Sunday 14 July 2013

Boycott the state, not just the settlements

West Bank settlements would not be viable without government aid, so boycotts should target the Israeli state as well.

Recent legislation passed in the Israeli Knesset, which many people call the "Anti-BDS" bill, has raised a number of questions about a rising tide of "fascism" in Israel. This language is not only used by Palestinian critics, who have long borne the brunt of Israel's undemocratic policies. Now, many Israeli and Jewish-American writers can no longer ignore the trend.

If something good has come out of the passage of this legislation, it is two things: First, a growing number of people are recognising that the Zionist aim - the  imposition of an ethnocentric majority by force in a territory where the majority of the native inhabitants are disenfranchised - is fundamentally and inherently undemocratic. Second, the passage of this bill has brought discussion of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement to the foreground.

While increased discussion about BDS will only strengthen the movement, a troubling trend has become apparent in some of the commentaries on BDS written in response to the passage of the "Anti-BDS" bill. This is the assertion that boycotting colonies or settlement goods is acceptable, while boycotting the Israeli state or Israeli products outside of the occupied territories is somehow unacceptable.

For many, this argument may be made with consideration for political strategy and not based on moral underpinnings or clarity. There is undoubtedly a hesitation among some who have embraced BDS as a strategy to extend BDS activities beyond products produced in the colonies and settlements.

This attitude is particularly prevalent among Zionists who recognise the danger the occupation poses for Israel, but do not want to be seen as targeting Israel itself. The BDS tent is growing nonetheless, regardless of what part of the occupation system is targeted. This is clearly threatening to Israel. The greatest evidence of the threat this poses is that the state felt threatened enough by the BDS movement to attempt to stop it through legislative repression.

But while varied approaches to BDS enlarge the tent, they also can be misleading and dangerous. The idea that colonies are legitimate BDS targets while the state of Israel is not creates the illusion that somehow these colonies exist in a vacuum without tacit and direct support from the Israeli state.

In fact, the settlement enterprise is a state-driven enterprise which requires various state-led efforts at multiple levels. These include the creation of economic incentives through the Israeli legislature to encourage population transfer into the occupied territories, the allotment of resources for the defence and development of these colonies, facilitating land purchases, granting mortgages and incentives to encourage private investment and developing infrastructure to serve these localities.

Settlements rely on government support

Take the settlement of Ariel as an example. Ariel is located deep in the West Bank. It is a large settlement with almost 20,000 residents. In the process of negotiations, Ariel, along with Ma'ale Adumim, another monstrosity deep in the West Bank, has posed the greatest challenge to an agreement on borders. The Israelis insist on keeping the settlement, which would drive a large wedge of Israeli-controlled territory into the northern part of the West Bank.

Half of Ariel's population emigrated to Israel from the former Soviet Union and arrived only in the last two decades. To deal with the post-1990 influx of Soviet Jews (which increased Israel's population by 12 per cent), the Israeli state created specific absorption policies which included rental support of up to $10,000 per family for the first year and mortgage subsidies of 50 per cent. With the mass influx into Israel, property prices skyrocketed and the new immigrants found some of the most affordable living opportunities further away from the coastal plain where the Israeli metropolis of Tel Aviv thrived: in illegal colonies in the occupied West Bank.

Ariel, which was established in 1978, grew from a local council to a municipality after these state policies enabled mass population growth. To ensure that the settlers could live in an area they could afford and still be connected to the Tel Aviv area where most worked, the state undertook the massive expansion of a road network in the 1990s which became Highway 5, also known as the "Trans-Samarian" highway.

Unsurprisingly, in the 2009 elections in Israel, Ariel gave 45 per cent of its vote to Likud and another 30 per cent to Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman's Yisrael Beiteinu party. Both parties are dedicated to the strengthening and development of the illegal colonies, and are the largest parties in the current right-wing Israeli government.

So, while there may be individual settlers or small groups who build tents or place trailers on Palestinian hilltops in the West Bank, mass population transfer into occupied territory cannot happen without direct state involvement. Treating the colonies as entities separate from the state which makes them thrive is not only uninformed and unrealistic, but also creates the dangerous illusion that the state is innocent and the settler movement is not. Both regularly defy international law, but without state support the settlement movements would not be able to ossify the occupation.

This is why BDS' targeting of the Israeli state is as justified as targeting the colonies and their products. It would be ludicrous to have argued that boycotting products from plantations in America's Civil War-era South was legitimate while action against the Confederate government was not. While slavery and occupation are two very distinct things, they are both state-supported systems that violate human rights. Until we accept the reality that pressure must be placed on the Israeli state to change its behavior, we will likely see the continuation of occupation and colonisation.

Thankfully, more and more people are waking up to this reality every day. Ironically, it is the rising tide of fascism in Israel that is the catalyst behind many of these recent epiphanies.

Yousef Munayyer is a writer and political analyst based in Washington, DC. He is currently the Executive Director of the The Jerusalem Fund for Education and Community Development.

http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/opinion/2011/07/201172072244260928.html

3 comments:

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Mike said...

Has your immortal soul been eased into a heretic state against … God's must know Catholic Dogma, Dogma which you have never seen ... by a non-Catholic cult that calls itself the Catholic Church ?

Has this fact placed you outside of God's Catholic Church ... which uncorrected causes the loss of your soul ?

Is there a Catholic Dogma remedy ... for re-entering the Catholic Church ?

Answer: The answer to all three questions is … yes. Please continue.

You have been *profoundly* deceived ...

Council of Florence, Session 8, 22 Nov 1439 -- infallible Source of Dogma >
"Whoever wills to be saved, before all things it is necessary that he holds the Catholic faith. Unless a person keeps this faith whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish eternally."

You must believe the Catholic Dogma to be in the Church ... Dogma you have *never* seen.

Site > Immaculata-one.com ... infallible Dogma throughout.

The ... Catholic Sources of Dogma ... is the Faith. It isn’t “Bible interpretation”.

Yes ... you have been *profoundly* deceived.

- - - - - - - - - -

Can a group which enforces the opposite, the opposite, and the opposite of the Catholic unchangeable Dogma be the Catholic Church?

No, it cannot possibly be the Catholic Church ... and promotion of the opposite of the Catholic Dogma is exactly what the vatican-2 heretic cult does ... and has been doing since it’s founding on 8 December 1965 at the Vatican.

The vatican-2 heresy does not have the Office of the Papacy ... only the Catholic Church has the Papacy.

The Dogma cannot “change” or be “reversed” ... God does not “change”.

The founding documents of the vatican-2 heretic cult … the “vatican-2 council” documents … have well over 200 heresies *against* prior defined unchangeable Dogma. Every (apparent) bishop at the “council” approved the mountain of heresy, which caused their automatic excommunication, see Section 13.2 of Immaculata-one.com.

- - - - - - - - - -

Section 12 > Anti-Christ vatican-2 heresies (50 listed) ... followed by many Catholic corrections.

Sections 13 and 13.1 > Photographic *proof* of heresy at the Vatican.

Because of … the Catholic Dogma on automatic excommunication for heresy or for physical participation in a heretic cult (such as the v-2 cult) …

… we were all placed, body and soul, *outside* of Christianity (the Catholic Church) on 8 December 1965 … the close date of the “council”.

Section 13.2 and 13.2.2 > Dogma on automatic excommunication for heresy or participating in a heretic cult such as ... vatican-2, lutheran, methodist, evangelical, etc.

Section 13.3 > Matt 16:18, Gates of Hell scripture ... is *not* about the Office of the Papacy.

Section 13.4 > The vatican-2 heretic cult does not have the Office of the Papacy only the Catholic Church has the Papacy.

Section 13.6 > The Catholic Dogma on Jurisdiction and Automatic Excommunication for heresy define that ... God has allowed Catholic Jurisdiction ... for Mass and Confession to disappear from the world. There is no such thing as Catholic Mass outside of the Catholic Church.

Non-Catholic heresies such as “vatican-2”, “sspx”, “sspv”, “cmri”, etc. ... do not have Catholic Mass.

Section 19.1 > Dogma on Abjuration for *re-entering* Christianity (the Catholic Church) … after being automatically excommunicated.

Section 10.2 > Returning to a state of grace, in places and times when Confession is not available, like now.

- - - - - - - - - -

Second Council of Constantinople, 553 A.D. -- infallible Source of Dogma >
"The heretic, even though he has not been condemned formally by any individual, in reality brings anathema on himself, having cut himself off from the way of truth by his heresy."

Everything you must know, believe, and do to get to Heaven is on > > Immaculata-one.com.

Mike
Our Lady of Conquest
Pray for us

Mike said...

Jorge Bergoglio (a.k.a. "Francis) ... is not a Catholic bishop, he is not a Pope, he wasn't even ordained as a Catholic priest in 1969.

The Office of Papacy fell vacant in 1914 because of heresy, and it is still vacant.
On 8 December 1965 (the close date of the "vatican-2 council") every single (apparent) bishops approved the heresy in the "council" documents, and this caused the automatic excommunication of every last one of them ... this is why Bergoglio was not ordained in 1969.

This is all fully proven (including photographic proof of heresy) ... on Sections 12 and 13 of > Immaculata-one.com.

And yes ... all the infallible Sources of Dogma on Salvation (like the one in the article) is *still* the truth from Heaven ... all heretics and un-baptized pagans are losing their immortal souls.

Christ did not return to northern Germany in 1517 to start the "lutheran" heresy, nor did Christ visit England in 1534 to start the "anglican" heresy, nor did He help heretic Wesely start the "methodist" heresy in 1744, etc.

Council of Florence, Session 8, Pope Eugene IV, 22 Nov 1439 -- Ex-Cathedra Dogma >
"Whoever wills to be saved, before all things it is necessary that he holds the Catholic faith. Unless a person keeps this faith whole and undefiled, without doubt he shall perish eternally."

Fourth Lateran Council, Pope Innocent III, 1215 A.D. -- Ex-Cathedra Dogma >
"There is but one universal Church of the faithful, outside of which no one at all is saved."

- - - - -

Jorge Bergoglio (a.k.a. "Francis") ... has been automatically excommunicated from Christianity (the Catholic Church which has no physical properties in these times) ... for at least five *decades*.

I list the staggering heresy of Bergoglio ... against prior defined Catholic infallible Sources of Dogma ... on Section 12.10 of my site > Immaculata-one.com.
Photographic proofs of Bergoglio heresies are on Section 12.10.1.

Mountains of proof that the Catholic Church ... *lost all* ... of it's physical properties around the world in 1965 > Immaculata-one.com ... Sections 12 and 13.
And yes ... all the infallible Sources of Dogma on Salvation is *still* the truth from Heaven ... all heretics and un-baptized pagans are losing their immortal souls.

For Bergoglio to become a Christian ... he would have to make the top Formal Abjuration of heresy which I provide on Section 19.1 of the site.

Likewise ... for any other heretic ("lutheran", "baptist", "evangelical", "pentecostal", "methodist", "calvinist", "anglican", "quaker", "eposcopalian", "presbyterian", etc, etc, etc) ... to become Christian they need to make the second Abjuration of heresy on Section 19.1 of > Immaculata-one.com.