File spoon-archives/postcolonial.archive/postcolonial_2002/postcolonial.0204, message 147


Date: Mon, 8 Apr 2002 10:58:53 -0700 (PDT)
From: Susan Muaddi Darraj <susanmd-AT-e-daedelus.com>
Subject: Boycott Israeli Goods


Dear Mark and Everyone:

Mark, thanks for posting the very interesting information below.

There is another major boycotting initiative underway right now. It's called the B.I.G. Campaign: Boycott Israeli Goods, and the website is www.boycottisraeligoods.org.

On the website are action items, discussion lists, as well as lists of items produced in Israel and especially in the ISraeli settlements, which are built on Palestinian occupied land. These goods are found everywhere -- from plastic kitchenware, to vine tomatoes, to flowers, to cosmetics, to cell phones!

Please check out the website and register there to become involved in the boycott. It's only one week old and has already attracted hundreds of people, Israelis, Palestinians, Europeans, Asians, and Americans, to become active. One of the most basic things you can do is to refuse to buy Israeli-made products, esp. those made in the settlements, and to inform the stores in your area that carry those items that you will no longer shop there is they continue to carry that item or items.

~Susan

********************************
Susan Muaddi Darraj
Email: susanmd-AT-e-daedelus.com
********************************



--- mlevine-AT-benfranklin.hnet.uci.edu wrote:
>dear fellow list members, i've written the piece pasted below as a call 
>to arms, and available on alternet.org at the following link:
>
>http://alternet.org/story.html?StoryID=12786
>
>please pass it around if you think it's useful, and please let me know 
>if you're organizing any solidarity trips to palestine, or know who is, 
>so i can put people in touch with them..
>
>thanks!!!!
>best
>mark
>----------
>
>  Bring the Turtles to Ramallah
>
>  Mark LeVine, AlterNet
>  April 4, 2002
>
>  Viewed on April 6, 2002
>
>  ------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>
>  One of the main reasons that the 1999 protests in Seattle gained such 
>notoriety and sympathy was the surprise of
>  seeing a seemingly disorganized group of ageing unionists and often 
>strange-looking young people use a massive
>  nonviolent protest to challenge and even transform the policies of the 
>world's most powerful institutions. The
>  success of Seattle served as a wake-up call to couch-potato activists 
>everywhere that cynicism and political apathy
>  were not the only options for those opposed to the status quo. 
>
>  Today, the situation in the occupied territories is ripe for the same 
>kind of action. 
>
>  For years a small group of Palestinian, Israeli, and international 
>peace activists (the Christian Peacemaker Teams, the
>  Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions, the International 
>Solidarity Committee, Bustan Shalom, Haluzay
>  Shalom, Rabbis for Human Rights, to name a few) have been using 
>creative, nonviolent activism to inspire
>  Palestinian society to transform its struggle against Israeli 
>occupation into a large-scale, nonviolent civil protest.
>  Such a movement could more successfully push the army -- and more 
>importantly, the Israeli and international
>  publics -- to face up to the brutal injustice and reality of 35 years 
>of what even the New York Times's Thomas
>  Friedman now admits has been "colonial occupation." Indeed, it's no 
>surprise that the previous Israeli assault on
>  Palestinian cities, in February, came just as Palestinian leaders, 
>intellectuals and activists were urging their public to
>  move toward massive nonviolent civil disobedience. It's no surprise 
>that this past weekend Israel declared much of
>  the West Bank a closed military zone after groups of peace activists 
>marched, loud and proud, in front of Israeli
>  tanks to protect Palestinian civilians and leaders alike. 
>
>  These actions demonstrate that there is little the Israeli Government 
>fears more than the type of large-scale
>  nonviolent protest so many of us have long urged Palestinians to 
>follow in place of violent resistance. And in fact
>  Israel has a sad history of arresting, deporting and even shooting 
>Palestinian and foreign peace activists (not to
>  mention journalists), which is a major reason why today there is no 
>infrastructure within Palestinian society for a
>  Gandhi/King inspired program of civil disobedience. Yet at least in 
>part because not enough Israelis and
>  international activists have been willing literally -- figuratively 
>isn't worth much -- to stand side by side with
>  Palestinians against the occupation, most Palestinians have concluded 
>that they are ultimately alone, and that the
>  only way to win their freedom is to make Israelis suffer more. The 
>moral and strategic flaws in this calculus have
>  never been clearer. 
>
>  So I would argue to the tens of thousands of globe-trotting 
>globalization protesters that you have been missing a
>  much more pressing case of globalization. The Israeli-Palestinian 
>conflict is intimately tied to the militarization of
>  the Middle East. Militarization is at the heart of the inability of 
>the countries of the region (who are both the least
>  democratic and largest per capita arms purchasers in the world) to 
>engage successfully the forces of economic and
>  cultural globalization. 
>
>  In fact, the entire Oslo process was premised on securing Israel a 
>leading position in the new globalized order. On
>  the strategic level, the mis-named "labor" elite, led by Shimon Peres, 
>saw peace with Palestinians as the necessary
>  and sufficient condition for a high-tech, low-wage Israel assuming its 
>natural place as the cultural and economic
>  "engine of the new Middle East" (not surprisingly, Arab commentators 
>immediately jumped on this rhetoric and
>  continue to use it as a justification for opposing "normalization" of 
>relations between Israel and Arab states, fearing
>  that the Arab world can neither compete with Israel nor fend off the 
>further "invasion" of the Western culture it
>  represented). 
>
>  More specific to the Oslo framework for "peace" with Palestinians, the 
>rarely mentioned economic section of the
>  accords represented a textbook case of neo-liberal neo-colonialism, 
>with Israel retaining the power to dictate the
>  details of what industries/export policies Palestinians could pursue 
>and maintaining whatever Palestinian "state"
>  would emerge as a captive open market for Israeli goods (many of which 
>are produced by cheap labor in Jordan and
>  Egypt). Ultimately, one can even see that the intensification of 
>religious nationalism among politically and
>  economically marginalized communities in Israel/Palestine has helped 
>doom the so-called peace process. Middle
>  Eastern ("Mizrahi") Jews, who have long faced discrimination by the 
>European Jewish elite, are among the leading
>  Israeli "opponents" of peace (in large part because they realized the 
>peace and prosperity that Peres and Co.
>  envisioned would do little for them). Muslims both inside Israel and 
>in the occupied territories have seen economic
>  opportunities and standards of living fall and poverty rise during a 
>decade of peace-making and become
>  increasingly radicalized. That poverty has come in response to the 
>neo-liberal economic policies of successive
>  Israeli governments since 1977, when Israel joined Margaret Thatcher's 
>England as the first countries to try out the
>  Milton Friedman school of economic shock therapy that Ronald Reagan 
>would bring home to roost a few years
>  later. 
>
>  Indeed, the situation in Palestine/Israel has long constituted a much 
>more immediate and clear threat to peace, justice
>  and autonomous development than the complex and contradictory programs 
>of the IMF and World Bank. And
>  while the two thousand Israeli and Palestinian activists who faced off 
>against Israeli troops are an encouraging sign,
>  they will not succeed in defeating the violence without massive 
>international support and solidarity. Unfortunately,
>  in over two years of urging and arguing with leaders of the 
>globalization protest movements I have consistently been
>  frustrated in attempts both to bring in Arabs and Muslims into the 
>international dialog, and to turn our attention to
>  the pressing need for their intervention in the Middle East. 
>
>  I've faced off against riot police in Prague and bulldozers in the 
>West Bank; and I can tell my fellow activists that
>  the need for your courage, ingenuity and enthusiasm is far more 
>immediate and will have far greater effect in
>  Ramallah and Beit Jala than anywhere else. So bring on the samba 
>bands, puppeteers and turtle people; let's turn
>  Ramallah into Seattle! As the situation grows ever more dire, nothing 
>short of a massive influx of activists ready to
>  put their bodies on the line will challenge the terror of tanks and 
>suicide bombers alike, and create the space in
>  which Israeli and Palestinian activists, presently cowed into silence 
>by blood-soaked populations, can challenge and
>  inspire their peoples toward a future of peace and reconciliation. 
>
>  If you want more information about plans to organize solidarity trips 
>to Palestine/Israel, or even better, help
>  organize them, email community-AT-tikkun.org or visit www.tikkun.org. 
>
>  Mark LeVine is Assistant Professor of History at UC Irvine and author 
>of the forthcoming Overthrowing
>  Geography, Re-Imagining Identities: Jaffa, Tel Aviv and the Struggle 
>for Palestine (University of California Press).
>  He has been published in numerous scholarly and journalistic venues, 
>including Le Monde, Tikkun, the Christian
>  Science Monitor, Beliefnet.com, alternet.org, the International 
>Journal of Middle Eastern Studies, the Journal of
>  Palestine Studies, and the Mediterranean Studies Journal. 
>
>  ------------------------------------------------------------------- 
>     Reproduction of material from any AlterNet.org pages without 
>written permission is strictly prohibited.  2001
>                         Independent Media Institute. All rights 
>reserved.
>
>
>  Go Back <<
>
>
>
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