''Even the New York Times now admits BDS is working!The mention of Israeli Apartheid Week (IAW) and the growing sports boycott, in particular, among all the other "disasters" bedevilling Israel is yet another proof -- from the god of Western mainstream media, no less -- that creative, persistent, indefatigable grassroots activism, based on reaffirming Palestinian rights within the context of universal principles of human rights and international law, is making spectacular progress, particularly in the context of Israel's steady shift to the fascist right and its intensified perpetration of horrific war crimes.
Israel has not waken up yet from its long power drunkenness to realize what has hit it! All they can think of is spending a few million dollars more on re-barnding and sending abroad their cultural and literary "ambassadors" to whitewash their criminal image? How pathetic ... and desperate! Those who criticized the boycott action against leading Israeli dance company Batsheva on its recent US tour under the slogan of separating "art" from politics owe us an apology! Isn't it beyond doubt by now that almost all these Israeli bands and writers -- including the immoral Israeli literary trio that once enchanted European liberals -- touring the West are part of the re-branding campaign to divert attention from Israel's massacres and apartheid? Many of them are literally on contract with the Israeli foregin ministry to polish Israel's tarnished image. These foreign-ministry-organized or funded tours of cultural deception, more than any Israeli "product," are THE most urgent target for boycott.
No re-branding can undo the irreversible damage done to Israel's reputation among liberals and many of those who were once neutral in the West. No Israeli PR "genius" -- if any exists nowadays -- can outdo the relentless, sophisticated, anti-racist, universalistic struggle of the BDS movement, as especially evident in the Israeli Apartheid Week.
A warm salute to all the great, creative activists behind the Israeli Apartheid Week ... You inspire us and make us proud.
Omar Barghouti.''
'New York Times March 19, 2009
After Gaza, Israel Grapples With Crisis of Isolation
Israel has not waken up yet from its long power drunkenness to realize what has hit it! All they can think of is spending a few million dollars more on re-barnding and sending abroad their cultural and literary "ambassadors" to whitewash their criminal image? How pathetic ... and desperate! Those who criticized the boycott action against leading Israeli dance company Batsheva on its recent US tour under the slogan of separating "art" from politics owe us an apology! Isn't it beyond doubt by now that almost all these Israeli bands and writers -- including the immoral Israeli literary trio that once enchanted European liberals -- touring the West are part of the re-branding campaign to divert attention from Israel's massacres and apartheid? Many of them are literally on contract with the Israeli foregin ministry to polish Israel's tarnished image. These foreign-ministry-organized or funded tours of cultural deception, more than any Israeli "product," are THE most urgent target for boycott.
No re-branding can undo the irreversible damage done to Israel's reputation among liberals and many of those who were once neutral in the West. No Israeli PR "genius" -- if any exists nowadays -- can outdo the relentless, sophisticated, anti-racist, universalistic struggle of the BDS movement, as especially evident in the Israeli Apartheid Week.
A warm salute to all the great, creative activists behind the Israeli Apartheid Week ... You inspire us and make us proud.
Omar Barghouti.''
'New York Times March 19, 2009
After Gaza, Israel Grapples With Crisis of Isolation
JERUSALEM — Israel, whose founding idea was branded as racism by the United Nations General Assembly in 1975 and which faced an Arab boycott for decades, is no stranger to isolation. But in the weeks since its Gaza war, and as it prepares to inaugurate a hawkish right-wing government, it is facing its worst diplomatic crisis in two decades.
Examples abound. Its sports teams have met hostility and violent protests in Sweden, Spain and Turkey. Mauritania has closed Israel’s embassy.
Relations with Turkey, an important Muslim ally, have suffered severely. A group of top international judges and human rights investigators recently called for an inquiry into Israel’s actions in Gaza. “Israel Apartheid Week” drew participants in 54 cities around the world this month, twice the number of last year, according to its organizers. And even in the American Jewish community, albeit in its liberal wing, there is a chill.
The issue has not gone unnoticed here, but it has generated two distinct and somewhat contradictory reactions. On one hand, there is real concern. Global opinion surveys are being closely examined and the Foreign Ministry has been granted an extra $2 million to improve Israel’s image through cultural and information diplomacy.
“We will send well-known novelists and writers overseas, theater companies, exhibits,” said Arye Mekel, the ministry’s deputy director general for cultural affairs. “This way you show Israel’s prettier face, so we are not thought of purely in the context of war.”
But there is also a growing sense that outsiders do not understand Israel’s predicament, so criticism is dismissed.
“People here feel that no matter what you do you are going to be blamed for all the problems in the Middle East,” said Eytan Gilboa, a professor of politics and international communication at Bar Ilan University. “Even suicide bombings by Palestinians are seen as our fault for not establishing a Palestinian state.”
Of course, for Israel’s critics, including those who firmly support the existence of a Jewish state, the problem is not one of image but of policy. They point to four decades of occupation, the settling of half a million Israeli Jews on land captured in 1967, the economic strangling of Gaza for the past few years and the society’s growing indifference toward the creation of a Palestinian state as reasons Israel has lost favor abroad, and they say that no amount of image buffing will change that.
Israel’s use of enormous force in the Gaza war in January crystallized much of this criticism.
The issue of a Palestinian state is central to Israel’s reputation abroad, because so many governments and international organizations favor its establishment in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. And while the departing government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert negotiated for such a state, the incoming one of Benjamin Netanyahu says that item is not on its immediate agenda.
Javier Solana, foreign policy chief for the European Union, said in Brussels on Monday that the group would reconsider its relationship with Israel if it did not remain committed to establishing a Palestinian state.
Moreover, Mr. Netanyahu is expected to appoint Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, as his foreign minister. This alone has Israelis and their allies in Europe and the United States worried because of Mr. Lieberman’s views of Israeli Arabs that some have called racist.
Mr. Lieberman had campaigned on the need for a loyalty oath in Israel so that those who did not support a Jewish democratic state would lose their citizenship. One-fifth of Israeli citizens are Arabs, and many do not support defining the state as Jewish.
Mr. Lieberman also has few fans in Egypt, which has acted as an intermediary for Israel in several matters. Some months ago Mr. Lieberman complained that President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt had not agreed to come to Israel. “If he doesn’t want to, he can go to hell,” he added.
“Imagine that Hossein Mousavi wins the Iranian presidency this spring and he names Mohammad Khatami as his foreign minister,” said Meir Javedanfar, an Iran analyst in Israel, referring to two Iranian leaders widely viewed as in the pragmatist camp. “With Lieberman as foreign minister here, Israel will have a much harder time demonstrating to the world that Iran is the destabilizing factor in the region.”
Of course, all of this is being seen in the context of a new, Democratic administration in the United States that has announced a desire to press for a two-state solution. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has already criticized Israeli plans to demolish Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, and her department has criticized Israel’s banning of certain goods from Gaza.'
Examples abound. Its sports teams have met hostility and violent protests in Sweden, Spain and Turkey. Mauritania has closed Israel’s embassy.
Relations with Turkey, an important Muslim ally, have suffered severely. A group of top international judges and human rights investigators recently called for an inquiry into Israel’s actions in Gaza. “Israel Apartheid Week” drew participants in 54 cities around the world this month, twice the number of last year, according to its organizers. And even in the American Jewish community, albeit in its liberal wing, there is a chill.
The issue has not gone unnoticed here, but it has generated two distinct and somewhat contradictory reactions. On one hand, there is real concern. Global opinion surveys are being closely examined and the Foreign Ministry has been granted an extra $2 million to improve Israel’s image through cultural and information diplomacy.
“We will send well-known novelists and writers overseas, theater companies, exhibits,” said Arye Mekel, the ministry’s deputy director general for cultural affairs. “This way you show Israel’s prettier face, so we are not thought of purely in the context of war.”
But there is also a growing sense that outsiders do not understand Israel’s predicament, so criticism is dismissed.
“People here feel that no matter what you do you are going to be blamed for all the problems in the Middle East,” said Eytan Gilboa, a professor of politics and international communication at Bar Ilan University. “Even suicide bombings by Palestinians are seen as our fault for not establishing a Palestinian state.”
Of course, for Israel’s critics, including those who firmly support the existence of a Jewish state, the problem is not one of image but of policy. They point to four decades of occupation, the settling of half a million Israeli Jews on land captured in 1967, the economic strangling of Gaza for the past few years and the society’s growing indifference toward the creation of a Palestinian state as reasons Israel has lost favor abroad, and they say that no amount of image buffing will change that.
Israel’s use of enormous force in the Gaza war in January crystallized much of this criticism.
The issue of a Palestinian state is central to Israel’s reputation abroad, because so many governments and international organizations favor its establishment in the West Bank, Gaza and East Jerusalem. And while the departing government of Prime Minister Ehud Olmert negotiated for such a state, the incoming one of Benjamin Netanyahu says that item is not on its immediate agenda.
Javier Solana, foreign policy chief for the European Union, said in Brussels on Monday that the group would reconsider its relationship with Israel if it did not remain committed to establishing a Palestinian state.
Moreover, Mr. Netanyahu is expected to appoint Avigdor Lieberman, leader of the ultranationalist Yisrael Beiteinu party, as his foreign minister. This alone has Israelis and their allies in Europe and the United States worried because of Mr. Lieberman’s views of Israeli Arabs that some have called racist.
Mr. Lieberman had campaigned on the need for a loyalty oath in Israel so that those who did not support a Jewish democratic state would lose their citizenship. One-fifth of Israeli citizens are Arabs, and many do not support defining the state as Jewish.
Mr. Lieberman also has few fans in Egypt, which has acted as an intermediary for Israel in several matters. Some months ago Mr. Lieberman complained that President Hosni Mubarak of Egypt had not agreed to come to Israel. “If he doesn’t want to, he can go to hell,” he added.
“Imagine that Hossein Mousavi wins the Iranian presidency this spring and he names Mohammad Khatami as his foreign minister,” said Meir Javedanfar, an Iran analyst in Israel, referring to two Iranian leaders widely viewed as in the pragmatist camp. “With Lieberman as foreign minister here, Israel will have a much harder time demonstrating to the world that Iran is the destabilizing factor in the region.”
Of course, all of this is being seen in the context of a new, Democratic administration in the United States that has announced a desire to press for a two-state solution. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton has already criticized Israeli plans to demolish Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem, and her department has criticized Israel’s banning of certain goods from Gaza.'
2 opmerkingen:
De geest is uit de fles en niet meer terug te stoppen door Israel.Doden misbruiken helpt niet meer. Het misbruik van kunst en cultuur zal ook niet meer helpen.
Anzi
Ik hoorde een uur geleden op de radio dat Israëlische soldaten in de media verklaren dat ze in Gaza mochten doen waar ze zin in hadden (in negatieve zin dus), dat het leger een grote chaos was.
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