June 24, 2013
In a Fox News interview, former Israeli ambassador to the United Nations Dan Gillerman argues, extraordinarily, that a country which “thumbs its nose at the world” and possesses nuclear weapons “should be wiped off the map of the world”.
June 23, 2013 § Leave a Comment
My article for the “10 Reasons for a Cultural Boycott of Israel” campaign has prompted requests for a similar article about the academic boycott. So without further ado: 10 reasons for an academic boycott of Israel.
Relevant links:
Security studies in Israel’s universities and colleges:
Powerful Gideon Levy column in yesterday’s Haaretz:
What do dogs remind you of? And what do German shepherds remind you of? And what about armed soldiers who sic German shepherds on people trying to sneak through a border in order to earn a living?
These lines are being written in a hotel room in the capital of the Czech Republic, a country that knows a thing or two about occupation, oppression and struggles for liberation. In this city’s Museum of Communism, which is next door to a casino, one can view a photograph of East German soldiers siccing German shepherds on people trying to sneak into West Germany. The Nazi soldiers were replaced by Communist soldiers; the dogs remained.
A few days before my museum visit I was in the West Bank village of Beit Ula, near Hebron. I met a young man, Mohammed Amla, whose back and neck are scarred along their entire length from the bites of an Israel Defense Forces dog − a German shepherd, of course. Amla, married with two daughters, has worked in Israel for the past 12 years, doing manual labor.
When Amla has money he bribes his Israeli contractor, paying him a small fortune (NIS 2,000 a month) to obtain an Israeli work permit for him. When the family ran out of money because one of the daughters, who is deaf, needed an expensive ear operation, Amla sneaked into Israel. The result: a stay in the hospital with torn skin on his back and neck.
One evening last month masked IDF soldiers lay in wait near an opening in the separation fence. When Amla and two companions approached, before they crossed into Israel, the soldiers set their dogs on the trio. After it seemed that the IDF had stopped siccing dogs on “illegal residents,” the army has resumed the horrific practice of setting dogs on unarmed civilians. After all, the IDF’s storied Oketz canine unit must be kept busy during periods of relative calm.
One cannot ignore the historical connotations; one cannot remain oblivious to the unavoidable associations. Bullets are more deadly but less cruel than setting dogs on human beings. The very thought of Israeli soldiers doing this should have aroused more than a flicker of shock and shame. But it did not, not even when the connotation shrieks to the heavens. We’ll send our soldiers first to the March of the Living in Auschwitz, and then we’ll train them to sic dogs on people. The IDF Spokesman’s Office, which once at least made an effort to protect the reputation of “the most moral army in the world,” has apparently given up on that as well. Its arrogant, apathetic response to the story of that night of the dogs was the ultimate nonresponse: “The matter is being evaluated.”
While we wait for the “evaluation” to end − it never does, usually − we must honestly ask ourselves: Is this what we genuinely want? If an Israeli citizen’s sneaking into the Palestinian Authority were to end in his being set upon by dogs and hospitalized, as sneaking into Israel did for Amla, the entire country − and perhaps the world − would be in an uproar. The full weight of history would be brought to bear against the image of a Palestinian soldier siccing a dog, God save us, on a Jew. The Palestinians, those beasts, set dogs on human beings. But that (too) is of course permitted to the IDF.
For the meantime, Amla is at home recovering from his injuries. He cannot work yet. He says he won’t sneak into Israel again, as thousands of Palestinians looking for work do every night, out of fear of the dog that attacked him. When the dog gripped Amla’s neck in its jaws, he was sure he was about to die. Ostensibly, that’s a great accomplishment for Israel: Amla won’t return to renovate homes illegally. But from my hotel room in Prague − the city where I found the names of my murdered grandmother and grandfather engraved on a stone plaque, the city whose memories of the Nazi and Soviet occupations and of the “Prague Spring” echo in every corner − the thought of Israeli soldiers siccing their dogs on Mohammed Amla takes on an added meaning that is very disturbing and burdensome.
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This is a classic case of mainstream journalists, so keen to promote Progressive and Green Israel, shilling for Israeli electric corporation Better Place. The fact that members of its board had troubling human rights records and it operated in the occupied West Bank was conveniently ignored.
Now news that will sadden nobody except individuals who believe that finding alternatives to fossil fuels should not involve considering human rights of Palestinians (via New York Times):
The vision was ambitious. Better Place, an electric vehicle infrastructure company, unveiled plans more than five years ago to pioneer a system of quick-service battery swapping stations across Israel to enable unlimited travel.
The company’s founder predicted that 100,000 electric cars would be on the roads here by 2010.
But on Sunday, Better Place announced that its venture, a flagship enterprise of Israel’s image as a start-up hub, was coming to an end.
Dan Cohen, the company’s third chief executive, said in a statement that financial difficulties had left the company no option but to file for liquidation in a district court and to request the appointment of a provisional receiver “to find the best way to minimize the damage to its employees, customers and creditors.”
The announcement followed a string of setbacks in the emerging electric car market. Fisker, a carmaker, is in financial distress; A123 Systems, a battery supplier for Fisker, and, more recently, Coda Holdings, another carmaker, filed for bankruptcy. Tesla, the prominent car manufacturer, has had success, though, repaying its government loan last week after a successful sale of new shares.
Israel had been considered a perfect testing ground for Better Place’s green project, given the country’s small size and high gasoline prices. The electric car fit into Israeli dreams of reducing oil dependency; the initiative gained the support of the government and was embraced by Shimon Peres, the president of Israel. President Obama, during his March visit here, praised the Israelis’ innovative spirit, mentioning electric cars as one of several examples.
Yet the project was hobbled by problems and delays, and the company’s idea failed to gain traction, with fewer than 1,000 cars on the road in Israel and another few hundred in Denmark.
Mr. Cohen said on Sunday that the vision and the model had been right, but that the pace of market penetration had not lived up to expectations. Without a large injection of cash, he said, Better Place was unable to continue its operations.
“This is a very sad day for all of us,” Mr. Cohen added. “The company brought with it a vision that swept along many people here and around the world.”
About $850 million in private capital has been invested in the company, which has 350 employees in Israel. The largest shareholder, with about 30 percent of the stock, was the Israel Corporation, a large holding company that focuses on chemicals, energy, shipping and transportation. The corporation’s decision not to invest further in Better Place led to the motion for receivership.
The Better Place model for electric car use emerged from an effort among manufacturers and suppliers to establish a standard infrastructure in the nascent industry.
Under terms that resembled a cellphone plan, subscribers to Better Place bought their cars and paid about $350 a month to lease access to the batteries, swap stations and charge points. But only one car manufacturer, the French automaker Renault, signed on to adapt its Fluence Z.E. sedan to enable battery switching, limiting the customers’ choices and the company’s potential.
The battery has a range of about 100 miles. For those traveling longer distances, Better Place set up a network of switching stations where it promised that swapping a depleted battery for a fully charged one would take about the same time as filling a car with gas, so that range would no longer be an issue.
“It’s not the future of gas stations; it’s the end of them,” the company Web site boasted.
About three dozen switching stations now dot Israel, which is about 260 miles long from north to south, but they often look deserted.
The company was founded in Palo Alto, Calif., by Shai Agassi, an Israeli entrepreneur who had previously been a top executive at SAP, the German software company. It then moved from California to Tel Aviv.
In October, Better Place said that Mr. Agassi had been succeeded as its chief by Evan Thornley, the company’s top executive in Australia. The company said Mr. Agassi would continue as a board member and shareholder. Mr. Thornley left after only three months, over differences regarding the direction of the company, according to Globes , the Israeli business publication. He was succeeded by Mr. Cohen.
In February, Better Place announced that it was winding down its operations in North America and Australia to concentrate on its core markets in Denmark and Israel.
Mr. Cohen said on Sunday that the company would do what it could to continue to serve its customers and operate the recharging network, until the liquidator decided on a course of action.
When Stephen Hawking visited here in 2006 he received the royal treatment; but then he decided to criticize Israel.
By Gideon Levy | May.19, 2013 | 6:30 AM
This might be the most sensitive of Israeli nerves: Just try to touch it, and your fate is sealed. Anyone proposing to boycott an Israeli product, from Ahava’s skin creams to the Israeli Presidential Conference, is immediately sentenced to scorn, ostracism and a total smear campaign.
This Pavlovian response reached a nadir with the announcement by the esteemed scientist Stephen Hawking of his withdrawal from the birthday celebrations for President Shimon Peres. Instead of asking itself how it got to the point where even a celebrated figure like Hawking, who has never been accused of being anti-Israel, decides to boycott its gatherings, Israel is busy waging a slander campaign. Instead of listening to the synthesized moral voice of the paralyzed scientist, Israel kicks viciously at Hawking, in a manner that obviously only proves the lameness of its arguments.
Hawking is permitted to decide that he wants no part of yet another Israeli propaganda fest, aimed at obscuring the goings-on in its backyard and presided over by that wizard of deceit, our president. It’s Hawking’s right, his duty. After four previous visits he said, it stops here, no more will he grace Israel with his presence, like some bauble.
Until he opened his mouth and dared to boycott, he was treated in a manner reserved on these shores for mega-celebrities. When he visited in December 2006, he received the royal treatment. He was interviewed on Yair Lapid’s talk show; the menus he was served in the presidential suite of Jerusalem’s King David Hotel featured in the local gossip columns; and a public service ad he shot for Access Israel – a nonprofit organization promoting greater access for people with disabilities – won the Golden Cactus Award of the Advertisers Association of Israel for Best Campaign and Best Creative Advertising Idea for 2007.
And then it all came crashing down. Overnight, the supporter became a saboteur, the lionized figure became loathed. Prof. Shlomo Avineri accused him of suffering from “severe moral blindness” and even said his decision “has a whiff of racism,” because he dared to boycott Israel but not the United States and Britain (“Stephen Hawking’s hypocrisy,” Haaretz, May 13 ).
The Wolf Foundation, which 25 years ago awarded Hawking its Wolf Prize in Physics, demanded its due, declaring that Hawking “chose to capitulate to irrelevant pressures.” Maybe the foundation will demand its cash award back, as well. The chairman of the Israeli Presidential Conference, Israel Maimon, described the physicist’s decision as “outrageous and improper.”
Attorney Nitsana Darshan-Leitner, the director of Shurat HaDin – Israel Law Center, an NGO that combats terror organizations, suggested that Hawking remove his tablet computer’s Intel Core i7 processor, an Israeli-made component that powers the computer-based system that allows him to communicate with the world. Darshan-Leitner was predictably joined in that inhumane proposal to silence Hawking, literally as well as figuratively, by the Israel Prize laureate in communications, Yaakov Ahimeir.
That’s how we like our international cultural and scientific figures: blind supporters of every Israeli action. And this is how we detest them: when they dare to criticize its policy. The day the world’s authority on black holes discovered the black hole in the heart of Israel, he was sentenced to be smeared. The day the author of “A Brief History of Time” came to the conclusion that it was time to shorten the history of the Israeli occupation, he became a victim of abuse.
How Israeli it is to accuse him of capitulating to “irrelevant pressures,” as though he were not a certified genius with independent opinions; how typical to accuse him now of hypocrisy. He has every right to boycott Israel and not to boycott the United States and Britain – it is ridiculous to draw a comparison. Even if the latter two countries committed war crimes in Iraq, their war crimes had an end. In any case, one may choose not to eat meat but to eat fish. The decision to choose Israel as a symbol of immorality is not blunted in and of itself by the fact that other states behave the same way.
Also ridiculous is the insinuation that it was Noam Chomsky who persuaded Hawking to withdraw from the conference: What is wrong with such a meeting of intellectual giants? Israel shut its doors to Chomsky, in one of its lowest moments. If Hawking seeks to return, albeit not for the Peres festival, he is likely to meet a similar fate. But do not despair, O Israel: Cliff Richard is on his way.
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