By Samah Sabawi
Naomi Chazan, President of the new Israel (NIF) gave a speech in Marrickville NSW during her last Australian tour offers a criticism of the Palestinian civil society call for boycott divestments and sanctions (BDS) against Israel.
Although she presented herself as a veteran peace activist, isrælske Chazan's mission was here in Australia allegedly promoting NIF. This is important because everything she said about the BDS should be understood within the framework of her mission – to collect funds and support and convince the Jews of the need to continue to invest in Israel through the NIF in Australia. This clear conflict of interest makes Chazans criticism of BDS far less credible.
Chazan named six reasons why she believed BDS was harmful:
BDS is not effective, because Israel has a very strong economy: South Africa's economy also upturn when the movement a boycott against the regime began in the late 1950s. Decades later the movement succeeded in bringing down the South African apartheid regime.
Many isrælske leaders, including Ehud Barak, Ben-Eliezer, Shimon Peres and others have already said that BDS is a ' strategic threat; ' what they mean of course is that it is a serious threat to the Isræl's system of occupation, legalized racial discrimination (equivalent to the UN definition of apartheid) and Denial of refugee rights. We need only look at millions of dollars the isrælske lobby groups in Western Nations, including Australia spending in efforts to sabotage the movement to know that it is actually effective. The fact that Chazan focused so much on the BDS in her Marrickville speech confirms this.
There is other evidence BDSS efficiency.
Deutsche Bahn withdrawal from isrælske rail project linking Tel Aviv with Jerusalem has been a turning point for the movement. It was the first time that a German Government-owned company withdrew from a isrælske project over concerns for violation of international law. The French company Veolia losses of billions of dollars worth of contracts due to his participation in illegal Jerusalem Light Rail project points also impressive success of BDS campaign, especially in Europe.
The rapidly growing list of superstars and prominent music bands heeding boycott of Israel makes Tel Aviv is very similar to the South African resort of Sun City during apartheid. The city was a key objective of the cultural boycott then.
University Johannesburg severance bond with Ben Gurion University of the latter's complicity in violating Palestinian rights is the most concrete victory to date for an academic boycott campaign.
And who have radical Trade Union support for BDS in the United Kingdom, Brazil, Ireland, South Africa, Canada, France, Italy, Spain, Norway, Belgium, India, Turkey and elsewhere.
BDS undermines the existence of the State of Israel: Requirements are clear – full equality in Israel for the Palestinian citizens of the State, an end to the occupation and an achievement of Isræls commitment to the refugees. If these demands are threatening to put a stop to Isræls existence, we have to ask what this really says about Israel?
A State that is truly democratic and built upon a foundation of Justice and equality, would not be threatened by demands for equality and an end to the occupation. Boycott does not put an end to South Africa's existence, they did not destroy it and certainly not ' delegitimize ' white: they only destroyed South Africa's system of injustice, inequality and racial discrimination.
BDS is actually "a code word for the one State solution" who defies isrælerne and Jews the right to self-determination: BDS does not aim for either a one or two State solution, but for Palestinian rights. One of these rights is for the Palestinians to be free in their own country without the yoke of isrælske occupation and system of racial discrimination. Whether it is in one State for two Nations or two sovereign, democratic States side by side has yet to be adopted. The movement is consistently neutral in this, regardless of the different personal political positions held by its various spokespeople.
BDS is counterproductive because it entrenches the victim mentality of those in Israel who believe that the whole world is against them, which inevitably forces right wing in Israel at the same time weakening the left: Right now, fanatical right takes over the entire isrælske society, but when boycott begin damage Isræls carefully nurtured public image, dissenting voices will become much more vocal, as happened in South Africa. Then, the current consensus in support of apartheid and colonial regime crack.
BDS is against academic freedom and singles out isrælske academics: Chazan is deliberately misleading in this respect. Like any relatively well-informed observer will know after seven years of the Palestinian academic boycott campaign and hundreds of articles written on it, the academic boycott is institutional in nature and therefore has never targeted individual isrælske academics. BDS has consistently been aimed against academic institutions because of their persistent and serious complicity in the planning, implementation and justifying Isræls violations of international law.
Chazans claims that isrælske academics are progressive and against the occupation has absolutely no foundation. In 2008, a petition drawn up by the four Jewish-isrælske academics calls the isrælske army to allow access at checkpoints by Palestinian academics and students to reach their educational institutions were distributed to all 9,000 isrælske scholars in the hope that most would sign this minimal expression of respect for academic freedom: only 407 out of 9,000 academic actually did.
BDS singles Israel: This criticism is so often quoted, that one has to ask about Chazan and other contamination in it want more action on other grounds or silence on the Palestinian cause. At least people are rising up against the tyrannical regimes and seeks change in almost every Arab State in the "Isræls neighborhoods." Some of these Governments are now subject to international sanctions, so why not Israel, which has for decades had defied the United Nations and violated international law?
An equally important question to ask here is, why not go for Palestinian rights? Yes, why are the Palestinians will be identified as the only people that can not be defended? We can speak for all other problems, so it is tendentious to propose to speak of Palestinian rights singles Israel unfairly.
The principled isrælske left the camp, which respects the equal rights for all Palestinian refugees to the UN-sanctioned rights and an end to colonial oppression (2004) should – and actually doing — invest his time challenging dets Government apartheid policies and the repression of the Palestinians instead of criticizing the Palestinian non-violent resistance model, which includes the BDS.
Chazans efforts to undermine the BDS must be seen in context. At the end of the day, Chazan going to Israel, where she is a privileged Jewish citizen with all his rights intact. She is part of and an enabler of establishment denies the Palestinians their basic rights and freedoms, and as such, she in a position to dictate to the Palestinians their methods match or act as gatekeeper for the international solidarity movement, do not preach to them what is allowed and what is not in standing with the Palestinians. As in all human struggle for freedom, justice and equality, to the right are those living behind the walls of the prerogatives, hindered by checkpoints and kept in captivity for the siege and military repression.
-Samah Sabawi is public advocate of Australian advocacy group Australians for Palestine. She contributed this article to PalestineChronicle.com.
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