Part 6: Israeli-Palestinian conflict

[AndHarry]

Sorry, lost the end of the thread there!

Thread 5

Building the boycott
Calls for boycotts of Israeli products, for sanctions and a military embargo to be imposed on Israel have been akey partof the huge mass demonstrations in solidarity with Gaza that have taken place across the world in recent weeks.

Civil society organizations are responding to the attack on Gaza byannouncing new boycott initiatives.

In the weeks and months that follow, the challenge for campaigners will be to ramp up the pressure on retailers to remove Israeli products and to make their refusal to do so public.

Campaigns against the sale of Israeli fresh produce have been a major focus of the solidarity movement in Europe in recent years.

BDS initiatives have focused on Israeli companies such as Mehadrin and EDOM that play a key role in the colonization of Palestinian land in the West Bank and profit from the siege of Gaza, asresearch published by Palestinian farming unions has detailed.

In January, Israeli settler leaders in theJordan Valleyregion of the West Banktold the Associated Pressthat the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign had cost settlers $29 million in lost sales, especially in Europe.

Campaigns against Israeli fresh produce exporters have intensified following thedecisionby the UKCo-operativeretail chain to boycott all companies that operate in settlements, with campaigns also underway inFrance,Spain,Belgium, theNetherlands,Germany,Norwayand Sweden.

In 2011, Israeli export companyAgrexcoenteredinto liquidationafter boycotts and campaigns in thirteen European countries that saw retailers cut links with the company, blockades of its UK and Belgium warehouses and a huge mobilization against plans for an Agrexco distribution center in Sete in the south of France.

Israeli analystShir Heversuggested at the time that farmers leaving Agrexco to export their products through other channels because of the boycott campaign was a major factor behind the company’s collapse.

With thanks toBoycott From Withinfor translation from Hebrew.

• See more at: www.bdsmovement.net/2014/irelands-biggest-food-retailer-drops-israeli-produce-as-european-boycotts-surge-12471#sthash.ogjj9cJp.dpuf

I've just read this open letter from a group that has just formed in the US called "Israelis for a Sustainable Future."

They are calling on the American Jewish community to join them in opposition to the war in Gaza and the ongoing blockade.

I very much agree with what they have written and feel it speaks a lot of sense. It's a bit long to paste the whole thing here but it is really worth a read.

halfdrunk thanks for that link. I agree with what the letter says. I just hope there are more signatures, it needs a lot more signatures.

Can anyone who has lived in Israel tell me a little about Israeli education curriculum in schools? I have seen so many young people talking about killing Arabs and sounding so brain washed that it makes me wonder if it is embedded in the education system?

I am also pretty certain that every child learns about the holocaust, so also don't understand how the Palestinian situation doesnt ring alarm bells.

i suppose it depends how you teach the holocaust. when i was a teacher we would study the holocaust events, read survivors accounts, watch footage and yes it was very much about feeling for the events in the past. The end emphasis for me and what i wanted them to take away though was about lessons for the future, the nature of propaganda, how groups come to be demonised, group think, etc and i'd make sure to touch upon at least one modern genocide. i hope i taught about in such a way that those children understood this wasn't something one off in history but a massive moral lesson that applications in the present and the future and we'd have a lot of discussions around 'could something like this ever happen again?'

we live in a multifaith, multicultural society so kids here learn a lot about other religions, about racism, diversity, equal rights etc in school. the holocaust is taught as the extreme example of what can go wrong. if the holocaust was just taught as 'look what happened to us, look how awful it was, this is why we must protect our nation and right to self determine and be separate from everyone else' then it could be used to teach a very different value set including a kind of nationalism that we can't really imagine here.

the holocaust survivor i talked to (mentioned this miles back in the threads, we were making a film on diversity for conversation starters in the classroom and staff training sessions) spoke a great deal about it from that perspective and was able to talk about other genocides and actually talked a lot about the way he saw muslims being demonised post 9/11 and how it alarmed him.

the kids we sent to auschwitz also came away with a real sense of not only the horrors of the past but the importance of tackling attitudes they saw in their own society and time and very fired up to do projects and awareness raising in college on the dangers of lumping a group together and projecting all of our fears and darkness onto them.

i can only guess that the holocaust must be looked at from a very different perspective or be taught in the context of 'why we must defend israel' or something there because here, and with that survivor, it seems to automatically inspire a vital imperative towards equality and diversity and human rights for all and a deep understanding of what people are capable of if they don't stay awake and resist falling into prejudice and scapegoating.

[[https://twitter.com/BklynMiddleton/status/502796075741097985/photo/1
Hamas publicly executes "Israeli collaborators" ]]
Public execution doesn't look great. Slight slip up with the Hamas PR machine.

Yuruapita, I can't comment on what is taught in Israeli schools but one experience from my travels in Israel and Palestine has stayed with me.

We we're walking through jerusalam just before sunset. 3 (Western) girls with my Arab (Palestinian, male) friend. There was an Israeli family in front of us. Mum, dad, pushing a small pushchair. Two small children flanked them.

As the Palestinians were shutting up there stores for the day, the parents were screaming vitriol at them. Stuff along the lines of "yeah that's right, go home, you scum, you dogs, n o one wants you here, go onl go." It was vile stuff. All in earshot of these small, easily moulded children.

I'm ashamed to say we had to walk behind them, in silence, it's too risky to speak up. And my dear Palestinian friend walked in silence too, we all linked arms.

This was one incident. I saw many more where the Israelis speaks to Palestinians like scum, treat them like scum. It is ingrained into everyday life.

So my point is, never mind what they teach in schools, this is what small children are learning from their parents, their families.

I was so sad after this happened. Mainly because it made me feel so pessimistic that peace will ever be reached. The Israelis spew hatred to their children. What chance have they got?

Sorry for the typos. It always gets me emotional when I think of it. shudders

When we were on the plane home (after 5 hour interrogation and strip search at tel aviv airport, at the hands of 16 year olds with machine guns, I may have mentioned this before) my Palestinian friends said: "now, now do you see what the Israelis have been doing to us for years? How we live? How they abuse us? Please, please if you do one thing, tell people what you saw. Tell everyone. The world needs to know."

Thank you for sharing that kelly. What a horrible way to treat people. I wonder if these same people who dish out such vile racist venom and expect others to take it, would they be the first to shout out 'racism' or 'anti-semitism', should someone say the same thing to them.

I am glad that such casual racism that the Palestinians have dealt with for years and continue to deal with, is being exposed for everyone to see. I sometimes wonder how the next generations of Israelis will view these actions of their grandparents and great grandparents. With utter horror and shame i hope. I just hope they do not have to pay a heavy price for the sins of their forefathers.

I was in Israel in 1991 and was searched myself, even though I had worked in the country as a volunteer and holidayed here several times (evidenced through stamps in my passport). The security is tight because the terrorist threat is so acute. It really is nothing personal.

On another note, re: the Israeli goods boycotts.

1. The companies that boycott Israeli goods will find themselves boycotted by people that have either a pro-Israel stance or are anti Islam terrorism, which is again rearing its head (esp. Iraq and recent beheading of US journalist).
2. Israel's produce exports represent around 2% of its total GDP so taking into account all the people that ARE still buying Israeli exports it really doesn't amount to much. Additionally, to have a real effect you would have to be boycotting medicines, computer software and life saving technology.

The executinons by Hamas are not justifiable as there was no trial.

Hamas executed quite a few members of Fatah when Hamas were elected in 2007. I remember seeing on the news them hanging people from buildings.

Be under no illusion that Hamas are as barbaric to the Palestinian people as the Israeli government has been.

Londongirl "to have a real effect you would have to be boycotting medicines, computer software and life saving technology."

Most medicines, software and life-saving technology are not manufactured in Israel or the Occupied Territories. You might as well say that a person protesting against German actions should boycott motor cars because Karl Benz was an early maker.

do you remember I asked earlier for examples of Israeli products for which there was no easily-available substitute? Nobody came forward with any.

LondonGirl33 Fri 22-Aug-14 17:59:03
"I was in Israel in 1991 and was searched myself, even though I had worked in the country as a volunteer and holidayed here several times (evidenced through stamps in my passport). The security is tight because the terrorist threat is so acute. It really is nothing personal."

I'm really pleased to hear that you were not stressed at being treated Were you really? How did you feel about being made to stand in the sun and tip your belongings into the road?

How many hours did they make you wait?

Yes the executions of alleged informers by Hamas is not acceptable.
Any more than the executions of senior Hamas' members families including wives and babies, by the Israeli IDF.
Slight slip-up with the Israeli PR machine.

PJ - the comment from LondonGirl33 was I believe in reference to other posters who have commented they had been treated rudely and subjected to intrusive searches and questioning when arriving at Israeli airports. It was not attempting to compare her arrival as a tourist at Ben Gurion airport with the horrendous treatment Palestinians often suffer at checkpoints and other locations - just noting that any tourist can be subjected to excessive security checks.

No Backinthering. Don't you get it? Hamas are no better. Hamas will attack the Palestinians just as readily. Rock and hard place anyone?

PigletJohn, the Israeli pharmaceutical company Teva supplies some - possibly many - medicines to the NHS. Some pharmacists are boycotting them.

Teva is also investing $20 million in clinical development in the UK and up to an additional $1 million for basic research into dementia.

Yruapita, to go back to your earlier comment, Nurit Peled-Elhanan, brother of Miko Peled, has written a book called "Palestine in Israeli School Books". There's an article about it here.

^^sister, sorry

bit vague

"Teva has now committed to a three-year dementia research program, providing funding of up to $1 million"

Up to?

Over 3 years?

I suppose this must be reported somewhere other than an Israeli publicity website.

there is a difference between 'tight security' and having searched someone repeatedly, x-rayed their belongings repeatedly in plastic boxes and still be asking them questions about their sex life, financial history, life story five hours later for no reason other than they're a regular visitor to a neighbouring arab country or asked to please not have an israeli stamp on their passport or happened to arrive at the border with someone of palestinian descent.

we've all experienced 'tight security', i'm not sure how many people here have experienced disgusting, humiliating treatment at the hands of teenagers for no reason at all and without any justification. when you are leaving a country, have already been strip searched, had every belonging xrayed and have been interogated for five hours plus what possible 'security threat' could you represent?

my experience at israeli borders has been nothing to do with security and everything to do with discrimination by association or sheer and utter spite towards someone who spends time in egypt. unless of course it came under the heading of intelligence gathering though i'm not sure how, 'how many men have you had sex with' relates to national security. sure looked a lot like attempted bullying and humilation to me and to many others who've been through it and i know with a european passport even if they kept me for ten hours i'd be getting out of there. god help you if you're palestinian and don't have ten hours to spare because your child is dying and needs urgent medical help.

I'm sure londongirl was also asked how many people she'd had sex with, and was held up for ten hours. As she says "It really is nothing personal."

londongirl please confirm.

the first time i did an israeli border i got the giggles because i was young and it was so ridiculous i thought i was in a spoof or something, plus i was travelling with three other westerners so felt safe (believe me it is scarier when you are on your own and being treated like a criminal with zero witnesses and no explanation as to why you're being subjected to it). there were four of us being interogated about who was having sex with who - like what? are you serious? some teenagers are getting off on trying to degrade and demean us because what? we work in an arab country? it was farcical.

another time, traveling home to england alone and very tired and vulnerable it was less funny and more hideous. when you have been searched, your stuff has been x-rayed and you've been questioned on your whole life history you reach a point of exhaustion where it's like 'if you think i'm a terrorist arrest me, if you think i'm smuggling stuff produce the stuff i'm smuggling but i'm not answering anymore horrible intrusive questions for you teenage wankers to get off on making me answer'. they read my journals, they tried to humiliate me with personal details. it was kids trying to bully someone but with power and guns on their side.

i have traveled to some pretty out there places but i have never experienced such tin pot bullying unprofessional security personnel. it was literally surreal and as i've said before i'd never put myself through it again. the last time i was with an american girl with palestinian heritage. she was incredibly educated, went to an ivy league uni and was probably someone with some of the most impeccable manners and poise i've ever met and they treated her like a filthy animal. it was utterly disgusting.

the only bit of humour in the experience (though terrifying at the time) was that whilst x-raying my stuff poured into plastic boxes for the fifth time i noticed a little screwed up piece of foil (you know the bit in the front of a cigarette packet) and my heart sank. in sinai at that time the bedouin would hand you a little lump of opium if you had toothache or period pains etc. not in a 'here take some drugs way' but in a here's a couple of paracetamol type way as they'd pop it between their lip and gum and allow it to slowly dissolve their as a pain reliever. it was mild stuff and would never have got you 'high' that way.

anyway i'd obviously politely said thank you and popped it in the front pull out bit of a cig packet at some stage and dumped it in my room and it had ended up in my stuff.

in the ten rounds of xrays they did whilst picking apart my life history and personality they NEVER even noticed it. it kind of brought it home to me that they weren't looking for anything, they knew i wasn't a risk and weren't seeing me as smuggling or doing anything bad but just were really getting off on interrogating me or were checking out my details and making some dodgy file of westerners who spent a lot of time in the region. god knows what they were up to but a lump of opium would have given them an actual cause if they'd even noticed it.

you can imagine my heart rate everytime they searched that box