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danholo wrote:Israel-Palestine has become such a non-agenda that I think being nervous about BDS is like being nervous of the bogey man.
Too bad BDS thinks they are somehow relevant anymore?
The Israeli government is paying for anti-BDS journalism
The Israeli ministry tasked with fighting the BDS Movement is spending millions of shekels to place propaganda that looks like news in Israel’s most prominent media outlets.
The Israeli government paid the Yedioth Group, publisher of Israel’s best-selling daily newspaper, hundreds of thousands of shekels to publish articles and interviews meant to influence readers to support a campaign Israel is waging against its critics. The Strategic Affairs Ministry, headed by Minister Gilad Erdan, purchased positive coverage and the distribution of that content on the Internet.
According to information provided to “The Seventh Eye” and “Hatzlacha,” as part of a freedom of information request, the Yedioth Ahronoth Group received NIS 350,000 ($100,000) to publish journalistic articles, which were then distributed by member organizations of the “Pro-Israel Network” in Israel and around the world. The articles, according to the information furnished, were meant to motivate or enlist Israelis into the struggle.
The paid-for articles were published starting in June 2017 in the news section of Yedioth Ahronoth‘s weekend magazine, and on its website, Ynet. Like other campaigns that included purchasing articles from the newspaper, this one also included promotions in the widely-distributed weekend edition.
Alongside the paid-for articles, Ynet also published promotional videos produced by the Ministry of Strategic Affairs, as well as three interviews with a ranking official at the ministry, Tzahi Gabrieli. Two of those paid-for interviews were conducted by Ynet’s senior political correspondent, Attila Somfalvi, who asked soft-ball questions that allowed him to present his talking points.
In addition to the interviews with Gabrieli, Yedioth also interviewed a string of people from various Jewish organizations that do not have direct ties to the state. The role of those organizations in the government efforts against de-legitimization and their ties to the government are unclear.
Two of those organizations, the “World Jewish Congress” and “Stand With Us,” were sponsors of Yedioth’s anti-BDS conference last year, in which senior politicians and officials from the Strategic Affairs Ministry took part. “Over the last year,” wrote journalist Reuven Weiss in one of the paid-for articles, “the boycott movement’s main base of operations in their campaign to delegitimize Israel has moved to social media, and new tools are required.”
The aim of at least some of those state-sponsored articles was to enlist the public to help some of those civil society organizations in spreading government messaging on the internet and to combat unflattering content. In other words, to get the public to execute the Ministry of Strategic Affairs’ strategy.
“Are you sick of hearing the lies about Israel spread in the international media and on social networks?” read an accompanying box in one of the Hebrew-language state-sponsored articles. Readers were then encouraged to Google the campaign’s name, “4il,” go to the site, and start sharing “videos, caricatures, and articles that expose the lies of BDS.” In addition, Yedioth suggested that readers download an app called Act.il, which enables them to take part in “daily missions” to advance pro-Israel messaging on social media.
As has become customary at Yedioth Ahronoth in recent years, readers are told only that the article they are reading was published “in cooperation with” an Israeli government ministry, without explaining that “in cooperation with” actually means “paid for by.” In recent months, the list of articles featuring that disclosure has grown to include articles written by the news organization’s diplomatic correspondent Itamar Eichner.
The relationship between the Ministry of Strategic Affairs and Yedioth Ahronoth is only part of a much broader, well-funded campaign: in June and July of 2017 the ministry spent nearly NIS 7 million ($2 million) on spreading its messaging to the public in Israel and abroad. That is larger than any of the other campaigns that have been exposed by The Seventh Eye in recent years. The second-largest such campaign documented previously was NIS 11 million, and that was over the course of more than a year.
In addition to the journalistic content that the Ministry of Strategic Affairs purchased in Yedioth, it also spent over half a million shekels on placing content on Israel’s highest-rated television news channel, Channel 2 and its website, Mako. And in addition to Hebrew-language articles, the ministry also purchased journalistic content targeting a more global audience, enlisting it in the fight against delegitimization.
The state-sponsored articles aimed overseas audiences were published in The Jerusalem Post, which was paid NIS 120,000 ($34,000); in the Times of Israel, which was paid NIS 95,000 ($27,000); and the J Media Group, an American publishing group, which was paid NIS 115,000 ($33,000). The J Media Group, which operates a television station called ILTV, also received money from the Strategic Affairs Ministry, along with Hebrew-language newspaper Makor Rishon. The ministry refused to release data on its relationship with Sheldon Adelson’s newspaper, Israel Hayom.
According to the data that was released, the Ministry of Strategic Affairs’ biggest expenditure of the campaign — over NIS 2.6 million ($740,000) — was budgeted to promote content on social media and search engines, including Google, Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. Another large sum, around NIS 2 million ($570,000), was budgeted for building the Act.il website and producing multi-media content for it. Another roughly NIS 490,000 ($140,000) was budgeted for “strategy,” “creative,” and “branding.”
The funds the government is using to purchase state-sponsored journalistic articles come from the public, and therefore most government ministries have agreed to release information on those types of relationships. It will soon be far more difficult to obtain information about the purchase of journalistic content by Ministry of Strategic Affairs. The ministry has in recent months been advancing legislation that would exempt it from Israel’s Freedom of Information Law. According to the draft legislation, “successfully waging this battle requires keeping it as ambiguous as possible.”
The Strategic Affairs Ministry claimed that the law would not apply to the types of relationships like that with the Yedioth Ahronot Group, but the bill itself, which passed a preliminary vote over the summer and is now waiting for its second and final votes, is written in a way that will apply to all of the ministry’s activities. In response to past freedom of information requests by The Seventh Eye and Hatzlacha, the ministry claimed that some of the requested documents were “classified.” It redacted other documents, claiming that they were liable to harm Israel’s foreign relations, and even state security.
Attila Somfalvi declined to respond to interview requests. Ron Yaron, the editor of Yedioth Ahronoth, sent the following response:
We are proud of the broad and comprehensive coverage Yedioth Ahronoth has been leading against the boycott of Israel. When, in that framework, there has been cooperation with [government] officials or bodies in articles that were published, there have been prominent disclosures of it, similar to what is done in other media outlets when they cooperate with various bodies
https://972mag.com/the-israeli-governme ... sm/131718/
What were the top BDS victories of 2017?
It took just four days for a world famous singer to cancel her Tel Aviv show in response to her fans’ urging her to respect the international picket line.
Lorde’s decision on Christmas Eve to pull the Tel Aviv show from her world tour – remarking that booking the gig in the first place “wasn’t the right call” – completed a successful year for the Palestinian-led boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS) movement.
2017 saw artists, performers, athletes, politicians, cultural workers, faith-based organizations, students, academics, unions and activists grow the movement for Palestinian rights.
Israel has been taking notice, of course.
Early on in the year, key Israel lobby groups admitted in a secret report – obtained and published in full by The Electronic Intifada – that they had failed to counter the Palestine solidarity movement, despite vastly increasing their spending.
The report outlined Israel’s failure to stem the “impressive growth” and “significant successes” of the BDS movement and set out strategies, endorsed by the Israeli government, aimed at reversing the deterioration in Israel’s position.
Similarly, in March, Israel’s top anti-BDS strategist conceded that the boycott Israel movement is winning – despite the Israeli government’s allocation of tens of millions of dollars and the formation of an entire governmental ministry whose sole focus is to combat BDS.
Speaking at an anti-BDS conference in New York, Israeli ambassador Danny Danon stated that “the BDS movement is still active and still strong. Every day, academic and religious groups, student unions and investment firms are all falling prey to boycott calls.”
“Our South Africa moment is nearing”
As Israel’s strategists and representatives panicked over their failures to stem the BDS tide, polls in the UK, Canada and the US all showed that mainstream, public support for boycott and sanctions on Israel is growing apace.
In California, the state’s Democratic Party chapter approved a resolution – without debate – that condemned Israel’s illegal settlement activities in the occupied West Bank and the denial of entry to activists who criticize the state.
It also, notably, signaled support for organizers who engage with the BDS movement and who face expanding repression on campuses and by local, state and federal legislatures.
In the UK in December, the Labour Party’s shadow development minister Kate Osamor, a strong ally of opposition leader Jeremy Corbyn, tweeted her explicit approval of BDS.
Over the summer, the High Court in London ruled that the Conservative government acted unlawfully in trying to prevent local councils in the UK from divesting from firms involved in Israel’s military occupation, dealing a blow to Israel’s representatives seeking to criminalize the BDS movement.
Meanwhile, in the face of Israel’s overt attempts to silence him and crush the popularity of BDS, Omar Barghouti, the co-founder of the BDS movement, urged people around the world to increase boycott campaigns as the best way to show support for him and for the Palestinian people.
Barghouti won the Gandhi Peace Award in April for his work as a human rights defender. He had been subjected by Israel to a travel ban and open threats by that state’s top ministers last year.
In March, Barghouti praised a landmark report published by the United Nations which concluded that Israel is guilty of the crime of apartheid, drawing praise from Palestinians and ire from Israel and its allies.
Barghouti said the UN report was a sign for Palestinians that “our South Africa moment is nearing,” adding that the report was “a stark indicator that Israel’s apartheid is destined to end, as South Africa’s did.”
He remarked that the report “may well be the very first beam of light that ushers the dawn of sanctions against Israel’s regime of occupation, settler-colonialism and apartheid.”
Here are some of the other victories of the BDS movement in 2017, as reported by The Electronic Intifada:
Athletes, writers, chefs and artists ditched Israel
In February, professional US football players pulled out of a propaganda tour to Israel, with Seattle Seahawks player Michael Bennett announcing he would “not be used” by Israel’s government to whitewash its violations of Palestinian rights.
“I want to be a ‘voice for the voiceless,’” Bennett added, “and I cannot do that by going on this kind of trip to Israel.”
Over the summer, a group of filmmakers, artists and presenters canceled their scheduled appearances at TLVFest, Israel’s premier LGBTQ film festival in Tel Aviv, following appeals by queer Palestinian activists and boycott supporters to withdraw.
The high-profile cancellations in support of the BDS campaign prompted The Jerusalem Post to admit that while the festival “has been around for more than a decade, it has never faced a campaign this successful against it.”
Later in the fall, some of the world’s top chefs pulled out of Round Tables, an Israeli government-sponsored propaganda initiative that uses international cuisine to gloss over Israel’s image.
“The Round Tables festival is taking place while the Israeli military and Israeli settlers illegally living on stolen Palestinian land attack Palestinians during their annual olive harvest,” said Zaid Shoaibi, from PACBI, the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
And the literary group PEN America quietly revealed that it was no longer accepting funds from the Israeli government for its annual World Voices festival, following appeals from more than 250 high-profile writers, poets and publishers.
The group had come under heavy criticism for using funds from the Israeli government, which jails Palestinian journalists and writers in Israel and the occupied West Bank for their work.
BDS endorsed by cities, churches, political groups and unions
Norway’s largest and most influential trade union organization called for a full boycott of Israel in May, just days after the Norwegian municipality of Lillehammer passed a resolution to boycott Israeli settlement goods.
Lillehammer became the third city in Norway to call for a settlement boycott, following Trondheim and Tromsø.
The city council of Barcelona voted to uphold the right to boycott Israel in April, while condemning Israel’s occupation of Palestinian land, calling for an end to the Gaza blockade and ensuring that the city’s public procurement policies exclude companies that profit from Israel’s human rights abuses.
In July, the 95,000-member strong Mennonite Church USA joined a growing number of Christian denominations that have taken action to support Palestinian human rights over the last few years.
In a resolution approved by 98 percent of delegates at its Florida convention, the church voted to condemn Israel’s military occupation and to support divestment from companies that profit from violations of Palestinian rights.
On 7 July, the World Communion of Reformed Churches called on the more than 80 million people in its member churches worldwide to examine their investments related to the situation in Palestine.
A month later, the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) overwhelmingly voted to endorse the BDS call.
“Just as we answered the call to boycott South Africa during apartheid, we stand in solidarity with the Palestinian people,” the DSA deputy national director stated.
The largest democratic socialist organization in the United States with more than 25,000 members, DSA has seen its membership quadruple with the resurgence of left-wing politics in the US and Europe, particularly since the 2016 presidential campaign of Senator Bernie Sanders.
In the UK, Jewish members of the Labour Party founded a new group – Jewish Voice for Labour – that presents a challenge to an existing Israel lobby group positioning itself as the representative of Jewish members of the party.
Jewish Voice for Labour’s founding document upholds “the right of supporters of justice for Palestinians to engage in solidarity activities, such as boycott, divestment and sanctions.”
Also in the UK, the country’s largest union for school teachers launched a boycott of HP over the technology giant’s role in the Israeli occupation.
G4S was further ostracized
The world’s largest private security company, G4S, continued to face heavy financial losses around the world as its profiteering from human rights abuses came under further scrutiny.
G4S has helped operate Israeli prisons where Palestinians are tortured and has managed juvenile prisons, detention and deportation facilities in the US and UK.
The firm has also been implicated in labor and human rights abuses from Africa to the offshore facilities where Australia detains refugees and asylum seekers.
An Ecuadorian research institute announced in February that it had dropped its contract with G4S after meeting with activists.
Following a campaign led by Jordan BDS, UN Women in Jordan dropped its G4S contract in October, becoming the fifth UN agency in Jordan to do so.
And the transportation board of Sacramento, California, moved to dump its security contract with G4S following work by campaigners to highlight the company’s role in rights abuses in Palestine and the US.
Last year, G4S announced that it was dropping a slate of controversial businesses, including its Israel subsidiary and juvenile detention services in the US.
The Financial Times described the move as an attempt by G4S to distance itself from “reputationally damaging work.”
But campaigners around the world vowed to maintain pressure on the company as long as it remains complicit in violations of Palestinian human rights.
Students fought
College students across the US continued to mobilize for Palestinian rights despite increasing repression by administrations and outside Israel lobby groups.
Divestment resolutions were passed at Tufts University in Boston, the University of Michigan, California State University - Long Beach and at De Anza Community College in California.
A resolution passed by students at the University of Wisconsin-Madison voted unanimously to back a broad-based resolution calling on the university to drop its ties to companies that profit from mass incarceration, theft of indigenous land, police violence, the US-Mexico border wall, economic injustices against people of color and Israel’s human rights abuses in Palestine.
In New York, students at Fordham University brought violations of their rights to organize and assemble to court, challenging the decision by an administrator to ban Students for Justice in Palestine.
And in the UK, the annual, global Israeli Apartheid Week – a series of events meant to raise awareness of Israel’s policies of apartheid – took place on more than 30 university campuses across the country despite a government backed campaign of repression.
Anti-BDS legislation was challenged
Two federal lawsuits were filed by the American Civil Liberties Union which challenge the basic constitutionality of state and federal anti-BDS laws.
Israel lobby groups have accelerated their promotion of legislation aimed at chilling free speech and blacklisting advocates for Palestinian rights. By December, 23 states passed anti-BDS laws.
There is also a bill pending in Congress – the Israel Anti-Boycott Act – that could impose large fines and long prison sentences on companies and their personnel if they are deemed to be complying with a boycott on Israel or its settlements called for by an international organization.
A lawsuit was filed against the state of Kansas in October on behalf of a public high school math teacher, Esther Koontz, who participates in the consumer boycott of Israeli goods.
Koontz is a member of the Mennonite Church USA, which passed a resolution in July in support of divestment from companies that profit from violations of Palestinian rights.
Another lawsuit was filed against the state of Arizona in December on behalf of an attorney who contracts with the government to provide legal advice to incarcerated persons, according to the ACLU. He participates in the boycott of Israel.
But in Oregon, three separate bills impugning the BDS movement failed to get a hearing, following sustained pressure by human rights activists and faith leaders across the state.
The bills were backed by Jewish communal groups that organize nationwide efforts to combat the movement for Palestinian rights.
Activists said that the failure of the bills should encourage campaigners fighting back against similar anti-BDS measures in state legislatures and the US Congress.
https://electronicintifada.net/blogs/no ... ories-2017
:A Jew boycotting Israel? Must be a joke
Hi there, Justine Sachs, the woman who helped convince Lorde to cancel her planned performance in Israel. Do you want to know what you’ve caused by violently and childishly pushing for this boycott? I’ll give you a hint: Violence brings more violence.
I don’t think you’re surprised by that. After all, wherever the progressive fingerprints of radical leftists like you are evident—that’s where the blood, fire and pillars of smoke can be found. A normative person may think you’re a violent person, but I have a different assumption.
The difference between you and me, Justin, is that I’m an Israeli Jew and you’re a Jew. That’s it. You have no nationality. You live in a negligible, insignificant sheepfold stuck somewhere at the end of the universe: New Zealand, which robbed the indigenous Maori people of their land in favor of a European colony. By the way, what have you done to promote a cultural boycott against your exploiting country, Justin? I’d like to hear about that.
In any event, Justin, you may be satisfied with the few moments of fame you have gained, like every auto-anti-Semite in Jewish history. We Jews have been blessed with a lot of that Thanatos (“death drive”), the drive towards human self-destruction. The thing is that patriotism significantly reduces this self-destruction mechanism.
I, for example, feel no need to take the side of a culture which hasn’t brought anything to the world apart from terror. The confidence I am given by the Israeli nationality allows me to pick the democratic, free side. But nationality is not the only heart of the matter, you bleeding heart. There’s something else too.
More than auto-anti-Semitism
People who don’t know you as well as I do might think that your drive towards self-destruction stems from a need to satisfy the people around you; that you choose to play the role of the classic Jewish wimp, who has to prove his animosity towards his Jewish brethren in order to survive. You’re not the first person to do so. Some people, by the way, have been much more successful than you, and this isn’t the place to quote from the history of the early 1940s.
You may be surprised, but I don’t think this is about your desire to please the gentiles, nor does it have anything to do with the assumption that in the Southern Hemisphere the Jewish mind goes against reason. Personally, I believe this is something even more Jewish than auto-anti-Semitism. As a Jew to a Jew, let’s be honest, it’s the same unique Jewish sense of humor.
Only a particularly developed Jewish sense of humor can explain why you have chosen to turn your back on the democratic, Western side, which develops medicine (at least until Teva goes bankrupt), feeds millions around the world through agricultural developments, sends doctors to every place hit by an earthquake across the globe and develops cyber defenses against the forces of evil.
That same developed sense of humor alone can explain why you favor your Palestinian friend’s side, the side which hijacks planes, the side which hangs gay people on electric poles, the side which rips out girls’ throats in honor killings, the side which has failed to establish any state or society which isn’t totalitarian, chauvinist, primitive and/or murderous.
So unlike some Israelis who deeply despise a woman of your kind, I’m actually capable of appreciating a proper joke or mega-trolling. This may not be the kind of joke that would place you in the same category as Jewish comedians like the Marx Brothers, Mel Brooks, Woody Allen or Jerry Seinfeld, but you do deserve an award just for trying.
I’m willing to send you one, by the way. If you give me your address, I’ll gladly send over a copy of my latest book on the issue, titled “The History of the Palestinian People.” It may take a while before it reaches the end of the world you live in, but I can assure you that you’ll be able to read the entire book in less than one minute.
https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,734 ... 59,00.html
Ter wrote:This whole tread is best ignored, it is Skinster's propaganda anti Zionist thread.
As she mentioned that noir is posting from Memri or even Mosad, I think Skinster must be paid by Hetzbollah or ISS, the Pakistan military inttelligence.
Best left unread.
skinster wrote:Almost a quarter of British Jews would back 'sanctions against Israel'
British Jews remain profoundly attached to Israel, with 84 per cent feeling a "deep sense of pride" in the country's "achievements in art, science and technology".
In some important respects, they also back the approach of Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. Thus 70 per cent of British Jews want the Palestinians to recognise Israel "as a Jewish state, not just recognise Israel's right to exist".
Meanwhile, 93 per cent believe that Israel is "entitled to respond with military action to Hamas rocket attacks".
skinster wrote:Israel is not defending itself, it is terrorizing millions of Palestinians that live under its military occupation and military blockade. The settlements are daily violance against Palestinians, since the land they're on belongs to Palestinians, according to all world legal orgs, as well as Israel's own laws. Any Palestinian resistance to this Israeli violence against them is legitimate and a lawful right.
This is why trade unions, churches, universities etc., all over support Palestinians in their demand for a BDS movement against Israel. It is a non-violent response to Israel's crimes. There are Israelis who support the boycott too, like Ronnie Barkan, who below, called out Rabbi Scmuley for placing an ad in The Washington Post this weekend, calling popstar Lorde a bigot, because she chose to support BDS and cancel her planned show in Tel Aviv, after she learned about Israel's many crimes against the Palestinans (the wapo advert is within the link in the tweet, look at how ridiculous it is)
JohnRawls wrote:Since when are deadly knife attacks, rocket firing etc legal by International or Israeli law
Some people want Israel to simply capitulate but that is not going to ever happen it seems. Israel will fight till the bitter end.
skinster wrote:Israel is a military occupier that uses violence every day to maintain a brutal occupation of millions of Palestinians in the West Bank, as well as the imprisonment of another couple of million of Palestinians in concentration-camp-Gaza. In both these occupied territories, Israel illegally denies Palestinians their basic human and civil rights and the right to self-determination. Palestinians are legally entitled to resist this occupation.
Palestinian right to fight occupation not only moral, but legal as well
These rights are enshrined in the UN Charter Article 51
The International Laws of Belligerent Occupation
It's weird you mention knife attacks but ignore the regular murder/executions of Palestinian children that happen almost every day, as well as the military occupation, which is obviously a significant aspect of this story that zionists conveniently are amnesiac about. That amnesia doesn't change the reality of this so-called conflict, which is very well documented, since it's less than a century old.
What does that even mean?
Back on topic:
skinster wrote:Israel is not defending itself, it is terrorizing millions of Palestinians that live under its military occupation and military blockade. The settlements are daily violance against Palestinians, since the land they're on belongs to Palestinians, according to all world legal orgs, as well as Israel's own laws. Any Palestinian resistance to this Israeli violence against them is legitimate and a lawful right.
JohnRawls wrote:So the conflict will go on until Israel slips and probably will get destroyed(Not any time soon, but in a very long term perspective). Be it 50 years or 100 years or 200, Israel will slip at some point. Odds are simply not in favour of Israel long term.
JohnRawls wrote:Skipping your usual bla bla, this means that Israel will fight till the end if the palestenian position doesn't change. Current offer to Israel is not acceptable to Israel because it would require deportations of millions of Israelis from the already built setelment areas. (I know you don't care) On top of security questions and many other conflicting issues.
So the conflict will go on until Israel slips and probably will get destroyed(Not any time soon, but in a very long term perspective). Be it 50 years or 100 years or 200, Israel will slip at some point. Odds are simply not in favour of Israel long term.
skinster wrote:Yes, you just skip by the past where I remind you that Israel is the brutal military occupier and oppressor in this conflict, just skip by it, it doesn't exist if you ignore it!
The Palestinians don't have a position. What is there position? Do they have any power to make it happen? How is what's internationally recognized by all legal bodies the "Palestinian offer" to Israel? Are Palestinians not allowed the one of the two states that were planned for them, like Israel was?
There aren't currently even a million illegal settlers in the illegal settlements placed on Palestinian territory, so I don't know why you said millions.
I agree on the odds not being in favour of Israel in the future, but consider that a good thing.
Ter wrote:You might be on to something. I read that the long-term prospects of the whole Earth don't look too good either.
We most probably won't be alive when such a catastrophe will happen but a destruction of Israel will not happen in isolation. The 80 to 200 special canned sunlight objects Israel allegedly has will light up large parts of the world, especially those countries that have profiled themselves as enemies of the Jewish State. I think the Samson option will have to remain on the table.
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