Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: boycott

Showing posts with label boycott. Show all posts

Wednesday, July 06, 2022

Ben and Jerry's sells to lots of countries that commit human rights abuses

Ben and Jerry's is suing its own parent company Unilever for selling rights to manufacture its products to an Israeli company.

When the Unilever announced the deal, Ben and Jerry's said that "We continue to believe it is inconsistent with Ben & Jerry's values for our ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory. "

Here is a list of countries that Ben and Jerry's happily sells its products to up until last year:

I did a quick survey of the human rights records of some of these countries, based on NGO reports and the US State Department. Here are some results, and the list of human rights abuses is far from complete.

Australia	Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people comprise 29 percent of Australia’s adult prison population, but just 3 percent of the national population.
Austria	Excessive use of force by police; asylum seekers deported
Bahamas	Death penalty, mistreatment of migrants, discrimination against LGBTQ+
Belgium	Racial profiling by the police, inhumane prisons
Brazil	In 2020, police killed 6,416 people. More than half of the victims were young Black men.
Czech Republic	Roma children experience discriminatory segregation in schools
Dominican Republic	Unlawful or arbitrary killings by government security forces; criminalization of abortion
Estonia	Highest gender pay gap in the EU
France	Violent police attacks on peaceful protesters. Anti-Muslim speech by officials.
Jamaica	Unlawful and arbitrary killings by government security forces; life-threatening conditions in prisons; law against homosexuality
Mexico	Police, prosecutors and the military regularly commit human rights violations, including arbitrary detention, torture, extrajudicial killings.
New Zealand	Asylum seekers are placed in prison and mistreated by criminals while being processed.
Philippines	ICC investigating crimes against humanity in "war on drugs"
Poland	Laws banning abortions
Singapore	Death penalty, government goes after freedom of speech and assembly
Thailand	Torture, no freedom of assembly or speech
Trinidad &Tobago	Death penalty, unlawful or arbitrary killings by police

Even the countries universally considered the leaders in human rights - Finland, Sweden and Norway - have been accused of discriminating against the Sámi people in various ways, such as attacking their culture and limiting their land rights.

Not to mention Ben and Jerry's home country of the United States, which according to Amnesty has the death penalty, excessive police brutality, armed forces throughout the world that often kills civilians, and limited access to abortions in some states.

Is Ben and Jerry's OK selling to countries where homosexuality is illegal? Where abortions are illegal? Where the government security forces torture detainees, and violently break up public peaceful demonstrations? Where minorities are not protected and actively discriminated against? Where incarceration of minorities is way out of proportion to their population?

It sure sounds like this is not a problem for them.

No, the only country that Ben and Jerry's publicly says is so reprehensible that it won't sell there without it changing its own laws is Israel, where the crime that is so reprehensible to justify this singular treatment is that Jews build houses in their ancestral homeland, nearly all of it on land that no human being ever lived before.

Anyone can dissect any country's human rights record, in order to find excuses to be prejudiced against that country - while pretending that it is really a righteous position.

If people decided that they want to cancel, say, Trinidad and Tobago, they could find lots of human rights abuses to justify their decision. But the hate comes first, the justification comes later.

Which is exactly the case with Israel. The hate, which is by definition modern antisemitism, comes first; the justification comes later. This is why Israel is accused of such a huge variety of human rights abuses in so many areas - not because Israel is guilty of them, but because there is such an intense desire to demonize Israel that literally thousands of people are paid full time to scrutinize Israel from every angle to justify animosity towards the Jewish state. And when they run out of things to accuse Israel of, there is an academic cottage industry to create new ones.

The many real human rights abuses listed above do not get the publicity that the mostly imaginary abuses attributed to Israel get.

When you look hard enough, you can find a reason to justify hating any country. And when the bulk of that effort goes towards the only country that has a Jewish majority, it is pretty obvious that human rights is not the real reason for the scrutiny.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Hamas Understands Israel Has A Means Of Deterrence That May Be Even Stronger Than Iron Dome (Daled Amos)

By Daled Amos

Last week, Israel announced plans to build an industrial zone next to Gaza, creating thousands of new jobs for Palestinian Arabs. This news comes at a time when the number of Palestinian Arabs working in Israel has been increasing.

In an article for The Algemeiner, Elder of Ziyon notes data from the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics indicating that the number of Palestinian Arabs working in Israel has jumped:

The number of Palestinian workers in Israel and the settlements skyrocketed from 153,000 to 204,000, an increase of 33% in a single quarter. Of those, the number of workers in settlements — which the Palestinian Authority opposes — went up from 22,4000 to 31,000, an increase of 38%. [emphasis added]

Despite the PA's official disapproval of Arabs working in Judea and Samaria, historically they have had to admit that they cannot offer an alternative to employment in the settlements. Already in 2011, Shahar Saad, Secretary-General of the Palestinian Workers' Union

stated that despite the desire to implement the decisions of the PA leadership regarding the boycott of products and workers in the settlements, the implementation of that decision is difficult. According to him, the Palestinian Authority does not produce enough alternative jobs. [adapted from Google translation from Hebrew]

For Israel, creating jobs and providing employment for Palestinian Arabs makes sense, though the motivation differs between creating jobs for West Bank Arabs and Arabs from Gaza.

Last year, The Times of Israel reported that Israel was distributing 16,000 new work permits, in an effort to support the Palestinian economy which faced reduced international aid and a difficult year due to the pandemic. But more than shoring up Abbas,

“This measure will strengthen the Israeli and Palestinian economies, and will largely contribute to the security stability in the area of Judea and Samaria. Economic stability is the key to preserving security in the region,” said COGAT head Ghassan Alian in a statement.

That's all well and good for Abbas and the Palestinian Authority, but is Israel creating this new industrial zone in order to shore up Hamas in Gaza?

Back in 2020, The Associated Press reported that Israel was increasing the number of work permits for Gazans from 5,000 to 7,000. According to the article, this was part of an unofficial truce negotiated by Egypt between Israel and Hamas in exchange for a reduction in rocket fire from Gaza and in the number of weekly protests along the border.

But the following year, when additional permits were distributed, the rationale was different. There were 3,000 more work permits made available, bringing the number of permits up to 10,000. And this time the reason for the new work permits was clear:

COGAT said the permissions are “conditional upon the continued preservation of the region’s security stability for the long term.” [emphasis added]

Haaretz puts this into perspective.

In April, the paper claimed that according to Israel's military intelligence assessment, Hamas was not prepared for war and was unlikely to respond with its own violence in response to clashes between Arabs and Israeli forces in Jerusalem. But the reason for Hamas's reluctance was more than just because it was still recovering from the fighting last year. There are approximately 15,000 Gazans working in Israel, providing important support for the Gazan economy. But there is more to it than that:

These workers have become a powerful lobby in Gaza, and Hamas' leader in the enclave, Yahya Sinwar, is said to take their position into consideration. Any hasty action by Sinwar against Israel could prompt harsh criticism from this group.
...Sinwar, who was nearly deposed in an internal vote for Hamas' leadership last year, is now also taking credit for major infrastructure projects in Gaza. A war would endanger any progress the Gazan economy has made, and therefore, Israeli officials say, Sinwar would like to refrain from escalation. [emphasis added]

This would explain Sinwar's change in tactics, from inciting Gazans against Israel to inciting Arabs in Israel, claiming that Hamas is the defender of Al Aqsa and calling on them to attack Jews in order to defend it.

But Gazan employment in Israel is apparently not the only source of pressure on Sinwar.

Last week, Hamas announced that the health of one of the 2 Israeli hostages it holds is in danger. The terrorist group is trying to use them as bargaining chips to gain the release of terrorists and the periodic updates about their health is psychological manipulation towards that end. However, both of them suffer from mental illness, and because of the sympathy that creates, the Hamas exploitation of the hostages is not getting the leaders the response they expected.

And that is another problem for Sinwar:

Hamas needs a deal because of the important status of the security prisoners in the eyes of the Palestinian public, and because of a pledge that hasn’t been fulfilled: When Sinwar was released from prison in 2011, in the Shalit deal, he promised his associates who remained behind that he would help get them freed. [emphasis added]

When it was first suggested that Hamas should be included in the 2007 elections in Gaza, it was suggested that having the responsibilities of government would have "a moderating influence" on the terrorist group. The current situation is not a confirmation of that suggestion. The issue of Gazans working in Israel is not a moderating influence -- it is pressure applied by Israel on Sinwar to maintain calm in order to protect his position and stay in power, even as he tries to take credit for this boost to the economy. His "campaign promise" to his fellow terrorists, on the other hand, applies pressure on Sinwar to foment violence.

Al-Monitor claims that Israel is in fact taking a degree of risk every time it takes steps to either create new jobs for Palestinian Arabs or distributes additional work permits. According to this view, these workers could potentially be recruited to carry out attacks inside Israel. Such concerns are all the more credible in light of the violence we have seen Hamas instigate.

The same article also claims that while Hamas instigating attacks on Israel could threaten the employment opportunities for Gazans in Israel and ultimately harm the Gazan economy, there is an external threat to those jobs as well. With the Russian invasion of Ukraine, there has been an influx of Ukrainian immigrants to Israel. In March, Interior Affairs Minister Ayelet Shaked said in an interview with Al-Monitor that "between 100,000 and 200,000 Jews could immigrate to Israel in the coming months.” It remains to be seen if Ukrainian immigration will put a dent in the number of jobs available for Palestinian Arabs, though that industrial zone being built in Israel adjacent to Gaza would indicate it might not.

For years, Hamas terrorist leaders have been exploiting Gazans as human shields for protection in order to evade the consequences of their actions. Yet, regardless of how they feel about Israel, Gazans are practical enough to work there in order to make a living -- and they expect Sinwar and the other Hamas leaders not to mess up their opportunity to support their families, something that Hamas on its own is consistently failing to do.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

New York Magazine @NYMag carries water for antisemitic BDS movement

New York Magazine has an article by Ross Barkan that asks "Is the BDS Movement Too Alienating to Make Real Change?"

Barkan completely accepts and supports the goal of BDS, to destroy the Jewish state, as perfectly legitimate. The author is merely uncomfortable about its strategy and methods.

The goals of BDS are a blend of the pragmatic (Israel’s withdrawal from the occupied territories in compliance with international law) and the radical (gaining the right of Palestinian refugees and their descendants to return and claim the property they lost during the 1948 Arab-Israeli War and 1967 Six-Day War). The radicalism of the latter goal lies not in whether it’s just — believers in pluralist, U.S.-style democracy should welcome the idea of a binational state that treats Palestinians and Israelis equally — but in the cataclysm it would likely unleash.

To Barkan, the problem with BDS isn't that it is manifestly genocidal and antisemitic. It is that it is too polarizing to be accepted by mainstream liberals who, deep down, want to destroy Israel too.

I wrote this comment in a small effort to expose the truth that the BDS movement has managed to obscure about itself:

What a disgusting and gaslighting article.

BDS is an antisemitic movement. It is a direct descendant of the boycotts of Jews that were enforced by the Arab League since before Israel existed. It doesn't boycott Arab Israeli businesses - only Jewish-owned businesses. Its goal is the destruction of the Jewish state. It rewrites the history of Israel and Zionism to recast a national liberation movement for the most oppressed people in history - Jews - into a racist, genocidal fiction.

This article accepts that fiction as truth.

Moreover, while BDS presents itself as a liberal movement and one that cares about Palestinians, it is the opposite. It mercilessly attacks any Palestinian who wants peace. It is silent about both the Palestinian Authority and Hamas' decidedly illiberal policies - against women, against LGBTQ+, against abortion.

Giving legitimacy to modern antisemitism is condoning it.

(h/t Melissa)

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Arkansas anti-BDS law is upheld - demanding equal treatment for Israel does not violate free speech

From JTA:

A US federal appeals court upheld an Arkansas state law requiring all public contractors to promise they won’t boycott Israel in a Wednesday ruling, overturning an earlier decision that had said the contract violates the First Amendment.

The ruling by the St. Louis-based US Court of Appeals for the Eighth Circuit was a major victory for pro-Israel activists who have pushed around 30 states to adopt so-called “anti-BDS” laws — intended to strike back against the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions movement targeting Israel — in recent years. The plaintiffs say they plan to appeal to the US Supreme Court, a process that could result in a nationwide showdown over the constitutionality of all anti-boycott laws.

It was the first time a federal appeals court ruled in favor of laws forbidding public contractors from being involved in any Israel boycott movements.

Such laws have been heavily opposed by civil liberties groups and press freedom advocates, who say they violate free speech. Federal courts have previously ruled that similar anti-boycott state laws in Georgia, Arizona, Kansas and Texas are unconstitutional.

But the Eighth Circuit, minus one dissenting judge, found that an anti-boycott contract provision does not infringe on the signer’s free speech rights because it “does not require them to publicly endorse or disseminate a message.” Instead, the court said, the clause requests “compliance” with a financial regulation — which the court says is a form of “noncommunicative” speech not protected by the First Amendment.

The case that was brought up is a perfect example of why anti-boycott laws have nothing to do with free speech.

A state-funded school, the Pulaski Technical College of the University of Arizona, stopped advertising in the alt-weekly Arkansas Times unless the paper signed the anti-BDS pledge. The newspaper sued, saying that this impeded its rights to free speech. (It seems to me that suing to force the school to spend money on advertising in the paper is a bit more of a violation of free speech than refusing to advertise is, but I'm no lawyer....)

As the court decision states,

[T]he certification requirement here is markedly different from other compelled speech cases. Although it requires contractors to agree to a contract provision they would otherwise not include, it does not require them to publicly endorse or disseminate a message. ....We are not aware of any cases where a court has held that a certification requirement concerning unprotected, nondiscriminatory conduct is unconstitutionally compelled speech. A factual disclosure of this kind, aimed at verifying compliance with unexpressive conduct-based regulations, is not the kind of compelled speech prohibited by the First Amendment.

The newspaper was not being asked to adopt a pro-Israel editorial position - which would be an obvious violation of free speech. They could have a banner headline telling readers to boycott Israel.

The irony is that the law is meant to uphold equal treatment for Israel. The only people who want to discriminate are those who want to single out Israel for boycott. Such a law would be unnecessary without people singling out Israeli Jews (and only Jews) as objects of attack.

Boycotting Israeli businesses as a policy is as immoral and reprehensible as boycotting businesses that are owned by people of color or women. Individuals can choose who they will or will not do business with, but a state has every right not to do business with those who pro-actively discriminate against companies owned by those with a specific national origin.

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

Cartoon of the Day: The weekly threat ritual

Buy the EoZ book, PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism today at Amazon!

Or order from your favorite bookseller, using ISBN 9798985708424.

Read all about it here!

A brief history of Arab boycotts of Jews. (Not Zionists - Jews.)

I'm seeing some people on Twitter ask why boycotting Israel is considered antisemitic.

One reason is that history shows that these boycotts are just a continuation of the boycotts that Arabs enacted against Jews in the decades before Israel was reborn.

Here is a list of boycott actions of Arabs against Jews - not Zionists, but Jews - between 1891 and 1945.

1891: Arabs request the Ottoman Empire not sell land to Jews.

February 1909: "In Hebron, where out of a total population of 18,000 about 2000 are Jews, the Arabs decide to boycott Jewish merchants."

January 1915: The American Jewish Yearbook reports "At Hebron, Jewish storekeepers are boycotted

by Mohammedan women."

April 2, 1920, AJC: "Rosh Pinah: Thirty Arabs attack Arab workmen in fields belonging to Jewish inhabitants in endeavor to bring about boycott by Arabs against Jews."

June 4, 1921: "Haifa: Arabs issue proclamation urging the populace to boycott the Jews and drive them out of their villages."

1922: Arab Congress calls on Arabs to boycott Jewish businesses in Palestine.

1924:

MUSLIM-CHRISTIAN ASSOCIATION.—AS in the past, the Muslim-Christian Association again expressed its opposition to the Mandate and to the very idea of the creation of a Jewish national home in Palestine, and voiced its demands for the independence of Palestine. It conducted an anti-Zionist and also anti-Jewish propaganda. In a publication which it widely distributed in the past year, the Association repeatedly refers its sympathizers to the "Protocols of the Elders of Zion", as a book which should be read by every-one who still doubts the pernicious motives of the Jews. ...It voted to authorize the Executive Committee to boycott the forthcoming elections and to promulgate an economic boycott against the Jews. The economic boycott, however, was later abandoned.

1925:

ARAB ASSOCIATIONS.—The Moslem-Christian Union during the past year continued its policy of obstruction—not only in political matters but it also tried to interfere with the economic development of the country. Early in the year under review, a congress adopted a resolution urging the boycotting of the Ruttenberg Electrification Plan.

1929: Arab Congress vows to compel Arabs to boycott Jewish merchandise. Syria prohibits import of merchandise produced by Jewish businesses in Palestine.

1931: World Islamic Congress passes resolution requesting Muslim countries to boycott trade with Jewish businesses in Palestine. Arab Labor Federation pickets Jewish businesses in Palestine.

1945: Arab League Council adopts Resolution 70, recommending that all Arab states establish national boycott offices.

The antisemitism is clear. It is absurd to think that the continuous boycotts by Arabs of Jews (the boycott office of the Arab League is still in place) suddenly changed in 1948 from a boycott of Jews to a boycott of Israelis.

Moreover, the Arab League boycott was explicitly against Jews even through the 1950s.

My sources were the American Jewish Yearbook and a chart in the book Effects of the Arab League Boycott of Israel on U. S. Businesses By Constance A. Hamilton, 1994.

BDS list of what supporters should do proves they aren't "pro-Palestinian activists."

BDS celebrated its 15th anniversary last June with a list of 15 things you can do to "show solidarity with Palestinians."

Here they are:

Expose Israeli Apartheid:
Targeted Sanctions [against Israel]
Apartheid Free Zones in your community "as spaces free of racism, sexism, discrimination"
Corporate Complicity (pressure on companies with branches in Israel)
Racial and Indigenous Justice: Support Indigenous-led and Black-led struggles for racial justice...
Environmental and climate justice
Women’s struggles: "justice in Palestine is a feminist issue"
Ethical City Councils: "Promote an intersectional motion in your local council..."
Faith Communities & Tourism: "respect the Palestinian call for ethical tourism/pilgrimage."
Cultural Boycott of Israel
Academic Boycott of Israel
Student Activism: Organize intersectional campaigns...
Sports Boycott: Join the global campaign to boycott Puma...
LGBTQI+ Rights: "Unmask and counter Israel’s agenda of pinkwashing..."
Donate to BDS: BDS needs support from people of conscience everywhere...

Only one problem: Not one of them would actually help a single Palestinian.

Not one mention on sending money to Palestinians - only to BDS.

No request to help pay rent for Arab Sheikh Jarrah residents which would allow them to stay in their homes.

Not one mention of supporting Palestinian businesses - only boycotting Israeli businesses.

Not one mention of lobbying Israel to ease restrictions on Palestinians.

Not one mention of sending letters or tweets of support to ordinary Palestinians.

Not one mention of working to improve Palestinian democracy or its institutions.

Not even a request for volunteers to help with the olive harvest.

This isn't a list of things to show solidarity with Palestinians. It is a recruiting list for "social justice warriors."

There is nothing positive here at all. Nothing supportive of Palestinians. Only hate for the Jewish state.

This list shows, better than any hasbara ever could, that people who claim to be "pro-Palestinian" are nothing of the sort. They simply hate Israel with a passion that is only equaled by their Jew-hating cousins on the Right.

Irish member of Parliament Niall Collins blames the "huge Jewish Lobby" in America for silencing pro-Palestinian voices

Niall Collins is an Irish TD (Member of Parliament) who is the foreign affairs spokesperson with the main opposition party Fianna Fáil and one of the forces behind the "Occupied Territories Bill" banning goods and services from Israeli "settlements" to the point that tourists who buy souvenirs in Jewish-owned shops in Jerusalem could be fined up to €250,000 and subject to up to five years’ imprisonment.

Here is is interviewed on a show about how pro-Palestinian voices are supposedly silenced (not quite sure how this show wasn't affected by this insidious plot). During the interview, while answering a question on this supposed suppression of pro-Palestinian voices, he says he says that the issue cannot solely be blamed on Trump, but also that pesky huge Jewish lobby.

I wouldn't entirely blame the Trump administration either in terms of when we're apportioning blame to the United States, because right across right across corporate America and right across America I think at every level there's a huge Jewish lobby who who have helped to create the the problem that we're now discussing.

Scratch a "pro-Palestinian" voice and you find antisemitism.

The host actually cuts Collins off to go back to his Jewish guest Neve Gordon to stop Collins from embarrassing himself.

(h/t Tomer Ilan)

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Why doesn't BDS boycott a country that discriminates against Palestinians by law?

You can see some upcoming arts events in Lebanon in the BandsInTown webpage.

A British pyrotechnic troupe called FuelGirls and a popular Spanish DJ named Fabrizio Marra are scheduled to perform in Beitut in the next two months, along with other performers from Europe.

Why have we not heard a peep from the BDSers? After all, life for Palestinians in Lebanon is far worse than in Israel or in the territories (including Gaza.) They are banned, by law, from many jobs, they cannot buy land, most cannot live outside dilapidated camps - at least one of which is surrounded by a wall and watchtowers. They cannot expand their houses even within the camps. About half of the "registered Palestine refugees" in Lebanon have already fled because life there is unbearable.

Yet no one even considers boycotting Lebanon for how it treats Palestinians. No one even sends a single tweet to these artists demanding that they respect Palestinian rights by not performing.

If the "pro-Palestinian" crowd was really pro-Palestinian, then why the silence?

We all know the answer. And that answer is what proves that while there are many, many people who are enthusiastically against the existence of a Jewish state, there are very few people who give a damn about actual Palestinians.

We have lots of ideas, but we need more resources to be even more effective. Please donate today to help get the message out and to help defend Israel.

Palestinian software house tells customers not to believe the BDS lies

ASAL Technologies is a software development house in Ramallah. They've done business with Cisco, Intel, HP, Microsoft and others.

Their FAQ page reveals a lot about how "pro-Palestinian" activists are in fact hurting the most skilled and creative Palestinians. Because in order to gain business abroad, ASAL has to convince potential customers that the propaganda that they have been hearing for decades is all wrong.

Can Palestinians travel?
Yes. Palestinians are able to travel to any part of the world. Provided with the proper and necessary documentation, Palestinians can acquire a visa and travel to any destination.

Do you have internet?
Yes. We do have internet and electricity. Over the past 60 years, the West Bank had not sustained any outages due to political reasons. Currently ASAL Technologies has two fiber optic cables from two different ISPs to ensure 24/7 internet connectivity. And short term plans are to move the headquarters of ASAL Technologies to Rawabi -the first Palestinian smart city- where the infrastructure of the whole city has been optimized to meet international standards.

Does the political situation affect your work?
No. Though it is hard to visualize if one hasn’t visited Palestine, the reality is that the political situation does not affect our ability to conduct business as usual with all of our clients. And to ensure that our employees can always access their workplace, we opened up a new branch in north of Palestine, and future plans are to open up yet another branch in the south.

These people should be role models for the Palestinian Arabs - they don't spend all of their time whining about what they can't do, but instead they show what they can do. And already they managed to build a modern workplace in a nice building.

The company also does business with Israeli companies, much to the chagrin of the BDSers:

Israel’s high-tech industry is among the country’s crowning achievements. Many Israeli tech firms send work offshore to Eastern Europe, India or China.

In the past three years, however, some have turned to Palestinian engineers and programmers. They are cheaper, ambitious, work in the same time zone, and – surprisingly to many Israelis – are similar to them.

“The cultural gap is much smaller than we would think,” said Gai Anbar, chief executive of Comply, an Israeli start-up in this central Israeli town that develops software for global pharmaceutical companies like Merck and Teva.

Palestinian engineers have also warmed up to the idea. “I doubt you would find a company who says, ‘I am closed for business,” to Israelis, said Ala Alaeddin, chairman of the Palestinian Information Technology Association.

“We have a window of opportunity to demonstrate our skills,” said Murad Tahboub, CEO of Asal Technologies, a Palestinian outsourcing company that works with Comply and a handful of other Israeli-based companies. “The more people know about us … the more comfortable they will be in doing business with us.”

This is what real peace looks like. And the people who support boycotts and labels and all the other anti-Israel initiatives are the ones who are working against peace - and against the very people whom they are pretending to care the most about.

Unfortunately, Palestinian society is geared to silencing the voices of people like these workers -people who want to truly build their communities and are eager to work with Israelis to get it done.

(h/t Mike)

This blog may be a labor of love for me, but it takes a lot of effort, time and money. For over 11 years and over 22,000 articles I have been providing accurate, original news that would have remained unnoticed. I've written hundreds of scoops and sometimes my reporting ends up making a real difference. I appreciate any donations you can give to keep this blog going.

Anti-Israel NGOs keep on pumping out lies

A reader asked me to comment on an October report apparently being distributed to EU politicians by some 20 NGOs to pressure them into banning imports of goods from Jews - and only Jews - who work in Judea and Samaria.

These slick-looking reports are churned out with regularity by the anti-Israel crowd, complete with lots of footnotes that no one will ever check out for veracity. Beyond that, they engage in deception by framing issues in the most biased way possible.

I don't have the time to fisk this entire report, called "Trading away Peace: How Europe helps sustain illegal Israeli settlements," but I noticed one section, 2.2, that is emblematic of the deception throughout the document.

Ban on dual-use items: Israel bans Palestinians from importing a range of “dual-use” items, including chemicals and fertilisers used in factories and agriculture. While Israeli settlers have full access to these materials, Palestinians are forced to turn to more expensive or less effective alternatives that further increase the cost of production and often have greater negative long-term impact on the environment. It is estimated that the fertilizer restrictions lead to losses of between 20% and 33% in agricultural productivity.

It is simply unbelievable that such a paragraph could be written without even acknowledging the history of terror attacks - using home-made explosives - that have come from the West Bank. The demand that Israel ignore its own security imperatives is untenable an shows an alarming lack of concern about the lives of Israelis.

Any report such as this that doesn't even acknowledge Israel's very real security concerns - even if only to dismiss them - can be assumed ab initio to be biased against Israel no matter how many footnotes it has.

But here's the next paragraph:

Obstacles to movement of goods: While settlers enjoy easy and direct access to Israeli and international markets, all Palestinian goods destined for Israel or further export must pass through Israeli checkpoints where they are unloaded from Palestinian vehicles and extensively checked before they can be re-loaded onto an Israeli vehicle on the other side (the so-called ‘back-to-back’ system). This is extremely time-consuming and often damages the products. Palestinian goods destined for international markets then pass through Israeli port and airport terminals where they face further disadvantages, obstacles and excessive time delays. All these obstacles significantly reduce the competitiveness of Palestinian products and increase the unpredictability of their delivery times and quality.

This is a bit silly; if there were an independent Palestinian Arab state declared on the 1949 armistice lines today, access to the European markets of Arab goods would have the exact same restrictions. In fact, goods exported to Jordan from the PA have more onerous restrictions than those going through Israel! (This recent post of mine addresses the issue.)

In other words, they are objecting to Israel behaving like a sovereign nation.

More deception follows:

Gaza closure: Compared to the West Bank, the Gaza Strip has been subject to even more stringent restrictions, especially since the takeover by Hamas in 2007. Exports from Gaza, a territory inhabited by 1.6 million Palestinians, have been banned almost entirely, contributing to the low volume of overall Palestinian exports. Despite the easing of some restrictions by Israel since 2010, the volume of exports from Gaza is still less than 2% of the pre-2007 levels. EU imports from Gaza over the five years of blockade have been limited to a few shipments of agricultural produce to the Netherlands and two trucks of garments to the UK.

The source for this, Gisha, does not note what percentage of goods exported from Gaza before 2007 went to Israel. My understanding is that a significant majority of all goods exported from Gaza before the blockade did go to Israel. Surely Israel has the right to limit its imports from Gaza if it chooses. So the 2% figure, while probably accurate, does not give any indication of how many goods were exported from Gaza to the EU before 2007, which I would venture to say was negligible. But if, say, 85% of Gaza's goods used to go to Israel then Gisha should note that before putting out the 2% number.

It might just be that Israel doesn't want to buy goods from a sector that is still shooting rockets at it. Just a wild guess. Do these NGOs think that Israel should be allowed to say where it imports its tomatoes from?

Besides, Israel is indeed working to increase the number of exports from Gaza to the West Bank, as I've reported. One question to ask is what demand there is for Gaza goods in the West Bank today and if that is not being met. Another question is whether any of these NGOs are complaining that Egypt is not importing goods from Gaza, which Israel could not limit if it tried. These are questions that this report does not ask - because the truth is not the goal of reports like these.

This is an indication of the bias that pervades this - and similar - reports. People who are not well-versed in the issues, those who do not have the time or inclination to research it themselves, those who don't have the necessary skepticism and those who are already sympathetic to the anti-Israel cause will swallow this garbage without thinking.

Which is exactly what the Israel-haters want.

The organizations behind this exercise in demonization are:

1. Aprodev
2. Broederlijk delen (Belgium)
3. Caabu (UK)
4. CCFd - Terre Solidaire (France)
5. Christian Aid (UK and Ireland)
6. Church of Sweden
7. Cordaid (Netherlands)
8. danChurchAid (denmark)
9. diakonia (Sweden)
10. FinnChurchAid (Finland)
11. ICCo (Netherlands)
12. IKv pax Christi (Netherlands)
13. International Federation for Human rights (FIdH)
14. Medical Aid for palestinians (UK)
15. medico international (Germany)
16. medico international switzerland
17. The Methodist Church in Britain
18. Norwegian people’s Aid
19. Norwegian Church Aid
20. Quaker Council for european Affairs
21. Quaker peace and Social Witness (UK)
22. Trocaire (Ireland)

Truth and fairness are obviously not part of these organizations' agenda.

By the way, if you object to my characterization in the first paragraph of these organizations' goals as banning imports of goods from only Jews who work in Judea and Samaria, I am being entirely accurate.

There are a number of industrial zones across the Green Line - Barkan, Atarot and Adumim - whose companies get targeted regularly by the anti-Israel crowd. Richard Falk relies heavily on the "Who Profits" website when he insists that certain American and Israeli companies be universally boycotted, and this "Trading Away peace" report quotes "Who Profits" some 26 times.

I looked through the Who Profits site, and I was unable to identify a single Israel-Arab-owned company that they propose boycotting.

Yet, according to this Globes article that discussed the success of these industrial parks, the Atarot park was quoted as having "a nice combination between Arabs and Jews, both in terms of employment and business ownership."

So there are definitely Arab-owned companies in these industrial zones - but not one of them are targeted for boycott!

One probable example is Al Mada'ain Food Products, formerly Slava Food Company, in Atarot, owned by Abu Ghazala Haitham. Assuming that Mr. Haitham is an Israeli citizen, then why isn't his company being tracked for being boycotted by Who Profits or other similar "pro-Palestinian" initiatives? Is he not Palestinian? [If he isn't an Israeli citizen, then presumably the PA will arrest him any hour now.)

When you go beyond the rhetoric and fine print in the volumes of invective released by these NGOs, you uncover the fact that they really are discriminating against Jews, and only Jews.

I think there is a name for that, but these "humanitarian" organizations get very upset when you say it.