Palestinian workers, unions don’t support BDS campaign

[Mosby]

In an extraordinary series of blog postings, British trade unionists visiting Israel and Palestine have learned that Palestinian workers and their unions are not enthusiastic supporters of the campaign for boycotts, divestments and sanctions (BDS) targetting Israel.

In fact, they were told bluntly that the BDS campaign is bad news for Palestinians.

USDAW National Executive member Mike Dixon wrote:

“There was a discussion about the boycott and it is clear that Palestinians don’t want it – all they want is equal pay and a living.”

http://www.tuliponline.org/?p=1053

[LeftishBrit]

1. Interesting item.

The following is an interesting site:

www.tufi.org.uk

[Ken Burch]

2. Then again, conservative journalists visiting South Africa in the 1980's

Always had trouble finding any black people who supported the boycott against apartheid exports(without mentioning, of course, that expressing such support to a foreign newspaper reporter would get you arrested and possibly killed).

[Kurska]

3. HAHAHAH Oh god, you think expressing support for the boycott in Israel would get you killed?

Do you have ANY evidence to back that up, a single solitary example of a Palestinian getting killed for supporting the boycott.

OF COURSE NOT.

Just like you always don't.

[Ken Burch]

4. I wasn't saying it would get you killed in Israel

That was in reference to South Africa.

It would, likely, get you arrested though. And you would probably get your ass kicked while in custody.

The point is, while the IDF is there, you can't really expect people to express their opinions freely on that. So the claim that Palestinian workers don't support the boycott doesn't really mean anything.

[pelsar]

6. speechless...you just make up this stuff....pure imagination....nothing less

supporting a boycott in israel will likely get you arrested?....jesus christ......its rather difficult to keep up with such a wild imagination..i doubt you have anything....anything to back this up....

[Ken Burch]

8. Why is that such an outlandish thought?

Israel has repeatedly banned political parties(Kach was the only party that ever deserved banning, the Progressive List for Peace and Freedom didn't, and no other party there has).

They wouldn't let Norman Finklestein back in, and the last time he wanted to go, he was just going to visit a friend and wouldn't have done anything political.

This is not a country of democratic purity, especially when the Arab minority or dissidents are involved.

You can't honestly say that a Palestinian could tell a foreign newspaper that he supported the BDS campaign and not face retribution.

The inmates of the West Bank do not have free speech.

[oberliner]

10. Israel has not "repeatedly banned political parties"

In fact, Israel has never banned any political party other than Kach (which, as you have stated, deserved to be banned).

Any attempts to ban any other political party (including the PLP) were prevented by the Israeli Supreme Court.

Residents of the West Bank freely criticize Israel and regularly make such statements to foreign newspapers and face no "retribution" for doing so.

[Violet_Crumble]

11. Yr incorrect. The Central Elections Committee has banned parties repeatedly...

It wasn't an attempt to ban parties, as they were actually banned by the central elections committee, and were only reinstated by the Surpreme Court on appeal.

[oberliner]

12. Thks fr the correction

[Ken Burch]

17. There was never any justification to even attempt to ban the PLP

It advocated equality and democracy for everyone in Israel and Palestine.

[oberliner]

18. I don't disagree with you

However, I still dispute your claim that any Palestinian who spoke in support of boycotting Israel to an outside news source would be arrested in retribution.

Do you have any evidence to support that claim?

[Ken Burch]

21. It's a reasonable surmise, given the way the IDF has treated even Palestinians

who marched peacefully against the Occupation and the settlements.

The government has never rewarded those Palestinians who protested nonviolently instead of using violence. And other then the heroes like B'Tselem, Gideon Levy, Amira Hass and Uri Avnery, you almost never hear Israelis denouncing the stupidity of using violence against the nonviolent.

[oberliner]

22. But there is ample evidence of Palestinians speaking out against Israel in the media

Even specifically speaking about boycott and divestment.

I just don't think it is accurate to claim Palestinians are unable to make statements to outside media sources of the nature described.

I think the evidence shows that they have done so and there has not been the sort of retribution you suggested.

[pelsar]

13. on what planet do you live?

the Palestinians, israeli arabs/jews, druze, bedouin constantly criticize the israel govt.....every chance they get....

as far as the residents of the westbank goes....your right they don't have free speech, when it comes to the PA....in regards to israel....they get to scream about the govt and unions as much as they like and nothing will happen.

so tell me.....where do you get this stuff from?..i keep asking and you never seem to tell me......

[Kurska]

15. Hey now, be careful how you phrase that.

You make it sound like every Arab, Druze and Bedouin criticize the Israeli government every chance that get. Many are completely supportive citizens who not only vote for the party currently in power, but serve their country in the military to protect that same government.

[Ken Burch]

16. NONE, however, supported Operation Cast Lead

or the continued occupation of the West Bank. None support, or will ever support, the settlements.

[pelsar]

20. osh...again....please please go and learn, read...

many many of the bedouin and druze very much supported the invasion of gaza......and many support the settlements......(do you even know that the druze and bedouin are not arabs as per the Palestinians?)

i keep on asking ...why do you believe you know whats going on out here?..where does your psudo knowledge come from?

[pelsar]

19. but they/we do....criticize the govt....

and serve......the most interesting was a few years ago. The arab town of um el fahem, they we're being very very vocal in their opposition to the israeli govt and its policies ...among other things they had a protest and the police killed 6 kids there....

during this period, when there was a discussion of a land swap with the PA for the settlements, some suggested that um el fahem be part of that trade.....needless to say, the protests were loud and clear from umm el fahem, there was no way they were going to join the PA. I think a poll had something like 90% said they were staying in israel.

but they still yell alot about the policies....at the sametime they 're encouraging israeli tourism to visit so they've reduced it a bit...

[shira]

26. don't mention the Palestinians of Um El Fahm not wanting the PA to absorb them...inconvenient truth

oh, and they're not really Palestinians either - they don't count see - they're just Israeli Arabs with family in the W.Bank and Gaza and since they don't spew the usual Hamas/Fatah line, their opinions don't count because they're obviously rightwingers.

[oberliner]

14. Interview: Boycotting Israel at the Arab American University in Jenin

Ashraf is from Tulkarem, Palestine. He graduated from the Arab American University in Jenin (www.aauj.edu ) in the summer of 2007 with a degree in computer information technology. With the student group Green Resistance at his university, he organized a successful boycott campaign which saw Israeli products banned from the campus.

In this interview, Ashraf talks about boycotts as a highly effective tool of non-violent resistance against the occupation, and also reflects on the campaign as part of an international campaign of Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israeli apartheid.

Interview conducted by Aaron Lakoff in Ramallah, Palestine on April 19, 2008.

http://www.imemc.org/index.php?obj_id=53&story_id=54520

[Violet_Crumble]

5. That site sounds a bit dodgy to me...The President of the AWU opposing boycotting?

I'm calling bullshit on that one. Unless he only opposes boycotts when it comes to Israel, which makes him anti-Israel as he's singling out Israel and treating it different to how he would other countries

on edit - I didn't think we were allowed to start OPs with blog entries. Do you have a link to this from a news source or is this blog the only place it appears?

[Mosby]

7. did you click on the "about" link?

I'm not familiar with any of them:

Trade union leaders from three continents have announced the launch of a new global movement “to challenge the apologists for Hamas and Hizbollah in the labour movement” and to fight for a two-state solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

The movement is called TULIP – Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine.

The leaders are Paul Howes, national secretary of the Australian Workers Union, Stuart Appelbaum, President of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union (USA), and Michael J. Leahy, OBE, General Secretary of Community (United Kingdom).

A major article published today in The Australian sets out the case for the launch of TULIP. Read it in full here.

They have issued a founding statement and invite those who agree with it to join TULIP online.

[Violet_Crumble]

9. I did. That's where I spotted the AWU connection...

Looks like this is something set up by 'supporters' of Israel to peddle their agenda, and having a closer look at that blog, entries where they chide Palestinian journalists and about how UNRWA is dissappointed by a Palestinian workers strike, while being all warm and fuzzy about anything to do with Israel or Israeli unions, my suspicions about the agenda of this blog have been confirmed. Glad I'm not a member of the AWU or I'd be getting in touch with Mr Howes and demanding to know why my union is suddenly opposed to boycotts - after all, wouldn't it be wrong of him to single out Israel for different treatment than the AWU would give other countries?

on edit - Not being the union I'm in, I had to go do some googling to discover that this isn't sudden on the part of the AWU - there's sprinklings of that sort of thing buried deep in their archives, and the AWU's opposition to boycotting is one where Israel is singled out for different treatment, as the AWU has participated and led other boycotts over the years...

[bstender]

31. you smelled a rat, then found a rat, well done!

[azurnoir]

23. Odd you did not include all that was said concerning

the meeting in Nablus, only the quite cherry picked part

After two days talking to various ministers and trade union officials I was excited and positive at what I had heard. Today (Wednesday 4 November) we had meetings with Palestinians in Nablus: some positive things came out, but overall I was disappointed with a top official when this person called her neighbours the “enemy” and the meeting got a bit tasty shall we say. I wonder if she should be in that job as she came across as very bitter.

There was a discussion about the boycott and it is clear that Palestinians don’t want it – all they want is equal pay and a living.

http://www.tufi.org.uk/delegation-blog /

then on to a hand wringing session about the horrors endured by the citizens Sderot, guess they didn't bother with Gaza

I do not find his conclusions believable given the quite obvious bias of the writer

[Mosby]

24. I excerpted almost half of the blog post I linked to

not sure how that can be cherry picking.

[azurnoir]

25. what was left out was most of what was said concerning Nablus

which is where the title subject of your post took place

[oberliner]

27. The first four paragraphs were excerpted with nothing omitted from them

That is pretty standard practice, isn't it?

[azurnoir]

28. Yes it is quite standard

however the premise of the post was one line that had to be accessed through multiple links to see in context of the meeting, is that standard also

[shira]

29. Europe and the US will never divest from Israel

JG: Go to one final thing, something that struck me when I was reading this book. You have a boycott movement in Europe, but in the U.S., too, you have forces that want to delegitimize Israel. I realized in reading this that it would be quite something to go tell Intel or Google or IBM to divest from Israel.

DS: They'll never do it. I mean, it's impossible. What various companies told us is that if they had to shut down operations in India tomorrow, they could survive because it's basically a lot of outsourcing and a lot of call centers. They said if we had to shut down our operations in Ireland, we could survive. But what one person after another told us is that the one place in the world that would devastating for them to have shut down would be Israel, because they put so much of their mission-critical work and R&D in Israel. The Intel story we tell is amazing, this key chip that was central to Intel taking off was designed and then manufactured in Israel, so it would be devastating to these companies to lose Israel. And one more thing -- the most interesting data point on all of this is that European venture capitalists invest more in Israel than they do in any single European economy.

JG: Is that true?

DS: Yes and, to me, that says it all. For all the ranting from Europe about boycotts and attempts at boycotts, that's not what European capital is doing. In terms of the U.S., this is even more true. I don't want to oversimplify, but who do think is more important to Barack Obama: The head of J Street or Eric Schmidt at Google? And if Eric Schmidt said that his company would be devastated if Israel came off-line -- and we interviewed Schmidt and he talked about the importance of Israel -- then I think I know the answer.

http://jeffreygoldberg.theatlantic.com/archives/2009/11...

[bstender]

30. masturbation

Boycotts are bad for business, no business will go along with a boycott until the noise from the street forces its way in to the boardroom. US business is the biggest, and consequently the most tone-deaf in the world. South Africa seemed would never make it to the front pages. but they all fell in line and over themselves to prove their commitment to human rights in the end, (being on the wrong side of human rights is bad for business).

and this article reads like an anti-semitic parody. the notion that Israeli intelligence is of such a special nature that without it world business would be crippled is embarrassingly public masturbation. If they cared to use their own smug intellects, they should assume that the intelligent people will be long gone well before this tragedy plays itself out.