"The statement by the Israeli association comes as a debate is being conducted by the American Anthropological Association about a boycott on Israel".
If anything can be learned from the case of South Africa it’s that one cannot expect boycotts alone to change the situation.
"Two recent reports suggest that Israel could face catastrophic consequences if it fails to end the mistreatment of Palestinians under its rule, whether in the occupied territories or in Israel itself... If the watching world really wants peace, economic wishful thinking will not suffice. It is past the time simply for carrots. Sticks are needed too".
"We are Jews from the United States, who, like Jewish people throughout the world, have an automatic right to Israeli citizenship under Israel’s “law of return.” Today there are more than seven million Palestinian refugees around the world. Israel denies their right to return to their homes and land — a right recognized and undisputed by UN Resolution 194, the Geneva Convention, and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Meanwhile, we are invited to live on that same land simply because we are Jewish. We renounce this “right” to “return” offered to us by Israeli law. It is not right that we may “return” to a state that is not ours while Palestinians are excluded and continuously dispossessed".
James ZOGBY: "BDS: A Legitimate and Moral Response to Israeli Policy" (The Huffington Post, The Blog, June 13, 2015).
The Israeli government response to the "Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions"(BDS) movement has been predictable. Being incapable of engaging in any reasonable form of self-criticism or even self-reflection, Israeli leaders have, instead, turned their wrath on their accusers and their victims.
As the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement grows, its co-founder, Omar Barghouti, has become a target for Israeli demonization. +972's Rami Younis sits down with Barghouti for a rare discussion about BDS's goals, its recent successes, and increasingly frequent accusations that the boycott movement constitutes anti-Semitism.
Ali ABUNIMAH: "Israeli universities help Shin Bet torturers recruit students" (The Electronic Intifada, 12 June 2015; Haaretz, 11 June: "Israeli universities providing data on graduates to Shin Bet. Security service uses information to contact possible new recruits", by Chaim Levinson).
Israeli universities are passing on personal information about their students to Israel’s Shin Bet secret police. According to Haaretz, the universities give the internal intelligence agency (which is notorious for its use of torture) lists of their graduates, including identity card numbers, to use in an effort to recruit them. The revelation will likely bolster support for the international boycott of Israeli universities called for by Palestinians.
The bulk of recent incidents concerning the anti-Israel boycott, which are mainly symbolic for now, could have served as a warning sign. But a mixture of nationalistic and false statements is blinding the Israeli public and preventing a real discussion of the issue. Here are a few examples...
Akiva ELDAR: "Anti-boycott call rings hollow as village awaits demolition" (Al Monitor, June 9, 2015).
Israeli plans to demolish the Palestinian village of Susiya and other similar acts will not generate support for the government's campaign to stanch the growing movement to boycott settlement products and in some cases products made in Israel.
Gideon LEVY: "Israeli propaganda isn't fooling anyone – except Israelis" (Haaretz, June 4, 2015; some extracts in: Philip Weiss, "Levy says BDS may undo Israeli denial and propaganda– even as Lapid calls it Hamas’s ‘puppet’", Mondoweiss, June 7).
"...It’s only to be expected when facing a worldwide campaign aimed at implementing justice and international law: the stage of denial, of repression and clinging to the false, nearly magical belief that if Israel will just explain its position better and invest the appropriate resources [so-called 'hasbara'], everything will be fine. In other words, Israel continues to think that the world is dumb (and Israel is smart)...You can blame the Palestinians for everything and obscure the simple fact that this brutal occupation is Israeli. You can tell the world that it all belongs to us because the Bible says so and believe that anyone will take you seriously. You can be sure that the memory of the Holocaust will serve us forever, and justify any injustice. Of course, it won’t work indefinitely. It hasn’t worked in any country in history, no matter how strong and well-established, not even in the mightiest empires. Justice always triumphs in the end, even if very belatedly. And justice says that Israel cannot continue to tyrannize another people forever, even if Haim Saban himself lends his support."