Naomi Klein: Israel: Boycott, Divest, Sanction

[G_j]

http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/01/israel-boycott-divest-sanction

Israel: Boycott, Divest, Sanction
By Naomi Klein - January 8th, 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 even in the face of these clear calls, many of us 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.
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[martymar64]

1. A British Site for info about boycotting

http://www.inminds.co.uk/boycott-israel.php#companies

[LeftishBrit]

16. And for alternative British perspectives

www.linksnotboycott.org.uk

www.tufi.org.uk

[Junkdrawer]

17. From the cite: Companies to Boycott

AOL Time Warner
Time Life magazine, CNN, ICQ

Apax Partners
Jonny Rockets, Sunglass Hut.

Arsenal Football Club

Coca-Cola
Fruitopia, Fanta, Kia Orange, Lilt, Sprite, Sunkist..

Caterpillar

Danone
HP foods, Evian, Volvic, Jacob

Delta Galil
Hema, Barbie, Carrefour, Auchan, Tchibo, Victoria's Secret, GAP, Banana Republic, Structure, J-Crew, JC Penny, Pryca, Lindex, DIM, DKNY, Ralph Lauren, Playtex, cK, Hugo Boss, M&S

Disney

Emblaze

Estée Lauder
Aramis, Clinique, DKNY, Prescriptives, Origins, MAC, La Mer, Bobbi Brown, Tommy Hilfiger, Jane, Donna Karan, Aveda, Stila, Jo Malone, Bumble & Bumble, Kate Spade

Home Depot
Villager's Hardware, Georgia Lighting, Apex Supply, EXPO Design Centres

IBM

Intel

Johnson & Johnson

Kimberly-Clark
Kleenex, Kotex, Huggies, Andrex

Lewis Trust Group
River Island, Isrotel hotels, Britannia Pacific

The Limited Inc
Express stores, Lerner New York, Structure, New York & Company, Mast Industries, Intimate Brands, Victoria's Secret, Bath & Body Works, White Barn Candle Company, Henri Bendel

L'Oreal
Giorgio Armani, Redken 5th Avenue, Lancome Paris, Vichy, Cacharel, La Roche-Posay, Garnier, Biotherm, Helena Rubinstein, Maybelline, Ralph Lauren, Carson

Marks & Spencer
M&S, St.Michaels

McDonald's

Motorola

Nestle
Nescafé, Perrier, Vittel, Pure Life, Carnation, Libby's, Milkmaid, Nesquik, Maggi, Buitoni, Cross & Blackwell, KitKat, Milkybar, Quality Street, Smarties, After Eight, Aero, Polo, Lion, Felix cat food, L'Oréal

News Corporation
TV: Fox, Sky, Star, Phoenix, Granada, CNBC. UK newspapers: Standard Newspaper, News of the World, The Sun, The Times. Australian Newspapers: The Telegraph , Gold Coast Bulletin, Herald Sun, Independent, Sunday Mail. US newspapers: New York Post. Publishers: Harper Collins Ragan, Zondervan, National Geographical. Nursery World, Rawkus, NDS, Mushroom Records, ChinaByte.com, Festival Records

Nokia

Revlon
New World Entertainment, Forbes

Sara Lee
Hanes, Playtex, Champion, Leggs, Douwe Egberts, Bryan, DIM, Ambi Pur, Bali, Superior Coffee, Just My Size, Kiwi, Maison Cafe, Nur die, Pilao, Lovable, Outer Banks, Wonderbra, Sanex, Pickwick, Gossard, Body Mist, Brylcreem, Aqua Velva, Radox

Siemens

Selfridges

Starbucks
Seattle Coffee, Pasqua, Hear Music, Tazo

Timberland

[WhiteTara]

19. my only intentional boycott can be

of CNN. The rest aren't on my radar, but I will certainly pass this list

[mmonk]

2. I heard on NPR a couple of days ago that our government

sends the equivalent of $500 to every man, woman and child in Israel in economic aid every year. While I applaud the effort to send a statement, how effective will it be?

[burythehatchet]

3. you math doesn't add up. 7.2 million people, 3 billion in direct aid

not including billions more in loan guarantees. Works out in my head to about $4,000, non?

[mmonk]

6. I'm only repeating what I heard. Does your figure include

more than economic? I know we float loans that we later forgive or ignore as well as business development. Anyway, I don't see how a citizen here can have an effect trying a boycott with our government sending so much.

[burythehatchet]

7. the 3Bn is direct aid. There's much more from other sources.

[Name removed]

11. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Sebastian Doyle]

4. Damn that anti-semite Naomi Klein!1!!!!11!

What a Jew hater!!!1!!!



























:sarcasm: <----- Obviously.

[cali]

12. still at it, eh?

your doing the same exact thing that people who throw out anti-semite do. no difference at all. And your goal is the same as theirs: to pre=empt and to shut down.

lame when people throw out anti-semite unjustifiably, lame when they throw out accusations of false accusations of anti-semite.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

18. Nearly all accusations of anti-semitism aimed at critics of Israel are false.

Real anti-semites tend to spend less time criticising Israel and more obsessing about how Jews control XYZ in their own country, and the ones who do tend not to get much press.

Whenever you hear someone being accused of anti-semitism for criticising Israel, you can be pretty much certain - not 100%, but 85-90% - that it's not true.

[cali]

20. actually, real anti-semites abound on StormFront where they spend

a lot of time criticizing Israel. You're just wrong. And there are quite a few people here who indulge in the Israel controls the world stuff.

I agree that it's probably not true more often than not, but even if only 15% of people criticizing Israel are engaging in anti-semitism, isn't that too much?

Furthermore, my point was that there are also people who toss out the I'll be called an anti-semite line, when they haven't been as a pre-emptive measure.

[LeftishBrit]

22. The line can be fuzzy

I entirely agree that some people are entirely too ready to assume that any criticism of Israel's actions is antisemitic. (Naomi Klein is certainly not an antisemite whether one agrees with her or not!)

But I think there are types of criticism of Israel that are really not very different from the 'Jews control everything in X': it is just translated into 'Israel controls everything in X'. Examples: 'The American government obeys/ owes allegiance to/ is afraid of Israel'; 'The British government is run by a Jewish cabal'; 'Most neocons have dual Israeli citizenship'; 'Israel got us into the war in Iraq'; 'No More War for Israel!'. I would consider such allegations as influenced by antisemitism, even if the people repeating them are not always personally antisemitic.

The Israeli government does NOT run America, Britain or the world. In fact, the current one is singularly inept at even running *Israel*; but perhaps that's for another thread.

So I think there really is a distinction between direct criticism of Israel's own actions, and blaming it for that of other countries, and it's the latter which is more likely to be antisemitic.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

27. Israelis and Jews are both only small (overlapping) fractions of the Israeli lobby in the US.

I think that it's entirely true that the Israeli *lobby* exercises far too much power in the US, but that lobby is composed largely of right-wing American Christians who are neither Jewish nor Israeli.

"The American government obeys/ owes allegiance to/ is afraid of Israel" is not true, except possibly indirectly.

However, "The American government obeys/ owes allegiance to/ is afraid of a large and powerful group of self-appointed advocates of Israeli militarism", is, I think.

[LeftishBrit]

29. My own view...

is that the strong advocates of Israeli militarism tend really to be those who want to use Israel for their own strategic interests (or to put it more harshly 'as pawns in a proxy war against the Muslim world in general, and Iran in particular'). Iran and certain Arab states use Palestinians as pawns; elements of the American Right use Israelis as pawns. This isn't the cause of the I/P conflict which has been going on forever, but it aggravates it.

[Karenina]

30. My dear Donald just did a slam dunk!!!

And you all thought "White Men Can't Jump!" Someone pass me the smelling salts...
I've always enjoyed our repartee, DIR :loveya: and cannot express in words the depth of my dread in this current dust-up. If you were King, what would you order right about now?

[oberliner]

35. Jews are a small fraction of the Israeli lobby in the US?

What the hell are you talking about?

The lobby is certainly not composed primarily of right-wing American Christians.

AIPAC's leadership is composed entirely of Jewish people and the vast majority of the members are Jewish.

All of the members of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations sit on AIPAC's Executive Committee.

In the Walt/Mearsheimer book about "The Israel Lobby", they write that the core of the lobby is American Jews.

There is no basis for your claim that Jews are a "small fraction" of the Israeli lobby in the US.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

36. But the strength of a lobby comes from its ability to turn out voters.

And the voters who give the Israeli lobby strength are mostly Christians.

[oberliner]

37. What exactly do you consider to be the Israeli lobby?

If you are talking about AIPAC, then there is no way to claim that Jews make up only a small fraction as that is not the case.

If that is not what you mean by the Israeli lobby - then what do you mean?

[EconomicLiberal]

5. Why the hell doesn't Naomi Klein have a job as an op-ed columnist for the NY Times?

.. while Bill Kristol still has a job there. She needs more exposure.

[Sebastian Doyle]

8. Because Naomi Klein actually speaks the truth?

Can't have that in the corporate media :evilfrown:

[ihavenobias]

9. Because the NY Times is liberally biased. Oh wait, never mind. n/t

[EconomicLiberal]

10. Their op-ed page is liberal.

But not nearly liberal enough as the Repukes think.

[cali]

15. The op-ed page of the NYT leans heavily toward a liberal pov

Krugman, Rich, Kristof, etc. There are, I believe, two conservatives out of all the op writers.

[EconomicLiberal]

21. So what?

The NY Times is one of the only newspaper opinion pages that has any significant liberal columnists. Stack the entire newspaper with liberals. Who cares. Conservatives have the majority of major op-ed pages under their control.

A paper the quality of the NY times should not be legitimizing clowns like Bill Kristol.

[Name removed]

23. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Mudoria]

13. No

[cali]

14. Is it viable?

I don't know the answer to that. What I'm curious about is whether it's possible to even identify many Israeli products or whether it's a lot harder than it was with SA.

And though I can see boycotting Israeli goods, I decidedly can't see boycotting Israeli academics.

[LaPera]

24. Thank you Naomi Klein, I love you!

[rhett o rick]

32. Hey, I loved her first. nm

[SidneyCarton]

25. Ms. Klein oversimplifies.

The Israelis need sanctions, but her argument makes the assumption that Hamas will quietly sit down and do nothing if aid is cut to Israel. Unless both sides are actively and effectively engaged, this mess will persist and worsen.

[GreenTea]

26. Read Ms. Kein's whole article....Neat spin trick though

http://www.naomiklein.org/articles/2009/01/israel-boycott-divest-sanction

http://www.merip.org/mero/mero021608.html

[SidneyCarton]

28. Hadn't read the whole article yet. Who says I'm spinning.

Save your ad hominems for the I/P forum, I don't have a dog in this race.

[goforit]

31. The worst place any bully hurts Is in their wallet.....Stop doing business here

and abroad with the bully.
Great idea Naomi!!!

[Karenina]

33. True.

:kick:

[Douglas Carpenter]

34. k&r