Unite votes to boycott Israel
By Jonathan Kalmus
Jewish Chronicle: June 4, 2010
Britain's largest union, Unite, has unanimously passed a motion to boycott
Israeli companies at its first policy conference in Manchester on Wednesday.
The motion, which passed unanimously, called the union "to vigorously
promote a policy of divestment from Israeli companies", while a boycott of
Israeli goods and services will be "similar to the boycott of South African
goods during the era of apartheid".
Reflecting the University and College Union's call at their Manchester
conference earlier in the week, Unite will similarly host a "Palestine
conference" to support trade union action against Israel.
But at odds with the UCU's call to sever links with Israel's trade union
movement Histadrut, Unite delegates voted to keep solidarity links. Stephen
Scott, director of Trade Union Friends of Israel, said that indicates a
split within the pro-boycott movement, many of whom realise such a call "is
all very dangerous stuff.
"It would be huge for another trade union movement to expel them even when
they are a democratic organisation and pass all the criteria of being a
member of the international trade unions."
Nevertheless, Mr Scott added: "All round, you now have a major player
supporting the boycott and the Palestinian Solidarity Campaign, and there is
no resistance."
**
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article25627.htm
'Mad Dog' Diplomacy
A cornered Israel is baring its teeth
By Jonathan Cook
Information Clearing House: June 04, 2010
Nazareth
Moshe Dayan, Israel's most celebrated general, famously outlined the
strategy he believed would keep Israel's enemies at bay: "Israel must
be like a mad dog, too dangerous to bother."
Until now, most observers had assumed Dayan was referring to Israeli
military or possibly nuclear strategy, an expression in his typically blunt
fashion of the country's familiar doctrine of deterrence.
But the Israeli commando attack on Monday on the Gaza-bound flotilla, in
which nine activists have so far been confirmed killed and dozens were
wounded as they tried to break Israel's blockade of the enclave, proves
beyond doubt that this is now a diplomatic strategy too. Israel is feeling
cornered on every front it considers important - and like Dayan's "mad dog",
it is likely to strike out in unpredictable ways.
Domestically, Israeli human rights activists have regrouped after the
Zionist left's dissolution in the wake of the outbreak of the second
intfada. Now they are presenting clear-eyed - and extremely ugly -
assessments of the occupation that are grabbing headlines around the world.
That move has been supported by the leadership of Israel's large Palestinian
minority, which has additionally started questioning the legitimacy of a
Jewish state in ways that would have been unthinkable only a few years ago.
Regionally, Hizbullah has progressively eroded Israel's deterrence doctrine.
It forced the Israeli army to exit south Lebanon in 2000 after a two-decade
occupation; it stood firm in the face of both aerial bombardment and a
ground invasion during the 2006 war; and now it is reported to have
accumulated an even larger arsenal of rockets than it had four years ago.
Iran, too, has refused to be intimidated and is leaving Israel with an
uncomfortable choice between conceding to Tehran the room to develop a
nuclear bomb, thereby ending Israel's regional nuclear monopoly, and
launching an attack that could unleash a global conflagration.
And internationally, nearly 18 months on from its attack on Gaza, Israel's
standing is at an all-time low. Boycott campaigns are gaining traction,
reluctant support for Israel from European governments has set them in
opposition to home-grown sentiment, and even traditional allies such as
Turkey cannot hide their anger.
In the US, Israel's most resolute ally, young American Jews are starting to
question their unthinking loyalty to the Jewish state. Blogs and new kinds
of Jewish groups are bypassing their elders and the American media to widen
the scope of debate about Israel.
Israel has responded by characterising these "threats" all as falling within
its ever-expanding definition of "support for terrorism".
It was therefore hardly suprising that the first reaction from the Israeli
government to the fact that its commandoes had opened fire on civilians in
the flotilla of aid ships was to accuse the solidarity activists of being
armed.
Similarly, Danny Ayalon, the deputy foreign minister, accused the organisers
of having "connections to international terrorism", including al-Qaeda.
Turkey, which assisted the flotilla, is widely being accused in Israel of
supporting Hamas and trying to topple Benjamin Netanyahu's government.
Palestinians are familiar with such tactics. Gaza's entire population of 1.5
million is now regularly presented in the Israeli media in collective terms,
as supporters of terror - for having voted in Hamas - and therefore
legitimate targets for Israeli "retaliation". Even the largely docile
Palestinian Authority in the West Bank has rapidly been tarred with the same
brush for its belated campaign to boycott the settlements and their
products.
The leaders of Israel's Palestinian citizens too are being cast in the role
of abettors of terror. The minority is still reeling from the latest
assault: the arrest and torture of two community leaders charged with spying
for Hizbullah. In its wake, new laws are being drafted to require that
Palestinian citizens prove their "loyalty" or have their citizenship
revoked.
When false rumours briefly circulated on Monday that Sheikh Raed Salah, a
leader of Israel's Islamic Movement who was in the flotilla, had been
gravely wounded, Israeli officials offered a depressingly predictable, and
unfounded, response: commandoes had shot him after they came under fire from
his cabin.
Israel's Jewish human rights community is also under attack to a degree
never before seen. Their leaders are now presented as traitors, and new
legislation is designed to make their work much harder.
The few brave souls in the Israeli media who try to hold the system to
account have been given a warning shot with the exile of Haaretz's
investigative journalist Uri Blau, who is threatened with trial on spying
charges if he returns.
Finally, Israel's treatment of those onboard the flotilla has demonstrated
that the net against human rights activism is being cast much wider, to
encompass the international community.
Foreigners, even high-profile figures such as Noam Chomsky, are now
routinely refused entry to Israel and the occupied territories. Many foreign
human rights workers face severe restrictions on their movement and efforts
to deport them or ban their organisations. The Israeli government is agreed
that Europe should be banned from "interfering" in the region by supporting
local human rights organisations.
The epitome of this process was Israel's reception of the UN report last
year into the attack on Gaza by Richard Goldstone, a respected judge and
international law expert who suggested Israel had committed many war crimes
during its three-week operation. Goldstone has faced savage personal attacks
ever since.
But more significantly, Israel's supporters have characterised the Goldstone
report and the related legal campaigns against Israel as examples of
"lawfare", implying that those who uphold international law are waging a new
kind of war of attrition on behalf of terror groups like Hamas and
Hizbullah.
These trends are likely only to deepen in the coming months and years,
making Israel an ever greater paraiah in the eyes of much of the world. The
mad dog is baring his teeth, and it is high time the international community
decided how to deal with him.
Jonathan Cook is a writer and journalist based in Nazareth, Israel. His
latest books are "Israel and the Clash of Civilisations: Iraq, Iran and the
Plan to Remake the Middle East" (Pluto Press) and "Disappearing Palestine:
Israel's Experiments in Human Despair" (Zed Books). His website is
www.jkcook.net.
A version of this article originally appeared in The National
(www.thenational.ae ), published in Abu Dhabi
No comments:
Post a Comment