Another shoe drops on boycott. Here are Israeli academics, many of them obviously Zionist, saying that they will not go into the territories. Their petition helps to dispel the big clouds surrounding academic boycott here in the U.S. Yes these Israelis are leaders; because as Omar Barghouthi has said, If you will boycott just an egg, we want you to boycott that egg.
The Israeli gesture also gets at the poverty of the American discourse on this issue.
Why is it that these lecturers have gone further than liberal Zionists here? Why is it that you will now see liberal Zionists in the U.S., granted permission by the Israelis, taking similar steps? Why must they have Israeli permission? Why can't American liberals come to this understanding on their own? Remember: they didn't need the Phoenix Suns (brave) gesture against the Arizona law to say, We're gonna boycott Arizona. Finally, when will the existential crisis that the Jewish state is in due chiefly to its endless expansionism be communicated to the American people, without hysteria, by the media? Why is Israeli media freer to discuss the one-state-solution than the American media? (It is all about deference to Zionism inside American culture, and the guardian role granted the Israel lobby by the Jewish community and the U.S. establishment.) From Ynet:
"We are dealing with a catastrophe whose implication is a failure to partition the land; this may threaten the State's existence as a Jewish entity." [said Economics prof Ariel Rubenstein]
Rubinstein added that he does not dismiss the possibility of imposing an academic boycott similar to the one imposed against South Africa during the apartheid era. "Under some circumstances, academic boycotts should not be rejected, but the question is who imposes the boycott and why," he said....[meaning, he's against the right of return...]
Another signatory to the boycott petition is Professor Amiram Goldblum, a chemistry lecturer at Hebrew University in Jerusalem.
"By signing, we declare that we shall refuse invitations for lectures or seminars in the territories," he said. "We will not appear at the Ariel College or at its branches, because we believe that any appearance or academic discussion there violates the law and international conventions, which Israel should adhere to like all other nations."
What do you suppose is going to happen to the “Jewish state” when these fine fellows get barred from attending their grandsons’ bar mitvahs, too?
Im Tirtzu will certainly have something to say about it. The question is, what will US Jews have to say about Im Tirtzu.
The rapid growth of rightwing fanaticism in both the US and Israel are not unrelated. US Jews are turning against their tolerant, liberal past in greater numbers.
“Some 150 Israeli academicians and authors joined actors and playwrights in a call to shun West Bank settlements by avoiding cultural performances beyond the Green Line. ”
This is important. Real movement. Sad to think that these people of conscience will more than likely be branded as self hating Jews instead of the conscience human beings that they are committed to be being.
I really appreciate Norman Finkelstein’s constant reminders to stay focused on international law, treaties, Un resolutions, Goldstone Report etc.
So appreciate his insights, wisdom and his website
link to normanfinkelstein.com
of-goldstone-report/
hey Phil and team. Have you folks ever considered inviting Norman Finkelstein or Judge Goldstone here for a salon of sorts? Where we could discuss their standings and ask questions?
Speaking of Norman Finkelstein, here is a quote that seems germane: “For Israel’s … American Jewish “supporters”… an independent Israel at peace with it’s neighbors was worthless; an Israel aligned with currents in the Arab world seeking independence from the United States was a disaster. Only an Israeli Sparta beholden to American power would do, because only then could US Jewish leaders act as spokesmen for American imperial ambitions.” (The Holocaust Industry, p24)
>> Another signatory to the boycott petition is Professor Amiram Goldblum, a chemistry lecturer at Hebrew University in Jerusalem. “By signing, we declare that we shall refuse invitations for lectures or seminars in the territories … because we believe that any appearance or academic discussion there violates the law and international conventions, which Israel should adhere to like all other nations.”
Well done! Too bad the good professor hasn’t heard that there are no laws or “international conventions” by which Israel should abide. There are suggestions, amusingly referred to by some as “international law”, but these are merely twigs on the river, to be pushed aside by the kayak of Jewisraelizionist (self-)self-determination of themselves.
I suspect there will be little to no coverage of this growing boycott by Israelis in the US media.
bank on that
ot but important
Juan Cole completely nails it
The Speech President Obama Should Give about the Iraq War (But Won’t)
link to juancole.com
wondering how you’re painting project’s come along, Kath on a hot tin roof.
The reason US liberals do not speak out is simple: fear. Every time one does, they are subject to the most ferocious, co-ordinated campaign by the self-appointed guardians of Israel’s extremist policies. These people are unafraid to exploit the weakness of the US media and institutions in standing up to bullying and smearing, waging relentless campaigns against the slighest deviation from their hasbara manuals. Congressmen, presidents, professors, journalists – whoever. Somehow they have made it even harder to speak out, or stand up for justice, in the US than in Israel (though it is fast catching up, using the same fanatical tactics). However, the wall they have built is springing too many holes for them to keep the tide of truth from breaking through.
please spend 90 minutes listening to American Muslims discuss how they gird themselves to represent Islam in the US. link to c-spanvideo.org
I think it’s being reaired right now – 4:00 pm EST on C Span 1, but it can be streamed at your convenience.
James Zogby, Salam al-Maryati, President Muslim Public Affairs Council ; Azizah Al-Hibri, Chair Muslim Women for Human Rights . . .
Phil, you’re gonna yank this comment if I say this, but here goes: in the Q&A a fellow spoke to complain that, although he was active in the Palestinian movement, HE felt the sting of discrimination too because he’s a Jew and everyone says Jews are billionaires and he’s not a billionaire. Why do people always have to think it’s all about them when it’s about some other aggrieved group? Is victimhood so deeply ingrained that nonvictimhood is terra incognita? How can it be communicated to the world’s perpetual victims that the world is weary of that line?
I get the impression from the professor that if Israel were to say, ” OK, all of this is ours now” ( meaning the West Bank) the professor would be fine with that, he just needs the green-light from The Serious People. Because after all, how much different is Ariel in 2010 from say, Tel Aviv in the 40′s?
If you are honest with yourself intellectually, you cannot call into question the legitimacy of West Bank settlements without calling into question the zionist project in general. Fortunately for the professor “International Law” provides him his cover. Tel Aviv? Legit. Ariel? Not yet.
As Zionism goes off to that place where the dead dogmas of the world reside, to what will history attribute its demise? To bad leadership, perhaps, or to a waning of the pioneer spirit of the founding fathers, or to Israel’s having lost its special relationship with the U.S.A.? Or will Zionism’s demise be attributed to what Zionists tell us is an international antisemitic plot to do in Zionist Israel (not its people), but in fact the alleged plot turns out to be something else – a universal awakening to the reality of the Mideast conflict – that the Palestinian is the slave, which makes the settler (every Jewish Israeli) the slaveowner. Remembered too, will be the role that many dedicated Americans played in putting out the word that a better world not only is possible, it’s doable, its start-up being a successful BDS campaign, such that, surprise, Palestine is returned to its people and peacefully so. Surprise for some, that is, yet for others entirely predictable, given the Jewish heritage of always siding with the slave, never with the slaveowner, even (make that especially) when the slaveowner turns out to be a co-religionist. Simply put, from this point of view, said credo derives from Jewish tradition, period, no less, little else other than assorted rituals and unsubstantiated myths, including, but not limited to the one about Adam & Eve. So right now it just happens that in the Middle East conflict the Palestinian is the slave, identifically so, too, by dint of the fact that her homeland, Palestine, is under occupation by Jewish-Israeli settlers – since being under the providence of a conqueror easily qualifies as a form of enslavement. Which raises the question as to what effect a revival of the Jewish spirit of always siding with the slave would have on bringing about a resolution of the Mideast conflict?