Opuscula BOYCOTT! OK for me, Not for you?

I’M A LITTLE CONFUSED OVER this “boycott” business.

 

I am both Jewish and a dual-national: U.S. by birth, Israeli by choice.

I place my hand over my heart when the Stars and Stripes go by. I did my U.S. military service back in the 60s. I am a Red, White, and Blue American.

But I also am an Israeli.

I should mention that I am old — “ancient” as my Spouse reminds me — and I am “thin skinned” in more ways than one.

My problem with boycotts

Having written that, I confess to having a problem with boycotts.

I have, from time-to-time boycotted things.

I will not buy anything from China if I can find an alternative source.

That’s a boycott.

I don’t buy from China for a number of reasons, including

• poor and dangerous products,
• alleged government oppression,
• alleged theft of others’ ideas and technologies,
• the gift of the Wuhan/Chinese/Covid pandemic

I don’t buy Ford products having been burned twice with Ford vehicles.

I am not on Facebook or Twitter and I closed my LinkedIn account when I retired. I’m not “boycotting” these platforms; I simply have no interest in them

Being honest, I admit that the above is a “partial” list of products I won’t (knowingly) buy.

These are boycotts, albeit personal boycotts.

Since I boycott products, how can I express umbrage when someone boycotts products from all or parts of Israel?

Is there a real difference between my personal boycotts — that I freely publicize — and the political Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS)?

My boycotts are personal; while I might welcome people who would divest themselves of countries and companies I boycott, and while I would privately encourage sanctions (in the form of higher tariffs), I don’t mount a soap box, raise a battle flag and yell FORWARD to willing followers.

The “B” in BDS stands for, IMO, “bullying.”

THE DIFFERENCE is that my personal boycotts are not based on lies (Israel is an apartheid state; Israel oppresses Arabs, both of which I know first hand are lies) or senseless hatred of a people. The BDSers are know nothings; 99% have zero first hand experience with Israel, Israelis, or Zionists. (There are many, mostly Jewishly ignorant as well as politically ignorant, Jews who are BDSers. )

Image at https://tinyurl.com/jtpxfnwv

You only hurt the ones you ...

The interesting things about the anti-Israel BDS movement are

• It hurts the people the BDSers claim they support
• It is a political movement that borders on the illegal
• It doesn’t seem to be working

BDSers have cost the so-called “Palestinians” jobs.

The PLO/PFLP is an economic disaster. The citizens line up to work in the horrible, apartheid Israel (think about that) where they hold all manner of employment, both trade and professional.

SodaStream employed Israelis and “Palestinians” in its plant across the “green line.”

The BDSers put an end to that, putting the “Palestinians” out of jobs that paid the same wages regardless of where the worker lived. SodaStream did not have to employ “Palestinians” and the “Palestinians” did not have to work for SodaStream.

SodaStream moved to the south and now hires Israelis.

So, did BDS help or hurt the “Palestinians”? Did its action help of hurt the “Palestinian” government?

A QUICK WORD ON APARTHEID An Israeli Arab may live anyplace in Israel. An Israeli Jew is forbidden by the “Palestinian” government and Islam, to live in “Palestine,” even though there are “progressive” Jews who would rush to live in “Palestine” were they permitted.

Israel’s parliament, the Knesset, includes Muslims who promote the destruction of Israel. That would be like having nazis in Congress during World War 2 or Communists in Congress during the Cold War era. (Soviet Premier Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev was angry and threatened to bury us because President Eisenhower prevented Khrushchev from visiting Disneyland in California. There also was the small matter of Francis Gary Powers and the U-2 downing over what was then the USSR.)

It could have been avoided

Had the Arabs agreed to the 1947 Partition Plan, Israel would be a sliver of a state, with Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and Egypt as its immediate neighbors. “Palestine” as separate from Jordan did not exist.

Had the Arabs agreed to a peace agreement after 1948, they still would have Jerusalem and Jordan would own the so-called West Bank.

So far, nothing has satisfied the Arabs who insist on attacking Israel.

Jordan lost the “West Bank” to an Egyptian (Arafat).

Jordan lost Jerusalem to Israel.

(Since, both Egypt and Jordan have signed peace treaties with Israel, and while peace between them is nothing like peace between the U.S. and Canada, the treaties have held.)

Oslo divided up the West Bank into three sections. Both Israel and the” Palestinians” agreed to the agreement; the Palestinians quickly abrogated it.

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

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Opuscula Gazans escape To Europe, Not Arab lands

DEAR “SQUAD” MEMBERS AND FRIENDS, why do Gazans leave the Strip for Europe when they could relocate to

* PLO-controlled areas of Israel
* Stay in Egypt from which most of their ancestors came
* Move to Jordan to be with fellow “Palestinians”
* Relocate to any Muslim-dominated country in the Middle East or elsewhere in the world?

PERHAPS “THE SQUAD” and their progressive fellow travelers should press the UN to set up special “camps” for refugees from Gaza where they can fester until Hamas is over-thrown by another despotic organization. The UN could guarantee them a “right of return” for all generations to come as it does with its captives of UNRWA camps.

It could revise the textbooks it uses to inflame children to hate and kill Israelis by simply replacing the word “Israel” with “Hamas.” (It probably would like to replace Israel, not just the word.)

How Do Israel Bashers Answer This Question?

Tell me, you ignorant Israel bashers — I cannot bring myself to call them “ladies” — Why are these escapees from the wonderful government on the Strip going to Europe vs. a Muslim country?

There are, after all, many countries where Muslims are in the majority.

According to the Pew Research Center in 2015 there were 50 Muslim-majority countries. Worldatlas.com (April 2017) identified 45 'Islamic countries'.¹

Islamic World (Encyclopaedia Britannica)

According to various sources, the escapees — what other term can be used for people who abandon everything for a better life elsewhere? — typically are well educated; professional people. They apparently have command of more languages that just Egyptian Arabic, and many have been exposed to other cultures (when in school for their professional degrees outside the Strip).

But why go so far — to Europe — rather than to Palestine (a/k/a Jordan) via Egypt? Why not continue to Libya or turn south to Somalia where professionals are sorely needed? Saudia Arabia and the Gulf states are available.

Europe already is over-saturated with Middle Eastern Muslims to the point of a non-Muslim backlash against immigrants. This backlash also works against students who fully intend to return to their home countries. (This accounts for some of the exodus from Hamas and the Strip.) It’s easy to tar a whole people with a single brush because of the actions of some.

A Tale of One Man’s Escape & Death

This small effort was prompted by an Associated Press (AP) news article headlined Gazan's death abroad shines light on middle-class exodus.²

Two paragraphs sum up the article:

Fed up with the heavy-handed rule of Hamas, al-Sultan braved a treacherous journey in hopes of starting a new life in the West — only to die along the way. His death has drawn attention to the growing exodus of middle-class Gazans who can no longer bear to live in the isolated coastal territory.

It has also struck a nerve among many Palestinians because he appears to have fled persecution by Hamas, rather than the territory’s dire economic conditions following a 12-year blockade by Israel and Egypt, imposed when the Islamic militant group seized power.

The AP article correctly noted than Egypt also blockaded Gaza but it failed to note that the both countries’ blockades were intermittent and that Israel typically enforces a blockade only after being attacked from Gaza. “Fake news” can be created through omission of facts as well as blatant lies.

Sheeple (https://freemanmovement.com)

Ignorance Is Bliss; Facts, Who Needs’em?

“The Squad” of misled women and the sheeple who foolishly follow them in their pursuit of ignorance — Facts? I don’t need any “facts.” I have my opinion and that is good enough. Facts be damned. — are too busy bashing a country and people about which they have no direct knowledge and promoting a program — BDS — that harms the people for whom they pretend to care, while ignoring the reality of states known for undemocratic and inhumane treatment of the people living in those states.

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Sources

1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Muslim_world

2. https://apnews.com/cd5221bff5694da4b717f811ae2053b6

3. https://freemanmovement.com/dont-be-a-sheeple/

PLAGIARISM is the act of appropriating the literary composition of another, or parts or passages of his writings, or the ideas or language of the same, and passing them off as the product of one’s own mind.

Truth is an absolute defense to defamation. Defamation is a false statement of fact. If the statement was accurate, then by definition it wasn’t defamatory.

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