Despair is not always easy to detect, let alone smell.
But recent Israeli efforts to fight BDS, as depicted in the two articles below, smell of deep despair, which is giving rise to hopeless aggression, even worse bullying and patently irrational measures that can only help BDS to grow in the coming few years.
Particularly noteworthy in the report below on the Knesset's anti-BDS caucus meeting is the universal sense in Israel of failure to stem the BDS movement's growth and the admission that the impact of BDS may be growing beyond control.
It is not everyday that the unique colonial hubris and revolting arrogance of Israel's regime give way to an admission by the Minister of Strategic Affairs (handling BDS and Iran as his top priority threats!) that the government of Israel "cannot fight BDS alone."
If despite the massive US and EU support for Israel, providing its regime with billions of dollars in aid, a real "iron dome" of diplomatic and political protection against international sanctions, and deep levels of military, academic, cultural and economic complicity, Israel has miserably failed in its fight against BDS, what else can we expect from it?
Israel's options are limited and clearly fraught with serious risks.
Israel's main strategy for fighting BDS since 2014 is its lawfare (legal warfare) crusade. It has been pulling all possibly strings, mobilizing its entire lobby and world Zionist networks to pass legislations against BDS in US states, to use its influence in France to depict BDS as illegal, and to recruit David Cameron's government to undermine BDS support in British trade unions, city councils, universitiesy and civil society entities.
Lawfare, coupled with propaganda on seteroids, has become Israel's final weapon against the BDS movement.
The only problem for Israel in this approach is that, in order for its attempt to legally delegitimize a nonviolent, human rights movement like BDS to succeed, it and its Zionist lobby networks need to create a new McCarthyism that defies human rights, undermines civil rights, and tries to undo decades of mainstream liberal support for boycotts as protected speech, especially in the US, where it matters the most.
As a result, Israel's lawfare has started to backfire, gradually eroding remaining pockets of -- non-Zionist -- liberal support and further amplifying the growing liberal discontent with Israel's increasingly unveiled, in your face repression, xenophobia, apartheid, fanatic Jewish fundamentalism and ugly colonialism.
Israel is becoming even more isolated at the grassroots level and even more dependent on extreme right forces in the West or elsewhere.
If apartheid South Africa was arguably among Israel's closest friends for decades in the last century, today Israel's best friends are the far-right, openly racist, Islamophobic, anti-immigrant groups and governments, even those with fascistic tendencies that are in harmony with Israel's own. Just look at the Republican circus of presidential hopefuls for a hint.
As the late Tony Judt wrote 13 years ago:
"In a world where nations and peoples increasingly intermingle and intermarry at will; where cultural and national impediments to communication have all but collapsed; where more and more of us have multiple elective identities and would feel falsely constrained if we had to answer to just one of them; in such a world Israel is truly an anachronism. And not just an anachronism but a dysfunctional one. In today’s 'clash of cultures' between open, pluralist democracies and belligerently intolerant, faith-driven ethno-states, Israel actually risks falling into the wrong camp."
Israel, in fact, does not "risk" falling into this "wrong camp." It has become the dominant camp leader, with flying colors.
Omar
Brainstorming BDS battle strategies
Erdan, MKs, NGOs discuss the fight against the Israel boycott movement at Battle Delegitimization conference.
By LAHAV HARKOV
Jerusalem Post --
01/0
6
/2016
The government cannot fight fight the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement alone; it needs a network, Strategic Affairs Minister Gilad Erdan said at a packed Knesset Caucus to Battle Delegitimization conference Wednesday.
"Delegitimization is a challenge with strategic potential," Erdan said. "BDS is part of a broader campaign that covers many areas, including education and culture, which is meant to present Israel as the source of all evil and opposed to the values of the democratic world, in order to restrict the IDF's actions and discriminate in international institutions."
"The campaign's goal is to destroy the existence of the State of Israel as the home of the Jewish People," he added.
Erdan's ministry is responsible for coordinating the government's efforts against delegitimization, and has a NIS 100 million for 2016, to that end. He called this the first time one government office was appointed to integrate all efforts on the matter.
The minister commended the work of the many pro-Israel NGOs attending the conference, saying that they and the government must work together to fight delegitimization.
"We need
[a]
network to face a network. We need a real network built of organizations and other bodies, like the Knesset. We have to work together on an issue that unites the Jewish People and Israel's many supporters in the world," he added.
Erdan said they must put BDS on the defensive, while at the same time using public diplomacy to improve Israel's image in the world.
The Caucus to Battle Delegitimization is led by opposition and coalition MKs - Anat Berko (Likud), Nachman Shai (Zionist Union), Michael Oren (Kulanu), Robert Ilatov (Yisrael Beytenu) and Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid) - and they invited representatives of NGOs and high-profile experts.
Berko called BDS "jihad dressed up in a suit."
Oren called the battle against delegitimization "a war like any other, and in war, we must take off the gloves and reach new battlefields on campuses around the world."
"No tank will move and no plane will take off if we don't have the right to defend ourselves," Oren stated.
The Kulanu MK and former ambassador to the US described a new bill he proposed, meant to train outstanding IDF vets to be stationed on college campuses to advocate for Israel.
"I'm sure if all the relevant factors cooperate, we will successfully deal with international boycott attempts," he stated.
MK Nachman Shai (Zionist Union) pointed out that the coalition and opposition stand together in fighting BDS.
"The boycott movement is an ugly one that wants to harm Israel," Shai said. "Every citizen of Israel can
b
e a partner in this world. We need to encourage people to buy more locally-produced goods to contribute."
Ilatov said boycotts of Israel remind him of the Nuremberg Laws in Nazi Germany, which, among other things, included the boycott of Jewish businesses.
"Then, too, the Jews were blamed for all of the world's problems, and today, Israel, the state of the Jewish People, is the scapegoat," he stated. "Our enemies slightly changed the rhetoric, but the meaning is mostly just hatred of the Jewish People."
Former Canadian justice minister Irwin Cotler described the boycott movement as "a new, global, sophisticated, virulent and even lethal form of anti-Semitism."
"Israel is the targeted Jew among the nations," he added.
Cotler, an expert on international and human rights law, said that the new anti-Semitism uses the language of those areas against Israel.
One of its tactics, Cotler explained, is to "mask anti-Semitism with universal values, in an attempt to make Israel the enemy of all that is good and the repository of all that is evil."
Cotler pointed to the "annual ritual" of the UN portraying Israel as the enemy in all areas - labor, health, culture, women's rights - and thus the enemy of humankind in general.
"One of the worst things you can say about people today is that they're racist," he said, explaining a delegitimization tactic. "People call Israel an apartheid state, because apartheid is defined as a crime against humanity, so if Israel is apartheid, it has no right to be. Not only that, they call Israel a Nazi state, so the international community has a responsibility to say Israel has no right to be."
Former MK Einat Wilf, a senior fellow at the Jewish Peoplehood Policy Institute, also pointed to the strategy of identifying Zionism, and thus Israel and the Jewish People, as the source of all evil.
"All violence starts with preparing people's consciousness so they think the violence is a good thing," she said. "The minute the world supports the Palestinians as the total victims of evil and think this is a struggle between good and evil and not between two nations with history, the chances of an agreement [with the Palestinians] will be postponed for another 200 years. People don't negotiate of compromise with evil."
Wilf said that, as someone who is left-wing and believes in a two-state solution, she thinks fighting the boycott and changing the way people see Israel is important.
The former MK emphasized the importance of relaying the message that Zionism is not meant to displace anyone or cancel anyone else's rights.
"We have to enlist in this war of awareness. We need the IIDF, Israel Intellectual Defense Forces," she quipped.
Some of the MKs referred to Israeli NGOs that they said support the delegitimization efforts against Israel.
"The battle is at home, too," Berko said. "It's against groups and organizations that may have good intentions but are being used as to deceive people.
Ilatov spoke out in support of the Justice Ministry's NGO transparency bill, which would require representatives of organizations mostly funded by foreign governments to wear a tag when visiting the Knesset and disclose the funding in all publications.
"The bill says that the minute you get funding from a foreign government and promote its agenda, which harms Israel, the public should know," he said.
However, IBA journalist Yaakov Ahimeir pointed out that a recent Washington Post editorial criticized the NGO bill, and said it was bad for Israel's image.
"Are all the laws being passed in the Knesset really necessary?" he asked.
Ahimeir also called on MKs to be better behaved, saying that an unruly Knesset looks bad in the eyes of the world. Two MKs interrupted him while he spoke.
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MK Oren calls for ‘Hasbara Iron Dome’ against boycotts
Knesset Caucus to Fight Delegitimization to hold conference on fighting BDS.
By LAHAV HARKOV
Jerusalem Post --
01/05/2016
Excerpts:
MK Michael Oren (Kulanu) called for the government to intensify the fight against the anti-Israel Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign, ahead of a Knesset Caucus to Fight Delegitimization of Israel conference on the topic on Wednesday.
Oren described BDS as part of a new stage in Arab attempts to destroy Israel through delegitimization.
“They are well-funded, highly organized and very sophisticated.”
The way to fight the boycott campaign is “to go on the offensive, and bring the battle to BDS,” Oren said, admitting: “We haven’t come up with an answer [to BDS]. We need a legal and hasbara Iron Dome.”
...
The turning point, he said, was this year, when BDS targeted “two things that are important to Israelis – cellphones and soccer,” when Orange’s CEO said he sought to cut ties with Israel and when the Palestine Football Association tried to ban Israel from FIFA.
...
“Questions remain. What will be the role of the IDF, Foreign Ministry and intelligence services? Coordination is needed. We need resources and personnel. The fight can’t just be sending pro-Israel speakers to campuses,” he said.
...
One way Israel can improve its public diplomacy is by having better control over its message, Oren said, recounting that, during his time in Washington, DC, he was impressed by how well White House and State Department officials at all levels stuck to their message.
"
BDS is an international operation designed to take us down, period. That’s how we have to respond to it; the problem isn’t getting any smaller,” he stated.
...
Oren is co-chairman of the Caucus to Fight Delegitimization of Israel, along with MKs Anat Berko (Likud), Nachman Shai (Zionist Union), Aliza Lavie (Yesh Atid) and Robert Ilatov (Yisrael Beytenu).
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