RUTHFULLY YOURS

The problem with Israeli leftists is that they are anti-democratic and know they can never persuade the public to pursue leftist policies using the democratic process. There would be nothing wrong with leftists trying to convince the public using democratic means and persuasion that settlements are awful and must be removed. If the Left persuades enough people, they will elect a parliament that will implement the Left’s agenda.

The problem is that the vast majority of the public rejects the Left’s agenda and supports the continued development of “settlements” and other Israeli institutions in the West Bank, including Ariel University. Because the Left is incapable of persuading more than a few percent of Israelis, the Left pursues its agenda using coercive anti-democratic means, by organizing boycotts against West Bank Jews
and demonizing them. This is a fundamentally anti-democratic tactic and shows the real nature of Israel’s increasingly fascist far leftists.

In addition, those who boycott West Bank “settlements” are anti-Jewish bigots. How do we know this? Because they are not promoting the boycott of Israeli enterprises in the West Bank, but only of Jewish enterprises. If some Arab entrepreneurs in Nazareth or Haifa were to set up factories or hire people in the West Bank, none of the bleeding heart leftist boycotters would propose that THOSE be boycotted. Or
take the idea one step further. The Arab fascist Knesset Member Ahmed Tibi has Israeli citizenship. He also owns a residence in East Jerusalem, outside the “1967 Green Line.” (Hat tip – Hagai Segel in Makor Rishon.) Not a single leftist is calling for Tibi to be boycotted because of this. Why not? If the boycott is against all Israeli presence outside the Green Line, Tibi is as deserving of being boycotted as anyone else. In fact he sits in the Israeli parliament!

The answer of course is that the boycott is directed against Jews, not against Israelis. It is racist and bigoted and that is why the anti-boycott bill is justified, much like any law against discrimination.

There is another ironic twist to the leftists and their boycott against “settlements.” While intending only to harm Jews, the main victims of such boycotts are likely to be West Bank “Palestinians.” The enterprises operating in the West Bank that the Left wants boycotted employ thousands of “Palestinians,” paying them wages at least three times what they can earn in regular Palestinian jobs working for Palestinians. And Ariel University has lots of Palestinian students, I think between 10 and 15 percent of its student body. So if the leftists get their way, they will be inflicting serious damages on their beloved “Palestinians.”

While the Left is wetting itself over the anti-boycott law and insisting that boycotts are legitimate and democratic, Amnon Lord, writing in Makor Rishon, has an interesting anecdote.

It seems that a few years back, the Israeli government decided to prohibit Israeli drivers from getting their cars fixed in the West Bank. The garages there are cheaper but there were too many terrorist attacks against the traffic of Israelis going there for tune-ups. So, out of security concerns, it was prohibited for drivers to go there.

The Left had conniptions. Led by Uri Avnery, the father of Israeli anti-Zionism (and a one-time supporter of Nazism before World War II), the Left screamed that this boycott of West Bank garages was a racist reincarnation of Nazi German boycotts of Jewish shops. This is the same Avnery, and these are the same leftist moonbats, now bellowing that prohibiting boycotts against settlers is fascist and anti-democratic.