BDS Update: Peaceful Blitzkreig And
Israeli Counterattacks
05 Feb 2012
By Eric Walberg
BDS activities are moving into a new critical stage,
with apostasy, Internet hacking, regattas, and an ever
more aggressive Israel and its acolytes upping the
perilous ante, reports Eric Walberg
The Third Annual BDS Conference opened 17 December at
Hebron's Children's Happiness Centre, "to expand
Palestinian civil society's active implementation of
BDS that is deeply rooted in the Palestinian
struggle." European BNC coordinator Michael Deas
affirmed, "BDS is now the main framework for
solidarity. We are very close to closing the European
market to Israel."
A boycott bombshell in January was dropped by an
11th-grade American Jewish teenager, Jesse Lieberfeld,
who won Dietrich College's 2012 Martin Luther King, Jr
Writing Award for his essay about his moral awakening
when he realised his American Jewish culture was
unavoidably identified with supporting Israel.
"I once belonged to a wonderful religion," says young
Jesse. "I routinely heard about unexplained mass
killings, attacks on medical bases, and other
alarmingly violent actions for which I could see no
possible reason. ‘Genocide' almost seemed the more
appropriate term... Whenever I brought up the subject,
I was always given the answer that there were faults
on both sides... I felt horrified at the realisation
that I was by nature on the side of the oppressors. I
was grouped with the racial supremacists." Finally, at
the synagogue, he asked, "I want to support Israel.
But how can I when it lets its army commit so many
killings?" and was told by the rabbi, "It is a
terrible thing, isn't it? But there's nothing we can
do. It's just a fact of life." "I thanked him and
walked out shortly afterward. I never went back." When
American youth like Jesse are forced to give up being
Jewish because of Israeli crimes, it cannot be long
before Israel crumbles under the weight of its
accumulated crimes.
2011 witnessed the rise of Internet attacks on Israeli
government sites by public-spirited BDSers determined
to enforce a kind of "cyber boycott". While the Saudi
government remains aloof from BDS support, an
enterprising Saudi hacker disrupted several Israeli
websites in January, prompting Israeli hacker Yoni
(most likely a spin-off from the Israeli military's
IDF-TEAM, which brought down Saudi and Abu Dhabi
financial exchange websites last year) to threaten
war, including "mass credit card exposures, and
denial-of-service attacks".
"Yoni" piously told Ynet, "We do not operate against
any specific nationality, and any person who operates
against the group's principles will be harmed,
regardless of religion, creed or gender. In addition,
I wish to note that the group regrets harm done to
innocents and tries to avoid it as much as it
possible." Imagine if Israel adhered to such high
standards in its relations with its neighbours — it
would not need to hack and steal credit card
information from anyone.
Another such anti-BDS feint is by the pro-Israeli
Internet NGO Monitor, DPWatchDog and Israel's Reut
Institute, which called on Israeli government agencies
to "sabotage" and "attack" the Palestine solidarity
movement, and has claimed credit for "price tag"
attacks on The Electronic Intifada by Dutch Foreign
Minister Uri Rosenthal, the Palestine Return Centre,
the persecution of the Olympia Food Co-op, the
Berkeley Daily Planet and the "Irvine 11". In "2011:
The Year We Punched Back on the Assault on Israel's
legitimacy," Reut lauds the emergence of "our network"
and gives credit to the Israeli government and "the
Jewish world's mobilisation against the political
assault on Israel".
This conflation of "Jewish" and "Israeli" is the
Israel-firsters' trump card, perversely stoking
anti-Jewish sentiment where none exists, the so-called
"new anti-Semitism", a directly result of Israeli
crimes. "Price tagging" is usually associated with
Israeli settler terrorism, vandalism, tree-felling,
mosque burnings and murder. A particular zealous
advocate, Andrew Adler, suggested in the Atlanta
Jewish Times in January that US President Barack Obama
could be on the hit list. That the Reut Institute
associates itself with such criminal activity is yet
another sign of Israel's drift towards outright pariah
status, and fuel for the anger of the Jesse
Lieberfelds "regardless of religion, creed or gender".
Boycott activities are not just confined to Israeli
products abroad or visits by Westerners to Israel, but
are now taking place regularly on land, at sea and in
the air, as activists surround Israel and invent ever
new ways to break its siege of the Occupied
Territories.
The Global March to Jerusalem held a conference in
Beirut in January confirming 30 March, the 36th
anniversary of Palestinian Land Day, as the date for
their land action: "From all continents we will
converge and gather along the Palestinian borders with
Jordan, Egypt, Syria and Lebanon in a peaceful march
towards Palestine."
Plans for "Sailing for Freedom" by French and other
European activists are moving ahead, aiming for a
September yachting regatta in the Mediterranean,
starting in Marseilles and proceeding to Tunisia,
Egypt and Gaza. Other flotilla organisers have been
discussing a new strategy of sending isolated vessels
from various ports instead of high-profile flotillas,
with the intent of actually breaking the siege, as
opposed to merely attracting world attention to Israel
(and Greek and US) sabotaging of flotillas.
In April 2012 a Flytilla is scheduled to arrive at Ben
Gurion Airport, to "again challenge the Israeli policy
of isolating the West Bank". "Welcome to Palestine" is
a French-Belgian initiative, modeled on the Flytilla
last July, when 500 people prepared to fly to Tel
Aviv. Despite the nightmare that activists experienced
both in European airports and in Ben Gurion Airport,
125 actually arrived, and this year, activists are
determined to increase their numbers and continue to
poke the Israeli watchdog.
"The Israelis have constructed enormous prisons for
Palestinians. But prisoners have a right to visits,"
says Adri Nieuwhof. The idea has spread to the UK,
where towns are sponsoring people to risk Israeli
wrath. European airlines are now more concerned with
their image in the West than with Israeli authorities,
and organisers predict that there will be less
collusion to pre-screen flights arriving in Tel Aviv
from Europe.
These particularly plucky activists continue the
tradition begun in 2011 of a peaceful blitzkreig of
Israel from all sides, risking life and limb,
enforcing a kind of physical "citizens boycott" of
Israel, complementing the spiritual one by the young
Jesses. Their co-activists on the "homefront" are now
combining the physical and spiritual by the now annual
protest during the Israel lobby AIPAC's annual
conference in Washington DC. This year it is called
OCCUPY AIPAC, scheduled for 2-6 March. Kalle Lasn,
editor of Adbusters, declared: "The time has come for
the Occupy Movement to demand an end to the Occupation
of Palestine." OCCUPY AIPAC will provide a sneak
preview of "Roadmap to Apartheid" narrated by Alice
Walker (roadmaptoapartheid.org).
Legal actions against BDSers continue to plague
activists. But there are principled judges. Twelve
French activists from Boycott 68 were acquitted 15
December on charges of "inciting discrimination and
racial hatred" for calling on French shoppers at
Carrefour supermarkets to boycott Israeli goods. The
court judgment is expected to put the kibosh on
further persecution of activists.
UK's National Union of Students endorsed campaigns
targeting divestment in Eden Springs and Veolia on 6
January. Veolia suffered considerably from a robust
BDS campaign across Europe last year for its
light-rail project in Jerusalem, but is defiant in
expanding its activities in Israel without regard to
their legality. Subsidiaries of Veolia own and operate
Tovlan landfill which processes Israeli waste in the
occupied Jordan Valley. To sweeten the tons of garbage
it dumps illegally on Palestinian land, Veolia
recently offered three containers for free waste
collection to Palestinians in Jiftlik. Comments Omar
Barghouti, "As Desmond Tutu said, we do not need
anyone to polish our chains; we want to break them
altogether. This is beyond humiliating; it is racist
and criminal. Derail Veolia!"
Sanctions -- and their removal, in the case of the
Palestinians -- require foreign governments to stare
down the powerful world Zionist lobby. Few states dare
to do this, but there are more and more cracks in the
walls that Israel puts up. Palestinian Prime Minister
Ismael Haniya launched a historic tour of Egypt,
Tunisia, Sudan, Turkey, Qatar and Bahrain in January,
welcomed throughout the region as a David to the
Israeli Goliath.
Three Hamas politicians also left Gaza via Egypt to
attend a meeting of the Inter-Parliamentary Union in
Switzerland in January, the first time since Hamas was
democratically elected in 2006. Switzerland does not
belong to the European Union, which put Hamas on its
list of terrorist organisations to please Israel.
"We also met with the Red Cross in Geneva, the
vice-mayor of Geneva and with Islamic organisations in
different cantons," Mushir Al-Masri said. A meeting at
the University of Geneva to commemorate the
anniversary of Operation Cast Lead, Israel's attack on
Gaza in December 2008, was attended by 500. "All
persons who were complicit in the war crimes committed
in Gaza should be taken to court," Al-Masri told the
packed hall. Socialist MP Carlo Sommaruga told the
audience, "I was an activist against the racist
apartheid regime in South Africa. Every person has a
responsibility. Everyone can participate in the BDS
movement."
***
Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly http://weekly.ahram.org.eg/
You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/ His
Postmodern Imperialism: Geopolitics and the Great
Games is available at http://claritypress.com/Walberg.html
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