It's
time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody
occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global
movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa. In July 2005 a
huge coalition of Palestinian groups laid out plans to do just that.
They called on "people of conscience all over the world to impose broad
boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to
those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era". The campaign
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions was born.
Every day that
Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause - even among
Israeli Jews. In the midst of the assault roughly 500 Israelis, dozens
of them well-known artists and scholars, sent a letter to foreign
ambassadors in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate
restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the
anti-apartheid struggle. "The boycott on South Africa was effective,
but Israel is handled with kid gloves ... This international backing
must stop."
Yet even in the face of these clear calls, many of
us still can't go there. The reasons are complex, emotional and
understandable. But they simply aren't good enough. Economic sanctions
are the most effective tool in the non-violent arsenal: surrendering
them verges on active complicity.(...) The world has tried what used to
be called "constructive engagement". It has failed utterly. Since 2006
Israel has been steadily escalating its criminality: expanding
settlements, launching an outrageous war against Lebanon, and imposing
collective punishment on Gaza through the brutal blockade. Despite this
escalation, Israel has not faced punitive measures - quite the
opposite. The weapons and $3bn in annual aid the US sends Israel are
only the beginning. Throughout this key period, Israel has enjoyed a
dramatic improvement in its diplomatic, cultural and trade relations
with a variety of other allies. For instance, in 2007 Israel became the
first country outside Latin America to sign a free-trade deal with the
Mercosur bloc. In the first nine months of 2008, Israeli exports to
Canada went up 45%. A new deal with the EU is set to double Israel's
exports of processed food. And in December European ministers
"upgraded" the EU-Israel association agreement, a reward long sought by
Jerusalem.
It is in this context that Israeli leaders started
their latest war: confident they would face no meaningful costs. It is
remarkable that over seven days of wartime trading, the Tel Aviv Stock
Exchange's flagship index actually went up 10.7%. When carrots don't
work, sticks are needed.
Here are the two leading stories in today's "Jewish Daily Forward", which is probably America's oldest and certainly its most prestigious Jewish community newspaper.
Peace Groups Lose First Major Gaza Challenge On Capitol Hill As
Israel's military campaign in Gaza entered its second week, Capitol
Hill became the latest battleground where Jewish hawks and doves are
trying to shape the American response to the ongoing violence. Dovish
groups bombarded lawmakers with calls and e-mails in an attempt to
influence the wording of pro-Israel resolutions being shaped in the
House and Senate. The groups' line in the sand on those resolutions was
straightforward: Unless the House and Senate included a call for an
immediate cease-fire, the dovish groups would call on their supporters
to actively oppose them. For the Jewish peace camp, the first Middle
East crisis of the new Congress and administration was an opportunity
to flex its muscles and show presence on the national scene. But in the
end, they lost.
And
AJCongress Crippled by Madoff Scandal One
of the Jewish community's most storied national organizations revealed
that it has been gutted by the financial collapse of investor Bernard
Madoff, losing the vast majority of its endowment. Officials at the
90-year-old American Jewish Congress disclosed that apparent fraud at
Madoff's investment firm had cost the organization roughly $21 million
of the $24 million in endowments that supported the AJCongress and its
programs.(...) It's ironic that the Madoff scandal, with its tales of
exclusive country club life and high-priced international hedge funds,
has been so destructive to an organization that was founded to be the
voice of the Jewish masses. The AJCongress was founded in 1918 and
became a populist counterbalance to the American Jewish Committee,
which was dominated by the wealthy and conservative German-Jewish
establishment. Under the leadership of its legendary founder, Rabbi
Stephen S. Wise, the AJCongress was one of the first national
organizations to support Zionism and to protest the Nazi regime, and it
established a reputation for being politically liberal. After World War
II, it made its mark as an active litigant on church-state issues and
civil rights.
When
these two stories are juxtaposed in The Forward, it seems to me that a
certain American-Jewish "golden age" is coming to an end, one whose
beginning we might put arbitrarily in World War One, when financier
Bernard Baruch became an adviser to president Wilson and the chairman
of the War Industries Board or perhaps in 1932 when
Herbert Hoover named Benjamin Cardozo to the US Supreme Court... or
maybe even a bit earlier in 1924 when composer George Gershwin
premiered his "Rhapsody in Blue".
We are talking about a golden
age of the Jewish diaspora that compares favorably with those of
Babylon, Al-Andalus or Wilhelmine Germany.
More than a golden age, a love affair.
It
is impossible to exaggerate the significance and harmful consequences
of this disenchantment and the effects it will have on the fabric of
American life, cultural, social and political in years to come. http://seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com/
I get a feeling that my last post,"Annus horribilis... and you are pretty cute yourself"
may have been so chock full of goodies and long winded quotes that some
of my readers may have had a bit of trouble seeing just what I was
driving at, so today I'll try to be more concise and to the point.
I
am coming to believe that at the bottom of the crisis is the creeping
impoverishment of the once universally envied American middle class;
this impoverishment has been brought on by an American lead revolution
in productivity, which has made American workers themselves redundant
except as consumers. This process resembles the flight of a legendary
bird that flying in ever tighter concentric circles, finally flies up
its own behind and disappears.
"My bucket's got a hole in it, and I can't buy no beer" Hank Williams
I
am getting the feeling that we are entering the most fascinating period
since the Second World War, and we are entering it without a road
map... if there ever was
a road map. Part of me is excited by the idea of finally seeing some
meaningful political thought and action and the rest of me is just
plain scared.
Nobody
seems to know what's going on or when the waves of the tsunami are
going to sweep over us. We know how the crisis reads, but we have yet
to really see how it plays.
I have written a lot about Israel since I began to blog.
I
lived there for nearly a year as a young man and had a very good love
there and all the experiences and memories that go with that.
I don't consider myself an "expert" on that country, only someone who loved the place very much... not all the zionut,
but the breath of the Tel-Aviv seafront early on a spring morning, my
Israeli girlfriend sleeping in my arms, the sweetness of life. Israel is as real to me as the smell of a woman's skin.
In
coming to consciousness politically, I am someone who has gone from
being very, very, pro-Israel to very anti-Israel and this saddens me
more than a little.
