The other night in NY Bill Kristol said that delegitimization of Israel is an existential threat up there with Iran. Actually it may be the principal threat to the endurance of the Jewish state. There is a worldwide campaign to delegitimize Israel– and a worldwide campaign to breathe new life into the brand. Marc Tracy at Tablet wonders whether Google also will become a BDS target because it’s gone in with Israel’s Technion for the new Cornell campus in New York. Bloomberg’s brainchild…
The search engine giant announced today that the company is donating 22,000 square feet in its New York City headquarters in Chelsea (a truly enormous building that, in fact, used to be what the Port Authority bus terminal is now) to the Cornell school for up to five-and-a-half years, so that classes may begin immediately. Cornell will cover most operating costs (no word on whether students will be able to eat in Google’s famous free cafeteria). This is actually a crucial donation—with an estimated worth of $12 million—because Cornell won the bid in part by pledging to start classes in New York this fall.
And Technion is fully involved in this endeavor, Tablet Magazine learned today. “The Cornell/Technion partnership will be launched in this space,” a spokesperson emailed on behalf of Google.
If you’ll notice, Google also bought Motorola.
Could we, please, delegitimize the horrible phrase “existential threat” (“ET”) when used to mean something that does not threaten something’s existence? Please?
If Iran gets the bomb, it may to a slight (very slight) extent be able to counter Israel’s political/military power — but it could never threaten Israel’s existence, so it is not and could not be a ET. (Can anyone imagine a Muslim country using a nuke against Israel in a manner to threaten the Haram ash-Sharif?) Israel has submarines now to threaten retaliation (“Solomon Option”) and lots of nukes (by common agreement).
Even BDS, even “made in territory occupied by Israel in 1967” labeling, even removal of foreign diplomats from Israel, even requiring Israel to remove all the 650,000 settlers, dismantle the wall and the settlements, end the siege — would not threaten Israel’s existence. they are simply not ETs. (They would all be salutary, in fact, leading to peace, reconciliation, normality, and the end of the nightmare (dream/trauma) of Greater Israel.)
We should make fun of the ET-usage. In short, ET-go-home.
Let’s invert the discourse, a little bit:
Israel, with over 200 nukes, is the real existential threat to 400 million people that lives on the territory of its enemies.
400 million people can be vaporized with the a few minutes after the press of a button within a millionth of a second.
Israel’s government is dominated by insane terrorists with a racial-tribal supremacist ideology, which can run out of control at any second.
Israel is not a tiny country surrounded by enemies, but the biggest and best equipped military base of the world, located within the geographic center of ill equipped armies and that can barely defend populations full of poor, innocent, hard working people.
So many things to BDS… Will we end naked and starving?
BTW, do mondoweiss’ servers run on Intel chips?
An important vote is coming up in the European Parliament on 24th May 2012, regarding the possible upgrade in the Association trade agreement with Israel, on hold since 2008 because of Israels abuses. Some MEP’s have written saying Europe needs Israels generic pharmaceuticals and they will support an upgrade, Teva, HQ’d in Israel is the worlds largest producer of generic drugs. However it should be noted that article 2 of that agreement states,—— ‘ Relations between the parties, as well as all the provisions of the agreement itself, shall be based on respect for human rights and democratic principles, which guides their internal and International policy and constitutes an essential element of their agreement.’ The question is, after all the breaches of International Law and its continuing ethnic cleansing how would Israel interpret an upgrade, it doesn’t bare thinking about.