Our last days in Israel have been spent in Jerusalem.
During this time our idyllic location and relaxed and extremely enjoyable socialising has been marred by the thought that soon we shall be returning to blighted Blighty.
Returning home after a vacation has its compensations: seeing family and friends and reconnecting with communal life.
This time it’s not just the awful Manchester weather that gives me a sinking feeling in my gut, but the sense that I am returning from a war zone, where I feel safe, to one where I feel threatened.
War zone? UK a war zone? What is the man talking about!
Well, I happen to be a Jewish man, and the news from the UK for Jews is ever spiralling downward from inconvenience, through trepidation, past intolerable into fear.
Exaggeration? I’m sorry, but my parents, and grandparents were witness to this in the 1930s when blackshirts strode arrogantly behind a British aristocrat, Sir Oswald Mosely.
The unthinkable is becoming reality and ‘overreaction’ is not paranoia but a deep understanding, knowledge, analysis and experience of history which, for most Jews, is engrained in their genes throughout the millenia.
So, whence comes this fear?
The reaction to Israel’s response to continuing rocket fire from Hamas in Gaza has torn the thinly-disguised veil from the face of antisemitism in the UK.
Whilst the mainstream and social media stoke anti-Israel sentiments, even among the most fair-minded British citizen, with hostile, misinformed and downright viciously biased reporting, on the streets, those already inclined to use anything Israel does in self-defence as a trigger for violent protest have been empowered to expose the real motivation behind their obsession.
Antisemitic banners and chanting go unchallenged at protests across Britain; Israel and its supporters, and all Zionists, are called and labelled ‘Nazis’.
Enter the emboldened BDS (Boycott Sanctions and Divestment) brigade, and those too cowardly, just as in the 1930s, to stand up to them.
In Manchester, for over a month, a rag-bag of ‘protestors’ have picketed the Kedem store on King Street in Manchester. The Jewish community, and other supporters of Israel, soon established a counter-protest. The owner of the store is Israeli. The company he owns is wholly British, provides employment for British people, pays British taxes, and all its products are completely sourced from Israel behind the ‘Green Line’.
So why picket it? Why block a popular thoroughfare, jostle and bully anyone who is making the free choice to enter the shop? What has this to do with Gaza? Or settlements?
This Satruday eight protestors were arrested. As far as I could see from videos of the event posted on social media, none of those arrested were of an appearance which might suggest they were Muslim. The violence and the refusal to obey the police came from Left-wing agitators for whom anything associated with Israel is anathema.
The owner of Kedem produced evidence to show that produce was not from settlements, and there was no connection to any settlement whatsoever. He presented this to the leader of the protest group, but it made no difference. The shop-owner, in his desperation to save his legitimate business, made a fundamental error: that error is the belief that ideologically inspired prejudice is subject to reason, logic or facts. History tells us otherwise.
But how soon anti-Israelism descends into its close associate anti-Zionism, which, in turn morphs into its alter ego antisemitism. Many of the counter-demonstrators have reported antisemitic abuse, antisemitic chanting, the ubiquitous Nazi analogies. The Kedem protests are merely an extension of the frequent ‘Free Gaza’ demos, and, indeed, banners and slogans at Kedem are witness to this.
Previous protests outside shops selling Israeli goods have had the pretence that they were only targetting ‘settlement’ goods. The next stage was anything Israeli.
The Tricycle theatre in Kilburn in North West London recently decided to give in to the potential threat of demonstrations outside its premises by attempting to blackmail the London Jewish Film Festival (held at the theatre for the last eight years) into traducing the State of Israel by refusing their £1400 of funding as a prerequisite for continued hosting.
After a storm of protest, and much more damagingly, a number of patrons withdrawing funding, they withdrew their ultimatum. No doubt, this will result in accusations of the power of Jewish money.
So a lose-lose situation for British Jews who, like Israel itself, are damned if they roll over and die and damned if they fight back. And if you think I just created a strawman, a casual stroll through the hashtags on Twitter will disabuse you.
So, as we descend through anti-settlement to anti-Israel, what do we see in Birmingham but a kind of retail pogrom where about 100 people – yes 100 – entered a Tesco store and proceeded to trash not only any Israeli goods they could find, but also anything their deep research and understanding of the conflict indicated was complicit in Israel baby-killing, like a stack of Coca Cola cans.
Terrorised shoppers cowered in disbelief.
Then, on Saturday, the farce of Sainsbury in Holborn, London where, purportedly, although it is far from clear, as a precaution, an employee, maybe the manager, decided to remove all kosher goods – read that again, kosher, not necessarily Israeli, not settlement but, yes, Jewish goods. The precaution was deemed necessary as a nearby ‘Gaza protest’ provoked fear that a Tesco Birmingham retail pogrom would descend upon the good shoppers of Holborn and nearby Gray’s Inn.
There is even an unsubstantiated report that the shelves were cleared by an employee who told a shopper that it was in sympathy with Gaza.
However, this defensive action, which included closing the store, has illicited a storm of protests from angry Jews who, rightly, have identified a new low in the UK where Jews are denied access to kosher produce because protestors, including a local MP, are promoting BDS.
On social media, a recorded phone conversation between Jonathan Sacerdoti, a prominent Jewish Middle East analyst and a delegate to the Board of Deputies, has gone viral.
In this phone call Sacerdoti asks the store’s representative whether, if he were to threaten halal goods, would they be removed from the shelves? The answer was not clear, but the poorly-briefed and defensive employee appears at first to say, ‘no’.
Thus we have descended all the way from protests succesfully closing shops associated with ‘settlements’ to the clearing, albeit reflexively and only briefly, of Jewish goods, per se.
What next for the UK? Targetting kosher restaurants? Kosher grocery stores?
This tweet of mine found resonance with a number of people in the last 24 hours:
‘First they came for the West Bank goods then they came for the Israeli goods then they came for the Jewish goods then they came for the Jews’
Sitting here in central Israel, I have been thinking that it was time to enumerate the snowballing and often hysterical, often cowardly, anti-Israel events, actions and stories that are now part of a runaway narrative of lies, misrepresentations, human rights travesties and double standards, laced with a cocktail of old-school and Islamist antisemitism.
In no particular order, as they say, these include:
The Tricycle Theatre in Kilburn, London has seen fit to put an ultimatum to the London Jewish Film Festival (which has used that theatre for 8 years): either refuse funding from the Israeli Embassy (£1400) or we won’t stage the festival. The theatre generously offered to ensure that the shortfall in funding would be met.
The LJFF’s reply was basically Churchillian (in the finger department).
The theatre was not the only organisation to cite the excuse that they did not want to be seen taking sides – which really means that they are cowards who fear damaging demos outside their building and/or a Muslim-Leftlist backlash. I would remind them and everyone else who put profit before principles that, in the immortal words of Basil Fawlty, ‘This is exactly how Nazi Germany started.’
In Manchester, UK, the Kedem store which is owned by an Israeli and sells Israeli produce, some of which is packaged in Judea/Samaria, has for weeks been the subject of a politically motivated picket. Initially, entrance to and exit from the shop was curtailed by an intimidating bunch of Free Gaza people. The Jewish community responded and now face off against each other regularly. The Jewish community is even providing a kiddush on shabbat to ensure that their opponents do net get a free ride even for one day.
Local police are praising the peaceful and well-mannered nature of the counter-demo.
Nevertheless, in the past, similar demos at Ahava in Covent Garden, London and Sodastream in Brighton have forced closure. In Manchester, the effect on other businesses, and Kedem itself, will mean that the shop will inevitably close.
This is intolerable. Freedom to protest is one thing, but freedom to harrass and put precious jobs on the line is redolent of 1930s Germany.
In one of my more mischievous moments I suggested that, maybe, the pro-Israel camp should shower the antis with paper rockets, a bit like the English bowmen at Agincourt against the French. These paper rockets would not carry much of a payload but the reaction of the other side to a barrage of paper would be instructive. Would they just stand there and take it. Would they have no right to defend themselves?
I can’t imagine that they would not want to retaliate ‘disproportionately’. Sadly, such an act would probably be considered incitement by the police. But I can only dream.
Meanwhile, in Belfast, where the synagogue was subject to a double stoning recently, an Asda store had its shelves cleared of Israeli produce. Surely an arrestable offence?
In that same city, the blue plaque marking the birthplace of Israeli President Chaim Herzog has had to be removed due to continuous attempts to vandalise it.
In other news, the UK government has issued a completely nonsensical policy statement to the effect that should ‘significant’ hostilities between Israel and Hamas restart, ig would not issue twelve arms export licenses. This is gesture politics writ large by business secretary Vince Cable (LibDem).
Firstly, as I and several others have pointed out on Twitter and elsewhere, this actively encourages Hamas to commence hostilities to gain a political ‘win’. Secondly, what does ‘significant’ mean in practice and who judges? Clearly, this is the result of an internal Coalition power struggle where the Lib Dem Business Secretary has legal power to make such judgements and the Conservative Prime Minister would have attempted to nix it.
Meanwhile, at the UN, yet another kangaroo court in the form of ‘Goldstone II’ is about to convene with, at its head, William Schabas.
This man has a track record of anti-Israel activity and refused to describe Hamas as a terrorist group in a recent interview where he reiterated his view that his favourite person to be tried for war crimes would not be Assad or Putin but Netanyahu. And why? Well, because of Cast Lead where he was actually the opposition leader not the Prime Minister.
When challenged on double-standards he admitted that the UN is full of them, but that should not allow us to desist from pursuing them even further with yet another show trial for Israel where the only unknown is which anti-Israel mouthpieces are going to sit in pre-judgement.
It seems that Free Gaza, pro-Pal, anti-Israel demonstrations in London and the provinces are now an almost weekly phenomenon, disrupting traffic and business and requiring expensive policing. Of particular concern is the display of lsis, Hamas and Hizbollah flags. How can any Western society allow anyone to show support for terror groups, especially one which it is itself fighting.
In Oxford Street Isis have openly been handing out redruitment flyers enjoining British Muslims to become jihadists in Iraq and build the ‘caliphate’.
There appears to be a growing movement of terrorist chic with the black flags of ISIS flying in Tower Hamlets, for example.
Flag flying is also popular withthe Palestinian flag flying from a couple of Northern England Town Halls and Glasgow.
This avalanche of hate, antisemitism and virulent anti-Israelism, which no other minority or country has to endure, represents a watershed for Europe.
Some have called Israel the canary in the coalmine. The war on Israel and the Jews is a war on Western civilisation, culture and mores. Only the West does not realise it yet. Its blindspot, latent antsemitism along with the cult of human rights and an undue sensitivity to antithetical cultural values spell its gradual demise.
What to do?
In the UK get the Lib Dems out of government. How can any Jew who supports Israel vote for this shower.
As a lifelong Labour party supporter, I cannot see how I can continue to be so. It is also very difficult for me to vote Tory, but they are now the only option other than not to vote at all.
I suggest the following steps:
1. Make political picketing of shops and businesses illegal. Boycotts should not be imposed by active minorities.
2. Make foreign flag flying illegal except for state occasions
3. Make Isis, Hamas and Hizbollah flags illegal with stiff fines and custodial sentences
4. Crackdown on antisemitic or Islamophobic banners at demos and punish with stiff fines or custodial sentences
5. There should be better tracking of funds to terror organisations through UK banks and charities
6. Classify Isis as a terror organisation
7. Turkey should be thrown out of NATO – they are working with and for NATO’s enemies
8. Limit demos for any particular cause
If the West continues to appease and cannot see Israel as the frontline in the battle against neo-Nazi terror in the form of depraved Islamism and its apologists on the Left the results will be disastrous.
(no, I am not going to give them the benefit of a link even from my modest website – on principal)
I was outraged at the list of people, who claim to be artists, that are objecting to the appearance of Israeli theatre group Habima at the Globe.
The reason is that this company has performed at and co-operated with ‘halls of culture’ in Israeli ‘settlements’.
Here are these morally outraged Thespian signatories so YOU know who to boycott in the future:
David Aukin producer
Poppy Burton-Morgan artistic director, Metta Theatre
Leo Butler playwright
Niall Buggy actor
David Calder actor
Jonathan Chadwick director
Caryl Churchill playwright
Michael Darlow writer, director
John Graham Davies actor, writer
Trevor Griffiths playwright
Annie Firbank actor
Paul Freeman actor
Matyelok Gibbs actor
Tony Graham director
Janet Henfrey actor
James Ivens artistic director, Flood Theatre
Andrew Jarvis actor, director, teacher
Neville Jason actor
Ursula Jones actor
Professor Adah Kay academic, playwright
Mike Leigh film-maker, dramatist
Sonja Linden playwright, iceandfire theatre
Roger Lloyd Pack actor
Cherie Lunghi actor
Miriam Margolyes actor
Kika Markham actor
Jonathan Miller director, author and broadcaster
Frances Rifkin director
Mark Rylance actor
Alexei Sayle comedian, writer
Farhana Sheikh writer
Emma Thompson actor, screenwriter
Andy de la Tour actor, director
Harriet Walter actor
Hilary Westlake director
Richard Wilson actor, director
Susan Wooldridge actor, writer
I’m sure, like me, you have admired many of these names for years.
I would hazard a guess that very few of them know the history of the conflict and have accepted the narrative of ‘Occupation’ and ‘colonialism’.
How many of them have ever protested about anything else?
How many of them know that although settlements are illegal under certain interpretations of international law there is no ‘Occupation’ in any legal sense and there has never been any legal ruling that Israel is an occupier. And before you knee-jerk, just check. Here’s a useful link for the sceptics
Maybe American actors should be boycotted and made pariahs because of Guantanamo or Iraq?
It’s only ever Israel and the ‘Occupation’ which gets these people frothing at the mouth and hearts bleeding.
But, you see, this is the Left’s favourite cause. The Lord forfend that they should be tainted by association with Israeli actors who have committed the terrible crime of setting foot in a ‘settlement’.
“The villainy you teach me, I will execute, and it shall go hard but I will better the instruction.”
As individuals they are entitled not to go to see Habima.
As indivduals we are entitled to never watch any film, play or documentary any of these people appear in.
I have been given permission by a correspondent to publish this exchange of emails with Jim Bollan, the Scottish Socialist Party councillor who proposed a blanket boycott of Israeli goods in 2009.
This boycott has recently caused much debate in the Jewish pres and blogosphere.
I have already written about it here, here and here.
Let’s see where your sympathies lie.
I have been asked to withhold the name of the correspondent.
I’m so sorry to read about your boycott against Israel. As a Scottish Israeli I find it shameful to read of book boycotts and the like form your council. As you know, Israel is the only democracy in this region and without it there would be a swathe of undemocratic countries from Africa to Asia that give women, gays and many, many others no rights at all.
Why would you not want this little country to exist, I wonder?
Please take the time to explain your point of view to me….
On 5 Jun 2011, at 20:56, Jim Bollan wrote:
Please read the information on the Council’s website to understand our actual position not what you perceive it to be. The Council’s BDS policy was unanimously agreed as a result of the murder of over 1,000 innocent Palestinians in Gaza by the IDF in 2009. No doubt you will have seen the news today that there has been another 11 extra judicial killings of Palestinians on the border with Syria. Can you point out to me where I said “I do not want this little country to exist”?
To: Jim Bollan <[email protected]> Sent: Sunday, 5 June 2011, 19:57 Subject: Re: I’m puzzled
To answer your last point first: by promoting BDS you are clearly aligning yourselves with those who want to destroy Israel step by step. Boycotts are extreme action by people who actually want to eliminate an entity. Check this out.http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ifZLk6Ei9-U&feature=youtu.be
There’s nothing wrong with criticising Israel – I have plenty criticisms of my own….. but Israel pulled out of Gaza, leveled the settlements and in return received thousands of rockets on towns and cities in the South. I assure you that it was not the intention of Israel to harm innocent people, but, as happens in all wars, civilians were killed and sadly many were killed because Hamas was using civilians as human shields, placing missile launchers in school and homes. Tell me, how would you react to years of rockets fired on Dumbartonshire (sic)?
As far as events on today’s border – those who approached the border were clearly warned – in Arabic – but they chose to violate the border nevertheless. Shame on their leaders. Once again if thousands of demonstrators were trying to penetrate the Scottish border would you not expect the armed forces to react?
Can you tell me where your concern is for the 1,500 killed in Syria over the past few weeks? And what about those killed in Libya? Do you have concerns for human rights in Iran, in North Korea, China etc. etc. etc.? Do you not want to boycott these regimes or is it only Israel who warrants a boycott ? I am trying to understand your reasoning.
If you really cared and were interested in solving the conflict in this area you would applaud the present Israeli government which has voiced acceptance of a 2 state solution and you would be demanding/pushing/encouraging both sides to get to the negotiating table right away rather than denigrating Israel and hailing Hamas.
On 5 Jun 2011, at 22:08, Jim Bollan wrote:
Boycotts are non violent unlike the IDF who murdered another 11 unarmed innocent Palestinians today on the border with Syria. Surely a civilised Country that Israel considers itself to be should have arrested these unarmed demonstrators and put them in front of a Court to be tried?
Thanks
Jim Bollan
etc.
To: Jim Bollan <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, 6 June 2011, 17:00 Subject: Re: I’m puzzled
Concerning boycotts: BDS may be non-violent, but their aim (as I’m sure you’re aware) is to delegitimize Israel and ultimately destroy it. BDS campaigners have announced that their goal is the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state, not a change of policy. Anyway, the decision of your council to boycott Israel was made two and a half years ago and so the events of yesterday are not relevant to that decision.
You are very emotive in the terms you use to describe what happened yesterday. ‘Murder’: totally wrong; ‘innocent’: totally right. Categorical; black and white; nothing in between.
Israel has the right, like every other country in the world, to defend its borders and to keep out invaders either violent or otherwise. The Syrian government set up these demonstrations beforehand – as they did with the ‘Nakba’ day demonstrations – and stirred up its people to violate the borders. This was an action encouraged by the Syrians to detract from its own atrocities of recent weeks, and that tactic certainly seems to have worked for you, Mr Bollan.
As you will no doubt have seen on the news reports, there were thousands of protestors moving towards the Israeli border in a calculated strategy to breach that border in what was clearly a hostile act. They proceeded despite numerous warnings, both verbal and by shots fired in the air. Attempts by the IDF to disperse the crowd by non-violent means did not deter them. The youths were not innocent or unarmed. They fired sling shots, threw Molotov cocktails and hurled stones. It was a calculated, coordinated action against Israel to which huge crowds of Palestinians responded. Live fire was used only as a last resort. ‘Murder’? ‘innocent and unarmed’? Don’t be so naive.
Incidentally, note the difference of approach by the Lebanese government: they declared the border area a closed military zone and….no casualties!
You didn’t answer my previous questions. I will rephrase them for you:
Why is it only Israel out of all the countries in the world that you boycott?
Why do you you not condemn Syria for killing over 1,500 of its own people over the past few weeks? Or Iran/Saudi Arabia/N. Korea/China…..and so on?
Why do you not recognise Israel’s right to defend its borders?
And lastly: do you believe the state of Israel has a right to exist? A simple yes or no, please.
On 6 Jun 2011, at 19:35, Jim Bollan wrote:
All 23 were killed on the Syrian side of the border, not one crossed the fence. They were throwing rocks and garbage over the fence. They were unarmed. In my book that is extra judicial killing, ie murder. Why don’t you approach your local Councillor/Representative and urge them to bring forward a BDS motion to your local Council to boycott Syria?
Thanks
Jim Bollan
etc
To: Jim Bollan <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, 6 June 2011, 18:32 Subject: Re: I’m puzzled
I find bizarre that you swallow the Syrian narrative without a question. But since you give that regime such credence, here’s what Al-Thawra, Syria, reported June 6, 2011: ‘Ahmad Amin, who was wounded in his attempt to break throughthe Syria-Israel border on Naksa Day yesterday, said that many of his friends had hoped to die as martyrs on the land of the Golan Heights. He promised to try again to cross the border, until all the occupied Arab lands are liberated.’ Um, peaceful protests? Just throwing garbage? I think not.
And….. why are you so reticent in answering my questions?
[Name redacted]
PS The emails between us have been interesting. It’s obviously we’re not going to agree but I have one piece of advice for you: don’t believe anything the Israelis say, if you so choose, but do yourself and your constituents a favour and at least question the narrative you’re being fed from the Arab side.
On 6 Jun 2011, at 20:37, Jim Bollan wrote:
I do, on a regular basis. I make my own mind up on what is right and wrong, after analysis based on my beliefs and principles.
Thanks
Jim Bollan
etc
To: Jim Bollan <[email protected]> Sent: Monday, 6 June 2011, 18:44 Subject: Re: I’m puzzled
I know politicians have the gift of evasion but I’ll try once more: can you please answer the questions I asked you?
Jim Bollan wrote:
You may not always like the answers you get to questions but I think that is more to do with the answers you receive…are not to your liking.
Thanks
etc
Now, is it just me, or do you think that the councillor did not satisfactorily provide answers to the questions?
Maybe this little delicacy posted by CifWatch might throw some light on Mr Bollan and his politics:
Amjad Awad, one of the two suspects from the West Bank village of Awarta who acknowledged breaking into the Fogel family residence in Itamar, back in March, and stabbing to death the parents, Udi and Ruth, and three of their children (4-year-old Elad, 11-year-old Yoav and three-month-old baby Hadas) said the following to reporters in court, recently, per The Jerusalem Post:
“I don’t regret what I did, and would do it again,” Amjad Awad told reporters in court. “I’m proud of what I did and I’ll accept any punishment I get, even death, because I did it all for Palestine,”
Chilling doesn’t begin to describe the hate which would allow someone to lack even the most elementary sense of remorse for murdering children while they sleep.
Yet, there will always be extreme Israel haters who manage to contextualize such crimes and, if not outright justifying them, find a way to ask, as Ben White did about the rise of anti-Semitism, if such homicidal Jew hatred could at least be “understandable”.
Here’s the response by Jim Bollan, West Dunbartonshire Council member and fierce proponent of his council’s boycott of all Israeli goods, to an anti-boycott activist who forwarded him the Jerusalem Post story cited above:
Jim Bollan is truly the quintessential Israel hater – never able to summon genuine and unqualified moral outrage at the death of innocent Jewish civilians (even infants) without asserting a moral equivalence, and suggesting that there must be a good reason why such terrorists committed the horrific crimes they did.
The Hamas-loving Bollan is simply a poster child for the mendacity of the BDS movement.
There is actually zero evidence that any Syrians (there is no evidence they were Palestinains) were killed by the IDF.
If Cllr Bollan has any evidence of Palestinian children being slaughtered by the IDF as a deliberate act of murder, then I’d like to see it.
More importantly, if someone is justified to murder a Jewish family because of the actions of its army, then surely he would understand the 7/7 attacks, the 9/11 atrocities and also would understand, as someone commented on the CifWatch article, if Jews all over Europe murdered innocent German and Polish and Russian and Lithuanian babies in their beds because of the actions of those countries’ armed forces in the 1940’s
Of course, no such actions ever happened nor would they. No one goes around Ireland murdering innocent Catholic babies because the IRA bombs blew up innocent Protestant children.
Cllr Bollan demonstrates his complete moral destitution and a chilling ideology which resonates well with those dark forces, especially in the Middle East and especially amongst Israel’s neighbours, who would destroy that country and kill all Jews. I don’t suspect this is what Cllr Bollan supports, but it’s what the forces he appears to be sympathising with are bent on achieving.
Maybe the good people of West Dunbartonshire will think carefully about who they elect next time.
If you’ve been following my previous posts you will know that West Dunbartonshire Council passed a resolution/motion in 2009, during Operation Cast Lead, to boycott ALL goods from Israel.
This week the story was news again and has unleashed a Twitter tirade, emails and phone calls as well as blog articles and now online newspaper articles.
We now discover that the person who tabled the motion is Cllr James Bollan, a member of the Scottish Socialist Party and a former member of the Communist Party.
ynetnews.com has published some interesting tidbits about the Councillors response to anti-boycott activist Stephen Franklin:
following the uproar over the Scottish decision, Bollan had this to say about the Palestinian terror group: “Hamas was elected and are freedom fighters alongside the Palestinians fighting an illegal occupation of Palestine by Israel.”
There seems to something strange at play here when the first assertion which Bollan makes to back up the legitimacy of an organisation, which is classified as terrorist in Europe and the USA, is that they were democratically elected.
Whilst I would have grave concerns about the legitimacy of that election, I wonder whether Mr Bollan has information with regard the date of the next election in the Gaza Strip. Any offers? Thought not.
We all know that some of the worst dictators in the world, all of whom are probably admired by Cllr Bollan, were democratically elected: Hugo Chavez in Venezuela, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad in Iran and Robert Mugable on Zimbabwe.
Presumably Cllr Bollan would fully support these countries in their various forms of ‘democracy’ which include, inter alia, the oppression of women and their human rights, killing gays, starving their own people, and rigging elections.
I would put it to the Councillor that an election does not afford the elected the right to fire rockets, thousands of them, into a neighbouring country, abduct that country’s citizens, send in human bombs, target school buses and demand the death of all Israelis and Jews everywhere.
I would also point out that the ‘Occupation’ that Councillor Bollan and his friends in Hamas refer to is not what you think it means. They believe that Israel is occupied Palestine and they will never desist from attacking Israel even if it where to withdraw from Judea/Samaria/West Bank.
Next statement from Bollan was this:
Scots believe in equality and justice…words unknown to Zionists
This is rather typical of the brainwashed parallel universe such people live in.
Whereas I have no doubt most Scots believe in these worthy principles, coming from the mouth of someone who casts Islamofascist antisemites as ‘freedom fighters’ who do not believe women have the same rights as men. whose idea of justice is to throw their opponents off tall buildings and hide behind their citizens and ambulances, in mosques and schools whilst firing rockets, grenades and guns at Israeli soldiers, this is a bit rich, to say the least.
Israel is the only country in the Middle East to have a judiciary that is not controlled by the government, a free press, freedom of speech, freedom of religion and freedom to crticise the government.
Perhaps Councillor Bollan would like to point me in the direction of another country in the region which provides its citizen with these basic human rights?
And even if he doesn’t believe it, does that then justify supporting an organisation, a government in his terms, which denies all these things to its citizens.
Responding to a Ynetnews inquiry, Bollan confirmed that the statements attributed to him were accurate, and added the following: “One important point I made that strangely was not published along with my comments on the enclosed blog was that Hamas was elected with a bigger majority than the Israeli government.
He’s having a laugh isn’t he? It’s not that difficult to get a good majority by intimidating the other side and actually killing them, as happened to Fatah supporters who ran in the only direction they knew would be safe; no, not Egypt, Israel. They fled from Hamas to save their lives and even had to let those unjust, murderous, inequal Israelis save them.
Maybe the Councillor, despite his election to the august body known as West Dunbartonshire Council (and one would hope that the Councillor did not copy the tactics of his heroes, Hamas, by tipping some Scot Nats off the top of Dumbarton Rock to muster his votes) still has no idea that absolute majorities are often difficult to come by in truly democratic parliaments, such as the Knesset, which operates a proportional representation system.
Following earlier reports of the West Dunbartonshire boycott, and the uproar over the decision to ban Israeli books as well, regional council Spokesman Malcolm Bennie said: “The municipality will not boycott Israeli books printed in Britain, only books that were printed in Israel.”
Oh, it’s that specific is it? These guys are such humanitarians.
At the time, Bennie admitted that Israel is the only country being boycotted by the council, adding that the municipality had no intention of issuing a ban on products originating from Iran, Syria or Libya.
And before you say that WDC don’t buy anything from these countries, let me remind you that Cllr McColl said in his video on his blog site this week that the boycott was symbolic.
Indeed, what a load of symbolics.
The WDC is so principled when it comes to standing up for the oppressed people of the world that its myopic vision can only see Palestinians being attacked by Israelis.
It doesn’t see the slaughter in Syria or Libya; it doesn’t see the starving millions in Darfur or or Zimbabwe; it doesn’t notice ethnic cleansing in Tibet; it didn’t utter a word about Burma and the house arrest for several years of Ang Sun Suu Kyi.
No, it only object to Israel defending itself.
Why is this.
Do you have a couple of hours? No? OK, I’ll summarise.
The (Far) Left supports Palestinians because it sees them as the victims of colonialism, oppression and confiscation. The Left needs a new victim to raise the Red Flag over, and if it can’t be red, then green will do because these people are colour blind and ideologically lobotomised.
George Galloway, a good example; he abhors and attacks anyone who dare question the Holocaust but he runs into the arms of Holocaust deniers like Hamas or Nasrallah – where’s the logic?
Although I doubt they will miss those lovely new potatoes from Tesco, let’s hope that enough pressure can be brought to symbolically overturn this decision.
The Council of Europe’s European Court of Human Rights ruled in 2009 that boycotts were illegal. Specifically of Israeli goods. So I believe that WDC are acting illegally and any other council in the UK or Europe that is so minded are also breaking the law.
If there are any Scottish advocates out there who want to take this up pro bono, I’ll be pleased to hear from you.
The Scottish councillor at the centre of the furore caused by recent reports that, as part of its Israel boycott, it was banning books by Israeli authors, has issued an unprecedented video on his website, refuting these claims.
Cllr McColl also described personal abuse that he had received by phone and email and on Twitter.
He also described as ridiculous a blog which may have been mine, and certainly contained the information which I posted on Sunday.
As a reminder, here is the notice that WDC put out on their website in response to the attention they were receiving from those opposed to their policy.
West Dunbartonshire Council utterly refutes recent media claims that it has ‘launched a boycott on Israeli books’.
The Council’s boycott does not in any way seek to censor or silence authors and commentators from Israel.
The Council’s boycott only relates to goods ‘made or grown’ in Israel. The vast majority of mainstream books by Israeli authors are published in the UK and are therefore not affected by this boycott. Only books that were printed in Israel and transported to the UK for distribution would be potentially boycotted.
In the two and a half years the boycott has been in place there has never been a case when the library service has been unable to purchase a book it wished to as a result of this boycott.
Contrary also to some media reports the boycott is not retrospective and absolutely no books have been or will be removed from our library shelves as a consequence of the motion.
West Dunbartonshire Councillors voted to introduce the boycott in 2009.
The full motion is:
‘This Council deplores the loss of life in Palestine which now numbers well over 1,000. This Council also recognises the disproportionate force used by the IDF in Palestine and agrees to boycott all Israeli goods as a consequence. Officers should immediately cease the purchase of any goods we currently source, which were made or grown in Israel. Officers should also ensure we procure no new goods or produce from Israel until this boycott is formally lifted by WDC.’
So the book thing seems to be a red herring.
It all boils down to the decision taken two and half years ago during Operation Cast Lead (the Israeli offensive against Hamas in the Gaza Strip in 2008-9) that Israel used disproportionate force and killed 1000 people. As a result of this, they decided unanimously at a council meeting to ban the purchase by the council of all products from Israel.
It is also found on YouTube and I’ll embed the two videos below.
There is also a statement by Cllr McColl on his web page, which I’ll also reproduce, as it includes more detail on the council’s motivations at the time which are, apparently, still in place two years after the event. Note that this is a ‘Personal Statement’ by the councillor with my annotations interpolated.
Personal Statement The following is intended to answer a number of questions that have been asked and assertions made in emails etc… This boycott was not made at the request, suggestion or upon reading a pamphlet from any Anti-Israeli or Pro-Palestinian group.
This boycott was in response to and in support of international media coverage two years ago by the BBC, AP, CNN, SKY, REUTERS which showed Israeli forced murdering innocent women and children and firing rockets at civilian targets.
To say that Israelis were murdering innocent women and children is a blood-libel against the IDF which is without foundation. Although it can be argued that there were incidents where innocents died due to mistakes by the IDF, to use the word ‘murder’ is unconscionable and unfounded.
The charge of deliberately firing rockets at civilian targets was made by the Goldstone Report and refuted by an IDF report.
The councillors reliance on reports from the BBC, AP and Reuters et alia is touching; but these organisations were seriously biased in their reporting at the time and swallowed Hamas’ narrative and propaganda.
The Goldstone Report has now been seriously compromised by its author’s somewhat equivocal quasi-retraction.
Far from being ‘murderers’ which is the Hamas/Far Left accusation, Col Richard Kemp told the UN that no other army in history had done more to protect civilians.
Why did WDC rush to judgement in 2009 and why have they not re-evaluated this motion in light of new evidence?
It is enlightening to note that the original motion was tabled by Cllr Jim Bollan of the Scottish Socialist Party and his blog sports a Red Flag and an image of Lenin. He is a former member of the Scottish Communist Party. So we know where he is coming from.
Yet the entire council was minded, as one, to declare the boycott in 2009.
I have never seen, read or heard any material from Pro-Palestinian or Anti-Israeli groups and I would put little stock in either. I get my information from reputable, recognised sources.
Yet he was prepared to vote for for Cllr Bollan’s motion who is a signatory of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s appeal for funding of its BDS campaign (http://www.scottishpsc.org.uk/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3631:scottish-psc-financial-appeal&catid=257&Itemid=200079)
Hamas’ use of hospitals and other civilian buildings (and indeed civilians themselves) as human shields is utterly despicable, but that does not give the Israeli Government the right to kill those unfortunate enough to be used by this terrorist organisation.
So according to Cllr McColl it is Israel who is responsible for the deaths of human shields and not Hamas; Israel cannot defend itself, therefore, and must acquiesce to the tactics of real murderers, namely Hamas.
This is also to ignore the extraordinary lengths that the IDF went to to minimise casualties.
We have recently seen dozens of human shield civilians killed by Nato bombs in Afghanistan. Civilians have been killed by Nato in Libya. Is the Cllr suggesting that Israel’s actions were more reprehensible than Nato’s or were they both operating against an immoral and ruthless enemy that cared less for its own citizens than Israel and Nato?
West Dunbartonshire Council remains committed to our boycott of Israeli goods and our resolve has only been strengthened by the torrent of vile abuse threats of violence against our families that has come from people who claim to be peace loving people.
So the main reason for continuing the boycott against an entire country is anger at threats made by that country’s misguided supporters.
There is a certain air of malice in this paragraph. It is Cllr McColl and his colleagues who are now the victims and they are well and truly p***d off.
Whilst I utterly deplore personal threats, especially to children, and name-calling, maybe this brief unseemly episode will give the councillor and his colleagues some idea of what it is like to have your children threatened daily by Kassam rockets rather than words, and what it’s like for Israelis to be accused of being Nazis constantly by Palestinians, their supporters and the Left wing politicians who are responsible for the sort of boycott they are supporting.
This is not an anti-Semitic act.
I don’t care whether you are Jewish, Muslim, Christian, Buddhist, Agnostic or any other such label you might want to give someone. We are all members of the human race and we should all stand together in asking the Israeli Government to think again about their methods.
How noble. What we should all be standing together doing is condemning Hamas’ rockets and their charter which seeks the destruction of the State of Israel and all Jews – that’s anti-Semitism, councillor.
And where are your noble moral principles when it comes to motions against Libya, Syria, Iran, Zimbabwe, Sudan, China; I could go on.
If you have moral principles, why are they so uniquely selective against one state.
Even if I were to concede all the accusations against Israel were true, that would still not justify your singling out of one country.
You say it’s a symbolic act. No-one believes, of course, that Israel cares about the purchasing habits of one Scottish council, but by joining the BDS movement on the Palestinian side, this takes your act beyond symbolism and into the camp of the demonisers and delegitimisers.
Thus, WDC stands shoulder to shoulder with Hamas, the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign and every other Israel hater and boycotter in Scotland and beyond. Nice one councillor.
I agree that the Israel Government has the right and responsibility to defend their people, but I do not agree that this should come at such a high cost. They need to think again.
The definition of ‘proportionality’ as a casualty numbers game is absurd.WDC need a lesson in international law and the laws of armed conflict. These laws do not describe warfare as a zero sum game or a boxing match.
In fact, the proportion of combatant to non-combatant deaths in Operation Cast Lead was far lower than any other conflict in recent times; and that includes Bosnia, Sri Lanka, Iraq and Afghanistan. Considering the conditions, and the blatant disregard for life by Hamas, the ratio is extraordinary. Extraordinarily low, that is.
I’m sure the Israeli government (which is not the one which initiated Cast Lead, by the way) would love to hear from Councillor McColl and his colleagues some ideas about how they can stop a murderous, Islamofascist enemy from firing thousands of rockets at Israeli towns and civilians (a war crime), firing RPG’s at school buses and kidnapping soldiers.
And how they can do this without killing civilians.
And whilst they are giving the Israeli government the benefit of their great experience in warfare and the laws of proportionality, maybe they can let them know what would be proportional; how many deaths would have been ‘proportional’ then? Or would 1000 Israelis have had to die for WDC to deny the motion before the council in 2009?
That assumption on your part says more about you than it does about me. To quote a Jewish woman from Glasgow who telephoned me on this issue,
“We are brought up in a culture of ‘poor wee us’, automatically thinking that the world is against us and perhaps we should take stock of that before we draw conclusions about other people’s motivations.”
Ah, playing the sympathtic Jew card now. We are all paranoid that the world is against us. This distorts our moral compass. This is why the Israelis/Jews feel justified in massacring innocents. Yada, yada.
No, we are not paranoid, we see the torrent of delegitimisation and demonisation against the State of Israel that WDC are now taking part in.
Such suggestions are inherently anti-Semitic even if unconsciously.
The reason the Council discussed this matter was because it was raised by an individual Councillor as a private member’s motion.
You’d have to ask Cllr Jim Bollan what his personal motivations were for bringing this forward, but I do not believe him to be racist. I have never found him to talk down or discriminate against anyone.
Now just passing the buck. Didn’t Cllr McColl vote for this? What does Cllr Bollan’s motivation matter. What were Cllr McColl’s motivations? Herd mentality?
It is not normal for issues of International significance to be brought before Council my individual members. Our main function is to govern our small local area and provide Education and Social Care services as well at things like refuse collection and recycling.
Main function’? Sole function, surely. Would Cllr McColl expect Eshkol Regional Council in Israel to pass a motion banning Scottish goods if it were outraged by the actions of the Black Watch in Iraq? They would tell them to mind their own business.
We do on occasions hear motions from members of this type, although never before a boycott. For example, the Council has condemned the actions of China, Burmha [sic] and various other places and has twice since 2007 been successful in aiding Amnesty Internation [sic] to free political prisoners from such countries.
Yet more nobility. But how pathetic. Why not boycott China for its civil rights abuses, jailing dissidents, executing thousands, destroying Tibetan culture. Similarly Burma. And if you are going to say that WDC do not buy from Burma, well, how about another symbolic gesture?
Singling out Israel is immoral.
All I ask is that when you read this and other responses you might get from our Councillors, that you look at this issue objectively and try to see this from our point of view.
Er, yes – you feel that it is your duty to boycott one country and not the dozens of others whose actions are much worse and don’t have a neighbour lobbing missiles at them on a daily basis.
My Great Grandfather fought in WWII and was awarded the highest decoration an enlisted man can get in the British Army for his bravery on the battlefield in the fight against Hitler’s Nazis and being compared to such evil people is not only extremely hurtful, but the first time I read one of these emails, I was physically sick.
If you are one of the many many people who have been sending vile emails, please…I urge you to take a step back and consider your position from our point of view.
Well, I’ve covered this. Maybe Cllr McColl’s great grandfather fought in WWII and I honour and respect his memory and all those who fought against Nazism. The Councillor may recall that many Israelis’ grandparents and great grandparents and other relatives were murdered by the Nazis. The Councillor’s disgust does not excuse his support of a motion to boycott just one country above all others. Maybe his illustrious forbear would have had his own views on his great grandson’s judgement in this matter.
Any further threatening email received will be forwarded to the police.
Quite right.
So, in summary this whole matter is sheer hypocrisy. Only Israel is subjected to this default role as murderous aggressor despite the truth being the very opposite.
Oh yes, innocents died and mistakes were made. Tell me one army that doesn’t do so, especially given the circumstances.
It is the sheer arrogance and self-righteous indignation of this council which really stands out.
An indignation it accords to no other country in the same degree.
And WDC actually encourages the spread of its anti-Israel stance based on the reports of credulous journalists and the propaganda of terrorists.
This is a cross-post by Michael Ordman of Good News From Israel and shows the hypocrisy and ignorance of those who would, in their blindness and ideological zeal, boycott divest and sanction Israel. Note that this is not simply boycotting goods manufactured in the ‘occupied territories’ but ALL goods.
Following the decision of the West Dunbartonshire Council to boycott all goods produced in Israel, council workers now need to perform the following actions:-
1. Computers & Technology
Remove all Intel Pentium and Celeron computer processor chips from council personal computers (desktops, laptops and notebooks) as these were either developed or manufactured in Israel. Note that the revolutionary new Ivy Bridge processor will be manufactured in Israel.
Any computers that still work need to have their anti-virus software and personal firewalls removed as this technology originated in Israel. Any computers running the Windows XT operating system must be turned off immediately as this was developed in Israel. All current Microsoft operating systems are not to be used as Microsoft is heavily reliant on its Israel R&D centre.
The departmental firewall will also need to be switched off. Employees should no longer open external emails as most of these will be infected with viruses
No outgoing emails can be sent. The algorithm (code) that’s used today for sending e-mails, was made by an Israeli who worked at the Ben-Gurion University in Be’er-Sheva in 1980
Before accepting any printed material, check that the supplier has not used the Israeli device that might have saved up to 50% of the ink used.
At home, do not use Facebook as many in-built and add-on applications are Israeli-developed.
Do not watch videos on the Internet as the platform used to upload them may be from AOL and hence from an Israeli company.
Do not use Video On Demand (VOD) to watch movies as you may inadvertently see an advert displayed using Israeli software
Do not purchase any games devices as these are likely to use Israeli technology.
Do not read books using an e-book as this may contain Israeli technology.
Do not use data storage as it may have been developed at Israel’s storage technology R&D centre
Do not buy an electric car as it is likely to be powered with an Israeli battery or use Israeli developed charging mats
2. Phones & Voicemail
Discard all mobile phones, as this technology was developed in Israel, where the first mobile phones were manufactured. Mobile chip technology from a single Israeli company has now been installed in over 100 million devices.
Only department heads may retain mobile phones for emergency situations. However the use of SMS (Texting) is expressly forbidden as this facility was developed in Israel.
No 4G devices can be used as the chipset is Israeli.
Turn off your voice-mail service and delete any recorded messages. Israeli companies invented the voice-mail system.
If your call is not answered by someone you know, hang up. Israeli call-centres and call-centre technology is in widespread operation in the UK.
Do not use the Internet to search for answers to your questions as this may involve use of an Israeli-developed search engine. Better to remain unenlightened.
3. Food and Drink
Council restaurants and canteens must dispose of cherry tomatoes, which were developed in Israel. Employees must ensure that no cherry tomatoes are included in sandwiches brought into office premises.
The ban also applies to honey and any products derived from honey. Israel has developed solutions to the world-wide problem of bee-colony collapse, so that any products derived from bees might only be available now due to an Israeli invention.
Avoid drinking any of the world-recognised award-winning Israeli wines
No delicious home-made drinks from Israeli-manufactured household drinks machines
Avoid any fruit from South Africa or Peru as produce from these countries is being marketed with Israeli brand names
No agricultural products from the following areas must be consumed as they use water irrigation and agricultural technology provided directly from Israel.
Most of Africa
China
India
Indonesia (a Muslim country)
Nepal
Many others – please check.
Much fruit and vegetables (including organic) imported into the UK has been enhanced using Israeli technology. This saves millions of people from starving around the world but is not a good reason for you to eat it. For safety, only eat fruit and vegetables that you have grown yourself using seeds that have been in your family for generations.
4. Dealing With People
When interviewing prospective employees or holding meetings with members of the public or other organisations you must check that they have no association with the following countries and areas that have accepted aid from Israel. The council must avoid acknowledging Israel’s contribution to world relief. Also, any associated products from these areas may also have been contaminated by Israeli technology. These locations include:
The Congo (oil tanker fire disaster July 2010)
Angola (mines cleared by Israeli technology – July 2010)
Mississippi (bioremediation technique used to clean up after oil spills developed in Israel)
China (a major purchaser of Israeli technology, and recipient of medical aid and training)
South Africa (Israelis trained their doctors to perform circumcisions to prevent the spread of AIDS – July 2010)
Cameroon (opthalmologists from Haifa restored vision to patients and trained local medical teams in these procedures – Aug 2010)
Haiti (Israel set-up the largest field hospital to treat victims of the earthquake and hurricane and provided vital assistance for over a year)
Romania (Israeli doctors treated babies following fire at a neonatal unit – Sep 2010)
Ghana (receiving technological aid from Israel since 2006; Israel is now providing neonatal units to save many of the 4,800 babies that die each year)
Philippines (signed major trade agreement with Israel in Nov 2010)
The Maldives (although non-Islamic worship is banned here, Israeli eye-doctors performed free operations for citizens in Dec 2010)
Kenya (Israel’s Agency for International Development built a state-of-the-art Emergency Room in a hospital serving 6 million Kenyans in Jan 2011)
Uganda (Israeli solar-powered refrigerators were provided to store vaccines used to eliminate an outbreak of Polio from the country in Jan 2011)
Vietnam, whose milk industry is being totally transformed using high-yield Israeli cows (Feb 2011)
Chile, whose rescued miners were treated to a tour of Israel as part of their “Pilgrimage of Thanks” (Feb 2011)
New Zealand (Israel sent several rescue teams, temporary shelters and water purification systems following the Christchurch earthquake in Feb 2011)
Japan (As well as rescue teams, Israel supplied geiger counters and Israeli thermal imaging cameras are monitoring the reactor cores – Mar 2011)
Sri Lanka (Israel conducted a massive airlift with food, 50 medical staff and rescue teams only 48 hours after the Tsunami in Dec 2004)
India (Israel sent an fully-equipped field hospital following Gujarat earthquake in Feb 2001)
El Salvador (Israel relief aid following earthquake in 2001)
Georgia (Israel contributed food and seeds for farmers following severe drought in 2001)
Turkey (Israel relief aid following earthquake in 2000)
Mozambique ((Israel relief aid following floods in 2000)
Colombia (Israel sent medical aid and food following earthquake in 1999)
Venezuela (President Chavez has forgotten Israel’s aid following floods of 1999)
Central America (Israel sent emergency medical aid teams and equipment to help victims of Hurricane Mitch in 1998)
Pakistan (2005) and Peru (2007) both accepted aid from Israeli NGOs following earthquake disasters.
Peru’s hydo-electric power plants are also being built and run by an Israeli company.
Rawanda, Mexico, Chad, Sudan (Darfur) and Malawi all have received medical assistance from Israel’s NGO IsraAID.
5. Health
Destroy all personal medication. Many medicines will have been manufactured by Israel’s Teva Pharmaceuticals, the largest generic drugs company in the world.
AIDS and HIV suffers note that AZT and Hypericin-based drugs have all have been developed or improved following research at Israel’s Weizmann Institute or Hebrew University; also a treatment that destroy HIV-infected cells without damaging healthy ones
Diabeties sufferers – Israeli scientists have developed new devices for measuring and injecting Insulin
Multiple Sclerosis -Copaxone – one of the most efficient medicines and the only non interferon agent, was developed by Teva
Myeloma – the drug Velcade was developed over a period of 30 years by scientists at Haifa
Emphasema – avoid the Israeli protein replacement therapy
Check all vaccines as many of these have been developed in Israel.
Ensure that all X-rays do carry a radiation risk, as the only radiation-free system is Israeli
Do not use Epilady (or epilator) – this hair removal device was invented by two Israelis
Ensure any colonoscopy or gastro investigation does not use internal Israeli cameras such as the Pillcam.
Do not protect babies and infants from Sudden Infant Death Syndrome with the Babysense system from Israel.
Do not undergo surgery to install an artificial heart, as the first artificial heart transplant took place in Israel.
Sufferers of Parkinsons must avoid the brain pacemaker – pioneered in Israel to stop tremors. Also Levodopa to reduce motor disturbances. Or magnetic cortex stimulation
Do not take any form of medication to combat cancer. Israeli scientists have been developing treatments in this area for decades. Full list available on request.
Kidney transplants must only use kidneys from donors of the same blood group. Israel’s revolutionary new methods allow donors from other blood groups.
Treatments derived from Stem Cell research must be avoided as most of this is Israeli-developed
If you or your family are struck with a bacteria infection, do not take alternatives to older, ineffective bacteria-resistant antibiotics as an Israeli discovery will have been responsible for the modern, effective drugs.
Epileptics must avoid any treatment that may have benefited from the Israeli discovery of the underlying mutant gene.
Employees of Arab origin must not make use of the only database for matching potential Arab donors of bone-marrow – in Israel.
Check that any pain relief medication is not based on soya as an Israeli doctor discovered the beneficial effect of the soya bean.
Before any surgery or medical tests, check that hospital catheters have not been protected from infection using the new plastic from Israel that disables micro-organisms
Sufferers of sleep apnea must avoid tests using the breakthrough Israeli device for diagnosis.
Employees with a family history of heart disease and arteriosclerosis must not use the Israeli device for early detection of these.
Sufferers or relatives of sufferers of the eye disease Age-related Macular Degeneration must not use Israeli implants to arrest the disease.
Avoid throat surgery as this may utilise Israeli surgical lasers.
In the event of a spinal injury or disease, do not accept spinal implants – likely to be an Israeli product or development.
Heart rhythm problems must not be solved with the Israeli-developed heart pulse generator.
Any incident of stroke or head trauma or onset of Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, MS, epilepsy, glaucoma or brain tumour must avoid using any of the Weizmann Institute’s patented methods of treatment.
Do not use the revolutionary new Israeli bandage that saved Arizona senator Gabriella Giffords after she was shot in the head.
Do not allow dyslexics to benefit from the Israeli Internet-based reading system.
Sufferers from liver disease must avoid using the Israeli-developed antibody immunotherapy treatment.
All heart stents are off-limits as most of these originate from Israeli medical companies
If you break a bone badly, reject any treatment that involves introducing collagen, as this may have been manufactured from Israeli plants.
Reject all dental treatment as your teeth may need to be scanned with an Israeli-developed dental scanner
Treat skin allergies only with steroid creams as the new safer non-steroid alternative is Israeli
6. Other impacts of the boycott:
Reject all products from the USA. Analysis conducted in a typical US state shows that Israeli innovations were responsible for $2.4 billion in direct revenue to its economy in 2009 and generated nearly 6,000 jobs.
Do not tutor your children in advanced Mathematics techniques which may have originated in Israel. Also, if these techniques are used in your children’s schools, withdraw your children immediately.
Keen ornithologists should consider giving up their hobby as many rare species stop off or reside in Israel during their twice-yearly migration.
Avoid going to any football matches featuring teams with Israeli players.
Destroy all your recordings of Madonna, Bob Dylan, Simon & Garfunkel, Deep Purple, Bon Jovie, Justin Bieber, George Benson, Moby and many, many more artists who have ridiculed the stupid and illogical boycott and have proudly performed (or will shortly perform) concerts in Israel.
Destroy any recordings of U2, Lady Gaga, Beyonce, Bruce Springsteen, Beck, Rihanna Coldplay and any artist whose music has been recorded using the sound technology of the Grammy Award winning Israeli company Wave Audio. You also must get rid of any personal copies of Shrek, American Beauty and Star Wars. Do not trust anything recorded by Sony, JVC, Toshiba or Dell.
Don’t go to see “The Black Swan” with Natalie Portman, or watch any old films with Elizabeth Taylor – both lovers of the Jewish State.
Do not stay in hotels or visit shopping centres owned by Israeli companies (sorry, you will need to check which ones yourself).
Do not have anything to do with the banks who are using Israeli software to prevent fraud.
Do not use any Credit or Debit card as the Security monitoring system used by the Credit companies is likely to be Israeli.
Do not buy an engagement ring containing a diamond as it is possible that this may have been cut in Israel.
Do not travel by air as your plane might be towed by the Israeli-built “Taxibot”.
Do not use public transport inside Amsterdam, Moscow or Northern China in case you benefit from Israeli transportation devices.
If you suffer a power or network failure, be grateful that at least you haven’t installed the Israeli system that prevents power outages.
Finally, you need to leave all your taps running when you leave home and must never flush your toilet, because Israel provides water-saving technology to over half of the planet. It also is providing sewage treatment technology across the world, including to the UK.
Seriously, let’s hope that the idiotic decision by West Dumbartonshire Council to boycott of Israeli products is flushed down the toilet of history.
I eagerly await the UN’s enquiry into the violent suppression of the popular demonstrations in Libya.
According to the latest reports there was what has been characterised as a ‘massacre’ by the BBC in Benghazi. At least 200 protesters have been killed.
But not just killed but executed by snipers with deliberately lethal shots to the head and heart.
As we know, the UN was very keen to demand a rapid enquiry into Israel’s interception of a so-called humanitarian flotilla intent on breaking Israel’s maritime blockade of the Gaza Strip. Nine ‘activists’ were killed, eight of whom were associated with the IHH, an Islamist organisation with close links to Hamas and the Muslim Brotherhood.
In this incident Israeli commandos boarded the lead ship, the Mavi Marmara, where they were subject to a prepared attack by a mob wielding iron bars, knives, and, apparently, at least one firearm. In an act of self-defence the Israelis shot and killed 9 activists at close quarters. Several were reported to have been shot in the head.
The world was up in arms that such ‘unarmed’ humanitarians were ‘attacked’ by Israeli soldiers.
I have already written about this incident and a recent report by the Israeli Turkel commission exonerated the IDF. A Turkish report was also produced which came to a completely opposite conclusion that the deaths were deliberate; an absurdity quite happily accepted by the Muslim world.
Israel faced worldwide condemnation, and pressure was brought to ease the embargo of goods entering Gaza.
Let’s remind ourselves that even if you take the worst view of this incident, Israel killed 9 activists protesting against Israel’s policy in Gaza.
Yet, in Libya, we already have at least 300 casualties, killed for protesting about the policies of their own government, killed deliberately, not in a physical struggle, but at distance by snipers. Killed by their own government for having the audacity to want freedom and democracy.
How much worse is the action of the Libyans in Benghazi and elsewhere than the actions of Israel even interpreted at its worst?
By any system of logic and fairness or consistency the UN must require that Libya immediately investigate these killings. And while they are at it, maybe they can ask the Egyptians to investigate more than 300 deaths or the Bahrainis to investigate the live ammunition used against its citizens, killing several.
The test of a UN that is not biased and is not obsessed with demonising Israel, initiating resolutions and investigations into every state action, would be for there to be equal treatment of the egregious actions of Arab governments.
The UN Human Rights Council has condemned Libya, Bahrain and Yemen, but what actions will they actually take?
In the UK and elsewhere, will academics break of contact with their counterparts in Arab countries whose governments suppress their people with such ruthlessness?
Will Trades Unions vote to divest from these same countries and to cut off co-operation with their fellow unionists?
Those who tell us Israel is not treated differently from other countries and is not held to higher standards, now have their chance to prove it.
UPDATE The speed of events in Libya may well mean that there is nothing left of the Gadaffi regime before too long. (22.00 20 Feb 11)
How often have we heard from anti-Israel voices in the US that their tax dollars are ‘paying for this’ followed by images of dead babies and bulldozed homes etc.
Not long ago ynetnews.com published an interesting story about Israeli investment in Massachusetts bringing employment and wealth generation.
Headlined: Study: Israeli innovation contributes $2.4B to Massachusetts economy the article continues with some revealing facts; and remember, this is just in one state of the Union.
A groundbreaking study released recently at the New England-Israel Business Council’s 2010 Life Sciences Summit at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts revealed the scope and impact of Israeli related businesses on the Massachusetts economy.
The new study, “The Massachusetts-Israel Economic Relationship,” conducted by Stax Inc., an independent global strategy consulting firm, shows the impact of Israeli innovation and entrepreneurship on the Commonwealth’s economy, and underscores the importance of Israeli relations to the state, especially in the area of life sciences and high-tech.
Highlights of the study include:
• Nearly 100 companies in Massachusetts are founded by Israelis or offer products based on Israeli technology.
• These businesses generated $2.4 billion in direct revenue in Massachusetts in 2009.
• In total, the direct and indirect revenue impact on the Massachusetts economy was $7.8 billion.
• From an employment perspective, these businesses directly generated 5,920 jobs in Massachusetts.
• Some 50% of these businesses focus on information technology, 29% are in life sciences, and the remainder in other industries.
Israeli entrepreneurs chose Massachusetts over other US destinations to launch or grow their enterprises due to the deep talent pool of educated workers, the opportunity to be part of an industry cluster, world class universities and outstanding business infrastructure.
Israel has become one of the world’s leading business start-up innovators in a wide range of markets.
Yair Shiran, Israel’s economic minister to North America. “Israel has been called the ‘start-up nation’ for its success in new business innovation. When Israeli entrepreneurs look to globalize, they seek out places where there is an abundant workforce with higher education degrees, strong industry clusters, and a track record of new technologies becoming successful businesses.”
It is informative to read the whole article.
In an atmosphere where Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) is fouling the economic and academic waters, those who support such moves for ideological reasons might find that their supposed ethical stance is actually hurting them and, potentially, their own country.
If this is possible in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, imagine what little Israel and its 7m citizens could be capable of in an atmosphere free of existential threat and where Israeli shekels and US dollars can truly beat swords into ploughshares for the common good and not just in the US.
