tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424835764898036148.post3447152370237551518..comments2023-10-28T08:18:42.569-07:00Comments on Middle East Analysis: Boycotts will not achieve any goalSnoopyTheGoonhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/00920565522498918323noreply@blogger.comBlogger1125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7424835764898036148.post-5470215112990124422007-07-08T08:10:00.000-07:002007-07-08T08:10:00.000-07:00Mister Black's note that the NUJ boycott of Israel...Mister Black's note that the NUJ boycott of Israel would be neither likely to acheive the stated goals nor helpful to jounalists is well argued, however his claim that the boycott is not antisemitic in motivation and that they should not be compared with Nazi-organized boycotts of Jewish business in the early 1930s makes him something of a pollyanna.<BR/><BR/>The British press as a whole has a special animus towards Israel. Criticism is a logically coherent argument supported by evidence, and while criticism of any government's policies ought not be feared in a free society, too much of what appears in the British press fails to rise to the level of valid criticism.<BR/><BR/>Even the most cursory investigation of the websites of BBC or <I>The Guardian</I> (where Mister Black is employed) feature inaccurate historical context, ignoring the sheer scale of human rights abuses against middle eastern Jewry over the course of the Arab-Israeli conflict, including government sanctioned pogroms, and a creation of 900,000 Jewish refugees (compared to the 711,000 Palestinian refugees) who did not receive aid from the United Nations.<BR/><BR/>The British press also routinely lumps in casualties in inter-factional fighting in Palestine, and self-inflicted deaths through suicide bombings or accidents in bomb-making workshops in with those killed in IDF counter terrorism operations to give a an appearance of a disproportionate response by Israel.<BR/><BR/>The BBC and the Guardian continue to host claims of indiscriminate mass killings during the 2002 Battle of Jenin, despite the fact that several human rights agencies including UNHRC have investigated and found no such evidence. Indeed, only the British press took such claims of atrocities seriously while the press services of other Western democracies tended to be far more cautious. Indeed BBC World Service was particularly graphic in describing these events -- describing acts similar to those that had justified NATO airstrikes agains the Milosovic regime in Serbia.<BR/><BR/>Given the sheer amount of disinformation reported by members of the NUJ and the outlets that employ them, it is incredibly difficult not to see the boycott as motivated but by animus, not by informed moral sensibility. <I>The boycott is pushed by the same individuals and organizations that are disseminating disinformation.</I><BR/><BR/>So if we ask why Iran (for instance), a nation whose officials issue <I>fatwahs</I> for the death of Sir Salman Rushdie, and whose government abducts, tortures, rapes, and murders journalists and scholars, does not warrant a boycott while Israel does, it becomes very apparent that Iran is not run by Jews, so while the use of the word "Nazi" in the proceedings (and Mister Black is the first one I have seen do so) may be somewhat hyperbolic, it's not as hyperbolic as Mister Black would have us believe.Ian Thalhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/15348768867561450314noreply@blogger.com