proponents of the Jewish narrative. Ez-Hari and O for that matter might want to ponder the questions: Are the Arabs in Palestine better off as a result of those decisions? Or are they worse off? If they think the latter, then it might be worth their while looking at things in a different light. They might keep in mind the bit about the link between insanity and doing the same thing over and over but expecting a different outcome.

            O’s reply, no doubt a sterling example of his rapier wit, seems to me more or or less in the genre of: Yeah and your mother wears army boots.

            Did they teach you this at the juvenile detention center you just left?

          3. Maborlz Ez-Hari Avatar
            Maborlz Ez-Hari

            Look maybe the Palestinians would be worse off with their own state, maybe like other Arab nations only a dictator would arise, maybe they would fail their people like all the other Arab nations who knows? But to suffer the indignity of having been treated like second class humans by an invading, arrogant, terror cell in the guise of a legitimate country such as Israel is totally unacceptable and the inevitable outcome it’s what we see today. You can claim their land, their mosque, their rights but you won’t get a hand on their pride it’s just not going happen.

          4. Hind Abyad Avatar
            Hind Abyad

            Stop faking. Your Motto was, still is, and will always be ‘From the Nile to the Euphrates’

            THE PEEL COMMISSION PARTITION PROPOSAL, 1937

            “The 1929 Hope Simpson Commission of Inquiry had explicitly pointed to the incapacity of the economy and demography of Palestine to be further destabilized by Zionist immigration and settlement. Its recommendations were echoed by those of the 1930 Shaw Commission of Inquiry, named after Sir Walter Shaw, sent to investigate incidents of violence, which had peaked in a series of localized uprisings in 1929. The Shaw Commission stated that, “[a] continuation, or still more an acceleration, of a process which results in the creation of a large discontented and landless class is fraught with serious danger to the country.”

  5. The Levitsky and Weyl argument depends critically on a premise that seems to me quite doubtful, namely, that it is Israel’s presence in the West Bank, in general, and the settlements, in particular, that stand in the way of a peaceful solution to the conflict. The gravamen of their argument is that if only Israel were to retreat to the 1948 armistice lines, everything would sunshine and butterflies.

    In a recent, pair of columns in Haaretz, Shlomo Avineri, a highly regarded figure on the political left in Israel, wrote:

    “Most Israelis view the conflict as a struggle between two national movements: the Jewish national movement – Zionism – and the Palestinian national movement as part of the wider Arab national movement. The internal logic of such a view leads in principle to what is called the two-state solution.”

    He suggests that most supporters of the two-state solution assume that the Palestinians have a similar view of the conflict. But this, according to Avineri, is an illusion:

    “The basic Palestinian position, which usually isn’t always explicitly stated, is totally different and can be easily detected in numerous Palestinian statements. According to the Palestinians’ view, this is not a conflict between two national movements but a conflict between one national movement (the Palestinian) and a colonial and imperialistic entity (Israel). According to this view, Israel will end like all colonial phenomena – it will perish and disappear. Moreover, according to the Palestinian view, the Jews are not a nation but a religious community, and as such not entitled to national self-determination which is, after all, universal imperative. According to this view, the Palestinians see all of Israel – and not just the West Bank and Gaza – as analogous to Algeria: an Arab country out of which the foreign colonialists were ultimately expelled.”

    There are lots of statements in the Palestinian media that support Avineri’s claim:

    “Professor Samih Hamouda, of the political science department at Bir Zeit University, presented
    an analysis of the research papers written by President Mahmoud Abbas on the subject of Zionist
    ideology…. ‘In the President’s research, the Zionist movement is not Jewish, nor does it flow from
    the desires of the Jews themselves. Rather, it is an imperialist colonialist movement which sought
    to use the Jews and to enlist them to further the western colonialist plans.’” Official PA daily, AlHayat
    AlJadida, July 27, 2011.

    “…this state is a colonialist, settler and Orientalist state, which fabricated a historical narrative in
    order to colonize Palestine. ” Oped by Izz AlDin As’adm, Official PA daily, AlHayat
    AlJadida, Aug 20, 2014.

    “The two ideas – the idea of ‘the Promised Land,’ and the deceitful colonialist idea – were the main
    deceptive factor, meant to remove the European Jews from their nations and place them in
    Palestine, in order to establish the Israeli colonialist state as a front base of the capitalist West,
    and particularly of the US.” From an article by Omar Hilmi AlGhoul in Official PA daily, AlHayat
    AlJadida, Aug 24, 2015.

    Pace Levitsky and Weyl, as things stand, probably the most realistic political goal consistent with
    maintaining Israel as a democratic Jewish state is a form of autonomy in which Palestinians have
    increased control over their day-to-day lives, their economy expands, their governance institutions
    mature, but in which they cannot threaten Israel.

    Avineri notes, btw, that the difficulty of finding a solution to the Israel-Palestinian is far from unique;

    there are other multidimensional conflicts that have defied solution over decades. “The national
    conflicts in Cyprus, Kosovo, Bosnia and even faraway Kashmir have certain similarities to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.”

    1. 5thDrawer Avatar

      But this TOO is a good article.

  6. 5thDrawer Avatar

    I consider an idea …. it’s all about that low ‘mount’ of rocks, anyway – and maybe the timing is wrong. SO….
    All the anxious folks in NY should buy up an Israel-sized piece of the ‘Painted Desert’.
    ALL the relatives move to it along with the NYC folks … walk away, as it were … tinker with computers and equipment before leaving, if you can’t take it with you.
    The boundaries are defined by a ‘land deed’ contract under US Law.
    THEN wait. You already had 3000 years of waiting, what’s a few more?
    In about 25 years or so, submit a ‘Standing Purchase Offer’ for ‘The Mount’. There’s a good chance there will be enough hungry people eventually to want to take you up on the offer … have patience.
    Buy it and Move it to the ‘New Zion’ Desert Ranch. Clear Title, and deeding set, of course.
    Parades will happen.

  7. They scraped the bottom of the barrel to find these two.

  8. … [Trackback]

    […] Find More Info here on that Topic: yalibnan.com/2015/10/25/a-zionist-case-for-boycotting-israel/ […]

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *