Boycotting Israeli products/services

[the7Vabo]

I’m trying my best to support the boycott. For those doing the same - what products/services are you using instead?

The hardest one for me has been giving up on going to Disney Paris next year. I had planned it as a joint birthday present, kids will be the perfect age. But I can’t stand in Disney with my kids knowing they support a regime killing kids.

Any good alternatives to Disney, or any other brand on the list?

It's true. People don't want to admit the unpalatable possibility that pretty much every Palestinian wants Israel gone.

Or if they do admit this, it is blamed on Israel's apparent oppression over the last 500 million years. Or that they say most people in Gaza did not vote for Hamas, etc, etc.

As a, broadly speaking, ‘pro Israel’ poster, I take offence at posts suggesting I have been ‘having a great time’ ‘derailing the thread’. I don’t think there has been derailing on this thread, nor do I have a great time posting about really challenging and difficult stuff and being insulted. I post because I don’t think it helps anyone for threads like these to dissolve into self-congratulatory echo chambers. Not everyone agrees that boycotting Israeli products (if such a thing were even possible) is the virtuous thing to do - get over it.

"I love how some people only join the threads in order to derail them."

Yes, they do, don't they. Remember what happened to a certain celebratory thread last week?

Over half of Gazans are 18 or under and the last election when Hamas was voted in was 18 years ago.

Gaza has a long history.

a) Gaza is more than 2,000 years old, it is at least 4,000 years old. It has never been a state, it isn’t a state even now. No matter who ruled Gaza there has always been a Gaza city with that name-Gaza. Its name is recorded on Ancient Egyptian stele and on ancient Assyrian clay tablets. It was a major port along the over land Silk Road for trade E-W and also overland trade N-S between Africa and Europe.

b) Rebar is made from steel, the Romans did not have steel although they did have concrete, including waterproof concrete, because they invented it. But you surely know that the ability of humans to dig tunnels predates steel and the Romans? Prior to concrete there were tunnels supported by timber and brick. Ancient Egyptians were making complex tunnel systems 4,600 years ago (2,600 BC). There were earlier Bronze Age settlements and fortresses on the site, but Gaza did not behind a city until the Ancient Egyptians made it a capital of the region around 1,600 BC. At the time, the Egyptian empire included a lot of the Middle East as far north as the border with Syria (the edge of the Assyrian Empire). It is know for a fact that Gaza was riddled with tunnels by 332 BC because Alexander the Great was so fustrated by them being used by defenders of the city, he wrote about them.

My post is history.
Edited to add the same time Romans were making tunnels, ancient Britons were too. As were pretty much all peoples around the globe, the oldest tunnels not built using natural cave systems date to 6,000 years ago. Think for a minute, if ants and rabbits can dig tunnels, then surely humans are capable. It’s hardly a miracle to make tunnels.

Don't be daft.

https://impact.disney.com/charitable-giving/

How do you know what pretty much every Palestinian wants?

And the oppression is real. Just because you choose to ignore it doesn't mean it hasn't been happening.

But completely irrelevant history to the situation today. Its Alexander the Great what dunnit is not really the gotcha you think it is.

Shame the Hamas leaders living in comfort in foreign hotels haven’t been concerned enough about the suffering of all those Gazan children over the last 9 months to want to stop the war by releasing the abducted Israelis and prosecuting the rapists, abductors and murderers.

The IRA's political wing has been in power sharing governments in the north of Ireland since the Good Friday Agreement. They're usually the second biggest party but they're the biggest at the moment and as such their leader holds the position of First Minister of Northern Ireland.

Gaza is in the Bible as the place Samson was imprisoned (the Milton quote ‘Eyeless in Gaza’, which Aldous Huxley used as the title of a novel refers to this, in Samson Agonistes) - that’s what I would think of if you asked me whether Gaza was an ancient place - yes it is, I’m not sure what you think this proves in the current context?

Also are you saying all the tunnels under the Gaza Strip are thousands of years old??

No, but if Gazans stayed in poverty and reliant on aid then we could with certainty say it is the fault of Hamas.

As it was, with an Israeli blockade in place causing poverty, unemployment and food insecurity since before Hamas existed; it is impossible to say that the poor situation in Gaza prior to Oct 7th was 100% caused by Hamas.

What do you mean by 'apparent oppression'? Are you implying that there hasn't been any?

What rot. Israel is hellbent on destroying Gaza whether hostages are released or not. Hostage families condemn Israel for not prioritising hostages and the pretext you state is used by Netanyahu whilst giving millions to Hamas in order to destabalise Palestine and prevent a legitimate government forming. It is the far right Israeli government that wants Israeli sovereignty from the River to the Sea. The fact that Israel has no friends left except for silly Biden and Sunak who has his head up Biden's backside, speaks volumes for just how much the rest of the entire world is not manipulated by Israeli and Israeli apologist propaganda

OK, but they never had governmental power while they were acting as terrorists and might have been considered a fair target.

Ignoring the suffering of innocent people is bad enough.

What's even worse is people celebrating it, actively supporting it, trying to discourage or shame people who refuse to turn a blind eye to it, and using the pain of others for entertainment. All of which have been happening in the media and even on this board.

To anyone who is standing with the innocent people of Palestine who are being killed in a war they had no say in, trapped between two forces who have no interest in protecting innocent lives: thank you. Thank you for seeing that innocent lives matter. Whether someone stands for peaceful resolution through campaigning, boycotting, raising awareness, or just holding in their heart the knowledge that what is being done to the innocent people in Palestine is wrong, every peaceful effort people make helps and will help.

You said that Disney only donate to Israeli charities which is just nonsense.

Now you are complaining about celebrities speaking out against Hamas (er, that's fine?), Disney giving humanitarian aid and an actress posting about hostages.

None of these things are objectionable. Do you understand that it sounds completely odd to post these things as bad?

Good grief, who says the lives of innocents in Gaza don’t matter? Nobody on this thread has said anything approaching that.

They don't know. It's that whole 'divisive rhetoric' that another pro-israeli poster was mentioning, except it doesn't seem to apply when it comes from that perspective.

So… if you think the abducted people make no difference, what is the point exactly of Gazans keeping them as hostages?

You are entitled to your opinion, regardless of how abhorrent I find it. I'm entitled to disagree with you.

As well as the implication that either the elections almost 20 years ago featured an insanely young voting population or Palestinian children can time travel. Given that the median age in Gaza in 2020 was 18 and the elections which resulted in Hamas taking power took place in 2006.

The majority of people living and dying in Gaza never had the opportunity to choose who was in power. They were born in Gaza and that was enough in some people's eyes to sentence them to collective punishment and death.

You can infer whatever the heck you like from my post.

We are indeed entitled to disagree with each other. Who said the hostages make no difference to Hamas's position or that they would have had an expectation that it would make a difference? What I said is that in practice, the Israeli government doesn't show much care for them and its attitude has been heavily criticised by the families of the hostages, amongst others

It was more a US backed coup that led to Hamas getting into power. Fatah (PA) rejected the election results but then USA Pres George Bush weighed in and said "the landslide victory of the militant Islamic group Hamas was a rejection of the "status quo" and a repudiation of the "old guard" that had failed to provide honest government and services"

Then key western governments endorsed Hamas on 30 January 2006, the Quartet on the Middle East (United States, Russia, United Nations, and European Union) issued a formal statement congratulating the Palestinian people on an electoral process that was free, fair and secure- approving Hamas win and condemning PA for trying to retain control.

Emboldened, Hamas executed a brief 5-day civil war, the Battle of Gaza, in 2007 during which Hamas took control of the strip by rounding up, arresting and executing many PA government officials.