Friday, August 09, 2019
From Ian:
Europe Poised to Put Warning Labels on Jewish-Made Products
Europe Poised to Put Warning Labels on Jewish-Made Products
The European Union is poised to mandate that Israeli products made in contested territories carry consumer warning labels, a decision that could trigger American anti-boycott laws and open up what legal experts describe as a "Pandora's box" of litigation, according to multiple sources involved in the legal dispute who spoke to the Washington Free Beacon.Hijacking Black History to Bash Israel
The Advocate General of the European Court of Justice recently issued non-binding opinion arguing that EU law requires Israeli-made products to be labeled as coming from "settlements" and "Israeli colonies."
The decision was seen as a major win for supporters of the anti-Semitic Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement, or BDS, which seeks to wage economic warfare on Israel and its citizens. Pro-Israel activists, as well as the Jewish businesses involved in the legal dispute, see the decision as an ominous warning sign that they say is reminiscent of Holocaust-era boycotts of Jewish businesses.
With the EU court's 15 judge panel now poised to issue its own binding judgment in the case, legal experts are warning that a potential decision mandating such labeling could pave the way for goods from any disputed territory to receive such treatment. The decision also could trigger U.S. anti-boycott laws meant to stop Israeli-made goods from being singled out for unfair treatment on the international market.
Brooke Goldstein, a human rights lawyer and executive director of the Lawfare Project, which is involved in the legal dispute, described the EU court's initial decision as "frankly outrageous."
"The Advocate General's opinion said that goods produced by Muslims are to be labeled from ‘Palestine,' and goods produced by Jews labeled as coming from ‘Israeli colonies,' Goldstein said. "Both people are living in the same geographic location, and yet Jewish goods are being treated differently." (h/t IsaacStorm)
Academics today are widely known for letting ideology and politics drive their research and teaching, but nowhere is this more evident than in the determination of Middle East studies scholars to situate rejection of Israel’s right to exist within the social justice pantheon of the mainstream Left. And perhaps nowhere is this determination more evident than in Randolph-Macon College history professor Michael R. Fischbach’s new book, Black Power and Palestine: Transnational Countries of Color. I eagerly attended his recent talk at UCLA’s Center for Near Eastern Studies to hear him out.No, David Brooks, Jews Who Like Being Jewish and Not “Judeo-Christian” Aren’t White Supremacists
The social sciences today are dominated by intersectional theory, which, in a nutshell, holds that systems of minority oppression — racial, ethnic, sexual orientation, gender, class, and so forth — are overlapping; that oppressed groups share a commonality of interests; and that tapping into that solidarity is essential to bringing about change. In recent years, anti-Israel activists have used intersectionalism as a rallying cry to pressure social justice movements ranging from Occupy Wall Street to the Women’s March to adopt anti-Israel platforms.
But intersectional theory also poses a problem for academics seeking to delegitimize Israel. If, as tenured Middle East studies radicals have been chanting for the past four decades, Israel is an inherently racist state and part of the same global structure of oppression holding down people of color everywhere, why have the overwhelming majority of African Americans historically been supportive of or indifferent to Israel? Martin Luther King Jr.’s legacy is particularly problematic for intersectional theory, as he and most other African American civil rights leaders were unwavering both in their public support for Israel and in their disdain for anti-Zionists. “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You’re talking anti-Semitism!” King famously remarked in a speech shortly before his death.
Fischbach’s answer, in effect, is that pro-Israel sympathies within the African American community aren’t genuine. The professor began his presentation to a small group of 16 attendees — mostly graduate students and younger faculty — with a string of well-worn anecdotes about the supposed depth of solidarity between African Americans and Palestinians today. In 2013, an American activist claimed to have seen a Palestinian mural of Trayvon Martin. During the August 2014 unrest in Ferguson, Missouri, a number of Palestinians posted tips about combating the effects of tear gas. In 2015, anti-Zionist campaigners managed to put just over a thousand African American signatures on a “Black Solidarity Statement.” But the icing on the cake, which Fischbach played to the audience in its entirety, was the 2014 music video “Checkpoint” by the obscure rapper Jasiri X, an angry tract with spurious apartheid comparisons and calls for a “free Palestine” that has managed to garner just 66,911 views on YouTube in the past five years despite zealous promotion by anti-Israel activists everywhere.
In a recent column, David Brooks blames recent mass shootings in America on “a broader movement—anti-pluralism—that now comes in many shapes.” Among the anti-pluralists, writes Brooks, are “Trumpian nationalists, authoritarian populists, and Islamic jihadists”—and also, evidently, Jews. “Eighty years ago,” he laments, “Protestants, Catholics, and Jews did not get along, so a new category was created, Judeo-Christian, which brought formerly feuding people into a new ‘us.’” But now that pluralistic amalgam has come unglued, leaving Judaism in the category of a “dead culture.”
A pure culture is a dead culture while an amalgam culture is a creative culture. . . . The terrorists dream of a pure, static world. But the only thing that’s static is death, which is why they are so pathologically drawn to death. Pluralism is about movement, interdependence, and life.
Ira Stoll takes Brooks to task:
Sorry, but no. Jews who prefer to remain Jewish rather than becoming “Judeo-Christian” are not similar to white supremacists or Islamic jihadists who go into Walmart or a nightclub or an army base and open fire in hopes of committing mass murder. Judaism in the 1930s, before the creation of the “new category” of “Judeo-Christian,” wasn’t static or dead—it was full of vibrant Yiddish culture, Zionist innovation, and religious reform and reaction. . . .
What’s more, the term “Judeo-Christian,” though perhaps useful as a political, rhetorical formulation to label the Jewish and Christian alliance against Nazism and later Communism, never really became a practically meaningful “us.” Jews and Christians still feud, as can be seen in everything from the Christian left’s support for anti-Israel boycotts to the Jewish left’s opposition to Christian conservative legislative moves to restrict abortion. Jews and Christians still go to different synagogues and churches.
When asked about religion, very few people voluntarily describe themselves as “Judeo-Christian.” The theological and ritual differences between the two different religions are just hard to blur without eliminating the force and meaning of the 2,000- or 4,000-year-old traditions. And because Christians far outnumber Jews, it’s not hard to predict that if Jews and Christians did merge into Judeo-Christians, Christianity would dominate. How that counts as “pluralism” rather than as a kind of anti-pluralism—the refusal to accept the continued existence of Judaism as a distinct religion—is a mystery to me.
