Comments on: Palestinian Christians do not tolerate life under occupation

By: Donal Heggarty

Donal Heggarty — Wed, 26 Dec 2012 19:43:40 +0000

I am sure it must be swell for Christians to live in a country with Islamic Jihad, Al Aqsa Martyrs and Hamas as your neighbours.

By: Leen

Leen — Sat, 05 May 2012 00:47:04 +0000

@Vicky, exactly comparable to the boycott/anti-apartheid movement, BDS is a very young movement. It took 30 years for the AAM to be successful, the boycott movement was unheard of in 1957, it was only properly established in 1960 in England and it was a very small movement to begin with.
BDS has achieved quite a lot given its only 7 years old and the fact that it is getting discussed and contemplating divestment is a big move.

By: Cortez

Cortez — Fri, 04 May 2012 05:09:06 +0000

“(2) Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but Russia now has very good relations with Israel. So does the whole former Soviet Bloc. This hasn’t harmed their relations with the Arab countries, particularly Syria”
-it makes sense. Also reminds me that Israel is still culturally and maybe technically an Eastern European country in the Middle East.

By: XYZ

XYZ — Fri, 04 May 2012 04:36:32 +0000

Rafael-
(1) Yes, I am a tribalist.
(2) Perhaps you haven’t noticed, but Russia now has very good relations with Israel. So does the whole former Soviet Bloc. This hasn’t harmed their relations with the Arab countries, particularly Syria.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:26:27 +0000

Though XYZ strives to present himself in rational language, it doesn’t escape my attention how his thought-process is clouded by tribalism. The Kairos ministries, according to him, aren’t the representatives of a besieged population, of a people that is tired of being occupied and have their lands stolen to build Jewish settlements and land-grab barriers. In his words, they’re nothing but “Israel bashers”. With people like this on one of the sides of the conversation, it is clear why the peace process hasn’t advanced. One of the sides is incapable of doing justice to the other and its feelings, preferring instead the path of self-promotion and petty demonization of its partners.

By: Rafael

Rafael — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:22:32 +0000

Continuation:

Americans’ interests don’t coincide with Israel’s nearly as much as did the Soviet Union’s (who saw Israel as a bulwark of socialism) and France (who saw in Israel an ally in suppressing national liberation movements in the Arab world). And the Americans see in Israel — what exactly? (Warning for dummies: please no fake rhetoric about the inherent sympathy between democracies.)

By: Rafael

Rafael — Thu, 03 May 2012 22:15:56 +0000

The fact is that there are pro-Israel lobbies in the US. And as SP and JM asked: why the need of a lobby, if an alliance with Israel is indeed in the interests of the US? It’s also telling that criticism of Israel — though increasingly common on the US left — was considered before off limits on the media, and it still is for US politicians. Again: if the link between Israel and the US is so solid, their interests shared, why the need to censor those who scrutinize this partnership?
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Israel’s previous sponsors — the Soviet Union and France — eventually dropped their partnership with Israel after they decided that this hurt their interactions with Arab states, who are far more numerous, provide a greater market for their products to say nothing of indispensable raw materials, than Israel could ever do. I don’t know why is it taking the US so long. After all, in contrast to the Soviets and the French, Americans’ interests don

By: Vicky

Vicky — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:27:26 +0000

The motion to divest whipped up opinion from both directions. There was nothing hidden or conspiratorial about it. Due to the history of anti-Semitism within Christianity, churches are often very wary of doing anything that might get that label stuck on them (and that label is thrown about with impunity in the BDS debate). Where business is concerned, there is also the very mundane matter of money and what’s profitable. For many senior members, these investments pay their salaries. In the most cynical sense, their choice was very ‘natural’.
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The conference wasn’t voting on whether or not to support BDS as a whole. They were voting on whether or not to divest from specific companies – Caterpillar, Motorola, Hewlett-Packard – in keeping with their policy on ethical finance. To give one example of what those companies are involved in, a friend of mine is currently doing rehabilitation work with a little girl who has been so traumatised by her family’s experience of repeated home demolitions that she has actually become afraid of the colour yellow. Do you know what that kind of fear looks like in a child? What it does to her parents when they try to comfort her in the night with, “It’s OK, Daddy’s here,” and she can’t be comforted, because she’s already learned that Daddy being there doesn’t make any difference when the bulldozers come?
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Caterpillar profits from this. It’s not ethical or rational to invest in the company that supplies those bulldozers – unless your rationality is based on stocks and share prices and desire to maintain a good public image in the current US political climate, which yes, is overwhelmingly supportive of Israeli policy. So no dire conspiracies. Just politics and money and perhaps a little cowardice. Fortunately, several individual churches have taken the decision to divest from these companies, independently of the Methodist Church as a whole. There are other reasons to be positive: the BDS movement in South Africa began in the 1950s, but it took about ten years for the international community to start joining in and about twenty-five before the UN issued its official support (in 1980). Palestine’s BDS movement is only seven years old, and it benefits from the support of people like Tutu, Mandela, and other experienced campaigners in the South African context. Considering its relative youth, even to have divestment raised as an issue at the conference was an achievement.
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Hopefully better achievements will follow. In the meantime, we have to keep letting people know what it is they are profiting from.

By: XYZ

XYZ — Thu, 03 May 2012 20:04:05 +0000

Vicky-
So your you hold by the conspiracy theories that says EVERYTHING that works to Israel’s benefit is due to some nefarious plot, and that if the world really operate in a “natural” fashion, the whole world would go against Israel? Is it not possible that the Methodists weighed both sides and reached a rational conclusion not to support BDS? It has to be that they were bought off or intimidated by AIPAC?

By: Vicky

Vicky — Thu, 03 May 2012 14:23:07 +0000

“Well, we see that Bob Simon and the Kairos Israel bashers aren’t as influential as they like to think they are.”
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No, just that certain lobby groups are rather mroe powerful.