The United Church of Canada has voted to boycott settlement products. Below are two responses from Jewish community organizations. Both say that the United Church is threatening interfaith harmony; and both describe the settlements as Israel.
First, the World Jewish Congress:
NEW YORK… The World Jewish Congress strongly condemns the outrageous decision taken by the United Church of Canada to support a boycott of Israeli communities and for its stated regret for previously calling for Palestinian recognition of Israel’s Jewish character….Evelyn Sommer, Chair, World Jewish Congress, North America, said… “The leaders of the UCC have made an unfortunate decision that denies the facts of the Jewish people’s historical presence in their homeland…”
B’nai B’rith Canada:
B’nai Brith Canada has condemned recommendations passed by the United Church of Canada today that lay the groundwork for the boycott of products from Jewish communities in Biblical Israel. The final vote to approve and actualize this boycott is expected on Friday.
Frank Dimant, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada, issued the following statement:
“At a time when thousands of Syrian citizens are being slaughtered, we find this obsession with the Jewish State highly suspect. The subtext of these recommendations is that Jews cannot legitimately establish working communities in Biblical Israel – this is a first step towards calling for ethnic cleansing of Jews from these areas.”
The subtext of these recommendations is that Jews cannot legitimately establish working communities in Biblical Israel
No, the subtext is that they cannot illegitimately establish such communities. Israeli settlements on the West Bank have no legal validity according to a binding UN Security Council resolution.
What next, B’nai B’rith? A declaration that jailing a Jewish thief is antisemitic?
Buster: Agreed!
When people are determined to follow a path (which happens to be a path of lawlessness), the mere lawlessness cannot stop them. If there are no police, no courts, etc., to stop them, and naked forceful resistance cannot or will not be used to stop them, then they quite simply will not be stopped.
The settlements were begun gradually and Israel — following its perennial style of ‘testing” — gave the world 45 years of chances — step by step, gradually — to stop them, but the world decided not to. The USA played a large part in this “decision”. Nowadays the EU grants trade preferences to Israel (apart from goods recognized as “from” the occupied territories). This is a backing down from the requirement (of Fourth Geneva Convention) to “ensure respect for the Convention in all circumstances”. What the USA has done (or not done) is unspeakable and readers of this blog know all about that. The USA actively abets lawlessness and in its wars copies some of Israel’s worst violations of the law of war.
Read UNSC 465 (1980) and weep.
Settlerspeak triumphs!
Frank Dimant – who has ruled Bnai Brith Canada for decades – has long been a supporter of the settlements and on the right wing of the Canadian Jewish Community. Now that the Canadian Jewish Community has moved to the right, he is just a tad right of center – so he can be more vocal about what he always believed.
BTW when I write Canadian Jewish Community – I mean the official agencies and organizations that claim to speak for the community. Canadian Jews are a diverse group, and I would say most of them – even those who are affiliated with some group or another – are to the somewhat to the left of the “Leadership”.
“Jewish communities in Biblical Israel”
It’s interesting to look up just what supposedly is in ‘Biblical Israel.’ In some interpretations, it can incorporate everything from eastern Anatolia to the northern part of Egypt — and in most, it includes Cyprus.
Well, why not? Have at it. The difficulty comes when people start seriously implying they actually have some sort of valid claim on this basis.
I wouldn’t agree that anyone anywhere has the right to establish a community or settlement exclusively for their own race or excluding members of other races. Let no one establish a community from which Jewish people are excluded. I wouldn’t agree that the status of a territory in ancient times determines who has or has not a right to be there now. Would anyone proclaim this idea seriously as a general principle?
“I wouldn’t agree that anyone anywhere has the right to establish a community or settlement exclusively for their own race or excluding members of other races. “
Other than the Nazis, I’m not sure anyone else ever explicitly has. Even the settlement of North America was accompanied by a lot of hypocritical eyewash about how if the Indians would just settle down and farm and live in houses and things, then there’d be no problem.
Of course, the Cherokee are the prime example of how that wasn’t observed — but the point is that there was this awareness that what would be right would be if…
…and of course other conquerors — excepting the Mongols on a bad day — were quite willing to let the native peoples stay put. As a rule, they just wanted to be top dog. Sort of corporate raiders with swords.
There have been groups like the Serbs and such that wanted to — ahem — clarify lines of ethnic division, but at least they really were there at the time. There genuinely, indubitably were Bosnian Serbs, for example. It wasn’t like they’d all arrived from South America or something with this idea that Bosnia should be theirs.
As I keep saying, Israel is special. It’s a very, very special form of evil. Reduced to its essence, it’s nineteenth century racial nationalism carried to a depraved and morally indefensible extreme — and applied to a land the group in question didn’t even live in, and at least arguably, never had.
And equally to the point, we happen to vigorously support it. That really is the clincher for me. If all this was happening without our intervention, then we could shake our heads and go ‘tut tut.’
But that’s not the case. This is an evil we are hip-deep in.
Well, yes. The moral principles which Israel acts on and defends with such vigour are unique. When things or people are unique you can’t ‘single them out’.
The World Jewish Congress condemns, B’nai B’rith condemns..
They can ”condemn” all they like. Everyone involved in this issue is only a few or one more condemn away from not even bothering to reply and explain their position to them.
The kiss of death will delivered with… ”So What? and We Don’t Care”
I’m already at my don’t care , no one owes them anymore explainations.
I agree, American. The UCC should just tell the WJC and B’B’ to go and do the other thing.
RE: “The subtext of these recommendations is that Jews cannot legitimately establish working communities in Biblical Israel” ~ Frank Dimant, CEO of B’nai Brith Canada
MY QUESTION: And exactly what territory does “Biblical Israel” encompass?
“PASTOR” JOHN HAGEE SPEAKETH ON “BIBLICAL ISRAEL”:
“A Serial Obstructionist”, By Rachel Tabachnick, ZEEK – Forward, 3/15/10
ENTIRE ARTICLE –
link to zeek.forward.com
• ALSO SEE: “Hagee’s Gifts to Pro-Settler Groups” [Ariel (settlement), $500,000], by Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam, 2/12/10 LINK – link to richardsilverstein.com
• AND SEE: “Recruiting Brecht to Whitewash Occupation”, by Richard Silverstein, Tikun Olam, 8/26/10
LINK – link to richardsilverstein.com
P.S. ALSO SEE: “Netanyahu and Pastor Hagee’s Lovefest on Eve of Biden’s Arrival in Israel”, by Max Blumenthal, maxblumenthal.com, 3/09/10
ENTIRE ARTICLE – link to maxblumenthal.com
What’s funny is that Hagee’s $58 Million to Israel and its illegal settlements was the result of waves of poor white folks, each contributing their tin cup full of spare change before going home to their crackers and powdered milk, their personal baby jesus on the dashboard of their clunker. Just the kind of special folks Bibi would like to have live next to him in Israel.
I wonder if the same thing went on in 1948-50 or thereabouts? Was there some kind of wiggle from seeing ‘Israel’ as lying within the borders established by the UN to seeing it as encompassing everything the Zionists had managed to grab back then?
Heh. Point the diversion finger at Syria, crying crocodile tears for despised Syrians, and point the other finger, the strongest one, at the Old Testament real estate deal with God, the insurance agent. Such harmony the United Church Of Canada don’t need.
These West Bank Jewish settlements are to Zionist Israel’s expansion as Nazi Germany’s claim on the Sudetenland* were to Hitlers’ lebensraum. What’s next, a reenactment of Munich, with President Obama flying to Tel Aviv to sign an agreement with Prime Minister Netanyahu ceding the Sudetenland (er, the West Bank settlements) to Israel?
*pre-WW II Czechoslavakia’s northern and western border regions
The World Jewish Congress and B’nai Brith Canada, must of course ignore UNSC res 252 and its SEVEN reminders.
The lies and bullshi*te they spout are not befitting association with Judaism in any way shape or form.