[skinster]

The former star of the BDS movement has a different opinion on the matter:

Finkelstein (and Chomsky) don't support BDS but that's okay. BDS is successful without their support, so much so that certain govts are trying to criminalize the non-violent movement that is only making BDS supporters feel like going harder in actions. A bit like what happens when Israel massacres Palestinians periodically. That's what I'm seeing from the response to these possible laws, that I'm curious how are even going to be enforced in the first place...

At least we're now at a point where zionists can admit that BDS is having an effect.

[Pongo]

Yes Owen jones the tories just hate democracy so much ...

Maybe we should boycott pakistan for its child rape epidemic, dumanizing laws against women and apostates, support of terrorism, nuclear proliferation etc etc.

Whos with me ethnic counsels of the UK?

..........

Local government and local counsels with a large Muslim population often try to push this sort of thing. On the margins they also set up schools which indoctrinate children with anti-Semitism. The government is right to tackle this hate teaching, culture wars crap.

It is not their place to push their external foreign policy goals on to the UK. This is another example of migrants bringing their shit with them and not integrating. Some pakistani born MP's actually had the gaul to go to pakistan and give speeches in support attacks on british troops in iraq.

Funny that Pakistanis use the human rights speak. Wouldn't believe Britain will have the courage to tell them to fuck off

[layman]

Muslim British like to put Muslim foreign policy agenda above the British one. No Big suprise there.

Of course many jews do the same for Israel ...

A Diaspora usually acts this way. The difference here is relative size/growth and cultural/political alignment.

[Pongo]

Right, but the Muslim community is much bigger and it's still growing and intimidating, the Jewish community on the other hand, is diminishing and many are fleeing. Wouldn't believe the British government will have the courage to stand with the smaller one, with its power and great days are behind it. Very impressive. What was the reason for decisive move?

[Rich]

Finkelstein (and Chomsky) don't support BDS

Are you sure about that? Maybe I parsed his words wrong but I thought he said he supports BDS, he just doesn't support BDSM. ie he supports the Boycott, disinvestment and sanction of companies, institutions and individuals involved in the West bank, he just doesn't support the movement or its leadership behind the campaign. As far as I can make out his main concern is that BDSM will alienate Jewish Israelis and doesn't camouflage its true aims well enough.

[skinster]

I don't know why you keep calling it BDSM, but it does make me laugh.

Either way, the point I was making was, who cares if certain people don't endorse the boycott. Someone posted a clip of Finkyrooski showing opposition to BDS as if it really matters. I like Finky, I've had dinner with him, he's a funny guy and has wrote some excellent books (read them), but it doesn't matter what he says about BDS if it's negative, that's just...like...his opinion..man.


Back on topic:

Campaigners: UK government procurement guidance is intimidation, not ‘ban’ on boycotts
The British government formally published Wednesday new guidance ostensibly intended to “stop inappropriate procurement boycotts by public authorities.”

While the Conservatives have presented the document as a way of protecting Israel from the growing Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign, activists say that the measures actually fall short of a ‘ban’ on boycotts.

According to the Cabinet Office press release, the guidance “makes clear that procurement boycotts by public authorities are inappropriate, outside where formal legal sanctions, embargoes and restrictions have been put in place by the government.”

The guidance impacts “all contracting authorities”, including “central government, executive agencies, non-departmental public bodies, the wider public sector, local authorities and NHS bodies.” A breach of the regulations could result in “severe penalties.”

The press release cites the World Trade Organisation (WTO) Government Procurement Agreement, which requires signatory states “to treat suppliers equally”, adding: “any discrimination against Israeli suppliers involving procurements would therefore be in breach of the Agreement.”

The full ‘Procurement Policy Note’ states its purpose as setting out “contracting authorities’ international obligations when letting public contracts.” These are existing obligations.

According to the government, the guidance “complements existing government guidance about trading or investing overseas (including with Israel), where we advise UK businesses to consider any potential legal and economic risks of doing so.”

This is a reference to a warning first published in 2013, and still in place, that “financial transactions, investments, purchases, procurements as well as other economic activities (including in services like tourism) in Israeli settlements or benefiting Israeli settlements, entail legal and economic risks.”

Responding to the publication of the guidance, the Palestinian BDS National Committee (BNC) said that “the new documents amount to an attempt to intimidate councils and universities but do not appear to introduce new legal obligations on public bodies.”

“Perhaps the public outrage over the governments attack on local democracy hit a nerve in Westminster because the document published today does not 'ban boycotts' in the way that the government announced it wanted to,” said Riya Hassan, the BNC’s Europe Campaigns Officer.

“We’re seeking further legal advice but it appears that it remains perfectly legal for councils and universities to take ethical stances that reflect the views of their communities and exclude companies that violate human rights or commit other forms of gross misconduct from tender exercises.”

Hassan added: “The tone and language in the documents published by the government is intended as a gift to Israel and is clearly designed to intimidate councils into falsely thinking that they are no longer allowed to exclude companies that violate human rights from tender exercises, making this a particularly underhand attack on local democracy.”

According to activists, campaigns urging universities and councils not to award contracts to those complicit in Israeli human rights abuses are based on the participation of the company in question in violations of international law, not because of its presence or connections to Israel.

The existing Public Contracts Regulations 2015, based on EU law, allows for companies to be excluded from tender exercises if they have committed “gross misconduct”, a provision that does not appear to have been changed.

The Conservative government is, however, also pursuing restrictions regarding public sector pension funds, which, the BNC stated “is expected to go much further in limiting powers of public bodies.”

More than 15,000 people have written to the government urging it not to give central government veto power over local council investment decisions as part of a campaign organised by a coalition of climate, anti-arms trade and Palestine campaigners.
https://www.middleeastmonitor.com/news/ ... n-boycotts

[danholo]

Either way, the point I was making was, who cares if certain people don't endorse the boycott. Someone posted a clip of Finkyrooski showing opposition to BDS as if it really matters. I like Finky, I've had dinner with him, he's a funny guy and has wrote some excellent books (read them), but it doesn't matter what he says about BDS if it's negative, that's just...like...his opinion..man.

Of course you have. I always found him brilliant and enjoy his rants and quick wit, although I don't always agree with his positions.

[skinster]

Of course you have.

And I'm guessing you would oppose Finkelstein's views, considering you coming to the defence of Israel here, the vast majority of the time.

[Pongo]

It took time, but finally the world is fighting against the antisemitic movement.

Exclusive: Main German bank closes top BDS-linked account -- The Jerusalem Post

There is a growing backlash against BDS in Germany.
The Munich-based DAB Bank is slated to discontinue the account of one of the top BDS campaign websites in Germany, the Jerusalem Post has learned.

The BDS-Kampagne [Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions Campaign] group’s website lists DAB Bank Munich as the financial institution for electronic money transfers.

The Post uncovered the DAB bank account for the BDS campaign website targeting Israel.

Dr. Jürgen Eikenbusch, the spokesman for DAB Bank Munich, wrote the Post by email on Tuesday: “Because of bank secrecy [financial laws] we cannot provide you with concrete information about the account. We took the information very seriously and are examining the topic and are taking, if necessary. the corresponding measures.”

DAB Munich is the German branch of its French mother company bank, BNP Paribas. French law outlaws BDS activity targeting the Jewish state.

It is unclear if action by BNP Paribas against the BDS-Kampagne account is connected to possible violations of French anti-BDS or anti-terrorism laws.

The BDS-Kampagne website promotes a “petition in support of the right to call for a boycott of Israeli goods in France.”

According to German bank law, the BDS-Kampagne will have 60 days to close its account and remove the DAB bank information from its website.

Energetic anti-Israel activist Doris Ghannam is listed on the BDS website as the holder of the DAB account. Asked by the Post via telephone on Monday about the closure of her DAB account, she insisted that the newspaper send her a written query, but declined to respond to the queries, including questions about BDS-Kampagne’s views of Hezbollah and Hamas, which are designated by the EU and US as terrorist organizations, and about the Iranian-backed al-Quds Day protests in Germany.

In 2014, BNP Paribas pleaded guilty to criminal charges for violating US sanctions against the Islamic Republic of Iran, Sudan and Cuba. BNP Paribas paid nearly $9 billion – a record financial penalty for a bank – to the US government because of its illicit activity.

Manhattan attorney Preet Bharara, who played a key role in prosecuting BNP Paribas, said at the time:”BNPP banked on never being held to account for its criminal support of countries and entities engaged in acts of terrorism and other atrocities, but that is exactly what we did today.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and the European Union officially oppose BDS.

Charlotte Knobloch, a Holocaust survivor who heads the Munich Jewish community, told the Post in November, “The BDS [Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions] campaign disguises the socially unacceptable ’Don’t buy from Jews!’ as a modernized form of Nazi jargon by demanding ‘Don’t buy from the Jewish State.’” The BDS-Kampagne website promotes and lists demonstrations in front of German department stores and supermarkets against Israeli products. Critics of BDS argue that the goal of the anti-Israel boycott movement mirrors the al-Quds day slogans to dismantle the Jewish state.

The website cites the 2005 Palestinian call to boycott Israel and its aim to return millions of Palestinians to Israel: “Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties.”

There is a growing backlash against BDS in Germany. The city council of Bayreuth rescinded on Tuesday its human rights and tolerance prize to the pro-BDS US group Code Pink.

In September the Commerzbank, Germany’s second largest bank, closed a pro- BDS account connected to the al-Quds day demonstration and annual marches in German cities calling for the destruction of Israel.

The bank “closed the account in September because of business conditions,” a spokesman told the Post in September.

The mass-circulation Berlin daily BZ published a piece by popular columnist Gunnar Schupelius in July titled, “Israel haters collect money through Commerzbank.”

The publicly-funded cultural center Bürgerhaus Weserterrassen in the northern Germany city of Bremen pulled the plug last month on a fringe BDS activist lecture.

http://m.jpost.com/International/Main-G ... dGRUE1RjE=

[AFAIK]

It's not just Israel that opposes BDS but also thousands of corporations, which are targeted for boycotts whenever their human rights and environmental records draw the attention of student unions, city councils and other institutions with purchasing power.

In 1996 the National Union of Students canceled a contract with Pepsi because of it's presence in Burma, after Pepsi withdrew from Burma many universities started boycotts of Coca cola for doing business in Nigeria. Clothing companies have had pressure put on them to improve labour conditions and some have lost contracts due to their shitty standards. Various retailers have been shamed for getting paper and cardboard supplied by companies that deforest indigenous lands. Oil companies have been boycotted for a variety of environmental and human rights abuses.
_________________

I'm not surprised that those who opposed apartheid in S Africa also oppose settler colonialism in the west bank and I don't see how this can be construed as anti-semitic. Is Nethanyahu a demi-god who dictates what is right and proper to all Jews? Or is Israel a democracy home to multiple citizens who oppose the occupation of Palestinian lands? You may as well argue that Adam Smith was anti-British because he argued that foreign countries should be sovereign and independent rather than colonies or that French revolutionaries were anti-French because they opposed monarchy.

[Pongo]

I'm not surprised that those who opposed apartheid in S Africa also oppose settler colonialism in the west bank and I don't see how this can be construed as anti-semitic.

BDS patrol in Germany

http://m.jpost.com/International/BDS-ac ... YwN0FBMzM=



Boycott guard in Nazi Germany. What is the difference? Could be the same people

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nazi_bo ... businesses

[Pisa]

Either way, the point I was making was, who cares if certain people don't endorse the boycott. Someone posted a clip of Finkyrooski showing opposition to BDS as if it really matters. I like Finky, I've had dinner with him, he's a funny guy and has wrote some excellent books (read them), but it doesn't matter what he says about BDS if it's negative, that's just...like...his opinion..man.

You read my posts. Aww....

Finky was not showing opposition to BDS, he just asked for a tad less sincerity about their true goals. He touched a sensitive nerve there, seeing how his BDS related income decreased from $40,000 to $3000.

That's like the opinion of an insider, intimately involved in the movement he criticizes for many years. Somewhat different from like the opinion of an outsider who never bothered checking facts on the ground. But hey, who am I to pretend that you have a fair and balanced view of the subject. That would be preposterous.

I'm not surprised that those who opposed apartheid in S Africa also oppose settler colonialism in the west bank and I don't see how this can be construed as anti-semitic.

Those who blindly repeat the "bad settlers bad Netanyahu bad colonialism" mantra, without any attempt to understand the roots of the conflict, without any attempt to put things into historical perspective, without any attempt to check the trustworthiness of the arab and far-left narratives, are indeed antisemitic, because their basic premise is that what jews are doing is certainly wrong.

[Heinie]

... Boycott guard in Nazi Germany. What is the difference? Could be the same people ...

Netanyahu calling Germans Nazis for labeling Jewish produce from stolen Palestinian land is not appreciated by one of Israel's strongest allies in the European Union.

[wat0n]

I'm not surprised that those who opposed apartheid in S Africa also oppose settler colonialism in the west bank and I don't see how this can be construed as anti-semitic.

Many, probably most, who now boycott Israel were infants when the movement to boycott South Africa was active, assuming they had been even born.

But why look at such old history when there is one other state that also engages in settler colonialism and which has even stronger ties with the West than Israel does, and which get much less attention among BDS supporters than Israel?

Of course, the State I am talking about is Turkey, which currently sends settlers to Cyprus, which has been even more successful in changing the demographics of the occupied territory than Israel has, and which enjoys closer military and economic ties with the West than Israel does owing to its membership in NATO and its customs union with the EU.

The BDS movement has not called for a boycott of Turkey as far as I know, and indeed there is no movement that is as noisy as BDS is calling to boycott Turkey. It seems the so-called intersectionality doesn't apply here, for some weird reason.

The usual deflection by BDS supporters when this point is brought up is that they support boycotting Turkey in principle, yet this doesn't really change the fact that no movement like BDS has been set up to organize a boycott (maybe they could set one up, since they care so much and are such strong believers in intersectionality) and that the prominent BDS leadership doesn't call of one either (I have yet to see Omar Barghouti organizing one as he gets his PhD from Tel Aviv University).

It's no wonder, then, that accusations of antisemitism arise when one considers this double-standard even if a given BDS movement supporter does not personally hold any kind of hatred against Jews.

[noemon]

a) Turkey does get a lot of bad rap by Europeans.
b) Turkey is not continuing to appropriate land & property but is instead committed to the peace process with major positive developments happening in the Cyprus Issue Resolution.
c) Turkey was in fact boycotted and embargoed by Europe & the US after colonizing Cyprus. Israel is aided not boycotted for its continuing abuses of human rights and its continuing appropriation of land and properties. You know this is quite an important bit for this particular.
d) Turkey does not try to impose restrictions on the freedom of speech of people in their own countries like Israel appears to be trying to be doing while then begging for the unconditional support of these same people, which is quite hilarious & ironic. It is even more hilarious when supposed patriots of these countries like Thompson for example take absolutely no issue with this.

[wat0n]

a) Turkey does get a lot of bad rap by Europeans.

And it has translated into leaving it out of the EU, yes. But it's not like Israel would be allowed to join if it asked anyway.

b) Turkey is not continuing to appropriate land & property but is instead committed to the peace process with major positive developments happening in the Cyprus Issue Resolution.

That's because Turkey already took control of all the land available to be controlled. Like it or not, Israel did not expel almost all Palestinians after taking control of Gaza and the West Bank in 1967, unlike Turkey did to Greek Cypriots in 1974.

c) Turkey was in fact boycotted and embargoed by Europe & the US after colonizing Cyprus. Israel is aided not boycotted for its continuing abuses of human rights and its continuing appropriation of land and properties. You know this is quite an important bit for this particular.

You are talking as if Turkey hasn't stopped building settlements in Cyprus :lol:

The EU is currently "aiding" (not sure if this is the correct term, but you used it so you live with it) Turkey by giving it a rather high degree of economic integration, one higher than the one Israel currently enjoys.

d) Turkey does not try to impose restrictions on the freedom of speech of people in their own countries like Israel appears to be trying to be doing while then begging for the unconditional support of these same people, which is quite hilarious & ironic. It is even more hilarious when supposed patriots of these countries like Thompson for example take absolutely no issue with this.

Yeah right. Try to insult the military or write something too critical of Erdogan and see how you fare.

The Israeli right hasn't been this successful in suppressing free speech in their country, and it's unlikely it will be anytime soon.

[noemon]

We have discussed this before and we clearly disagree because you assume that Turkey gets less of a bad rep than Israel does in Europe which as a European and a Greek(with a knee-jerk against Turkey) sounds to me very ludicrous as Israel is getting away with worse stuff that Turkey gets away with. Activism against human rights abuses generally take places when there is evident suffering of people, families & children, Turkey is not actively oppressing anyone in Cyprus at this juncture(when she did she was boycotted and embargoed), she is still an occupation regime though and deserves all the bad rep she gets and even more in my opinion so I hope that more Europeans were more active in their condemnation of the Turkish Cyprus affair.

[danholo]

As European myself, I never see Turkey's occupation of Cyprus ever brought up. I actually didn't know about it until it has been mentioned on this board. All I've ever heard of outside of this board is Turkey's policies with its Kurdish population because of Kurds in Finland and the Armenian issue.

[noemon]

Activism against human rights abuses generally take places when there is evident suffering of people, families & children, Turkey is not actively oppressing anyone in Cyprus at this juncture(when she did she was boycotted and embargoed by the US & Europe)

[wat0n]

We have discussed this before and we clearly disagree because you assume that Turkey gets less of a bad rep than Israel does in Europe which as a European and a Greek(with a knee-jerk against Turkey) sounds to me very ludicrous as Israel is getting away with worse stuff that Turkey gets away with. Activism against human rights abuses generally take places when there is evident suffering of people, families & children, Turkey is not actively oppressing anyone in Cyprus at this juncture(when she did she was boycotted and embargoed), she is still an occupation regime though and deserves all the bad rep she gets and even more in my opinion so I hope that more Europeans were more active in their condemnation of the Turkish Cyprus affair.

There's something I don't understand. Why do you say Turkey is not oppressing anyone in Cyprus at this juncture? When did it do so, and when did it stop? You can PM me on this if you want.

Now, one would believe Turkey would get a much, much worse rep than Israel does simply because it is occupying an EU member's territory while Israel is not. Where's the intra European solidarity here, exactly?