Israel reveals its true face

The murder of these peace activists will count. Sanctions must surely be the price

Ahdaf Soueif
guardian.co.uk, Monday 31 May 2010 23.00 BST

This will count. A flotilla of relief boats attacked in international waters. Armed commandos boarding a vessel carrying supplies for a besieged civilian population. More than 10 peace activists reported killed. This has to be made to count.

The dead have joined Rachel Corrie, Tom Hurndall, James Miller and Brian Avery in giving up their lives for the Palestinians. None of these young men and women went out to die or wanted to die or was accepting of death. Each and every one of them ultimately believed that they were safe; that there was a boundary – call it a boundary of legality, a boundary of civilisation – that Israel would not cross. They were wrong. And in proving them wrong, Israel has revealed, once again, its true face to the world.

This face, of course, the Palestinians know well. They see it every day in the teenage soldiers of the occupation chewing gum as they dish out humiliations, in the settlers shooting young Palestinians with impunity, in the soldiers firing gas canisters at the heads of demonstrators. The world saw that face in January last year when Israel unleashed the might of its air force on Gaza – the only time in modern warfare that a civilian population was sealed in as it was being bombed and shelled. Now Israel is out on the high seas killing internationals.

So never mind the multimillion-dollar public relations campaign – actions speak louder than words, and the murder of these peace activists is Israel's message to the world. It does not matter what Mark Regev or any other Israel spokesperson says. It does not matter what spin the Israeli government tries to put on this; the only link between Israeli words and Israeli deeds is this: Israel uses words as a decoy and an obfuscation and a cover for its deeds. It has done so for 62 years. These internationals, dead now, murdered, have ensured that anyone who does not see this is wilfully blind.

Western governments are fond of holding up Israel as the "only democracy in the Middle East". So should we assume that the Israeli people are behind their government? That they approve these killings? Last month I was at al-Quds University in Abu Dis. Israel's wall shaved the edge off the campus. On it, in tall blue letters, a Palestinian student had written: "My Israeli sisters: this is not the answer."

A few days ago, young Jewish Israeli activists told me they saw that the only hope for their country lies with the international community. Israel is on a path to self-destruction, they said, and it will take the region with it. It will not stop, they said, until the price it pays for its actions becomes too heavy. This price has to be a moral and economic price imposed by the world.

My anger and my sadness are so great that I have to deliberately draw a deep breath from time to time to ease the bands I feel around my chest. It doesn't matter. What does matter is that millions of people in the world are feeling the same. People everywhere see and understand what is happening. Many of us feel that Palestine is nearing its South Africa moment. This latest outrage must push it closer. And it will.

Donations will, I'm sure, flood in to the other relief boats waiting in harbour. More and more people will take the boycott to heart. More civil bodies will insist on divestment from companies that do business with Israel. The time has come for the governments that represent us to stop engaging with Israeli lies and excuses. The price of Israel's action today has to be to put the issue of sanctions squarely on the table.

رسالة الاحتلال من جريمته فى أعالى البحار
بقلم:
أهداف سويف

 لن يذهب هذا هباء
هجوم على مجموعة من مراكب الإغاثة فى المياه الدولية. جنود مسلحون يحتلون سفينة تحمل المؤن لشعب مدنى محاصر. مقتل عدد من ناشطى السلام الدوليين 
يجب ألا يذهب كل هذا هباء 
الآن قد انضم ٩ من غير الفلسطينيين إلى راشيل كورى، وتوم هرندل، وجيمز ميلر، وبريان آفيرى، وضحوا بحياتهم فى سبيل فلسطين. لم يخرج هؤلاء الشباب طلبا للشهادة، لم يرغبوا فى الموت، ولم يكونوا ليسلموا له.

كان كل واحد منهم على قناعة ــ فى النهاية ــ بأنه فى مأمن، أن هناك حدودا، لنسميها حدودا قانونية، أو حدودا حضارية، لن تتخطاها إسرائيل. كانوا مخطئين، وفى كشف خطئهم هذا، كشفت إسرائيل مرة أخرى أمام العالم عن وجهها الحقيقى.

الفلسطينيون بالطبع يعرفون هذا الوجه جيدا، فهم يرونه كل يوم فى جنود الاحتلال المراهقين الذين يمضغون اللبان وهم يمارسون إذلال العابرين على الحواجز، وفى ضباط الشين بيت وهم يقايضون الطلاب والمرضى ويطلبون منهم الإدلاء بمعلومات لقاء عدم منعهم عن العلم والدواء، وفى المستوطنين الذين يقتلون الشباب الفلسطينى دون خوف من عقاب، فى عناصر القوات المسلحة وهى تطلق قنينات الغاز المسيل للدموع مباشرة وعن قرب فى وجوه المتظاهرين المسالمين.

ورأى العالم هذا الوجه فى يناير ٢٠٠٩ حين أطلقت إسرائيل جبروت سلاحها الجوى على غزة ــ وكانت المرة الوحيدة فى تاريخ البشرية التى حوصر فيها شعب أعزل وأغلقت عليه سبل الهروب ثم قصف وضرب بالقنابل. 
والآن نجد إسرائيل فى أعالى البحار تقوم بقتل المدنيين من أنحاء العالم.

فلا تلقى بالا للمجموعة النخبوية من الكتاب والفنانين الإسرائيليين الذين يجوبون العالم يبيعون إسرائيل كعلامة تجارية مميزة، ولا تلقى بالا لحملة إسرائيل الدعائية المتكلفة مئات الملايين من الدولارات ــ فالأعمال أعلى صوتا من الكلمات، ومقتل هؤلاء النشطين من أجل غزة ومن أجل السلام هو رسالة إسرائيل للعالم.

لا يهم ما يقوله مارك ريجيف أو أى متحدث إسرائيلى آخر، لا تهم كل التصريحات التى سيطلقها متحدثون إسرائيليون يحاولون لفلفة الحقائق، فالعلاقة الوحيدة بين أعمال إسرائيل وكلماتها هى الآتى:
إن اسرائيل تستعمل الكلمات كتمويه وتغييب وغطاء لأعمالها، وهذه سياستها منذ ٦٢ سنة. وهؤلاء النشطون، الذين رحلوا الآن مقتولين غدرا، بموتهم قد ضمنوا للعالم أن من لا يرى هذا هو ضرير بإرادته.

كثيرا ما ترفع حكومات الغرب إسرائيل نصب أعيننا على انها «الديمقراطية الوحيدة فى الشرق الأوسط»، فهل نفهم من هذا ان الشعب الإسرائيلى يعضد حكومته فى فعلته هذه؟ إنه يحبذ ويساند قتل ناشطى السلام؟ منذ أسابيع زرت جامعة الأقصى فى أبوديس حيث يقتطع الجدار الإسرائيلى جزءا من الحرم الجامعى، وقرأت على الجدار ما كتبته طالبة فلسطينية بحروف زرقاء رشيقة: «يا اخواتى الإسرائيليات، ليس هذا هو الحل».

منذ بضعة أيام قال لى بعض الشباب الإسرائيلى النشط إن الأمل الوحيد لبلادهم برأيهم يقع عند المجتمع الدولى. قالوا ان إسرائيل تسرع نحو تدمير نفسها وإنها ستدمر المنطقة معها ولن تتوقف إلا إذا ثقل عليها ثمن أعمالها ــ فيجب على العالم أن يعمل على أن تدفع إسرائيل هذا الثمن غاليا، ويكون ثمنا اقتصاديا وأخلاقيا.

مشاعر الغضب والحزن تجثم على أنفاسى ــ لا يهم. المهم أن هذا الشعور يتملك الملايين. شعوب العالم فى كل مكان ترى وتعى ما يحدث، والكثير منا يشعر ان لحظة فلسطين الجنوب افريقية وشيكة الحدوث، وهذا العمل الإجرامى الأخير سوف يدفعها نحو التحقق: ستأتى التبرعات للمراكب التى لم تبحر بعد وستقوى حركة المقاطعة، وستصر هيئات مدنية أكثر على سحب أموالها من الشركات التى تعمل مع إسرائيل.

قد آن الأوان للحكومات التى تمثلنا أن ترفض الانسياق إلى التعامل مع الحجج والأكاذيب الإسرائيلية، وعلى المجتمع الدولى أن يصر أن تدفع إسرائيل ثمن ما قامت به أمس، الإثنين، فيجب أن يبدأ فى طرح وبجدية، إمكانية فرض العقوبات والمقاطعة الدولية عليها.


Israel: Boycott, Divest, Sanction

by NAOMI KLEIN

This article appears in the January 26, 2009 edition of The Nation.
January 7, 2009

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--BDS for short--was born.

Every day that Israel pounds Gaza brings more converts to the BDS cause, and talk of cease-fires is doing little to slow the momentum. Support is even emerging 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 stationed in Israel. It calls for "the adoption of immediate restrictive measures and sanctions" and draws a clear parallel with the antiapartheid struggle. "The boycott on South Africa was effective, but Israel is handled with kid gloves.... This international backing must stop.

"Yet many still can't go there. The reasons are complex, emotional and understandable. And they simply aren't good enough. Economic sanctions are the most effective tools in the nonviolent arsenal. Surrendering them verges on active complicity. Here are the top four objections to the BDS strategy, followed by counterarguments.

1. Punitive measures will alienate rather than persuade Israelis. 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 $3 billion in annual aid that the US sends to Israel is 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 non-Latin American country to sign a free-trade deal with Mercosur. In the first nine months of 2008, Israeli exports to Canada went up 45 percent. A new trade deal with the European Union is set to double Israel's exports of processed food. And on December 8, 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 percent. When carrots don't work, sticks are needed.

2. Israel is not South Africa. Of course it isn't. The relevance of the South African model is that it proves that BDS tactics can be effective when weaker measures (protests, petitions, back-room lobbying) have failed. And there are indeed deeply distressing echoes: the color-coded IDs and travel permits, the bulldozed homes and forced displacement, the settler-only roads. Ronnie Kasrils, a prominent South African politician, said that the architecture of segregation that he saw in the West Bank and Gaza in 2007 was "infinitely worse than apartheid."

3. Why single out Israel when the United States, Britain and other Western countries do the same things in Iraq and Afghanistan? Boycott is not a dogma; it is a tactic. The reason the BDS strategy should be tried against Israel is practical: in a country so small and trade-dependent, it could actually work.

4. Boycotts sever communication; we need more dialogue, not less. This one I'll answer with a personal story. For eight years, my books have been published in Israel by a commercial house called Babel. But when I published The Shock Doctrine, I wanted to respect the boycott. On the advice of BDS activists, I contacted a small publisher called Andalus. Andalus is an activist press, deeply involved in the anti-occupation movement and the only Israeli publisher devoted exclusively to translating Arabic writing into Hebrew. We drafted a contract that guarantees that all proceeds go to Andalus's work, and none to me. In other words, I am boycotting the Israeli economy but not Israelis.

Coming up with this plan required dozens of phone calls, e-mails and instant messages, stretching from Tel Aviv to Ramallah to Paris to Toronto to Gaza City. My point is this: as soon as you start implementing a boycott strategy, dialogue increases dramatically. And why wouldn't it? Building a movement requires endless communicating, as many in the antiapartheid struggle well recall. The argument that supporting boycotts will cut us off from one another is particularly specious given the array of cheap information technologies at our fingertips. We are drowning in ways to rant at one another across national boundaries.

No boycott can stop us. Just about now, many a proud Zionist is gearing up for major point-scoring: don't I know that many of those very high-tech toys come from Israeli research parks, world leaders in infotech? True enough, but not all of them. Several days into Israel's Gaza assault, Richard Ramsey, the managing director of a British telecom company, sent an e-mail to the Israeli tech firm MobileMax. "As a result of the Israeli government action in the last few days we will no longer be in a position to consider doing business with yourself or any other Israeli company.

"When contacted by The Nation, Ramsey said his decision wasn't political. "We can't afford to lose any of our clients, so it was purely commercially defensive.

"It was this kind of cold business calculation that led many companies to pull out of South Africa two decades ago. And it's precisely the kind of calculation that is our most realistic hope of bringing justice, so long denied, to Palestine.

Further Reading: Disengagement and the Frontiers of ZionismAbout Naomi Klein

Naomi Klein is an award-winning journalist and syndicated columnist and the author of the international and New York Times bestseller The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism (September 2007); an earlier international best-seller, No Logo: Taking Aim at the Brand Bullies; and the collection Fences and Windows: Dispatches from the Front Lines of the Globalization Debate (2002)

I'm Boycotting The Olympics

Edward Said once said in a TV interview (I cannot find the video, so I am loosely quoting him):

"Sports, in general, is nothing more than a weapon of mass distraction. We cheer for our favorite team to come out victorious. If they don't, we complain and hope for better results in the next season. If they do, we celebrate endlessly and await similar results in the year to come. All the while ignoring the fact that neither outcome has any material effect on our lives, and distracting us from the real issues happening in the world around us."

Until recently, I've been one of the Massively Distracted. I'm not sure what exactly happened to me, but I have decided to stop being a crazy sports fan (Zamalek's systematic and humiliating loses to Al Ahly, and Federer's humiliating loss to Nadal in Wimbledon may have a lot to do with my decision) .

Accordingly, I will NOT be watching the long awaited 08/08/08 Beijing Olympics.

• Dear Athletes: no need to bother with performance enhancement drugs. I will not be impressed anyways.
• Dear Advertisers: save your ads budgets and your multi-million endorsements of filthy rich athletes. Attract more buyers by lowering your prices.
  
• Dear Chinese Government: Forget about Olympic glory and achieve moral glory by pulling out of Tibet.
• Dear International Olympic Committee: Amateur games my foot. You've turned the Olympics into a multinational Business Corporation with just one interest: MONEY!!
  
• Dear sports fans: Sports are only good for you when you are actually involved in playing them. Being a couch-potato glued to your TV to watch other people play sports does no good to your mind, body, or heart.
• Dear die-hard sports fans: You've managed to turn a good thing that was supposed to promote friendship and cooperation into yet another reason to hate and fight.
• Dear sports gamblers: Have nothing better to do with your money? Please send it to my bank account, and then place bets on the chances of me returning it back!!!
  

OK, I think I am done lecturing for now. Now excuse me, I need to go find out who will Federer be playing in his opener (AH!!! hopeless case)