BDS does mean the end of the Jewish state.

October 18, 2012 — richardgoldengage

At least i agree on one thing with Ahmed Moor when he says,

Ok fine. So BDS does mean the end of the Jewish state

So it’s not a campaign to end the occupation after all. Who’d have thought it.

Posted in anti-Zionism, boycott divestment & sanctions. 22 Comments »

22 Responses to “BDS does mean the end of the Jewish state.”

  1. Larry Ray Says:
    October 18, 2012 at 7:48 pm

    Who’d have thought it indeed. This isn’t news to anyone who’s taken more than a cursory look at BDS.
    BTW the boycott Israeli universities campaign is getting publicity (and given a favourable airing on the R4 Today programme a couple of days ago) in response to giving Ariel college university status.

    Reply
  2. Brian Goldfarb Says:
    October 18, 2012 at 9:21 pm

    Did I miss something, or did UCU fail to have a boycott motion this year?

    And what stage is the latest case against them, represented by the estimable Anthony Julius, going?

    Reply
  3. Brian Goldfarb Says:
    October 18, 2012 at 9:52 pm

    Just skimmed the article in question. Even given that it’s on Mondoweiss, it’s a logical mess (to say nothing of the underlying ideology). Moor bemoans the lack of equality, as he sees it, in Israel. Talk about mote-beam perception. He properly notes that some 20% of Israel’s population (and citizens) are non-Jews, but prefers not to note that close to that percent makes it through to Israeli higher education; that there have been (and are) non-Jewish Judges, up to and including the Supreme Court; Professors, ditto, ministers in government…

    To do so would, of course, destroy his blinkered approach to the one real representative democracy in the region. And this is before we’ve got onto the status of women in Israel: one Prime Minister so far, numerous party leaders, ministers, judges, professors, etc and so forth. I even have an Israeli female friend who was the lead architectural engineer (the ones who make sure the architect’s vision actually stays up when built) on at least two very major projects.

    And we haven’t even got to the problem Muslims have with which brand of Islam one professes: Shia v. Suni; Wahabi; Salafi…At least Jews haven’t got around to killing each other because they are the wrong sort of Jew: not Charedi enough; too Charedi; Mizrachi; horror of horrors, a Liberal Jew…

    As for the status of women in Muslim countries, and whether non-Moslems can have any significant human rights, let alone citizen rights…

    I went to a talk given by a Tunisian pro-democracy activist last night and, would you believe, the word Israel was mentioned once, and then only in passing. That is, real democrats in the Middle East and North Africa know very well that Israel is a distraction from the real issue, which is the need for democracy and tolerance in the region. Israel is a distraction, and if it disappeared tomorrow, peacefully or otherwise, the real problems of the other states in the region would remain. Difference is, they might then be forced to face them (as has happened and is happening now), because they could no longer pretend (and it is a pretence) that the cause of all their ills is Israel.

    Get real, Ahmed Moor.

    Reply
    • Brian Goldfarb Says:
      October 20, 2012 at 1:29 pm

      I’d just like to add this to the comment above, as found on Richard Millet’s blog: “Antony Loewenstein is an Australian anti-Israel activist who describes himself as “a non-practising atheist Jew”. He has just co-written a book with Ahmed Moor called After Zionism, about the search for a one state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. This would mean the end of Israel as a Jewish state.
      Last night Loewenstein and Moor spoke at the School of Oriental and African Studies in London to promote the book.”

      I assume that this is the same Ahmed Moor who wrote the article on Mondoweiss that Richard linked to. Note what Richard M. heads the article in question:
      http://richardmillett.wordpress.com/2012/08/23/antony-loewenstein-six-million-should-die/#comments

      Nice people. People about their manners.

      Reply
      • Alex Says:
        October 22, 2012 at 6:28 am

        And Loewenstein would be the same Loewenstein who responds to the “both sides have grievances and both sides have done things wrong” argument, by criticising the author for never accepting any fault on the part of the perfect state of Israel.

        Reply
        • Brian Goldfarb Says:
          October 23, 2012 at 12:01 am

          Yep, it’s amazing how someone who says that (“both sides have grievances…”) can be so one-eyed, while our Alex (well, not mine, of course, but someone’s) is astoundingly clear-eyed, impartial and..I think, like Violet Elizabeth Bott (see the “Just William” books by Richmal Crompton, for non-Brits of a certain age), I’m about to throw up!

  4. Dan Says:
    October 26, 2012 at 8:13 am

    I will be frank here: the boycott movement is scaring me to death. In fact, as an American Jew, I can’t think of anything that frightens me more. It produces in me the kind of bone chilling, hair raising terror that keeps me wide awake at night. I’m not even joking about that. They won’t realize what Israel means to us, or how hypocritical and inherently racist their movement really is. People will tell me “anti-Zionism is NOT antisemitism” but it sure doesn’t feel that way to me. When you have neo-Nazis and skinheads suddenly expressing “concern for Palestinian rights”, passing largely unnoticed and unchallenged in the left, you know you’ve got a huge problem.

    Reply
    • Noga Says:
      October 27, 2012 at 12:41 pm

      Dan: You are correct to have nightmares about BDS. Just take a look at how someone who is not timid about his fantasies describes such a future as will follow a successful BDS:

      According to the wiki entry ” AbuKhalil …supports one secular state in historical Palestine”

      What kind of “one secular state” does the peace-loving, secularist-atheist, radical anarchist envisions?

      Here are a few examples:

      “… once Palestine is liberated, I don’t think that Hebrew poet living under a Palestinian flag (and using the renamed George Habash International Airport) should be harassed unless they harm the security of the anti-Zionist state.”

      ” But your delusions are good for us: you won’t know what will hit you in the future in response to all the war crimes that you have committed against our people. ”

      “And once the Palestinian refugees are returned to their homes all over Palestine, I will make sure that you get decent rents in the formerly Palestinian refugee camps because we may be a bit short of space for the occupiers then. ”

      And then there is this:

      ” (Nothing incenses me or provokes me like watching scenes of “tourist” promotion for the enemy state of Israel: I scream in my inside. The stones are not yours. The flowers are not yours. The beaches are not yours. The clouds are not yours. The blueness of the sky is not yours. All will return to their owners. Then, everything will be more beautiful and more splendid.)”

      or this:

      “I don’t like flags, and I don’t like nationalisms but for Palestine and the Palestinians, everything and anything. ”

      ***

      Abukhalil is not some nutcase who fulminates on street corners, or a wild-eyed Islamist mullah in his Friday sermon. He is a respectable professor of political science at California State University, Stanislaus and visiting professor at UC, Berkeley.

      Reply
      • Brian Goldfarb Says:
        October 27, 2012 at 6:10 pm

        Ah, Noga, you should direct us directly to your website, so we can all learn the awful truth about the Angry Arab, as Abukhalil calls himself.

        Further, people like him are only too prepared to ignore evidence (too uncomfortable for them and their “case”) that there have been Jews in the land for over 3000 years. Indeed, despite the exiles imposed by the Assyrians, the Babylonians and the Romans (and where are they now?), the land has never been empty of Jews. So much for “a land without people”. Just, until the end of the 19th Century, not very many of them.

        Dan, while I agree with your fears (why do you think this and sites similar to it exist), increasingly many fear for the future of Israel because of the increasing numbers of, and leech like status on the State, the Charedi.

        Now, _that’s_ scary.

        Reply
        • Philip Says:
          October 30, 2012 at 8:36 am

          The Angry Arab is an old school leftist, fetishising dictatorship so long as it stands up to the imperialist west. Let’s not use straw men, folks. Let’s not take jokers like him seriously.

        • Philip Says:
          October 30, 2012 at 8:37 am

          Just to clarify, I’m happy for people to call him out for his views, not trying to defend him, just saying, plenty of people broadly on what you might call the ‘Palestinian side’ don’t take him seriously, and certainly are not represented by his views.

  5. Noga Says:
    November 2, 2012 at 1:13 pm

    “plenty of people broadly on what you might call the ‘Palestinian side’ don’t take him seriously”

    I would like to read some of the criticism published by those pro-Palestinian voices that do not take him seriously.

    Reply
  6. Brian Goldfarb Says:
    November 2, 2012 at 9:29 pm

    And even if it’s true that he isn’t taken seriously by that “plenty of people”, he’s an academic in the social sciences and, apparently, he teaches these views to his impressionistic students. I stress that I’m saying “apparently”. My source is the website “The Contentious Centrist” , and you should check this out for the evidence.

    Reply
    • Noga Says:
      November 3, 2012 at 1:38 pm

      Abukhalil posted this yesterday:

      ” Balfour Declaration
      When I was an undergraduate student at the American University of Beirut, I took a most memorable course on the
      West and the Middle East with Walid Khalidi (by far one of the most effective teachers). He once spent a class analyzing and dissecting the text of the Balfaour Declaration and his analysis never left me. I still do the same on my classes on the Arab-Israeli conflict.”

      I did not know until now that he was teaching a class on the Arab-Israel conflict. I would have thought his academic integrity would have forced him to recuse himself from teaching this subject, considering his radicalism and considering that he writes things like this:

      “Arab Society at U Penn
      Given the co-sponsorship with Israeli clubs on campus, I strongly suggest that that the Arab Society at U Penn adopt the Israeli flag as its logo. More fitting for its disgusting mission.”

      ” It is important to know the methods of the enemy and not to provide them with ammunition provided that you don’t waver in your political stance against the very existence of the state of Israel.”

      “fantasy
      I have often fantasized about my feelings as I board the plane to Palestine after the demise of Israel. How I would relish looking at all Israeli terrorist leaders behind bars. Hell, I would volunteer to serve as judge, jury, and guardsman.”

      Reply
      • Brian Goldfarb Says:
        November 4, 2012 at 1:41 am

        Philip, o you still think that this man is ignorable? Or should he be confronted? If not, how else might his influence on plastic minds be curbed?

        These are serious questions.

        Reply
        • Philip Says:
          November 7, 2012 at 6:04 pm

          I’m not going to confront him, but if you feel moved to do so, be all means do. That’s what I meant when I wrote, ‘I’m happy for people to call him out for his views, not trying to defend him’.

          My point is that he’s an irrelevance and unrepresentative of the people I know and / or associate with, who are on the broadly-speaking pro-Palestinian side, especially the Libertarian side thereof.

  7. conchovor Says:
    November 5, 2012 at 5:18 pm

    Ben White seems to have a thing for angry arab:

    http://www.palestinefreedom.org/news/ben-white-us-tour-2012

    Reply
  8. Brian Goldfarb Says:
    November 9, 2012 at 11:41 pm

    Philip, I didn’t ask whether _you_ were going to confront “the angry arab”, but whether, given his propensity to confuse the classroom with the public political forum and, also, his access to the classroom, he should be confronted. He is as entitled to his opinions and views, to his particular interpretation of facts and events, and to the right to air them as anyone else. What he is not entitled to do is tell his young and impressionable (and captive) students that _this_ (whatever _this_ is) is the only possible way to interpret such facts and events, when there are numerous other ways of interpreting them.

    Regrettably, someone with access to young and impressionable minds is far from an irrelevance, when we are talking about highly emotive social issues (and even when these social issues are far from emotive).

    Or do you disagree, Philip?

    Reply
    • Philip Says:
      December 3, 2012 at 12:12 pm

      I think you probably don’t give enough credit to students. I think that university professors and HE lecturers always try to influence their students, whether by infusing them with Marxism, Zionism, Keynesianism, Conservatism, Socialism, etc. Most students know to treat their professors’ views with a touch of scepticism. And most will get views from a diversity of sources.

      So I don’t think he’s an especially problematic example. I think he’s an idiot. But that’s a different story altogether.

      Feel free to ‘confront’ him as you see fit, by all means. My view is that it’s better to treat the Angry Arab as the irrelvance he is. But that’s just my opinion.

      Reply
  9. The Ozi Zion Blog » Blog Archive » BDS and what it wants Says:
    December 21, 2012 at 3:55 am

    […] Gold in Engage links here to discussion from an Ahmed Moor… where he questions the value of BDSers interacting with […]

    Reply

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