The Truth Behind the Left’s Boycott Against “Settlements”

The hysteria of Israel’s radical Left in light of the new anti-boycott law is growing by the hour.

The problem with Israeli leftists is that they are anti-democratic and know they can never persuade the public to pursue leftist policies using the democratic process. There would be nothing wrong with leftists trying to convince the public using democratic means and persuasion that settlements are awful and must be removed. If the Left persuades enough people, they will elect a parliament that will implement the Left’s agenda.

The problem is that the vast majority of the public rejects the Left’s agenda and supports the continued development of “settlements” and other Israeli institutions in the West Bank, including Ariel University. Because the Left is incapable of persuading more than a few percent of Israelis, the Left pursues its agenda using coercive anti-democratic means, by organizing boycotts against West Bank Jews
and demonizing them. This is a fundamentally anti-democratic tactic and shows the real nature of Israel’s increasingly fascist far leftists.

In addition, those who boycott West Bank “settlements” are anti-Jewish bigots. How do we know this? Because they are not promoting the boycott of Israeli enterprises in the West Bank, but only of Jewish enterprises. If some Arab entrepreneurs in Nazareth or Haifa were to set up factories or hire people in the West Bank, none of the bleeding heart leftist boycotters would propose that THOSE be boycotted. Or
take the idea one step further. The Arab fascist Knesset Member Ahmed Tibi has Israeli citizenship. He also owns a residence in East Jerusalem, outside the “1967 Green Line.” (Hat tip – Hagai Segel in Makor Rishon.) Not a single leftist is calling for Tibi to be boycotted because of this. Why not? If the boycott is against all Israeli presence outside the Green Line, Tibi is as deserving of being boycotted as anyone else. In fact he sits in the Israeli parliament!

The answer of course is that the boycott is directed against Jews, not against Israelis. It is racist and bigoted and that is why the anti-boycott bill is justified, much like any law against discrimination.

There is another ironic twist to the leftists and their boycott against “settlements.” While intending only to harm Jews, the main victims of such boycotts are likely to be West Bank “Palestinians.” The enterprises operating in the West Bank that the Left wants boycotted employ thousands of “Palestinians,” paying them wages at least three times what they can earn in regular Palestinian jobs working for Palestinians. And Ariel University has lots of Palestinian students, I think between 10 and 15 percent of its student body. So if the leftists get their way, they will be inflicting serious damages on their beloved “Palestinians.”

While the Left is wetting itself over the anti-boycott law and insisting that boycotts are legitimate and democratic, Amnon Lord, writing in Makor Rishon, has an interesting anecdote.

It seems that a few years back, the Israeli government decided to prohibit Israeli drivers from getting their cars fixed in the West Bank. The garages there are cheaper but there were too many terrorist attacks against the traffic of Israelis going there for tune-ups. So, out of security concerns, it was prohibited for drivers to go there.

The Left had conniptions. Led by Uri Avnery, the father of Israeli anti-Zionism (and a one-time supporter of Nazism before World War II), the Left screamed that this boycott of West Bank garages was a racist reincarnation of Nazi German boycotts of Jewish shops. This is the same Avnery, and these are the same leftist moonbats, now bellowing that prohibiting boycotts against settlers is fascist and anti-democratic.

  • http://www.boycottscotland.com Edward

    "F" the Left.

    • http://karmafishies.blogspot.com Karmafish

      Nicely said.

      Well put.

  • judy

    Time to start interring leftist traitors who support the enemy in times of war

  • JJJ

    I'm sorry, am i supposed to listen to these bleating idiots?

    Who can take their 'arguments" as legitimate? To me, a desire to boycott is one of the increasing number of signals that here is a person who is a fascist idiot who hates jews, democracy and the entire western world.
    take away their tenure!!

  • SHmuelHaLevi

    Excellent article and a clear review of the true nature of the so called israeli "left. Basically the most aggresive ones are unJews at the service and in partnership with their proxies. Islamics. They have chosen as partners the worst, the most virulent enemies of the Jewish people.
    Nothing to do with human rights which are not in the least quoted by them regarding whole families slaughtered by the islamic monsters they are as one with.
    Those elements must face real justice for the enormity of their crimes.
    Only NEWLY ELECTED COURTS can do that.

  • montlasky

    The anti semitic Jews on the left of the spectrum are clearly defined in a book by Steven Plaut :The Jewish enablers of Anti Semitism. This “expose” makes understanding the Jewish left easier to understand but not easier to bear!

  • Tziona

    While I can believe that Helmut Ostermann (A.k.a. Uri Avneri) did align himself with Nazi ideology after the fact, do you (Steve) have some documentation for your claim he supported the Nazis? His family left Germany in 1933 when he was only five, and he would have been only 11 when the war actually broke out.

    Though I despise Avneri and his fellow travellers, unsupported sweeping statements about individuals do not help our cause.

  • g_jochnowitz

    In 2004, the Presbyterian Chruch voted to divest from Israel: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presbyterian_Church_
    They have reconsidered their decision, but that's when it all started. Ever since then, Israel has been the target of boycotts and divestments.
    Monkey sees, monkey does.
    Monkey buys a pair of gloves.

  • Jay

    So "Joe" and his friends want to conduct ethnic cleansing of the Jews of the West Bank, but HE insists it is the Jews who are racists!

  • Bracha
  • Bracha

    PS – Tziona has Avnery's birth date wrong – he is 10 years older than what she wrote

    • Tziona

      My bad. Well 5 years earlier, I had thought he was born around the same time as my father z"l, Sept 1928, but you're right it was earlier, Sept 1923. So he would have been 17 when the war broke out in 1939. I stand corrected.

  • Cynic

    Joe wrote
    “Just because you can write a complete sentence doesn’t mean you make sense. ”

    A case of the pot calling the kettle ….?

  • whitesheperd

    Enemies of Israel in America….Geroge Soro's the Godfather….Hillary Clinton..his first love…..Huma Weiner..the Arab Sping stooge….Obama and Holder who just HATE Jews

  • Freedom John

    Israel has one the same problems that they share with America. People on the far left that want to destroy the country and everything and anything that "they" disagree with and don't consider "fair" regardless if it's "just" or not. But the problem with that is they have nothing of value to replace it with, they only want it's destruction. I'm know I'm personally tired of Americans who hate America and I'm equally tired of Israelis that hate Israel.

  • StephenD

    The fact is that if Israel were able to control the entire area all these settlement issues would be moot in that Arabs would be/are welcome into Israeli neighborhoods as citizens. Unlike the BALANCE of the ARAB WORLD where Jews are NOT WELCOME. So WHO is the racist?? Boycotting Israeli businesses will ultimately hurt the individual "Palestinian" who gets gainful employment from these companies. But no one ever accused the left of concern of the means to an end, the END justifies the means to them.

  • Ben

    Freedom John! It`s a pity but" the people on the far left" in both countries are Jews! That`s a cause of many troubles.

    • http://www.boycottscotland.com Edward

      Some are Jews Ben.

      Perhaps you think the Presbyterian Church consist of Jews too?

  • Bracha

    Jewish leftist anti-Semites are the worst enemies of Jews.

  • Ben Dauphin

    The Left has so little support in Israel that they must count on their colleagues in the international left to protest against the anti-boycott law.

    Interestingly, the Financial Times also editorialized against the law — a law approved by a democratically elected Knesset and which affects only Israelis. They see no contradiction in condemning Israeli "occupation" and "settlements", while Britain itself continues its occupation and settlements in Gibraltar, the Fauklands/Malvinas, and Ulster Province in Northern Ireland.

    • http://www.boycottscotland.com Edward

      And the Carribean, Australia, New Zealand…

  • jacjon

    Wow….this is like shooting fish in a barrel. Anti-semetic Jews hating…errr …what was it again….oh yeah…..anti-semetic Jews. No wonder the world looks on in dismay.
    Wow

    • Tziona

      What does semetic mean? I know what Semitic is, it means pertaining to Semites (particularly Jews); so semetic must mean pertaining to semets. What's a semet?

  • MixMChess

    Has anyone seen this video? Good explanation of the historical record:
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XGYxLWUKwWo&fe

  • Zipory

    Uri Avneri has been and still is an icon to the radical left in Israel and one of the worst enemies of Israel living in Israel. I remember well he standing with Arafat in Ramallah and "protecting" from those "terrible" Israelis.

    Jew hating Jews is nothing new and unfortunately there are new ones being added to the list all the time. One of the most well known now is the New York Times Tom Friedman. It's amazing what these people won't do to promote themselves I guess for the proverbial "buck" and to be "loved" by that Israel hater B Hussein.

    Recently when radical left artists wanted to boycott Israeli settlements in Judea and Samaria they got their dose of reality. They'll stoop to the lowest levels of behavior and will cry for the poor Palestinian terrorists but ignore Jewish blood being spilled by them. The most viable example is the slaughter of the Fogel family from Itamar. Nothing about the Fogels from them but they came out in defense of those responsible for their deaths. These are disgusting people who are the fifth column in Israel and deserve to be dealt with in any and all ways.

    • http://www.boycottscotland.com Edward

      The best thing would have been that when Uri Avneri was sitting with fascist Arafat that a Hellfire missle would send them both to 72-virgin paradise.

      Arafat would of course prefer 72-virgin boys over his beard wife Suha who doesn't live with her people in "paleswine", but in Europe.

  • simon

    Subliterate Joe has a Joo problem – he hates dem Joos cause his pecker is so tiny.

    He also lost the subtle point that the Left regards East Jerusalem as a "settlement" and as "Palestinian" – making Tibi an Israeli "settler."

  • MixMChess

    "If Tibi were living in an East Jerusalem settlement or on land confiscated by Israelis in East Jerusalem then he would be boycotted."

    Huh? East Jerusalem has always been historically Jewish with Jewish majorities. Israel cannot confiscate historically Jewish land.