Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: BDS Seeks New Frontiers

BDS Seeks New Frontiers

What with all their failures of recent weeks (and years), the Boycott&Divestment gang is seeking new campuses to poison. Some of the locals at Stanford, however, are trying to launch a preemptive counter campaign, the sneaks.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: BDS Seeks New Frontiers

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Things People Talk About

Things People Talk About

Over Yom Haatzmaut, Independence Day, I spent time talking to people in a number of social events. Here are some of the things I heard:

A friend who runs a company that produces high-class tools for the creation of other tools ("our equipment is the Rolls-Royce of the field: expensive but the best") told me they've been selling to unfriendly countries such as Indonesia, and in recent weeks they've been approached by a potential client in Pakistan. A second friend who was standing with us told of other Israeli companies who sell to the Arab world, mostly via Jordan and often in Jordanian packaging to hide the Israeli provenance. Someone ought to tell the boycott folks.

A North-American journalist who has been reporting on the MidEast for a generation tells me the lack of a peace process enables all sides to live in practical peace; once negotiations start again they'll have to re-start the violence.

A Canadian who lives in Israel these past 30 years remarks, apropos Obama's plans to regulate American banks: Canada has strict bank regulations and sailed through the recent turmoil mostly unharmed. Israel has strict bank regulations, and sailed through likewise unscathed. America has light bank regulations, and look where they are.

The cutting edge in military technology is robots: drones, jeeps, and science fiction spy tools all operated from afar by highly trained soldiers who can't be harmed by the battlefield conditions. Israel is in the forefront of this technology, alongside the US.

Three if not four people separately remarked on the 20th of April as Hitler's birthday. Two of them are children of Holocaust survivors, so that's where that complex comes from; one came from Russia, and one was a thirty-something from North Africa. Jews are a screwed up bunch.

Volcanoes make humans look very small. Everyone agreed on that one.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Things People Talk About

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Not Even at Berkeley

Not Even at Berkeley

The story of the divestment attempt at Berkeley has been confusing, but apparently the side that should have, lost. Divest this! has been on the story all along, and explains here that in spite of the obfuscations, the divestors really did lose. This would explain why the many reports at Mondoweiss have all been along the lines of "we won by being there". Tom Lehrer once quipped about the Spanish Civil War that "they won all the battles, but we had all the good songs".

Not that there's much about the present topic that resembles the Spanish Civil War, mind you. The naive folks who flocked to Spain to fight on the losing side at least had the decency to be willing to die for their convictions, even as they overlooked the fact that both sides were pretty awful. Compare that to, say, Cecilie Surasky at Mondoweiss: true, she's ecstatically convinced she's part of Something Big, but her gushing makes me think of a 14-year-old.

Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations: Not Even at Berkeley

Dumb Antisemitism?

Dumb Antisemitism?

Walter Russel Mead keeps writing interesting things (I've cited him previously here and here). I have the sneaking suspicion he's not a Zionist, but when it comes to America, he seems to be what they used to call a realist. This includes realizing that most Americans support Israel and have done for a long time. In this article he comments that the reasons for this support can't be Jewish influence, manipulation or chicanery: there simply aren't enough Jews around to be having the effect they're having on so many people, and anyway, most of the Americans who so support Israel do so more fervently than many American Jews do. (Phil Wiess comes to mind, and Richard Silverstein, not to mention Norman Finkelstein or Noam Chomsky - but he's actually referring to the J-Street sort of Jews, not the nut-jobs). (h/t Goldblog)

Meanwhile, the Divest This! fellow, who obviously is a business-and-numbers chap, looks at the matter from a different direction. Not political belief or religious persuasion, but what people do to make their buck go furthest: in many cases, it appears, they do business with Israel. Heartwarming.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Democracy, Power, War, Peace, Law etc. etc.

Democracy, Power, War, Peace, Law etc. etc.

I've been offline most of the day, and have time right now only for a quick roundup.

Meny Mazuz, Israel's Attorney General, has decided not to prosecute Israeli filmmaker Muhammed Bakri for his slanderous film "Jenin Jenin". The film contains outright lies about the actions of IDF troops during the battle of Jenin in 2002, when the whole world was convinced Israel had massacred large numbers of Palestinian civilians, until it turned out they weren't dead. A group of troops, mostly reservists, has been trying ever since to have Bakri punished for the lies he disseminated in his film.

The story is not unsimilar to the one I mentioned yesterday, where some creep in the UK wishes to defame dead soldiers as part of a political stunt. Except that in the British case, the national consensus from the Prime Minster down is that the defamation cannot be allowed; in Israel meanwhile, where 13 IDF troops died in Jenin precisely because Israel refused to fight the way her detractors accused her of fighting, the government isn't willing to block the defamer's right of free speech. The most the Attorney General is willing to do is support the reservists if they take their case to a civil court - a support which has no legal standing and hardly any moral significance. In essence what Mazuz is saying to the soldiers is "I agree with you but freedom of speech is more important, no matter how infuriating the lies it enables."

He's right, of course. Yet another case where Israeli democracy is at least as robust as that of our detractors.

In another corner of the internal Israeli discussion about legality at war (not to be mistaken for morality at war, of course), the previous head of the Supreme Court, Aharon Barak, insists Israel must fight its wars within the strictures of international law - nor does he think this should be particularly hard to do. As a matter of fact, he advocates Israel's joining the International Criminal Court. (The Chinese, Russians and Americans haven't, among others. Powerful nations don't, it seems). I don't know about joining the ICC, but General Ashkenazi, the top general of the army is moving towards an ever-greater integration of legal advisers into the units of the IDF.

Will such a measure help Israel in the future? Well, yes and no. On the purely legal level, yes: the more robust Israel's legal system is, the less case there is for action against it in the international legal venues (that's why Barak is sanguine: he sees the legal implications). On the level of international discourse, of course such a measure won't help. Israel isn't castigated for what it does; it's castigated for what it is. Shimon Stein explains how Europeans and Israelis live in different universes; the only way this can be resolved is for Israel to have European-style peace with its neighbors.

Most Israelis would love to have European-style peace with their neighbors. Who wouldn't? Well, the neighbors aren't interested, for starters. Aluf Benn, a lefty but well informed columnist at Haaretz, knows fully well that peace can't be had anytime soon; he agrees on this point with our outspoken foreign minster Avigdor Lieberman. Where he disagrees, however, is the implications. Benn thinks we need to do our best and always seek peace, and take care not to poke external observers in the eye all the time.

If peace can't be had, and the Europeans won't see things our way in any case, how bad is the situation? Perhaps not so bad. The British Attorney General, whose name - Baroness Scotland - is far more imposing than Meni Mazuz, explained yesterday in a public lecture in Jerusalem that

"The government is looking urgently at ways in which the UK system might be changed to avoid this situation arising again," Scotland said. "Israel's leaders should always be able to travel freely to the UK."

Here's a suggestion: arrest warrants might be decided upon by the public prosecution (i.e. the Attorney General's office), not by some judge in some obscure English town. That can't be construed as anti-democratic, I'd think.

Yet why is it so important for the British that Israeli officials be able to travel to London? There are all sorts of reasons, but they boil down to power and the wielding of it. The Europeans can protest otherwise as much as they will, the fact is that the world is, always has been, and will always continue to be run by people who wage situations and make decisions about them with the understanding that these decisions will inevitably have implications. The ability to make that kind of decision is called power; and the wielders of it bear the responsibility of using it to further the interests of a constituency. That's one of the differences between them and, say, university professors, activists, and bloggers. What does Baroness Scotland know that we don't?

Scotland's assurance comes as the Guardian learned that the Israeli military had cancelled a visit by a team of its officers to Britain after fears they risked arrest on possible war crimes charges.

What sort of implications might result by not having Israeli officials ever come to the UK? Well, here's a possible one. Apparently the Israelis are about to activate a new security system for airports; one even better, cheaper, and more efficient than the one they've already got, which is already the world's best. You need to read the item behind that link with care, however: the new system will not replace the human intervention which is the hallmark of the present system; it will merely pare off Israeli citizens (Jews and Arabs equally, of course), who clearly don't need to be interviewed; this will leave more time to focus on all the others.

Unfortunately, Israel is very good at such things as combating terrorists and protecting civilians. Or rather, it's not unfortunate at all; it's the need for the expertize that's unfortunate - but lately, the British have the same need. As do the Germans, French, Spaniards, and the American's have an urgent need for it. If you bore responsibility and power, would you want to be in a situation where you couldn't talk to some of the world's top experts, out of some sort of spite or other childish sentiment? No? Baroness Scotland neither, apparently.

Nor will you allow a boycott of those experts to go too far, either.

The Jews had millennia of powerlessness, and were not loved for it nor was it an especially pleasant exercise. Now they've got power, and they're intensely disliked for it by some. Given the alternative, it's better to have the power.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Boycott Victorious... Er... Well...

Boycott Victorious... Er... Well...

The BBC tells the tale of a British Choir that set up a tour of six concerts in Israel, then tried to set some up some additional ones in the West Bank.

Nope. The Palestinians decided to boycott the choir, in spite of the fact that it's director, one Tim Brown, says he's actually on their side:

The choir's director says his frustration is borne of what he describes as his own pro-Palestinian stance: he has taught and performed with Palestinian musicians. Mr Brown was very keen for his students to see the West Bank barrier and, as he put it, the "privations" caused by the Israeli occupation. Betty Hunter, the general secretary of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign, says that desire to travel to the West Bank does not excuse the choir's tour of Israel. That tour, she says, is "surprising and shocking" - something which, in her words, "promotes Israel as a normal state rather than one which represses Palestinians".

Jeffrey Goldberg blogs on this from a position of ridicule. Mondoweiss, predictably, approves, calling the story the "boycott's latest victory". A Mondoweiss regular commenter, one "Potsherd",asks why Israel would have the singers in the first place:

Is it not a Jewish State? Is it not busily engaged in purging all aspects of Christianity and its subversive Christmas manifestations? Are its puritan zealots not making war on Santa Claus and Christmas trees, which aren’t Christian at all? How much more so must they purge performances of the music of Bach, which is flagrantly Christian, which mentions. (making me wonder why Bach and not Handel’s Messiah)

You've got to admire these folks' firm grasp on the reality they pontificate about incessantly.

Me, I'm mostly amused. Some of the score keepers seem to have lost their instructions. The purpose of the boycott, if it has one beyond merely being spiteful, is to quarantine Israel, hurt it's economy, and force it into siege. (I think these are the goals). In this particular "victory", the pro-Palestinian choir master and his charges, some of whom may agree with him, will be singing six times before Israeli audiences who may even turn out to be cultured and reasonably human, and they'll not be preforming to any Palestinians. Did I miss something?

PS. The reason, of course, being money. They'll sell far more tickets in six Israeli concerts than in two Palestinian ones. Such an unseemly consideration.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Hurray for the Boycott!

Hurray for the Boycott!

As the Dubai meltdown threatens to deal yet another blow to the world's economy, it looks like Israel will not be directly affected: since almost no-one in Dubai was willing to do business with the detested Israelis, the Israelis weren't offered the option of losing their money in Dubai. Heh.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

American Jewry from Many Directions

American Jewry from Many Directions

Mondowiess is furious that J Street is against the anit-Israel boycott movement. Is this a tempest in the far-left American Jewish teacup, or is it a rant by the pedigreed loonies against a group that's disappointing them by staying within the general consensus? We need to know more about J Street than we presently do to be able to answer that.

Meanwhile, back in the mainstream, The Forward has published its annual "50 Top American Jews" list. It may take you half an hour to read, but I recommend. It's fascinating. It also shows a vibrant, diverse and creative American Jewry.

Ah, and there's Michael Oren, of course.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

The Israel Model

The Israel Model

There's this new book out which is being talked about a lot: Start-up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle, by Dan Senor and Saul Singer. Apparently, they've figured out how to make a pile of money from Israel's start-up culture, without themselves being hi-tech entrepreneurs: write a good about about it.

The Economist, which has been intrigued by Israel's unique role in the world of technology entrepreneurs for years already, has a review of the book not in the review section, but rather in the business section:

The country that has led the world in promoting entrepreneurship has also done the most to plug itself into global markets. The Israeli government’s venture-capital fund, which was founded in 1992 with $100m of public money, was designed to attract foreign venture capital and, just as importantly, expertise. The government let foreigners decide what to invest in, and then stumped up a hefty share of the money required. Foreign venture capital poured into the country, high-tech companies boomed, domestic venture capitalists learned from their foreign counterparts and the government felt able to sell off the fund after just five years.

Last year Israel, a country of just over 7m people, attracted as much venture capital as France and Germany combined. Israel has more start-ups per head than any other country (a total of 3,850, or one for every 1,844 Israelis), and more companies listed on the NASDAQ exchange, a hub for fledgling technology firms, than China and India combined. It may not have the same comforting ring as “the Swedish model” or “the polder model”, but when it comes to promoting entrepreneurship, “the Israeli model” is the one to emulate.

Here's a story about what it's like to live in the middle of this whirlwind.

About six months ago I needed to find somebody with a very specific type of software capability. The details are unimportant, but it had to be a company from a certain minor branch of the software world, and within that segment of the industry it had to be someone with a specific type of interface capability. So I went googling, and identified something like 20 companies worldwide that looked as if they might have what I needed. Of the 20, five (5!) were in Israel, all located within 30 miles of each other north of Tel Aviv (none in Jerusalem, alas). Eventually we winnowed it down to two who basically had what we needed, though in two very different formats. Their offices were a three minute walk from one another, both in Netanya.

What are the odds of that happening anywhere else in the world, outside Silicon Valley itself? (If there).

So the other day Jeffrey Goldberg interviewed Dan Senor. It's a bit understated, but otherwise a really fun read.

It's a very young country, very difficult environment, there are no natural resources, no access to regional capital or regional markets. If you were to paint a picture of the circumstances under which you're not going to have a successful economic developing country, it would be Israel...
JG: Go to one final thing, something that struck me when I was reading this book. You have a boycott movement in Europe, but in the U.S., too, you have forces that want to delegitimize Israel. I realized in reading this that it would be quite something to go tell Intel or Google or IBM to divest from Israel.

DS: They'll never do it. I mean, it's impossible. What various companies told us is that if they had to shut down operations in India tomorrow, they could survive because it's basically a lot of outsourcing and a lot of call centers. They said if we had to shut down our operations in Ireland, we could survive. But what one person after another told us is that the one place in the world that would devastating for them to have shut down would be Israel, because they put so much of their mission-critical work and R&D in Israel. The Intel story we tell is amazing, this key chip that was central to Intel taking off was designed and then manufactured in Israel, so it would be devastating to these companies to lose Israel. And one more thing -- the most interesting data point on all of this is that European venture capitalists invest more in Israel than they do in any single European economy.

JG: Is that true?

DS: Yes and, to me, that says it all. For all the ranting from Europe about boycotts and attempts at boycotts, that's not what European capital is doing. In terms of the U.S., this is even more true. I don't want to oversimplify, but who do think is more important to Barack Obama: The head of J Street or Eric Schmidt at Google? And if Eric Schmidt said that his company would be devastated if Israel came off-line -- and we interviewed Schmidt and he talked about the importance of Israel -- then I think I know the answer.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Roads that Light Themselves

Roads that Light Themselves

I've added a new tag to the list of keywords this blog uses (see to the right): Innovation. Instead of occasionally telling about an Israeli invention as a way of scoffing at the boycotters, I've decided to tell about them as part of what Israel is. A positive narrative, not a reacting negative one.

Here's today's offering: roads that generate electricity. Someone who knows more than I about physics and engineering told me recently that there may be a downside to this invention: vehicles traveling on such roads may find that their use of fuel is a bit higher; then again, he said, perhaps not. If the energy being harnessed by the roads is otherwise simply being lost, the new invention is pure gain. (Well, pure gain minus the cost of tampering with existing roads. You might want to buy stock in your nearby asphalt company, or in steamrollers. But not in steamrollers from Caterpillar - they're boycotted).

Update: an Israeli chemist has just won the Nobel Prize. Ada Yonath, from the Wiezman Institute. I can't tell you what it is she got the prize for, but apparently it's something to do with antibiotics, and is part of an arc of research which is already saving lives and will save more as it gets built upon. Time to divest from the Wiezman Institute, don't you think?

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Silly Boycott

Silly Boycott

The editorial of The Forward explains why the efforts to boycott Israel are wrong, and also self defeating.

The argument that pushing Israel into economic, academic and cultural purgatory will somehow persuade its government to dismantle the security barrier, evacuate
the West Bank and embrace its sworn enemy is misguided. And that’s being generous. Whatever the flaws of the Netanyahu administration — and there are
many — it is clearly responding to (and, true, at times stoking) real fears and anxieties among the Israeli population.
The boycotters are either grossly ignorant about the Israeli psyche, or don’t care to understand it. The attempt to isolate and delegitimize “is counter productive because of the nature of who we are. It confirms our worst fears,” says the noted South African journalist Benjamin Pogrund, who now lives in Israel and writes extensively about boycotts, having lived through the apartheid era in his native land.

It also mentions that Omar Bargouti fellow, who's trying to shut down Israeli universities while doing an MA at one of them.

The Forward stands on the Left of American Jewry, to my understanding. Not far Left, but comfortably Left.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Is the Boycott Movement Gaining Traction?

Is the Boycott Movement Gaining Traction?

Gal Beckerman at the Forward thinks it is.

Yet note that his article, like most pieces that seek confirmation that the boycotters are beginning to hurt Israel, never gives numbers. Ultimately it's an economic matter, after all: can Israel be made to hurt so badly that it makes a difference. So you'd think the boycotters would have a big chart with numbers: the size of Israel's economy, stats on various segments of it, targets that need to be reached so as to make a difference - that sort of thing.

But of course there is none of this. As even Beckerman sort of admits, the boycott movement is fundamentally about having a world without Israel; if that's the goal, the boycotters might note that the Jews have faced much worse foes in the past, and from abysmally worse starting positions.

So far, 2009 is proving less of a problem for Israel's economy than for most developed countries. (See the various financial and economic indicators of The Economist).

Then, of course, you've got the ludicrous aspects of the movement:

Ironically, Barghouti, who appears to be one of the movement’s chief strategists, is currently in a master’s degree program in philosophy at Tel Aviv University — even though he is one of the founding members of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. He has been one of the activists strongly pushing the greater BDS movement in the direction of opposing any institution associated with Israel. Asked about his affiliation with an institution he wants boycotted, Barghouti declined to discuss his personal life.

Originally posted by Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Norwegian Sanctimony

Norwegian Sanctimony

A Norwegian investment fund has divested from Elbit, a large Israeli hi-tech company, for its participation in the security barrier. That's the barrier that has demonstrably saved thousands of lives since its construction began in 2002.

So what's the story?

Apparently the Norwegians sold shares, which means someone else bought them, and none of the reports mention the price falling steeply, so Elbit is probably unaffected.

Is it antisemitism? Probably not, given that the same Norwegian fund is still invested in some 40 other Israeli firms.

So what is it? According to this report (sorry: Hebrew only), the fund has a Board of bleeding hearts, whose task is to finger all sorts of evil companies the fund should never invest in, or must divest from if already invested. The list includes BAE, Boeing, Honeywell, Northrop, EADS (that's the parent company of Airbus), Lockheed-Martin, Rio-Tinto, and even... Wallmart. And alls sorts of others, too.

Besides the honorable company Elbit now finds itself in, it appears the Norwegians don't much like airplanes, miners and supermarkets. It also seems that in this case we really aren't dealing with antisemitism. Merely sanctimony.

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Uri Avnery and the Boycott

Uri Avnery and the Boycott

Victor asks my opinion about this article, in which Uri Avnery talks with Desmond Tutu about boycotts and what they can achieve.

Avnery starts by asking Tutu how effective the boycott was in bringing down the Apartheid regime, and Tutu tells that it was crucial. Which would be fine if we were still in 1993, asking for journalistic impressions. But we're not. By now, given the passage of time, the question needs to be answered not by asking a protagonist but by looking for hard evidence. I don't know the rules of South African archives, but if one could look at the deliberations of the decision makers of the time, for example, that would be helpful. Tutu wasn't one of them.

Mostly, however, Avnery explains that Israeli isn't South Africa, and a boycott won't work; he eventually says, in so many words, that it oughtn't be tried:

Neve Gordon and his partners in this effort have despaired of the Israelis. They have reached the conclusion that there is no chance of changing Israeli public opinion. According to them, no salvation will come from within. One must ignore the Israeli public and concentrate on mobilizing the world against the State of Israel. (Some of them believe anyhow that the State of Israel should be dismantled and replaced by a bi-national state.)I do not share either view - neither the despair of the Israeli people, to which I belong, nor the hope that the world will stand up and compel Israel to change its ways against its will. For this to happen, the boycott must gather worldwide momentum, the US must join it, the Israeli economy must collapse and the morale of the Israeli public must break.How long will this take? Twenty Years? Fifty years? Forever?

This is an essential part of the Avnery story: for all his (long) life-long contrarianism and insistence that the Palestinians will fall in our arms if only we'd be nice to them, still he remains an Israeli. He remembers escaping Nazi Germany as a child, and fighting for the newborn country as a young man. (Did you know he's the author of the anthem of the Samson's Jackals anthem, which is still played from time to time? Shuala-a-av shel Shimshon.... One of our first commando units, for those who don't recognize the name). I don't know if he can still be called a Zionist in any meaningful use of the term, but he's in no way an antisemite. He wishes the best for Israel, at least according to his rather unusual lights.

Don't belittle this. As any visit to the Guardian will demonstrate, many of Israel's critics blur the line, cross it regularly, or even hate Israel because it's Jewish, irrespective of its actions. Here, see how Mondoweiss responded to Avnery's article. Of course they were disappointed, but some of them consoled themselves with the thought that maybe it was inevitable:

I’m always perplexed by this attitude people have about Avnery. He’s a venerable
force, truly an inspiration. But he’s still a zionist, and zionism is racism. So
OF COURSE he doesn’t support sanctions. Of course he doesn’t support the idea
that Israel should abide by international law. Of course he believes that jews
are special, that Israel is special, that Israel should be permitted to act
outside the law in whatever way it likes, provided that it declares to be in the
racial interests of Jews. Of course he rejects the right of return. His entire
life of incredibly courageous political advocacy was dedicated not to human
rights, but to Jewish rights, and to zionism. He’s a racist in the way that
every advocate of zionism is a de facto racist, and he speaks to and for
racists, which is why people like Richard Witty declare “Avnery makes sense.”
I’m not saying that in a shallow, flaming way. We have to be able to make these
distinctions which allow us to see the whole spectrum of Jewish racism, which
includes the Israeli “left” and much of what passes for the “extreme left”, and
not just the hideous mess on the far right, which is so patently, horrifically
racist that it boggles the mind. Jewish exceptionalism is the problem. I am a
great fan of Avnery and think of him as something of a hero, but the fact
remains that Avnery, and Avnery’s zionism, are part of the problem. Zionism is
not going to produce the solutions and answers to Zionism – they are just going
to perpetuate zionism by iterating a superifically prettier version of this ugly
ideology: Something like “ethnic cleansing Lite.” (Comment 14, posted by
anamalous NYC, whoever that may be).

Interesting, isn't it. The vestiges of patriotism Avnery still has are what make me grudgingly accept that he's part of our discussion. The same vestiges are what make this fellow condemn him, in spite of admiring many of the things he's said over the years. I'd be fascinated to know which of us Avnery himself prefers. Yaacov the Zionist who disagrees with much of his positions, or Anamolous and his hatred. We already know the answer when posed to the Mondoweiss gang. They prefer the antisemites.

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Israel Matzav: A Leftist comes out against boycotting Israel

A Leftist comes out against boycotting Israel

Uri Avnery (pictured with a friend) is about as hard Left as they come in this country. In this opinion piece written for the 'Palestinian' Ma'an website, Avnery discusses and rejects Neve Gordon's call for a boycott of Israel.

The South African struggle was between a large majority and a small minority. Among a general population of almost 50 million, the whites amounted to less than 10 percent. That means that more than 90 percent of the country's inhabitants supported the boycott, in spite of the argument that it hurt them, too.

In Israel, the situation is the very opposite. The Jews amount to more than 80 percent of Israel's citizens, and constitute a majority of some 60 percent throughout the country between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. 99.9 percent of the Jews oppose a boycott on Israel.

Read All at :

Israel Matzav: A Leftist comes out against boycotting Israel

Boycott With A Twist

Boycott With A Twist

Filmmaker Ken Loach and some others have an article at CiF justifying their boycott of Israel. It doesn't look like a very compelling case to me, and I'm mostly linking for future use.

And also because of the cute coincidence that on the same day they published their screed, Haaretz tells of an Israeli research team which seems to have found an innovative new way to discover lung cancer cheaply and effortlessly at an earlier stage than heretofore possible. (Actually, the news item comes from Reuters, not Haaretz, which means The Guardian also had access to it. Heh). The discovery may yet save thousands of lives, and also reduce some costs of the healthcare system. Not the kind of claim one might make about, say, an artistic film.

So far, so banal. If you don't like Israel, you'll never let the facts confuse you. The funny part about the item is the name of the head of the Israeli research team. One Hossam Haik. I don't know the man, but it doesn't sound like a typical name from the shtetl to me. Hossam: now doesn't that have the ring of an.... Arab name?

Life can be so confusing. What's a poor filmmaker to do?

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Jews Can Be Our Worst Enemies

Jews Can Be Our Worst Enemies

A Dutch organization whose aim is to convince Dutchmen to boycott Israel has been rebuked by a local "truth in advertising" watchdog for, how shall we put it, fibbing.

So we've got some folks blatantly lying so as to hurt the Jewish State. I think that's a reasonable early warning sign of antisemitism, don't you? I continue to think so, even after reading the item all the way through:

Peace chairman Joost Hardeman, who is Jewish and says he supports Israel
but opposes its occupation of Palestinian land, told Haaretz earlier this year
that he rejected the center's allegations. "We do not propose a comprehensive
ban on Israeli goods, and we are opposed to this," he said. "We only demand that
consumers be made aware, through labeling, of the origins of the goods they are
purchasing."

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

A Booming Economy!

A Booming Economy!

I've been reading the Economist, off and on, for 40 years. While they often have interesting things to say on many topics, their primary interest is economics. More often than not, when their reporters file stories about places there will be a noticable emphasis on its economics.

Not when it comes to Israel, of course. While I have no doubt that they have reported on Israel's economy once or twice in the past half century, I can't offhand remember ever having noticed. When they report on Israel they talk about politics.

So it remains for others to do. Here's a nice article in Haaretz. Synopsis: While much of the world economy and world's economies are sagging groaning and creaking, Israel's is doing admirably well. The country's economic leadership has mostly got things right, and its entrepreneurs and businessmen are taking fine advantage. True, the political leadership of the country is a disaster (it's the same people, by the way), and the crushing burden of being at war for a century doesn't help - but apparently it doesn't harm much, either. Israel's GDP per capita ranking is about 20th worldwide as is.

Remove the need for that gigantic army and everything that goes with it, and we'll shoot to the top of the table within 5 years, if you ask me: move over Norway.

Next time you hear the boycott-Israel brigade enthuse about the tomatos they aren't buying, you might want gently to tell them Israelis are largly a hard-working bunch who've faced far worse adversity without blinking.

taken from Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations

Israel Matzav: Trader Joe's reminder

Trader Joe's reminder

I wanted to remind you all that Trader Joe's across the United States are due to be raided on Saturday by supporters of the 'Palestinians' who are seeking to prevent Israeli products from being sold by removing them from the shelves.

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Israel Matzav: Trader Joe's reminder

Israel Matzav: UK supermarkets may be prosecuted for 'mislabeling' products' origin

UK supermarkets may be prosecuted for 'mislabeling' products' origin

'Palestinian activists' are seeking the prosecution of UK supermarkets for 'mislabeling' the origin of products that they claim were produced in 'settlements' located outside the 1949 armistice lines as either having come from Israel or from the 'West Bank' (the claim being that the latter term 'mistakenly' leads one to believe that the products were produced by 'Palestinians'

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Israel Matzav: UK supermarkets may be prosecuted for 'mislabeling' products' origin