Something remarkable has happened in the last 24 hours in Israel, with two of the country’s most popular media outlets, one television and one newspaper, making the growing effectiveness of boycotts against Israel as their top stories.
Perhaps more remarkable? Neither outlet sought to demonize those leading the European and Palestinian boycott efforts as anti-Semitic, as so often happens in America. Instead, the focus was on these boycotts’ growing impact on Israeli businesses and their root causes: Israel’s settlement enterprise and continued conflict with the Palestinians.
It all started on Saturday night with an in-depth, primetime expose by what is easily Israel’s most watched news program: Channel 2’s “Weekend” (סוף השבוע). This is how Larry Derfner at +972 Magazine described the moment:
On Saturday night the boycott of Israel gained an impressive new level of mainstream recognition in this country. Channel 2 News, easily the most watched, most influential news show here, ran a heavily-promoted, 16-minute piece on the boycott in its 8 p.m. prime-time program. The piece was remarkable not only for its length and prominence, but even more so because it did not demonize the boycott movement, it didn’t blame the boycott on anti-Semitism or Israel-bashing. Instead, top-drawer reporter Dana Weiss treated the boycott as an established, rapidly growing presence that sprang up because of Israel’s settlement policy and whose only remedy is that policy’s reversal.
Watching the program, I was struck by how forcefully Weiss made clear that Israel’s settlement enterprise is to blame for Israel’s growing isolation, and how truly threatening the boycotts are becoming from an economic perspective. In one salient moment of many, Weiss interviews a food company executive in the West Bank who not only admits to losing approximately $140,000 a month due to boycotts, but also that the spread of such boycotts across Israel is inevitable.
To drive home the point that this is already happening, Weiss interviews a lawyer at one of Israel’s top law firms who reveals that, in private, companies are already coming to him in a panic. While his analogy may be offensive, what it represents is remarkable:
Most of the companies affected by the boycotts behave like rape victims. They don’t want to tell anybody. It’s as though they have contracted some kind of disease and don’t want anyone to know.
More and more companies are coming to us for advice quietly, at night, when no one can hear them. And they say: “I’ve gotten into this or that situation; is there something you can do to help?'”
A day after Channel 2’s watershed expose, Israel’s most popular newspaper, Yediot Achronot (ידיעות אחרונות), dedicated its entire front page to the issue of boycotts and their growing economic impact. Its main story contained the headline, “100 economic leaders warn of boycott on Israel.”
This headline was supplemented by a smaller headline which read, “The world is losing its patience and the threat of sanctions is increasing. We must reach an agreement with the Palestinians.”
For a progressive Zionists such as myself, who both wants Israel to thrive and views economic sanctions as a legitimate form of protest against Israel’s troubling geo-political policies, this is an incredibly important moment. For I have long maintained that Israel is incapable of stepping away from its settlement enterprise and its occupation of the Palestinians without outside pressure compelling it to do so.
I have long wanted that outside pressure to come from a close ally: namely, the United States. However, for me, the goal of such pressure is for Israel to conclude what Israel’s most popular newspaper has just written: that Israel must reach a peace agreement with the Palestinians for the country to thrive.
Israeli media has just awakened the populace. The question will now be how long it takes the populace to awaken its leaders.
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David Harris-Gershon is author of the memoir What Do You Buy the Children of the Terrorist Who Tried to Kill Your Wife?, just out from Oneworld Publications.
Follow him on Twitter @David_EHG.
Interesting David… You should read my take on this:
http://blogs.timesofisrael.com/why-the-two-state-solution-is-the-only-solution/
It is a bit substantive, but perhaps you can tell us, when you mention “pressure” that you think should happen, what forms of pressure do you think would be appropriate here?
The above comment obviously does not violate Tikkun policy. Tikkun warmly welcomes anti Semitic comments that David’s blogs generate
Calls for genocide do not violate this site’s policy? And where is the author’s note to this “person who is vehemently anti-Semitic” in his very own words?
He will tell them that it is important to “dialogue” with them.
Yep.. imagine that… My quite civil comment asking him to clarify his position on “pressure” magically disappeared and was claimed ot be against “Tikkun policies”, but anti-Semitic and eliminationist rhetoric directed towards Jews and Israel, still sits.
Amazing how that works.
But the boycott that you have championed, both explicitly and implicitly, the BDS campaign, does not seek an end of the occupation that began in 1967; it seeks the end of the so-called “occupation” that began in 1948, i.e., with the creation of Israel. So David, you conveniently (and not surprisingly) have left out the fact that while an end to the settlement enterprise would certainly be a mitzvah, it would not meet the objectives of the BDS campaign, which wants the entirety of Israel replaced with a single Palestinian state. So you are once again not being honest with your readers to the extent that you suggest that the objective of “the boycott” is an end to the settlement enterprise and a two-state solution.
Well David has explicitly denounced the BDS Movement – So I can’t quite figure out what this post celebrates since in his own words that he has completely walked back any support of BDS. I asked him this question and it magically disappeared. In light of that, I can’t help but wonder if David is walking back his denouncement of the BDS Movement.
My previously comment got blocked — perhaps I am now part of what must be boycotted. Right, David?
And, it is more than a little ironic that the person who complained bitterly about not being given a platform at the UCSB Hillel now seeks to silence his own critics.
Albert.. that can’t be.
David believes in open dialogue. He has said it many times. Blocking our comments would be in violation of that precept. We must be hitting the wrong “Submit Comment” buttons on our screens. 😉
Well, Jon . . . let’s see if this one gets deleted too.
Any denouncement of the BDS campaign was a desperate attempt to obtain a platform at the UCSB Hillel. But given his previous pro-BDS writings, it was obviously made with a careful wink and a nod to his fans who are pro-BDS and want Israel gone. And it came with his usual suggestion (here in the second paragraph) that opposition to BDS comes mainly from those who claim that any criticism of Israel is antisemitic. It is no surprise that the Hillel told him to go fly a kite . . .
Well yeah… and of course there is this article here today….
BUT… David has denounced BDS and it’s goal of One State, as well as Palestinian Right of Return. so maybe his thinking on the issue has evolved. I mean of course I can see Hillel’s points and I agree with them. Still, perhaps David will enlighten us further into the specifics of his thinking and thus increase dialogue around the issue.
What denouncement? In his cross-posted diary at dailykos he adds comments encouraging BDS and recommends the comments of those calling for a single state solution with full right of return, and encourages Z.O.G. comments regarding aipac.
I can almost here Chico Marx saying “That’s some denouncement, eh boss?”
Well yes Albert there is that, but David specifically said that he does NOT favor Full Right of Return for the Palestinian Refugees, nor does he belong to or endorse the BDS Movement. I think that those of his “friends” in The Movement don’t really know that about him (given that he hid that from them for a long time) I wonder how they would feel about it if they knew.
But he also said “Today, I’m Coming Out in Favor of BDS (Boycott, Divestment & Sanctions Against Israel).” And while also acknowledging that he was concerned about “the long-term damage a sustained BDS movement might do to Israel,” he added that he emphatically decided “to formally endorse and embrace BDS.”
To believe that Israel will earn peace as suggested here is fantasy, as is the implication that BDS proponents care about the survival of Israel, as is the implication that they do not practice a double standard.
The practice of double standard is antisemitism, unless BDS can declare it would boycott Israeli Arabs, or to other states that make the treatment of Palestinians look like a walk in the park.
The proponents of BDS are hypocrites, as Finklestein made clear, or just dupes that are as hated by those they enable as those that support Israel and see through the charade.
What, exactly, is a Semite?
The dictionary says it is ‘a person of Arab descent’.
Boycott is a nonviolent way for a weaker minority to draw attention to its plight. Taking land away from indigents is a common practice all over the world. Allthough the Takers will say sometimes, that they are taking this land that does not belong to them as the result of religion, usually it is for economic reasons, which can include greed.
Many countries in Africa have experienced this land taking.
It needs to stop, or at least the land needs to be paid for.
Note to commenters (and my fan club):
If comments are removed, they have been removed by Tikkun editors or the automated system for having violated the site’s commenting guidelines:
“Tikkun Daily invites you to comment. Hoping for lively dialogue and opposed to censorship of differing political or ideological points of view, we allow visitors to directly post their comments. Wishing for respectful dialogue that invites participation in a collaborative, empathic community, we will delete any comments that are abusive, off-topic, or include personal attacks. Our commenting system includes both automated spam filtering as well as reviews by our editorial staff and web team.”
I do not remove comments except under extraordinary circumstances. Good luck!
I am sorry David but I simply don’t believe you.
My comment that was removed had absolutely no vitriol to it whatsoever. It asked a simple question regarding your proposed solutions, particularly in light of the fact that you denounced the BDS Movement. Now how does that violate Tikkun’s policy?
The only thing you and others (I’ll exclude myself here since I’ve long stopped being interested in dialogue with anti-Zionists like David) are guilty of is being left-to -center defenders of Israel who put the lie to the repeated insistence, for whatever reason, by certain bloggers here, that there is no such thing, and that they and they alone represent the moral consensus.
They do not. Far from it, in fact.
Despite the author’s professed belief that he possesses a ‘fan club’ of some sort, the actual truth is that there are simply some who disagree with his opinions, and therefore use the same fora in which he expresses his, to express ours.
This is, indeed, how free societies worked, the last time I checked.
Pretty much Jay… that is 100% right.
Ha! So Tikkun deleted the blatant antisemite, but also my comment describing the poster precisely as they described themselves. That’s some serious Fox News-style ‘fair and balanced’ stuff right there…
Well if we hadn’t heckled David for this obvious little bit of ridiculousness that comment would still be up.