From the interview:
Is the BDS movement alienating Israelis?
Resistance to oppression always alienates the oppressors. It's a rule in any resistance to colonial oppression throughout history and the colonial community is never fond of it, of this resistance. They would like us to be complacent slaves who just take injustice as fate and just live with it, move on. Well we won't move on. We'll continue resisting and it will continue bothering them because it promises to deprive them of their colonial privilege and no one is happy to give up, simply, their colonial privilege as you know very well in Britan. It has to be pulled out from the colonial masters that you can no longer be our colonial masters. We want to live in full equality and have full rights. So yes, the great majority of Iraelis are alienated by BDS of course and they ban together as some journalist call 'they circle the wagons' so to speak and this tribalism has become really extreme and fascism is growing in Israel as many many leading acedemics and artists in Israel are saying. So yes we know but this happens at the beginning, this feeling that everyone is banning together and the minority is dissenting.(clip)
This suppression reflects that they're really scarred and when people feel scared they do ban together until the price becomes much higher and then you'll see cracks in this wall of silence in Israel and wall of complicity in Israel where almost all Israelis are complicit. Almost all, all cultural institutions, all academic institutions, all economic institutions, everyone is complicit with very few exceptions. But we've seen it before. We've seen it in South Africa, we've seen it with the British colonial rule, French colonial rule. We've seen it before when the public do not pay a price they say 'well we're enjoying the fruits of colonialism and apartheid and oppression why can't we continue?'....... enjoying the benefits of billions and billions of dollars of your (British) tax money, American tax money, German tax money that's subsidizing it's occupation and apartheid so why should it stop oppressing us? Why should it question? Why should people question ending occupation and the oppression? Only when the price goes higher as we're doing and that's why BDS is truly alarming to the establishment, to the colonial establishment in Israel. It promises to threaten their hegemony and their privilege and once that happens we'll see the dissent. That's what happened in South Africa and we've studied South Africa experience very closely, very very closely.....from that experience we've learned if we keep at it with moral consistency with continuous pressure the system will start cracking and then we'll see a lot of dissent.
Five years ago a rabbi stood up and asks Barghouti why he wasn't honest about the BDS demands of ending inequality and having full equality for Palestinians in Israel. He asked him "Why don't you just say it, that you want to destroy Israel?"
I specifically copied this segment of the interview because Barghouti's response clearly speaks to the intentions of the BDS movement.
Let me understand what you just said, so i told him "your saying ending inequality would destroy Israel what does that say about Israel? Has ending inequality destroyed South Africa? Ending apartheid destroy South Africa? Has ending segregation in the US destroyed the United States, southern states that had an apartheid system? We did not call it apartheid then but it was an apartheid system. Since when does ending inequality destroy anything? It destroys inequality, it destroys apartheid, it destroys injustice. That's what we're deligitimizing in Israel, it's occupation, it's apartheid, it's denial of our basic rights, it's ethnic cleansing. Yes, we're proud to be deligitimizing israel's oppression, Israel violations of international law. That does not call for ending the existence of any person or any group or anything, it does not target people as people, it targets a system of oppression so that all people can live in equality and justice."
“Is the BDS movement alienating Israelis?”
The system alienates them. There would be no need for a massively bloated army if Israel were a normal country where human rights meant something. Cui bono ?
The army is at the centre of the system.
link to haaretz.com
“The freedom that was appropriated from the generals as a direct result of greater supervision over the army is returned to them in the form of the militarization of Israeli society, the heightened legitimization of the use of force as a means to solve the country’s problems and, consequently, a more central role for the generals in policy making.
Kids are conscripted at age 18. The education system has to fit. How badly informed is the average Ma’ariv reading restricted-to-Hebrew Yossi Israeli ? You can’t have a perceptive youth prepared to ask questions if they all spend 2 years afterwards committing human rights abuses. How could a Montessori system work in Israel ?
The masses in Israel are pawns of their sociopath leaders. I feel very sorry for them. Most of them are probably clueless. If you got all your info. in a language nobody else speaks and were constantly told the world hates you and only the IDF stands between you and Auschwitz, how many works of art would you be likely to produce?
Blaming BDS is like blaming short selling. The system is broken. The faster change happens, the less damage it does.
“The masses in Israel are pawns of their sociopath leaders.”
If we accept that, then we must also accept that German citizens were pawns of Hitler and therefore also blameless.
And since Hitler is long dead, Germany owes the Jews and Israel nothing.
When the Norwegian Nobel Committee decides to give the peace prize to Omar Barghouti, i will admit that i am Norwegian.
Until then i am Swedish.
A very soft-spoken man, making important arguments.
My position again and again is that the demands of BDS when described in less than maximalist terms, should be adopted by Israel and implemented sincerely and fully.
And, at the same time, I distrust many of the proponents of BDS, and the language of the demand and accompanying explanation, that does not clearly distinguish that the goal of the campaign and campaigners are ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza only, with the implication of advocacy of a two-state approach.
And, I distrust many of the proponents of BDS, in not insisting that Hamas also be held accountable for repeated violations of international law, to the extent that as pursued, the goals of BDS are unlikely to be realized.
Most defer to the logic of not questioning ANY resistance effort, and certainly not publicly.
So, it makes a great prospective rallying cry, but a potentially abusive result.
but a potentially abusive result.
abusive to the colonial master..
Potentially abusive to civilians.
“Potentially abusive to civilians”
So what?
Israel is more abusive to Palestine citizens.
I’m glad we have a post featuring Omar Barghouti.
You can explain to him and everybody else why you manufactured a quote and falsely attributed it to the Palestinian Boycott National Committee and the BDS Movement, claiming that in the past year they have “revised” what they present as their 2005 call for BDS to be more ambiguous and include “militant warring language”. The whole sorry saga has been played out on two threads starting first here and there continuing here. Despite being pressed numerous times, no proof has been forthcoming.
Once again Richard, please provide evidence to support your claim, or apologise and withdraw the accusation. As a member of the Palestinian BNC you can direct your apology to Omar Barghouti here and hope he reads it.
Funny, my recollection is that you have rallied against BDS again and again on Mondoweiss. Here you state:
I consider the BDS effort to be a cynical and willingly abusive approach compared to electoral engagement…
And here after telling annie [of all people!] you didn’t think she was…
personally morally skilled and careful enough to avoid such an effort [the California Divestment Initiative] devolving to an organization of hatred, including a shelter for anti-semitism.
You then took aim directly at Omar Barghouti:
Among the leadership involved in BDS, I don’t observe much better. A facebook friend posted an interview with Omar Barghouti, interviewed by an Indian journalist, in which he spoke in less than idealistic terms.
I guess that’s two apologies you owe Omar then Richard.
sumud, there is no way witty could appear on this thread. barghouti is a giant. witty has zero cajons.
Is this a position you express in places other than Mondoweiss (or other BDS-supporting circles)?
Or is this a position you keep to yourself mostly? Not actually sincerely and fully trying and pushing to see it adopted and implemented by Israel?