Activism

A boycott of their own? Settlers compiling list of businesses that employ ‘Arabs’

Haaretz reports that settlers from Yitzhar have been canvassing Israeli businesses in Jerusalem to determine which ones employ Arab-Israelis, so that the names of these companies can be put into a public directory.

The project, which Haaretz says is called “Hebrew Labor,” is being spearheaded by the grandson of far-right rabbi Meir Kahane, whose political movement, Kach, has been banned in Israel (the “Jewish Defense Leagues” are spiritual Kahanist successors).

The Israeli police arrested Kahane’s grandson on the suspicion that he was conducting surveillance for terrorist attacks, and he has since been released. He and his cohorts – Haaretz estimates less than two dozen people are involved with “Hebrew Labor,” almost all of them young men from Yitzhar – have actually been in Jerusalem for a while under a sort of restraining order: they received legal papers ordering them to remain in the city pending a decision by the government to allow them to return to Yitzhar and its environs because they are suspected of plotting price taggings.

Presumably, this action is partly an admission of weakness by the police that they cannot expect to successfully enforce Israeli law in the settlement. Yitzhar, situated between Nablus and Ariel, is a hotspot of price tagging activity (it’s yeshiva was forced to close over student and faculty involvement in price taggings) and violent clashes with Palestinian residents nearby – residents of Yitzhar and nearby Palestinian towns have reportedly engaged in acts of assault and arson against each other’s communities. These actions have only escalated since the Israeli withdrawal from Gaza in 2005, seen as an act of appeasement among rightists, and have increasingly come to target Israelis whose perceived lack of commitment to the settlements (the IDF) or outright opposition to them (Peace Now) is seen as a threat.

The Yitzhar settlers’ actions were praised by The Prevention of Assimilation in the Holy Land group, which has gained notoriety for opposing racial mixing between Israeli women and Arab men and urging landlords to not rent properties to Israeli-Arabs.

The Haaretz story implies that Hewbrew Labor will be encouraging Israelis to boycott stores with Israeli-Arab employees. The “irony” of all this, of course, is that this past summer, Likud members argued that boycotts are inherently undemocratic in order to justify the passage of the “anti-BDS” law:

“It’s a principle of democracy that you don’t shun a public you disagree with by harming their livelihood. A boycott on a certain sector is not the proper manifestation of freedom of expression. It is an aggressive move meant to force a sector that thinks a different way to capitulate. Boycotts are aggressive and wrong.”

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The Haaretz story implies that Hebrew Labor will be encouraging Israelis to boycott stores with Israeli-Arab employees

Why not go the whole hog and make the goys wear yellow crescents ?

Paul Mutter,

This isn’t something new per se. Part of the reason that Israel imported foreign workers from the Philippines and south east Asia in the 1990s was its desire to rid itself of Palestinian workers, from both sides of the Green Line.

What few Palestinians worked in the so-called Jewish Sector, they were usually hired to do menial, physically demanding jobs. And so they would get hired as janitors, cleaners, maids, construction workers, dish washers etc..

From that reality was born the slur, “Arab work,” or as it is known in Hebrew as “Avoda Aravit,” meaning dirty work and sloppy unprofessional work.

So as you can appreciate, whether or not someone establishes a list and calls it Hebrew Labor, the reality is that the non-Jewish citizens of the state have long been excluded and discriminated against for decades. And this de facto practice has been put in place and enforced by both Jewish Israeli society and the Israeli government.

Kahane’s grandson has merely sought to ‘tabulate’ it all.

It looks like the “Ubermenschen” want to deprive the “Untermenschen” their menial, paid-almost-nothing jobs, so “the Untermenschen “will have no means to survive.
“The Ubermenschen” want also scare/force all the other “Ubermenschen” into a full obedience to “their” rules.
If you are not with us ,you must be against us.

“Presumably, this action is partly an admission of weakness by the police that they cannot expect to successfully enforce Israeli law in the settlement. Yitzhar, situated between Nablus and Ariel, is a hotspot of price tagging activity ”

How much it would CLARIFY things and perhaps also simplify things it the government of the USA (and the GoI as well) would declare that the settlements and the settlers are all present in occupied territories (including occupied parts of Jerusalem) ILLEGALLY and the settlers must be removed.

Be a help if other countries (especially former colonial countries) would merely say this out loud, and repeatedly. to get their own populations used to the idea and talking about it. “Hey, Rube, the rule of law! Wow!”

Imagine someone publishing a list of businesses that employ Jews. We’re told it’s antisemitic even to count Jews in public life. But for Israel, it’s OK to make such a list to drive the untermenschen out of their jobs and set them up for harassment.

What does Abe Fox have to say?