This passed weekend saw another attempt at expanding boycott efforts directed at Israel across Canada. The latest target was Mountain Equipment Co-op for having an Israeli supplier of under garments and water bottles. The boycotters felt this was in violation of their ethical purchasing standards. A boycott was called for Saturday with the Jewish community responding on Sunday with a buycott. Leading up to the week end the only major publicity was a few newspapers condeming the boycott.
The boycott got no attetion what so ever. It has been reported that the biggest turn out was in Vancouver with 20 supporters. Organizers didn't even bother to set up a protest in Toronto. Considering the amount of attention devoted to boycotting Israel at CUPE and other institutions, why was the campaign such a miserable failure?
One explanation is the protesters carefully examined what they were boycotting. They found that MEC carefully examines their suppliers and have already addressed concerns about the treatment of Palestinians. They realize that the boycott would hurt the incomes of Palestinians more than it will cause any shifts in Israeli government policy. Perhaps they have learned that every boycott rallies the Jewish community and it's supporters. The targeted victims come out ahead by support from the buycott campaign.
The simpler and most likely explanation is that Canadians really don't care that much about the Palestinians issues. There are number of reports from attendees at the boycotts that indicated even the people who showed up giving out pamphlets really didn't understand the issues. They were not interested in engaging in discussions with people with a different perspective.
Israel has a long history even before it became a state. There was a continuous Jewish community living in Hevron before a French flag was ever planted in the New World until they were expelled by the British in 1933. Jewish communities in East Jerusalem and Gush were expelled when they found themselves outside of Israel after the 1948 war of Independence. The demands of a Palestinian State are to have these communities once again free of Jews, while Palestinians can settle anywhere in Israel outside of a Palestinian State.
The Boycott campaign completely ignores the valid goals and concerns Israel is facing. At the same time it hits the Palestinian they are pretending to help the hardest with zero political benefit. It is time for the boycotts to stop and those who really care about the long term interests of the region start pushing solutions that are mutually beneficial to Palestinians and Israelis. Anything less is a waste of time.
Showing posts with label Boycott. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Boycott. Show all posts
Monday, November 30, 2009
Thursday, July 23, 2009
Anti-Israel Protest Losing Momentum
The anything to do with Israel is evil campaign has been continuing. The most recent attack is report of alleged IDF abuses during Operation Cast Lead. The reporta had no way of validating the truth behind the allegations or even verifying that the testimony was more than just hearsay. The British have revoked licenses to supply the Israeli Navy with ammunition for their boats.
Despite these moves, support for the protests against Israel has been fading fast. A combination of gerneral apathy, more interesting world events and a proper response by the Jewish community have all softened the blow in attacks against Israel.
The BDS (Boycott) campaign against Israel had been hailed as the ultimate way to collapse the Israeli economy the same way it helped bring change in South Africa. The biggest hole in the campaign was to focus on certain companies, rather than holding to true moral values. The Jewish community has brought another major hole to the BDS campaign by offering financial support to those exposed to boycott efforts.
There have been a number of boycott failures this year. A call to boycott Israeli wine in Toronto resulted in the targeted store being sold out in 10 minutes and the small group of protestors overwhelmed by support for Israel from the Jewish community. A call to boycott and deshelve Israeli products at Trader's Joe got such a poor turnout, the organizers didn't bother publicizing the event happened. The Dead Sea Scrolls now being displayed at the ROM in Toronto. Palestinians leadership cried foul, declaring the Scrolls to be part of stolen Palestinian heritage. This sad and desperate claim once again rallied the Jewish Community, driving up ticket sales. It also exposed the Palestinian pitfall of trying to claim ownership on anything that helps their cause.
Free Gaza is an organization that runs celebrity filled boats to run the blockade to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. They like playing the hero. How the aid is delivered is far more important than the aid reaching the intended recipients. The fact that over a hundred truck loads of aid pass through Israel into Gaza each day, (far greater than what they can get on their boats) is not relevant to their cause.
Their most recent run lead them into some public relations mistakes. They originally filed their travel plan to Cyprus authorities, as heading to Egypt. It was only after being out to sea that they changed their course to Gaza. The ability to change course is legal, but they never had any intent of going to Egypt. They may not have even recieved permission to leave port if they were honest with local authorities. They seemed shocked that Israel has control over Gaza waters. Egypt gave up claims to Gaza long ago and it is not like they tried to coordinate with the Palestinian Authority. They claimed to be in mortal danger after the Navy threatened to open fire on them. They didn't even receive a wanring shot. Their first mate said that they would be boarded and arrested. That is exactly what happened. No surprises, no real danger.
Throughout the ordeal they did their best to cry foul. They tried claiming they had no desire to go to Israel. Their manifest of the aid they were bringing kept changing. One report said they each carried a bag of cement while, their Twitter account said they only had a symbolic bag of cement. There cries for media attention fell mostly on deaf ears. When the British deportees were returned to London, they got out maybe a dozen supporters and zero media coverage.
There have been a lot of world events taking the focus off of Israel. The defeat of the Tamil Tigers in Somalia, Health Care Reform in the United States, Garbage Strike in Toronto, Michael Jackson's death and the election results in Iran. Iranian officials have even found a way to blame Israel for the protests in Iran.
Barak Obama has been pumping up the pressure on Israel, while the world focuses on more relevant issues. Some of the apathy can be attributed to other world events. If even some of the public has noticed some of the inconsistancies with criticism towards Israel. It makes the world a better place for Israeli's and Jews around the world.
Despite these moves, support for the protests against Israel has been fading fast. A combination of gerneral apathy, more interesting world events and a proper response by the Jewish community have all softened the blow in attacks against Israel.
The BDS (Boycott) campaign against Israel had been hailed as the ultimate way to collapse the Israeli economy the same way it helped bring change in South Africa. The biggest hole in the campaign was to focus on certain companies, rather than holding to true moral values. The Jewish community has brought another major hole to the BDS campaign by offering financial support to those exposed to boycott efforts.
There have been a number of boycott failures this year. A call to boycott Israeli wine in Toronto resulted in the targeted store being sold out in 10 minutes and the small group of protestors overwhelmed by support for Israel from the Jewish community. A call to boycott and deshelve Israeli products at Trader's Joe got such a poor turnout, the organizers didn't bother publicizing the event happened. The Dead Sea Scrolls now being displayed at the ROM in Toronto. Palestinians leadership cried foul, declaring the Scrolls to be part of stolen Palestinian heritage. This sad and desperate claim once again rallied the Jewish Community, driving up ticket sales. It also exposed the Palestinian pitfall of trying to claim ownership on anything that helps their cause.
Free Gaza is an organization that runs celebrity filled boats to run the blockade to deliver humanitarian aid to Gaza. They like playing the hero. How the aid is delivered is far more important than the aid reaching the intended recipients. The fact that over a hundred truck loads of aid pass through Israel into Gaza each day, (far greater than what they can get on their boats) is not relevant to their cause.
Their most recent run lead them into some public relations mistakes. They originally filed their travel plan to Cyprus authorities, as heading to Egypt. It was only after being out to sea that they changed their course to Gaza. The ability to change course is legal, but they never had any intent of going to Egypt. They may not have even recieved permission to leave port if they were honest with local authorities. They seemed shocked that Israel has control over Gaza waters. Egypt gave up claims to Gaza long ago and it is not like they tried to coordinate with the Palestinian Authority. They claimed to be in mortal danger after the Navy threatened to open fire on them. They didn't even receive a wanring shot. Their first mate said that they would be boarded and arrested. That is exactly what happened. No surprises, no real danger.
Throughout the ordeal they did their best to cry foul. They tried claiming they had no desire to go to Israel. Their manifest of the aid they were bringing kept changing. One report said they each carried a bag of cement while, their Twitter account said they only had a symbolic bag of cement. There cries for media attention fell mostly on deaf ears. When the British deportees were returned to London, they got out maybe a dozen supporters and zero media coverage.
There have been a lot of world events taking the focus off of Israel. The defeat of the Tamil Tigers in Somalia, Health Care Reform in the United States, Garbage Strike in Toronto, Michael Jackson's death and the election results in Iran. Iranian officials have even found a way to blame Israel for the protests in Iran.
Barak Obama has been pumping up the pressure on Israel, while the world focuses on more relevant issues. Some of the apathy can be attributed to other world events. If even some of the public has noticed some of the inconsistancies with criticism towards Israel. It makes the world a better place for Israeli's and Jews around the world.
Friday, March 27, 2009
Standing up for your beliefs, even when you don't know what they are
CBC articles on Israel are quite frequent, to the point I am waiting for the article about the fact a politician sneezed. No matter what the topic, the comment sections breakdown into the same circle argument of Israel is evil and should it have a right to exist. The anti-Israel posters almost always get the most agreed upon comments.
I was amused by one of the comments this week.
"Boycott Israel. Google ......... to see why"
This was around the same time a friend had a job interview with Google Israel.
I wonder how many people who are calling for the boycott, actually put their so called beliefs into action.
I was amused by one of the comments this week.
"Boycott Israel. Google ......... to see why"
This was around the same time a friend had a job interview with Google Israel.
I wonder how many people who are calling for the boycott, actually put their so called beliefs into action.
Monday, February 23, 2009
CUPE Ontario endorses Israel Academic Boycott
Yesterday, CUPE Ontario approved Resolution 50, a plan to carry out an academic boycott against Israel and further along their divestment program. The resolution now needs to be endorsed by the 200,000 membership at the annual convention in April. CUPE Local 3903 at York University who were just ordered back to work after a lengthy strike are fully commited to backing Israel Apartheid Week, next week on York's campus. The motivation behind this boycott can only be based on pure feel good emotions rather than an honest attempt to holding by true values and convictions.
This new boycott was propsed during Operation Cast Lead when IDF forces attempted to stop the daily barrage of rockets on Isaeli civilians. During the 3 week war Hamas used schools, hospitals and civilian homes for launching attacks. The initial inspiration of this round of the boycott is when Israel bombed the Gaza University. CUPE choose to leave this fact for the very bottom of their webpage explaining the reason for the boycott.
In their explanation of the boycott section they site the case of "On January 7th, Israeli forces killed over 40 Palestinian civilians who had taken shelter in a United Nations school. " One would expect a boycott lead by the highest level of acadamia would be able to have their facts correct. The incident they are refering to took place on January 6th. The United Nations has already issued a correction that Israel never bombed the school. An Israeli shell landed outside of the school. All of the victims were outside of the school. Even the casualty count from this incident is in dispute. When the dust settles it will probably be revieled that the casualty count is at least 25% less then reported. Of course this will be burried into some report that goes unnoticed by most of the world.
CUPE is claiming that their actions are as champions of human rights. Of all of the incidents in the world why have they choosen this one to be their champion cause? Gilad Shalit has been held hostage by Hamas for over 3 years. He has been denied all of his Human Rights of allowing visitation by the Red Cross and letting his family know if he is alive. CUPE has been silent. Hamas has commited numerous war crimes. They fired thousands of missles into civilian populations, striking schools and kindergartens. CUPE has been silent. Hamas has fought out of uniform and even in stolen IDF uniforms. CUPE has been silent. This is just to name a few, not to mention when Hamas violently removed Fatah from Gaza and tied Fatah supporters to chairs and threw them off of buildings. CUPE has been silent. They have used the fog of war to shoot the legs of Fatah supporters out of fear Fatah would retake control of Gaza after Operation Cast Lead.
There are other conflicts in the world. Darfur, Ethopia, Sri Lanka and more. CUPE Ontario is silent. Ontario has been condemned by the United Nations for providing full funding to schools belonging to one religion and providing nothing to others. When John Tory and his Conservative Party came up with a solution to this inequality, CUPE Ontario was front and centre in condemning the proposal. Tory was the only political leader banned from speaking to the various union groups at their conventions. One can only reach the conclusion that this boycott was not chosen simply out of moral conviction.
The York student government (YFS) was recently overthrown by the students for supporting CUPE 3903 in their strike. The outgoing YFS members blamed the Jewish student population for their dismial. They refused to acknowledge they were turfed for betraying the interests of the students they were supposed to represent. Now CUPE is openly supporting an anti-Israel week on the campus with the largest Jewish population. Instead of fostering an enviornment of acceptance and learning, Jewish students have to deal with a week of intimidation and fear. It would not be surprising if this year someone got hurt.
If CUPE Ontario really wants to divest from Israel they should enable their members to fully boycott all companies that do business in Israel. Coca Cola, Pepsi, RC Cola, Sports Illustrated, Kellogs, Nestle, IBM, Intel, McDonalds, Burger King for starters. They should boycott the Vancouver Olympics for not banning Israeli atheletes. The Canadian Armed Forces just began using Israeli drone planes to help keep soldiers in Afghanistan safe. This should draw immediate protest. Blocking University assistance for Israeli military technology is directly targeted under the ban.
CUPE Ontario sites hundreds groups that they would normally have nothing to do with who support the boycott. Some the boycott Israel websites bring attention to the successes of their boycotts. They site examples of businesses withdrawing from doing business in the Arab world under pressure of the boycott, causing losses of millions of dollars. The same businesses have not closed up shop in Israel. They also claimed a victory in blocking as shipment of Valentines Day flowers at Heathrow Airport. Early that week the Israeli government gave permission to ship flowers from Gaza to the European market. They were probably stopping of shipment of flowers from Gaza and hurting the Palestinians they claim they are trying to help.
Resolution 50 is as hypocritical and backwards as the strikes that have now become a routine part of life at York University. Hopefully the general membership will choose to closely examine both sides of the conflict and vote down this rediculous resolution.
This new boycott was propsed during Operation Cast Lead when IDF forces attempted to stop the daily barrage of rockets on Isaeli civilians. During the 3 week war Hamas used schools, hospitals and civilian homes for launching attacks. The initial inspiration of this round of the boycott is when Israel bombed the Gaza University. CUPE choose to leave this fact for the very bottom of their webpage explaining the reason for the boycott.
In their explanation of the boycott section they site the case of "On January 7th, Israeli forces killed over 40 Palestinian civilians who had taken shelter in a United Nations school. " One would expect a boycott lead by the highest level of acadamia would be able to have their facts correct. The incident they are refering to took place on January 6th. The United Nations has already issued a correction that Israel never bombed the school. An Israeli shell landed outside of the school. All of the victims were outside of the school. Even the casualty count from this incident is in dispute. When the dust settles it will probably be revieled that the casualty count is at least 25% less then reported. Of course this will be burried into some report that goes unnoticed by most of the world.
CUPE is claiming that their actions are as champions of human rights. Of all of the incidents in the world why have they choosen this one to be their champion cause? Gilad Shalit has been held hostage by Hamas for over 3 years. He has been denied all of his Human Rights of allowing visitation by the Red Cross and letting his family know if he is alive. CUPE has been silent. Hamas has commited numerous war crimes. They fired thousands of missles into civilian populations, striking schools and kindergartens. CUPE has been silent. Hamas has fought out of uniform and even in stolen IDF uniforms. CUPE has been silent. This is just to name a few, not to mention when Hamas violently removed Fatah from Gaza and tied Fatah supporters to chairs and threw them off of buildings. CUPE has been silent. They have used the fog of war to shoot the legs of Fatah supporters out of fear Fatah would retake control of Gaza after Operation Cast Lead.
There are other conflicts in the world. Darfur, Ethopia, Sri Lanka and more. CUPE Ontario is silent. Ontario has been condemned by the United Nations for providing full funding to schools belonging to one religion and providing nothing to others. When John Tory and his Conservative Party came up with a solution to this inequality, CUPE Ontario was front and centre in condemning the proposal. Tory was the only political leader banned from speaking to the various union groups at their conventions. One can only reach the conclusion that this boycott was not chosen simply out of moral conviction.
The York student government (YFS) was recently overthrown by the students for supporting CUPE 3903 in their strike. The outgoing YFS members blamed the Jewish student population for their dismial. They refused to acknowledge they were turfed for betraying the interests of the students they were supposed to represent. Now CUPE is openly supporting an anti-Israel week on the campus with the largest Jewish population. Instead of fostering an enviornment of acceptance and learning, Jewish students have to deal with a week of intimidation and fear. It would not be surprising if this year someone got hurt.
If CUPE Ontario really wants to divest from Israel they should enable their members to fully boycott all companies that do business in Israel. Coca Cola, Pepsi, RC Cola, Sports Illustrated, Kellogs, Nestle, IBM, Intel, McDonalds, Burger King for starters. They should boycott the Vancouver Olympics for not banning Israeli atheletes. The Canadian Armed Forces just began using Israeli drone planes to help keep soldiers in Afghanistan safe. This should draw immediate protest. Blocking University assistance for Israeli military technology is directly targeted under the ban.
CUPE Ontario sites hundreds groups that they would normally have nothing to do with who support the boycott. Some the boycott Israel websites bring attention to the successes of their boycotts. They site examples of businesses withdrawing from doing business in the Arab world under pressure of the boycott, causing losses of millions of dollars. The same businesses have not closed up shop in Israel. They also claimed a victory in blocking as shipment of Valentines Day flowers at Heathrow Airport. Early that week the Israeli government gave permission to ship flowers from Gaza to the European market. They were probably stopping of shipment of flowers from Gaza and hurting the Palestinians they claim they are trying to help.
Resolution 50 is as hypocritical and backwards as the strikes that have now become a routine part of life at York University. Hopefully the general membership will choose to closely examine both sides of the conflict and vote down this rediculous resolution.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)