Time to boycott Israel For the sake of our children, I am convinced that an international boycott is the only way to save Israel from itself

• Neve Gordon (also published in the LA Times)
• guardian, Friday 21 August 2009 09.00 BST

Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokeswoman, an actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is gaining many followers around the world.

Not surprisingly, many Israelis – even peaceniks – aren't signing on. A global boycott can't help but contain echoes of antisemitism. It also brings up questions of a double standard (why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights?) and the seemingly contradictory position of approving a boycott of one's own nation.

It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organisations, unions and citizens to suspend co-operation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.

I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country's future.

The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews – whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel – are citizens of the state of Israel.

The question that keeps me up at night, both as a parent and as a citizen, is how to ensure that my two children as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbours do not grow up in an apartheid regime.

There are only two moral ways of achieving this goal.

The first is the one-state solution: offering citizenship to all Palestinians and thus establishing a binational democracy within the entire area controlled by Israel. Given the demographics, this would amount to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state; for most Israeli Jews, it is anathema.

The second means of ending our apartheid is through the two-state solution, which entails Israel's withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders (with possible one-for-one land swaps), the division of Jerusalem and a recognition of the Palestinian right of return with the stipulation that only a limited number of the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, while the rest could return to the new Palestinian state.

Geographically, the one-state solution appears much more feasible because Jews and Palestinians are already totally enmeshed; indeed, "on the ground," the one-state solution (in an apartheid manifestation) is a reality. Ideologically, the two-state solution is more realistic because fewer than 1% of Jews and only a minority of Palestinians support binationalism.

For now, despite the concrete difficulties, it makes more sense to alter the geographic realities than the ideological ones. If at some future date the two peoples decide to share a state, they can do so, but currently this is not something they want.

So if the two-state solution is the way to stop the apartheid state, then how does one achieve this goal?

I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren't citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics is moving more and more to the extreme right.

It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.

I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.

In Bilbao, Spain, in 2008, a coalition of organisations from all over the world formulated the 10-point campaign meant to pressure Israel in a "gradual, sustainable manner that is sensitive to context and capacity". For example, the effort begins with sanctions on and divestment from Israeli firms operating in the occupied territories, followed by actions against those that help sustain and reinforce the occupation in a visible manner. Along similar lines, artists who come to Israel to draw attention to the occupation are welcome, while those who just want to perform are not.

Nothing else has worked. Putting massive international pressure on Israel is the only way to guarantee that the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians – my two boys included – does not grow up in an apartheid regime.

Fatah's Gauntlet

by Amira Hass
Ha'aretz 19/08/2009
The decision by Fatah's Sixth Congress that the movement is sticking to negotiations as a means of achieving independence, statehood and peace is an admission that the use of arms during the second intifada was disastrous. That is a difficult admission for a movement founded on the sanctification of the armed struggle. And despite being tacit, it is a brave admission for Fatah at a time when most Palestinians are convinced that Israel does not want peace. Nevertheless, the decision has sparked a few questions from the side of the occupied. The first question is whether Fatah's courage will hold firm if another uprising against the occupation erupts. Or, in other words, whether Fatah is capable of leading an uprising without falling into the trap of the fantasy known as "armed struggle." The second question relates to the negotiations. The conditions that the congress said must be met before talks can resume reflect criticism of the complacent way in which Palestinian representatives have conducted negotiations. Indeed, the authors of the congress' platform beat their breasts over the negligence that caused the first negotiators to omit from the Oslo accords the demand that settlement construction be stopped, the goal of statehood and any mention of the state's borders. But even if Fatah's veteran negotiators wise up and change their negotiating tactics, is it not too late? No new negotiations will be enough on their own to remove the facts on the ground that Israel has created. It is only natural that people subject to foreign domination seek other means of achieving independence in the spectrum between armed struggle and peace talks. Therefore, it is logical that Fatah declared at its congress that it is not giving up other legitimate forms of struggle (boycotts, acts of popular resistance against the settlements) alongside the negotiations. The question this begs is whether this can become more than mere words. After all, this is the same Fatah that entrenched itself so deeply in its status as the ruling party, and the attendant minor perks, that even during the most frustrating of the Oslo years, it refrained from developing the option of mass civil disobedience. This is the same Fatah that still sees the establishment of the Palestinian Authority - i.e. the establishment of governmental institutions that are, by nature, crippled - as a huge achievement. Neither the Palestinian Authority, which is an institution concerned with maintaining its existence, nor Fatah, which is concerned with maintaining its huge achievement, have dared to expand the popular protests against the separation fence, of which they boast, into a real popular revolt. The PA is more concerned with recruiting masses of young men into its police forces, whose goal is to suppress "disturbances" (and impose order on Palestinian cities, where the chief disturbers of the peace were Fatah's own frustrated and quarrelsome armed men). Their foreign trainers are not preparing them to confront armed Israeli soldiers with bare chests. Masses of Palestinians tried this during the first intifada, and the early days of the second as well. And the Israel Defense Forces showed them that in its view, like that of many Israelis, a popular uprising by Palestinians is a no less legitimate target for suppression than the use of live fire - as is proven by its lethal dispersal of demonstrations against the fence and its nighttime raids and arrests of demonstrators and organizers. The popular revolt at the beginning of the second intifada was killed off by the decision to use weapons, which senior Fatah officials either encouraged or were dragged into when the number of Palestinian casualties mounted. But those who opted for weapons misinterpreted both Israel's intentions and its might. Granted, even without suicide bombings, Israel did and is still doing everything in its power to annex West Bank lands. But the indiscriminate use of weapons, against soldiers and civilians alike, gave Israel a pretext for erecting the fence, making disproportionate use of lethal weaponry and dictating to the PA. If the results have been so disastrous, why are they not discussed openly? It is hard to hold a debate on the weapons fantasy when thousands of families have lost loved ones because of it. It is hard to hold such a debate when thousands of Palestinians have paid with their freedom, including many who never held a gun. It is hard to hold such a debate when people who participated in this fantasy have been elected to Fatah's central committee. Moreover, such a debate might have addressed the way senior Fatah members used the "armed struggle" to divert public criticism of the PA and its failures, and salvage Fatah's prestige as a liberation movement. The schizophrenia of being both a government and a liberation movement (as it defines itself) is one of Fatah's most salient characteristics. Can Fatah, which sees the PA as a huge achievement, manage to pick up the gauntlet of popular resistance that it itself threw down?