Tag: occupation

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Hasbara and the Case for Cultural and Academic Boycott of Israel

Israel uses all culture as propaganda and does so unashamedly. In 2005, Nissim Ben-Sheetrit of Israel’s Foreign Ministry emphasised:

“We see culture as a propaganda tool of the first rank, and I do not differentiate between propaganda and culture.”

Israeli universities are subverted in the mission to sell the apartheid state, with Haifa and Tel Aviv Universities offering courses “in hasbara for Israeli and International students respectively. Hasbara is the name Israelis give to propaganda and disinformation in defence of Israel and the Occupation.”

Further, Israel runs state-funded and organised campaigns to enlist volunteers to spread its noxious, prevaricative messages.

If they receive funding by the state, Israeli artists who play internationally are expected to be political ambassadors and must sign contracts which declare their cooperation with state marketing aims. The standard Israeli sponsorship contract states:

“The service provider [or in English, the artist] is aware that the purpose of ordering services from him is to promote the policy interests of the State of Israel via culture and art, including contributing to creating a positive image for Israel.

Yet some zionist Israeli performers are zealous supporters of the apartheid entity, and fervently offer themselves up as crude instruments of propaganda.

Idan Reichel joins ranks with the cultural boycott of Israel. English translation:

Naftaly Bennett: We love you, Idan Reichel
**
Here’s what Idan Reichel wrote in Shabat’s Yediot newspaper:
“I believe that our role as artists is to be recruited into Israeli Hasbara. This is a war on our home, and our country, and in times of war we must be recruited. Full stop.
I strengthen our soldiers hands, yes, the so-moral ones, and strengthen the IDF that no more moral army than that can be found around the world.”
**
At a time of artists and “intellectuals” who make an effort to understand “both sides” (Hamas and Israel), it is wonderful to hear the clear voice of Idan Reichel: I am in favor of Israel.
**
Dear Idan: You are not wrong. We are not from the UN. We are in favor of Israel.
We will carry on going to your shows and buying your albums (well, because you are such an amazing artist..).
Thank you.
Naftaly
**
PS – whoever wishes to may share and write “I love you Idan Reichel”, and we’ll flood facebook.

(source: https://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=497659216922418&set=a.396861670335507.89917.396697410351933)

Thanks, Ronnie Barkan, for the translation above from the original hebrew.

Since Israel deliberately employs its artists and academic institutions to market its apartheid and colonialism with duplicitous propaganda designed to paper over the war crimes and crimes against humanity of the state, the case for cultural and academic boycott is strengthened accordingly.

Related Links

Zionist propaganda site established to capitalise on and collect the quotations of artists who have played Israel.

The Case for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Against Israel

Israel 2012, The Question of a Nation: What Does Culture Have to Do with Politics?

PACBI-Letter from Alice Walker to Publishers at Yediot Books

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Classic Apologist Dodges for Racists, Zionists and Bigots

Have you come across any of these fallacious excuses? Ubiquitous themes employed by apologists in attempts to defend, conceal and prevent racist or bigoted behaviour being exposed publicly include :

  1. You are being *divisive*, we need non-partisanship, a unified movement (yet to include racists and bigots discredits and divides any ethical human rights movement) AKA “Don’t deprive the movement of important activists!” (despite their racist/bigoted behaviour). This point includes protecting divisive people who have attacked entire segments of the movement with their racist rationale, even going so far as to call an entire population within the movement, by mere identification with their ethnicity, an enemy of the movement;
  2. You are smearing [insert racist here] by identifying their racist behaviour;
  3. You are bullying us by identifying racist behaviour. (Or eg. Why are you ‘singling out’ Israel? as if the bully/Israel doesn’t single themselves out with their behaviour.);
  4. You are witchhunting those poor racists and in public too (as if their behaviour was only expressed privately);
  5. By criticising this racist behaviour, you are being racist. (Doublethink – eg. ‘criticism of [racist] Israel is anti-semitic’);
  6. You will alienate people “on the fence” by identifying racist behaviour; eg. ‘Don’t call Israel “apartheid”, it will turn off potential supporters of peace’.
  7. Our support of [insert racist behaviour here] is just a ‘difference of opinion’ AKA “We have a right to be racist”;
  8. You are ‘gatekeeping the discourse’ by identifying racist behaviour; (new variant is “you’re censoring. what about free speech?”)
  9. We need “education” and/or “dialogue” not “confrontation” with racists and racist behaviour (variation on 1.). (Yes, we do need education about racism and bigotry and why they aren’t acceptable within human rights movements, so we can confront the behaviour when it occurs. Why would one engage in normalising *dialogue* with zionists or any other racists? Resistance, not normalisation!);
  10. What gives you the right to determine what is racist behaviour? (As Raoul Wallender said, ‘every individual has a responsibility to fight against racism and other human rights violations’) AND corollaries “Racism is whatever I say it to be” or “‘Racism’ has no fixed meaning therefore we cannot identify racism” (in order to derail discussion away from racism)”;
  11. Your attitude is aggressive and counter-productive. (The “tone” non-argument) – variation on 3.;
  12. Why are you bringing up racism over and over and over again? we heard you the first time! (but still didn’t confront the racist behaviour);
  13. “I don’t see race. By seeing race you are being racist.” (Variation of 5.);
  14. “[Insert group] isn’t a race so nothing we say or do about this group is racist.” (ignoring the social construct of racism and reiterating the biological determinism inherent to racist ideology;
  15. “Please move on” AKA “Give peace a chance” AKA “We have these wonderful anti-racist principles and declarations, so now we can bury further discussion about racism and racist behaviour and get on with our ‘activism’.” AKA “Look over there, at Gaza/Syria!” AKA “The situation is complicated!” AKA “Yes, they may be a racist, but they raise good points”;
  16. “Race is culturally determined”. Now that biologically constructed racism has been debunked, racists are constructing race via culture. eg. ‘you come from a non-western culture and your race is suspect.’ This is really just a variant on biologically determined racism, since the target/s have been born into a culture/ethnicity.

To help end racism and bigotry, which are both tools used by ruling elites to divide and rule all the better to disempower any opposition, it is logical and essential to deal with these behaviours as they arise. Movements for freedom, equality and justice are strengthened when there’s zero tolerance within and without for the racism and bigotry they are attempting to end. Racism and bigotry belong on the zionist, colonialist and imperialist side.

Related Links

Helpful Hints for Zionists: How to Advocate for Israel without Being Antisemitic

Racism in Australia

The Zionist Handbook: A guide to defending Israel against Mean People

Israel’s Exceptionalism: Normalizing the Abnormal

How to make the case for Israel and win

“It is helpful to think of normalization as a “colonization of the mind,” whereby the oppressed subject comes to believe that the oppressor’s reality is the only “normal” reality that must be subscribed to, and that the oppression is a fact of life that must be coped with. Those who engage in normalization either ignore this oppression, or accept it as the status quo that can be lived with.”

The struggle for Palestinian rights is incompatible with any form of racism or bigotry: a statement by Palestinians

Granting No Quarter: A Call for the Disavowal of the Racism and Antisemitism of Gilad Atzmon

A new hasbara campaign: Countering the ‘Arab Narrative’

“Irrespective of its sources, racism is racism. Ignorance is no excuse. Insecurity is not justification…racism in all its forms should be uncompromisingly condemned.”

Michael Dodson, Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Social Justice Commissioner, quoted in Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission, Fourth Report, 1996

Race : Its Socially Constructed Origins

Racism No Way

Top 10 Settler Excuses for Colonialism

Derailing for Dummies

How to argue like a white racist

Eight things racists say to try and convince people they’re not being racist

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On Israel’s Theft of Hebron from Palestinians

Resisting criminal Israel’s use of violent Jewish settlers to steal Hebron from Palestinians.

Palestine / Israel Links

Sam Bahour: “If Israel is bent on discriminating against one fifth of its own citizens, what should we expect of it in the occupied territories, areas that are not internationally recognized as Israel? Indeed, the next time I’m asked what I think the solution to this conflict is, my answer will be ready: Let’s start with full equal rights for Palestinians inside Israel. In other words, The Galilee First if Israel is serious about peace and truly desires historic reconciliation with the Palestinians.”

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Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions – Pressuring Israel to End Its Oppression

Find out more about the logic of BDS – become involved with the international grassroots campaign for justice and rights for Palestinian people dispossessed of their Indigenous land and deprived of basic human rights by their oppressor.

More information about the One Democratic State Group can be found here. The ODSG believes “that the One State Solution is the only viable option that guarantees comprehensive peace in the Middle East. The establishment of a Secular Democratic State on historic Palestine for all of its citizens regardless of religion, race, or sex–after the return of Palestinian refugees–IS the solution to the Middle East conflict.”

The ODSG is also

“active in the Palestine-initiated campaign of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel. These measures, similar to those applied to South Africa during the apartheid era, are necessary to bring an end to Israel’s genocidal policies towards Palestinians both within Israel and throughout the Occupied Territories. We believe that these non-violent measures should be maintained until Apartheid Israel recognizes the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and the establishment of a democratic state on Mandatory Palestine; a state for ALL of its citizens.”

Related Links

Strength to strength : As part of the ongoing campaign for solidarity with Palestine, the Palestine Action Group is calling another peaceful protest against Max Brenner at Parramatta Westfield. Max Brenner is an ongoing target of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign for its support for Israel and the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF). Mark the 8th November for protest action against apartheid Israel.

Diab wants Palestinians to seek citizenship of Israel. What of Palestinian refugees?

Diab’s Monty Pythonesque ‘Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestinians’ is frivolous and patronising – Palestinians lead their own struggle. Diab writes if Israel/Palestine is a movie set. He is pontificating of course. There’s no recognition by him of intrinsic Indigenous rights. Settler colonials don’t have the same relationship with the land as Indigenous people. Further, people shouldn’t have to do any deals to enjoy basic human rights, or equal rights either, though. They are non-negotiable.

Is Diab really promising the end of the racist, oxymoronic “Jewish democratic state” when he says “likewise it is the Israeli people who make Israel Jewish and so emancipating the millions of disenfranchised Palestinians will not make the state any less Jewish than it is today – only fairer and more just”?

I am reminded of words from Queensland Aboriginal activists : “If you have come here to help me, you are wasting your time. But if you have come because your liberation is bound up with mine, then let us work together”. How can one liberate others if one is not first liberated, how can one decolonise the minds of others if one’s own mind is not decolonised first?

When the oppressor frames the dimensions of the struggle of the oppressed, colonialism is implicit. Do Palestinians see Diab’s proposal as ‘ideologically neutral’?

Other Links

Democracy and peaceful protest is alive and well in Venezuala : “The numbers on both sides of the campaign makes one thing plainly clear; there is something at stake in Venezuela. The people have said goodbye to the concept of “pacted democracy” – the choice of voting for two parties with near-identical policies, long since buried over here, but still alive and well in the UK – and they do not want it back. The opposition say they want to unite the country, but poor people have experienced the type of ‘unity’ that denies their existence, let alone their right to live a dignified life, many times before.”

The US is a gulag state.
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