So who will join me in promising to boycott all israeli products from today?

[seeker]

Seeker.

The boycott of South African goods which help bring down the Apartheid government was GOVERNMENT driven - many governments across the world denied South Africa the opportunity to export their goods.
Once the goods have arrived in this country, they have been paid for and the monies received by the producers in the country of origin.
Us as indviduals deciding to boycott Israeli goods is all very well - but please don't be under the illusion it will do any good. What we need is to put pressure on our governments to institute sanctions against the Israeli government and deny them the opportunity to export at all.

I think the point as to why boycotts are not 'stupid' is twofold:

Firstly, I feel that if I buy produce from Israel I am in some way complicit in that regime and its actions, which - over the past 20 years - have appalled me on many, many occasions.

Secondly, theoretically (unlikely I know) my individual boycott if repeated by millions would have an impact. I do not want to live my life according to the axiom that my little actions don't matter and won't make any difference to the world, that I am helpless and that I have no control and no influence over the world in which I live.

I'm proud to support Israel.

Roisin - I've just double checked my post - and nowhere did I see the word 'stupid'.

I'm saying that your energies could be better off directed elsewhere.

You boycotting Israeli goods may well make you feel as though you are not contributing to their regime, but if you do not couple that with other actions, such as writing to your MP to urge the government to take action or campaigning to encourage the distributors to stop selling Israeli goods, then your gesture, I'm sorry to say IS meaningless. And I doubt that millions of people will join in the boycott, for the reasons stated by NeilOliversBurd.

It's not true you have no control there are lots of things you can do to make a difference. I just don't think this boycott is one of them.

ah yes, let's make this all Israel's fault. of course, Hamas and the Palestinians have never killed a single Israeli. Let's not forget Hamas don;t want to just wipe Israel off the face of the earth, but all us Western heretics too.

and this could so easily spill into an anti- Jewish thing, I have seen some comments on MN recently re Israel that have mde my blood run cold

surely bankrupting Israeli farmers is not going to actually stop the conflict.. becasue it is also being kept going by the other side.

agree with lulumama, Israel announced a cease fire, a couple of hours later Hamas are firing rockets at Israel. Where is the outrage about this?
i wont be boycotting israeli products

lulumama I have not seen one single post that has spoken in favour of Hamas on this or any other thread about the conflict in Gaza. Neither do I know any Jewish people who support Israel's behaviour. I am fed up with people justifying Israel's war crimes purely on the basis they're being committed by Jews and I refuse to even countenance the argument that I am anti-Semetic by condemning Israel's actions.

i am not going to rehash the other threads, i do not condone/support what israel has done BUT i do not condone/support what Hamas has done. there is wrong on both sides and i know pletny of Jews and Israelis who acknowledge that, but Israel consistnelty gets the worse press and reviled in the media.

No I don't boycott any supermarkets. Because my feeling is that they are all as bad as eachother. I buy fruit/veg/meat/eggs elsewhere but for all the other stuff you need there simply isn't anywhere else to get it from apart from the supermarket.

BouncingTurtle - I wasn't specifically replying to you. Earlier in the thread someone did use the word 'stupid' to describe boycotts.

But as you have specifically addressed me, I will reply specifically to your comments to me. Yes, I am politically active on this and other world issues in other ways. I do write to my MP, sign petitions, support Amnesty International, on a regular basis.

I have been boycotting Israeli veg etc ever since I saw a documentary about Israel nabbing fertile land on Palestinian side of the divide. Then also diverting water to grow crops for export which need a lot of water (ie crops not really suitable for the climate) resulting in losses of water for Palestinian families further along which they needed to grow their own food.

I didnt equate boycotting Israeli products as necessarily anti semitic, what worried me was seeing people post dont shop in M&S or Marks because they are Jewish companies.

Only a loon would equate Jewish=Israeli or vice versa, or assume that all Jewish people support the actions of the Israeli government etc.

I take umbrage when people say that to oppose the actions of Isreal means you are anti-semitic - ridiculous.

However it has to be acknowledged that there is anti-semitic feeling around and that these people can and do use situations like this war to justify their actions. DH tells me that swastikas and "jihad" have been spray-painted all over Golders Green bus station which is appalling.

So while I resent being called an anti-semite for my views about Isreal's actions, I can understand why Jewish people can get paranoid and think that everyone is attacking them, when in fact most people are simply disagreeing with what Isreal are doing.

Only read OP (sorry, but can't be getting embroiled in another Gaza debate right now).

To the OP - you had better boycott all American (and British!) produce, too, then.

I saw that documentary too tumtumtetum - it was shocking, wasn't it?!

I agree tumtum but I did feel that there was an assumption on here that if a company had Jewish roots or owners it must support the Israeli action which is why I asked for further evidence.

My friend who loves in Golders Green has said similar things.

twinset I have never had love in Golders Green... but I did share a bottle of thunderbirds in the cinema there one afternoon when I was 16 and felt rather unwell afterwards!

If people are saying to boycott companies with Jewish roots then I agree that is ridiculous and extrmely worrying. I assumed that with M&S people were talking about the food and that maybe they source a lot of veg and fruit from there but maybe not .

If I were to boycott Jewish run things the first thing I would have to do would be pack my job in, then I would have to avoid half the shops around where I live etc. And what has that to do with Isreal?

I do boycott the fruit and veg due to that documentary Roisin saw as well - which is a targetted thing to do with growing practices which I thought were really awful.

twinsetandpearls - I didn't mean that you shouldn't shop in M&S because it's a Jewish company (although as it's FTSE listed and is owned by shareholders, that's debatable). I suggested that people boycott it because of its declared support for the economic development of Israel. Same as for Tesco. The Arcadia group is controlled by Philip Green who is Jewish. I would not advocate boycotting those companies because as far as I know, he does not channel profits into supporting Israel.

I apologise if you thought I was being anti-Semitic but I wasn't.

what is wrong with supporting the economic development of a democratic nation?