Here’s an article by Daniella Peled in Haaretz saying that Israel has been rebranded as the occupation nation, and BDS is gaining traction. By the way,
Forget ‘Startup Nation,’ Israel’s brand identity is occupation Israel’s efforts to market itself as a gay-friendly, villa-in-the-jungle, startup nation cannot blot out the occupation, BDS or the crushing symbolic force of the EU guidelines.
Boycott, Disinvestment and Sanctions, BDS, is already working. Not to devastate Israel’s economy – that’s still a remote prospect – but to do something just as effective: Destroy its global standing…
There’s a reason why the Israeli government is so exercised about BDS: It works. Whether you agree with its philosophy or not or not, or find its proponents objectionable – like all activist movements, it attracts an extremist political fringe – BDS is non-violent and legal, a classic example of civil society action to which there is no possible military response.
But the Israeli establishment, doggedly militaristic, doesn’t understand the use of soft power, and it’s going to take much more than an Israeli Mr Gay International winner to change that.
But here’s another article in Haaretz by Rabbi Eric Yoffie on Israel’s standing, which has a very different diagnosis. Yoffie is a liberal Zionist supporter of Obama (who doesn’t want too many Arabs in Israel).
Rand Paul: The single greatest danger to Israel’s standing in the U.S.
Riding high in the contest to be the next U.S. Republican presidential candidate, Rand Paul wraps his isolationist vision – including cutting aid to Israel – in palatable words. But American Jews should be concerned.
Peled has a global focus. Yoffie is worried about possible opposition to the Israel lobby from non-Jewish Americans and populists. And maybe he’s right? Thanks to Max Blumenthal.
Peled is right of course, and not even Samantha Power is going to be able to stem the tide.
BTW. Israel’s international approval, already in the gutter in 2012, continues to slide.
Yoffie is a Grade A moron
Meanwhile check this out for Bot PR management failure. The message is breaking down.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/politics/2013/jul/18/david-ward-whip-israel-apartheid-state
“A Liberal Democrat MP has had the party’s whip withdrawn after repeatedly clashing with Nick Clegg over comments questioning the continued existence of the state of Israel.
David Ward, the MP for Bradford East, sent a tweet this weekend in which he asked: “Am I wrong or are am I right? At long last the #Zionists are losing the battle – how long can the #apartheid State of #Israel last?”
His tweet followed a blog, written in the runup to Holocaust Day in January, which said “the Jews”, who had suffered during the Holocaust, had inflicted “atrocities on Palestinians in the new State of Israel” within a few years.
His suspension, which is due to last eight weeks, is largely symbolic as it comes the day before parliament rises for its summer recess. “
In short, Rand Paul. They’ve been occupying for six decades,
and part of their craft is telling the world, ‘It’s not what it appears to be’.
A Rand Paul platform could imbibe BDS into the American political
realm (although hasn’t Paul has played both sides in the past).
It is true that the strongest opposition to Israel in the US right now comes from the isolationist right rather than the universalist left. Either side has a good point about Israel’s interests and the US’s interests not being the same.