In this mailing:
by Malcolm Lowe
• July 7, 2015 at 5:00 am
- Most boycotters
have no commitment to fairness and regard the idea with derision.
Against them, one has to use tactics that fall under the rubric
"this is going to hurt you more than us." Anti-boycott
operations have used this approach sporadically with remarkable
success. But the approach needs to be conceived more systematically
and implemented far more widely.
- Such strategies
can be summarized under at least four headings: lawfare,
counter-boycotts, digging up dirt and self-harming. On the other hand,
some Israeli ministerial decisions inadvertently facilitate boycotts;
this area, too, needs to be considered.
- What nobody
involved has noticed is that to get Israel's natural gas flowing to
Europe may contribute more to combating BDS than everything else
together. But that prospect has been deferred to the indefinite
future.
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Although efforts to boycott Israel have had some
success in academia and in mainline Protestant churches, Western
political leaders are mostly opposed. Martin Schulz (L), President of the
European Parliament, says: "The EU has no intention to boycott
Israel. I am of the conviction that what we need is more cooperation, not
division." Sajid Javid (R), the British Secretary of State for
Business, Innovation and Skills, says: "My department will be
working hard to boost Anglo-Israeli trade and investment, and I as
Business Secretary will do anything I can to support and promote it."
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Recently, anxiety sprang up in Israel over anti-Israel boycotts.
Ministers met, sessions were held at the Knesset, and commentators
pontificated. Yet the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement against
Israel is a decade old. Moreover, the excitement was provoked mainly by two
high-profile incidents, the FIFA and Orange affairs, which were resolved in
Israel's favour.
Nothing, in fact, has greatly changed in the overall situation. As
before, some petty boycotts have succeeded, major boycotts have failed, and
Israel's relations with the rest of the world continue to expand -- for
now.
by Burak Bekdil
• July 7, 2015 at 4:00 am
- Turkey boldly
challenged its Western allies to join them in a fight against terror.
But the target was not al-Qaeda or ISIS. Instead, Turkey wanted the
West to fight the "terrorist state, Israel."
- One of
Erdogan's favorite statements is his famous line, "There is no
Islamic terror."
- Why are these
terrorists terrorizing? What is the ideology they are fighting for?
Are they fighting to impose onto others by force the laws stipulated in
Christian, Jewish, Hindu or Shintoist holy books? If their acts of
terror are not related to Islam, what are they related to?
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Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan (then prime
minister) cries over the death of a teenage Egyptian Islamist activist
during a televised interview in 2013. (Image source: Cihan video
screenshot)
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Turkey's Islamist government, now squeezed in a political drama in
which it lost its parliamentary majority for the first time since 2002, has
in many recent years boldly challenged its Western allies by calling them
to join an allied fight against terror. But the target was not al-Qaeda, or
the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) or one of the dozens of
different Islamist groups designated by the civilized world as terrorist.
Instead, Turkey wanted the West to fight the "terrorist state,
Israel."
Turkey's Islamist rulers have a deeply corrupted perception of which acts
count for terror and which ones do not: Anyone who kills in the name of a
cause other than Islamism is probably a terrorist.
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