Boycott Israel’s boycotters

Op-ed: If Europeans, Arabs and their academic and corporate supporters want to single out the Jewish state, let us take the fight to them and hurt them financially through private lawsuits and legislation

By Shoula Romano Horing, YNET NEWS

On Saturday, at the Munich Security Conference, US Secretary of State John Kerry again shamefully and irresponsibly tried to incite fear among Israelis of potential anti-Israel boycotts if the ongoing “peace” talks fail with the Palestinians. This was the second time he warned about “talk of boycotts” against Israel if the status quo with the Palestinians is maintained.

But Israelis should reject such fear mongering. The Israeli government should not turn the other cheek to those threatening it with a boycott by agreeing to the suicidal demands of Kerry and the Europeans to establish another Gaza in the West Bank.

Instead, Israel and its supporters in the US must fight fire with fire against those bigoted, misinformed and anti-Semitic boycotters of Israeli universities and companies in the US and Europe, by boycotting them and hitting them in their pockets where it hurts the most.

Israel and its supporters should call on the US Congress to intervene and legislate against these anti-Israel boycotters, as they did in the 1970s against the Arab boycott, by stopping taxpayer subsidization of the boycott advocates, instructing the IRS to revoke the tax exempt status of these academic institutions and levying taxes, civil penalties and fines against European and American companies which participate.

Giving in to the organized, well-financed and misinformed campaign by the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, the American Studies Association announced a boycott of Israeli academic institutions which followed boycotts announced by the Association for Asian American Studies and the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association.

Economic boycotts of Israel by US companies is minimal, but the main threat is from Europe where several European corporations, churches and pension funds have already cut or have threatened to cut their economic relations with Israeli banks and other institutions as a result of the 10-year campaign of the BDS movement.

The movement is led by Palestinian leadership and 80 NGOs, financed by the European Union and European government funds and grants which were meant to be used as humanitarian aid and not for political warfare. The real goal of BDS is to defame and destroy Israel as a Jewish state, regardless of its borders, through false allegations of human rights violations, apartheid, war crimes.

Given the true reality that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East and has the freest press, an independent judiciary, as well as religious and racial diversity within its universities, including affirmative action for Arab students, such boycotts smell of anti-Semitism.

While the European Union is boycotting Israeli academic and research institutions in Jerusalem and the West Bank, they never consider boycotting brutally oppressive regimes in the Middle East and the world. They are not boycotting China where freedom of speech and press are nonexistent, or Saudi Arabia where women cannot vote or show their face and Jews and Christians cannot practice their religions, or Egypt where Christians Coptic have been openly persecuted.

The American academic boycotters never consider boycotting universities in Syria where the Syria government has slaughtered its citizens with chemical weapons, or universities in Iran where political, religious and sexual dissidents are hung and no academic freedom exists.

Leave Europe to sink economically
These academic and economic boycotts have nothing to do with protecting human rights but with scapegoating the Jewish people once again. Singling out Israel, the world’s only Jewish state, for condemnation and isolation is to engage in discrimination against Jews, which is also called anti–Semitism.

In an interview in October in France, legendary filmmaker Woody Allen seemed to echo these sentiments when he said: “I do feel there are many people that disguise their negative feelings towards Jews, disguise it as anti-Israel criticism, political criticism, when in fact what they really mean is that they don’t like Jews.”

Instead of cowering down in front of bullies and trying to appease them, the Israeli government and its supporters must follow those who choose to stand up instead and reject the hypocrisy, bigotry, and moral double standards.

On Wednesday, famous actress Scarlett Johansson ended her relationship with the Oxfam International humanitarian group over its support of BDS and criticism of her endorsement of SodaStream, an Israeli company that operates a factory in the Ma’ale Adumim settlement in the West Bank. Oxfam lost hundreds of thousands of dollars as a result.

SodaStream’s distributor in France sued the group called France Palestine Solidarite which associates with BDS for their campaign.

A French court ruled on Wednesday that the French pro-boycott group must compensate SodaStream for denigrating its products and a cease and desist order from advertising that the Israeli company’s products are sold illegally when they are labeled “made in Israel.”

On Tuesday, the New York Senate passed by a vote 51-4 a bill to end taxpayers funding to private or public state colleges and universities that support boycotting Israel. This is the first time a legislature body passed such a bill targeting the American Studies Association boycotters.

Moreover, 92 universities in the US have released statements rejecting the academic boycotts of Israel. Several universities have cut their institutional ties including Brandeis and Indiana.

On Tuesday, a group of 134 members of the US Congress have signed a letter criticizing ASA. The next step is for Congress to instruct the IRS to revoke the tax exempt status of members of such associations.

If the hypocritical and bigoted Europeans, Palestinians and other Arabs, as well as their academic and corporate supporters, want to single out the Jewish state, let us take the fight to them and hurt them financially through private lawsuits and legislation.

Let Israel finds new economic markets in prosperous Asia where they are appreciated, and quickly leave Europe to sink economically under their own self-righteousness.

February 4, 2014 | 40 Comments »
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40 Comments / 40 Comments

  1. yamit82 Said:

    I can be had for milk and chocolate chip cookies.
    For girl Scout chocolate mints I would kill.

    I have a full pantry!!!!Little cookie lovin ,Darlin

  2. honeybee Said:

    Were those Girl Scout cookies chocolate? Cookies with milk, who could resist,not Yamit82.

    I can be had for milk and chocolate chip cookies.

    For girl Scout chocolate mints I would kill.

  3. @ the phoenix:

    Those videos are tooooooooooo funny!! Moral of the story – to be shared only to wives. pssst if you need a new fridge just bring your husband a warm beer. 🙂

  6. NYT can count on Soros and friends to keep the company afloat. But just like the icebergs from the North pole, NYT will melt away. Good riddance.

  8. @ the phoenix:

    psst….don’t tell HB that I drive around in a 2014 import (not from the U.S. or Germany) that has heated seats and satellite radio. Gotta go! Meeting up with the gals! 🙂

  12. @ honeybee:

    Then why did you advise me to travel more???

    Dear honeybee,
    It’s time for the memory pill… 🙂
    I never advised you… I merely asked… 😉

  14. the phoenix Said:

    Which other countries would be in the “go” list vs. the “you would not catch me dead in this shitty country” (LONG) list?…..

    Then why did you advise me to travel more?????????D maple Sugar

  16. @ yamit82:

    Aaaah! That makes sense.

    The avatar was placed after she stopped commenting, I guess so we wouldn’t forget her. 🙁

    I haven’t

    Phew! Glad to hear you approve of at least ONE Jewish woman. With your comments it seems like its 99 for gentile and 1 for Jew. 🙁

    She was Jewish right? The one I remember we chatted about the guys who sat in the back row in shul.

  17. dove Said:

    Could be. I don’t remember her well endowed pic…but then I am not a guy so maybe I didn’t even notice. 🙂

    The avatar was placed after she stopped commenting, I guess so we wouldn’t forget her. 🙁

    I haven’t. 😉

  23. watsa46 Said:

    A good source of info.

    Lots of “Zionist Jews” live outside Israel.
    Lots of good Italians live outside Italy, etc…

    Thanks for the link about ‘antisemitism’ from the “Jewish Encyclopedia.” which only delt with modern post emancipation forms that were manifest in Europe in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Interesting but much too narrow and limited even for Europe.

    Just a few examples of what I am trying to convey:

    Exodus 1: Now there arose a new king over Egypt, who knew not Joseph. And he said unto his people: ‘Behold, the people of the children of Israel are too many and too mighty for us; come, let us deal wisely with them, lest they multiply, and it come to pass, that, when there befalleth us any war, they also join themselves unto our enemies, and fight against us, and get them up out of the land.’ Therefore they did set over them taskmasters to afflict them with their burdens. And they built for Pharaoh store-cities, Pithom and Raamses. But the more they afflicted them, the more they multiplied and the more they spread abroad. And they were adread because of the children of Israel.

    Purim:

    “Mordechai saves the life and the throne of Ahasuerus. He discovers a plot against the king, and since the story is told in romantic-poetic and not in political-historical terms, we are not told whether this is an imperialist, fascist, or Trotskyist-Maoist plot. Or perhaps it was a plot instigated by Haman himself? And now we come to the central theme which is the first presentation of anti-Semitic theory and practice. Thousands of anti-Semitic books have been written since them in every country and every language, which are all nothing but a repetition and amplification of the same basic theme stated by Haman: “There is a certain people scattered and dispersed among the peoples in all the provinces of your kingdom; their laws are different from those of every other people, and they do not keep the king’s laws, so that is not to the king’s advantage to tolerate them.” (Esther 3:8)

    No clearer, more succinct definition of anti-Semitism has been formulated since. All the three elements are there: Desire for domination, particularism, disloyalty. But Haman was not only the first anti-Semite theoretician, he was also a man of action who submitted to his king, and to all the kings and rulers throughout the ages, the model plan for the FINAL SOLUTION — this time not in Berlin and not at the Kremlin, but at Shushan: “To destroy, to slay, and to annihilate all Jews, young and old, women and children, and plunder their goods” ( Esther 3:13).” (Jewish Defense League of Shushan, Eldad)

    Maccabean revolt

    Antiochus issued decrees forbidding Jewish religious practice. Antiochus pillaged the Temple, attacked Jerusalem and “led captive the women and children”. From this point onwards, Antiochus pursued a zealous Hellenizing policy. He made possession of the Torah a capital offense and burned the copies he could find. According to 1 Maccabees, he banned many traditional Jewish religious practices: Jewish sacrifice was forbidden, sabbaths and feasts were banned. Circumcision was outlawed, and mothers who circumcised their babies were killed along with their families. Altars to Greek gods were set up and animals prohibited to Jews were sacrificed on them. The idol of Olympian Zeus was placed on the altar of the Temple.

    “For the Jews have long been in revolt not only against the Romans, but against humanity; and a race that has made its own life apart and irreconcilable, that cannot share with the rest of mankind in the pleasure of the table nor join in their libations or prayers or sacrifices, are separate from ourselves by a greater gulf than divides us from Sura or Bactra of the most distant Indies.”

    – Philostratus – The Life of Apollonius of Tyana, 3rd Century CE Teacher

    MY Point is antisemitism is as old as the Jews.

    Lots of “Zionist Jews” live outside Israel

    .

    Our sages decreed that “a man shall rather live in the Land of Israel in a city with a majority of heathens rather than in the Exile in a city with a majority of Jews.” And: “one who lives outside of Israel worships idols in purity…”? What matter that they intone that one who lives outside the land “is as one who has no G-d”?
    Who is a Zionist???
    “Rabbi Nachman of Bratslav left this world 198 years ago. His life is a reproach to all too many modern rabbis.

    For Rabbi Nachman, the return to Zion was integral to Judaism, worth suffering for.
    Rabbi Nachman sold all his belongings and sent his daughter to work so he could undertake aliyah. The effort wasn’t in vain: upon reaching Eretz Israel, the rabbi changed his views so much that he prohibited references to his earlier opinions. Rootless Jews who have never been to Israel cannot understand that change.

    Unlike the politically correct rabbinical establishment, Rabbi Nachman was uncompromising about his teachings and goals. That cost him official recognition.

    Rabbi Nachman did one unprecedented thing: he refused to bless marrying couples,     saying that in a hundred years, a generation would appear which had better not be born. A generation of Ukrainian and Polish Jews born a century later was annihilated in the Holocaust.

    Rabbi Nachman made clear that he was horrified by the fate of that generation: he asked to be buried in Uman, among the victims of the Ukrainian carnage that took the lives of 30,000 Jews 43 years before he died.”

    Lots of good Italians live outside Italy, etc…

    There is no comparison!!! Jews are not like other peoples and the Land of Israel not like other lands: “Our land is not only a Homeland in the sense that Poland is a for the Poles or Korea is for the Koreans,Italy for Italians but rather it is the Land in which we can “Go up to appear and bow down.” The Temple Mount is not sufficient without a good, spacious land around it, but neither is such a land sufficient without the Temple Mount. We are not like the nations of the world, they belong to a land; transfer them to another land and they will belong to it. Nor is this land like the lands of other nations, take away one nation, they will belong to another. Here a third factor comes into play, supreme and decisive, which does not permit the above occurrences. Jerusalem and the Temple Mount transform our tie to the land into a weltanschauung“,(a particular philosophy or view of life; the worldview of an individual or group).

  24. @ yamit82:

    Personal reasons? Don’t think so.

    That was my take on it. Slamdunked for his ‘type of Jew’ and too many comments about his marriage(s).

    That is my opinion and I am sticking to it! 🙂

  28. Europe, the birthplace of antisemitism. Long ago they were barbarians. Chase away the natural and it returns at a gallop. Then they infected consenting victims: the Muslims.

  31. @ dove:

    Buzz of the Orient – Bear Kline rarely comments now. Haven’t seen mar55 for awhile. So…..maybe there are those who want to dominate. Fine by me. I don’t need to be here either.

  32. @ the phoenix:

    Care to elaborate? (There are a few ways this could be understood)

    I’m sure people stop commenting for a variety of reasons. Devolin? Canadian Otter. There was another sweet one I enjoyed – I think she was shejew or something like that. Rongrand – although a catholic – a righteous gentile… Laura often commented that she wanted to stop commenting. Need I say more?

  35. @ dove:
    The one who showed me how to make these emoticons was a young fellow from Greece. I loved his comments. Very witty. You could almost feel a positive energy through his posts. Unfortunately, he chose to no longer comment on this forum.
    🙁

  39. @ NormanF:

    Good relations – including profitable ventures of mutual interest can be had with countries that don’t discriminate against Israel and which treat it with respect.

    Canada, obviously comes to mind.
    Which other countries would be in the “go” list vs. the “you would not catch me dead in this shitty country” (LONG) list?…..

  40. A boycott works both ways! Jews and Israel can boycott anti-Semites and Israel haters. There is no reason to do business with them.

    Good relations – including profitable ventures of mutual interest can be had with countries that don’t discriminate against Israel and which treat it with respect.

    Its time to fight fire with fire! And leave bigots to stew in their own mess.