Saturday, August 17, 2019

Israel and BDS

Molly Malekar, Amnesty International Israel’s director said:

“The Israeli government allows free entry to world leaders accused of gross violations of human rights, war crimes, and crimes against humanity, such as Myanmar’s generals and Duterte of the Philippines, proudly embracing leaders identified with supporting neo-Nazi and anti-semitic groups such as Hungary’s Orbán or Brazil’s Bolsenaro, but automatically calls anti-semitic anyone who dare criticize it. Israel bars entry on the basis of political views to those who critique it. Criticizing Israel’s policies isn’t violence.”

Philippe Nassif, the advocacy director for the Middle East and North Africa at Amnesty International USA said:
“ Opposition to a government’s policies or abhorrence to grave human rights abuses is neither anti-semitism nor a hatred towards a country or its people. We expect all people who support human rights to stand up and speak out against abuses, wherever they occur.” 

https://www.commondreams.org/newswire/2019/08/15/criticism-israeli-governments-policies-are-free-speech-not-anti-semitism


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

http://www.danielpipes.org/comments/259821
Profile of BDS promoter (dangerously pro racist anti-Jewish terror; ridiculously contradictory)

ajohnstone said...

I'm not sure if anonymous of those two posts are the same person, but the message is very much the same.

That a non-violent boycott campaign conducted by those who object to the occupation of Palestinian territory and the subjugation of its inhabitants by the armed forces of Israel is somehow illegitimate and anti-Jewish. I would suggest that they are neither.

Where there is oppression and repression, there will be resistance. An economic boycott is certainly much more viable than any armed struggle but even so with the power of the State of Israel being so dominant, and the lack of willingness of other countries to support BDS, success is remote.

The solution for the problem of occupied Palestine will not be found either in the nationalism of the believers in the Zionist ideology nor in the equally flawed alternative of the Palestinian nation-builders.