Anti-Israel Boycott Fails Again - This Time Mountain Equipment Co-op

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.

UNHRC Condemns Israel in One Side Resolution

The United Nations Human Rights Council has once again partaken in it's favourite activity. A one sided resolution was passed condemning Israel's attack on Hamas in Gaza.

The four page 17 article resolution condemned Israel and called on a special investigation. It called for an immediate stoppage to the military action and 'grave violations' by Israel. It essentially called on Israel to meet all of the Hamas demands by immediately withdrawing from Gaza and opening all border crossings.

The resolution demanded that Israel should stop targeting civilians. While civilians are being killed Israel has gone to great lengths to demonstrate they are trying to avoid civilian deaths. The resolution lumped all of the casualties into a single count with "a large number of women and children". The language was clearly designed to maximize the damage without any consideration of who died for attacking Israel and who the true victims are.

As for Hamas the UNHRC couldn't even devote a complete sentence to condemning their attacks on Israel. They called for an end to the launching of crude rockets against Israeli civilians.

The resolution passed with the votes as follows:

In favour (33):Angola, Argentina, Azerbaijan, Bahrain, Bangladesh, Bolivia, Brazil, Burkina Faso, Chile, China, Cuba, Djibouti, Egypt, Gabon, Ghana, India, Indonesia, Jordan, Madagascar, Malaysia, Mauritius, Mexico, Nicaragua, Nigeria, Pakistan, Philippines, Qatar, Russian Federation, Saudi Arabia, Senegal, South Africa, Uruguay, and Zambia.

Against (1):Canada.

Abstentions (13): Bosnia and Herzegovina, Cameroon, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Netherlands, Republic of Korea, Slovakia, Slovenia, Switzerland, Ukraine, and United Kingdom.

The resolution was designed to attack Israel rather than bringing anything productive to the table to stop the rocket attacks by Hamas which would lead to an Israeli withdrawal. The countries that abstained explained that they were disappointed that it did not address all violations that occurred in Gaza. Canada was the only country brave enough to stand up and vote against the resolution, stating "the draft text still failed to clearly recognize that rocket fire on Israel had led to the current crisis. It also used unnecessary, unhelpful and inflammatory language. "

Thank You Canada.