A Democratic state ? Interesting. I would think the likes of North Korea would be a good start with democracies being at the bottom of the list.
Israeli - Palestinian Conflict
- Thread starter Raoul
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A Democratic state ? Interesting. I would think the likes of North Korea would be a good start with democracies being at the bottom of the list.
What's the logic here, boycotts can only be conducted one at a time?
not really. Thats a misconception.
Boycotting dictatorships primarily punishes the people, who are "held hostage" by its leadership. These boycott movements are never strong enough to create regime change (and its generally worth discussing if state-led embargos can do that job). So whats the point in boycotting products from Sudan, NK or any other horrible dictatorship? It achieves almost nothing, but hurts small farmers.
In democracies people are - at some level - responsible for their politics and normal people have the power to influence politics. It is much more reasonable to boycott such a state. That said I am not denying that many people have double standards or are simply anti-Semitic when its comes to Israel. Still, its possible to support the BDS movement without being a hypocrite.
I doubt those shop owners know that. Its simply a moral choice of rejecting one country's policy (Israel) while tacitly accepting the likes of North Korea, Iran, and Sudan or any other despotic dictatorship.
Yeah, in this way though it's a kind of back-handed compliment to Israel, a recognition that the Israeli political system (and probably society) is more open to being impacted by such a movement. For example, a BDS campaign aimed at China for it's policies in Tibet would have no impact on politics in that country. Similarly, any Western activist with a mind to 'help' the Palestinian cause can jump on a plane to Ben-Gurion, evade a few questions at security, and be in Tulkarm or Hebron the next day throwing stones at the IDF - no such possibility exists in China (or Russia, Sudan, etc.).
Can you read their minds? Anecdotal evidence is completely useless in debates anyway.
The argument, that you have to equally oppose all injustices is also not convincing. There is not a single person on earth who could live up to such a standard. I am not really familiar with the BDS movement and I dont support it. I think its fairly dodgy and punishes the wrong people. Still I have sympathy for the boycott of goods, that are from settlements.
I have no problem to take sides on the issue of the political system. Of course the israeli system is better than the Palestinian one.
Btw: Thats the point where we can discuss double standards: People who criticise Israel/Palestine for something often ignore the very same issue on the other side. Thats a real problem.
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I'm more interested in the pseudo-intellectual hate against Israel that's become fashionable of late, that isn't directed at any of the other states mentioned, or any other despotic dictatorships who actually do treat their citizens very badly. You won't see much criticisms of them on college campuses or any other prominent places where politics are discussed. Coincidence or morally hypocritical double standard ?
Neither. There is simply no debate in western society whether dictatorship is a good or a bad thing. This is settled and we have a consensus. No politician, no journalists, no intellectual or really any reasonable person would defend the actions of al-Baschir. We all know that he is a brutal butcher.
Protests are made to change the policy of our own or their governments and there is simply nothing to protest against in this specific case. When your own government gets involved in controversial ways with dictators (e.g. weapons exports), than opposition arises. If there is no controversy and no need to change anything, protest becomes pointless. That’s why very few people “hate” al-baschir.
Israel is much more controversial: both sides have strong advocates. Especially the involvement of European governments is extremely one-sided. Naturally that creates push-back. There would be less protest, if European governments would take a more nuances stance. Europe also has a special history with Jews (not a good one...) and the conflict runs for a very long time.
Your argument boils down to “they don’t care enough about *random tin-pot dictator*, so they shouldn´t care about Israel”. That’s not convincing. The problem with double standards is, that people hold one side in this conflict to specific standards and not the other.
Obviously part of the protest is purely based on anti-Semitism. It’s sadly still a big problem in Europe. Nobody is denying that. Still anecdotes don´t help to understand this problem, because you can find them for/against everything.
Protests are made to change the policy of our own or their governments and there is simply nothing to protest against in this specific case. When your own government gets involved in controversial ways with dictators (e.g. weapons exports), than opposition arises. If there is no controversy and no need to change anything, protest becomes pointless. That’s why very few people “hate” al-baschir.
Israel is much more controversial: both sides have strong advocates. Especially the involvement of European governments is extremely one-sided. Naturally that creates push-back. There would be less protest, if European governments would take a more nuances stance. Europe also has a special history with Jews (not a good one...) and the conflict runs for a very long time.
Your argument boils down to “they don’t care enough about *random tin-pot dictator*, so they shouldn´t care about Israel”. That’s not convincing. The problem with double standards is, that people hold one side in this conflict to specific standards and not the other.
Obviously part of the protest is purely based on anti-Semitism. It’s sadly still a big problem in Europe. Nobody is denying that. Still anecdotes don´t help to understand this problem, because you can find them for/against everything.
I think you hit the nail on the head. There is apparently still considerable anti-semitism in Europe - converging from old school anti-semites, Muslim Europeans, and pseudo-intellectual academic types, which is adding fuel to, and skewing perceptions of, the Israeli-Palestinian debate. There's no other rational explanation as to why random people with little political knowledge are getting swept into it.
Are you an anti-semite?
Though in my experience the Irish are probably as likely to be bigoted against Arabs and Muslims as they are against Jews, no doubt the roots of anti-semitism run deeper. Speaking specifically of Ireland however, there are other factors which tend to exacerbate feelings. First, there are obvious (though superficial) parallels to be made between the NI conflict and the Middle East which place the Palestinians in the role of the Irish. Second, many Irish peacekeepers returned from southern Lebanon in the 70s, 80s and 90s with really negative experiences of the IDF which trickled into Irish society. Third, recent stuff like the use of false Irish passports in Dubai and the involvement of Irish activists in the flotilla fiasco have got increasing media coverage. Finally, there is a bit of a self-righteous streak in Irish society, possibly a legacy of the days when Irish missionaries were active throughout the British Empire and today typified by the likes of Geldoff and Bono, which sometimes expresses itself in international affairs through the notion that we have a unique perspective on conflict resolution and related matters.
More generally, another reason why Israel receives so much more attention than comparable or worse offenders is simply that we know a whole lot more about what happens in the West Bank and Gaza than we do in, say, Tibet. Israeli and international human rights organizations are there on the ground, allowed to freely investigate and publish their findings for the world. I really doubt there are any equivalents of Peace Now or Breaking the Silence in China, Sudan or Russia for example.
Good post. I agree with all your points. Would be interesting to see whether other European countries have similar embargos on Israeli goods, and if so, what their rationale is in contrast to the Irish.
They probably are, but we almost all turn a blind eye every day with all the products we consume, do we not? I think it's just that the Israel topic is more fashionable than the others right now, and I don't think they're boycotting Israeli goods and services out of pure morality - or they would indeed boycott the rest that you mention.
Seems the Irish have form...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Limerick_boycott
Edit: Then again Bono and The Edge are frequently in Israel, drinking in Tel Aviv and investing in Israeli hi-tech.
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Veolia lost a contract worth 3.5billion euros in Sweden due to its links to Israel. Politicians caved to pressure.
https://books.google.ie/books?id=CleDRk25k0kC&pg=PT151&lpg=PT151&dq=Stockholm+veolia+boycott&source=bl&ots=Y_-bi9oLvU&sig=uzmuzkzt0lC1L_-PcUtdmPjKi2s&hl=en&sa=X&ved=0CEQQ6AEwBmoVChMI6tDP2qONxgIVwQfbCh3BcgC8#v=onepage&q=Stockholm veolia boycott&f=false
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Irish republicanism and Zionism strongly supported each other for a long time. Zionism lost Irish support when it went from being a separatist movement to being an imperialist one.
http://www.theirishstory.com/2013/0...y-irish-nationalism-and-zionism/#.UP_NVB2Ex8E
http://www.theirishstory.com/2013/0...-irish-nationalism-and-zionism-as-ideologies/
Absurd. Exactly what evil empire did zionism represent?
The US who need a base in the Middle East.
Israel invades Sinai in 56. The US tell them to leave and they do.
Israel invades in 1967 and the US support them.
All the trendy lefties have been criticising Israel since.
http://www3.nccu.edu.tw/~lorenzo/Little Middle East.pdf
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Poor trendy lefties. From the heights of Stalin, Castro and Nasser down to Hamas, Hizballah and Iran. Down with Western imperialism.
All the trendy lefties are talking over the world after the right wingers destroyed the world economy.
A democratic state? Glad you asked the question. No it isn't one.
I dont think you willl find many people defending the dictators of sudan, china, saudi arabia (well maybe the latter in the corridors of power) Israel is defended by government and right winger across the western world.
Dictatorship? Didn't think so.
Like apartheid South Africa, a dictatorship for some, democracy for others
They get a pretty good rating from Freedom House.
But not Palestinian House, which is what matters
Cool. I'll stick to the independent organizations who don't have a political axe to grind.
That's poor form Raoul(Where the people interviewed the shops owners or just everyday workers ?).I'm not sure if a amateur Brass Eye knock off say's anything about anti Semitism in Ireland(I'm not ruling it out of course).What it say however is that as long as you sound confident people will nod their heads and believe any old shite.
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I'm not sure if a amateur Brass Eye knock off say's anything about anti Semitism in Ireland(I'm not ruling it out of course).What it say however is that as long as you sound confident people will nod their heads and believe any old shite.
Beware of the Jewish influence...
How free can an organization be that gets most of its funding from the us government?
Completely free. There's no relationship between the grants it receives and the substance of its reports. If you look at their data on the West Bank and Gaza, it is quite different from its report on Israel.
Really? I call bullshit
It's hard to run a democracy when your nation is under occupation. What does Freedom house have to say about that?
Why don't you read their report before presuming what you think it says.
It's an interesting thing you point out though, on the subject of selective outrage. It goes both ways, we can all say oh you're talking about this more than this. Calling for an equal distribution of talking points with regards to every single conflict in the world is disingenuous.
I talk about the things I know or have read up on. I've talked to my friends about Pakistan, difficulties minorities face over there. Islamophobia that's rising in Europe. Rohingyas. But for example, if somebody came to me saying, what about Eritrea? How come you never spoke about that? You're a hypocrite and nothing you say matters now.
The only moral double standard would be is if I justified what was happening there. I don't have the time to learn about and speak about every single injustice in the world. And plot my outrage through a piechart and bisect my outrage accordingly. I think your point applies to many who would justify atrocities. If you speak up against Western realpolitik but then be an apologist for what Iran/Saudis do, I think that would be wrong.
But I happen to think that I'll be paying tax soon when I graduate next year. I think that the status quo in Palestine is unacceptable, a big chunk of the blame lies with Hamas of course. But I feel that my government directly supporting a country that deals with things that I think, based on figures, commentary pieces (both pro-palestinian and not) and reports from human rights organisations that I think is unacceptable. And I find many things written about this conflict in terms of talking points verging on the sociopathic.
What we need isn't necessarily more/less discussion, it's better discussion. So that we can get rid of the George Galloway types and move away from the anti-semitic conspiracy theorism that unfortunately is a sizeable chunk of the pro-Palestinian side which is what I object to, because there kookiness enables there is no meaningful manoeuvring on this conflict way better than any hasbara type could ever manage.
But again, the fact that it's being talked about it more than say, Tibet, are worth discussing but it don't think it necessarily implies that we are disingenuous when we talk about Palestine. Lets argue about it on its merits. Many of us think that Israel, a democracy that the West actively supports (certainly with the States in terms of aid etc) shouldn't just be held to the standards of the world's worst countries and that because we can't fix/denounce worse problems or every single problem, doesn't mean we shouldn't try and be involved in this particular conflict.
Have a think before spouting government funded propaganda
Its not propaganda, which if you would take a moment to read it, would be completely obvious, especially the West Bank and Gaza report.
Hamas won an election. Fatah with the colusion of Israel and America attempted to overthrow that government and the status quo continues to today. Freedom house wont have much to say about Israel role in that.. It won't have much to say how Israel controls the lives of millions of Palestinians across the Westbank and Gaza. No US government funded organisation will say much bad about Israel, not if it wants to keep its funding.
Agreed on the Hamas bit, although this sort of logic seems to fall on def ears among the quasi-intellectual hipsters who seem to think Israel is the culprit and Hamas can do no wrong.
You're simply ducking the substance of their reporting by presuming its off because its US funded, without even reading it.