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Boycotting the claims of benjamin pogrund

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By Frank Barat

(source:The Palestine Chronicle)

oldman at checkpoint
An elderly Palestinian man waits beside an Israeli baracade.

 Benjamin Pogrund piece (See Guardian, August 24), arguing that "Boycotts only harden Israeli opinion", is a groundbreaking work of distortion of history, denial of facts, propaganda, disinformation and could have been written by Mark Regev, spokesman for the Prime minister of Israel.

Benjamin Pogrund should know better.

He is wrong on pretty much every single argument he makes.

Apartheid entirely applies to the State of Israel policies towards the Palestinians. We are here talking about "The Crime of Apartheid" (as defined by the 2002 Rome statute of the International Criminal Court). "inhumane acts of a character similar to other crimes against humanity "committed in the context of an institutionalized regime of systematic oppression and domination by one racial group over any other racial group or groups and committed with the intention of maintaining that regime." It lists such crimes as murder, enslavement, deprivation of physical liberty, forced relocation, sexual violence, and collective persecution. [1]

Anyone who has recently been to Israel, the West Bank and Gaza knows that the above definition clearly describes Israel’s policies towards the Palestinians and its "Arab minority" (understand Palestinians currently leaving in Israel, 20% of Israel’s total population). There are many examples available, the more recent one being the eviction of 2 Palestinian families from occupied East Jerusalem to make space for Jewish only accommodations.

He then goes on and describes this "conflict" as a "national-religious" struggle between Jewish Israelis and Palestinians". Again Mr. Pogrund uses right wing propaganda and the over used "Clash of civilizations" (a favorite of GW Bush, Lieberman, Christian Zionists…). This "conflict" is not about religion. This "conflict" is about colonialism, imperialism and human rights. This is a political "conflict", not a religious one.
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March to Gaza

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 norman finkelstein

 

Norman Finkelstein – (interview on Press TV)
 
‘Several weeks ago, I guess about six weeks ago, I joined a US delegation to Gaza to see the aftermath of the Israeli massacre and also to get some sense of what we can do. I met with people at all levels of Gazan society; people in orphanages, in schools, hospitals and I also had several meetings with senior officials in the government in Gaza and there was a consensus from the top to the bottom of Gazan society that the main obstacle they are now facing is the siege.

The devastation was horrific enough, but beyond the devastation, the problem now is they can’t rebuild anything. The whole place is just rubble because even six months after the Gaza massacre, no cement is allowed in, no glass is allowed in and everything is exactly as it was on January 18th when the Israeli assault ended…I then proposed, when we were meeting with the parliamentary representatives that we should attempt to break the siege non-violently with a march. And the idea was enthusiastically received both by the members of the government and by the people in Gaza.

So, we began to organize, in the US initially, an international coalition to end the siege of Gaza. We now have a European branch, in Lisbon and chapters in several countries in Europe. And the main challenge now is twofold: number one to enlist prominent moral authorities internationally in support of the march – and that is one of the reasons I am here, because South Africa has a high concentration of internationally prominent moral authorities; everybody ranging from Nelson Mandela to Bishop Tutu to Ela Ghandi and others.

The second thing is, we have to bring over bodies. The more people we bring over, the more likelihood that when we march, Israel won’t be able to shoot and we’ll be able to lift the siege. So we are hoping for several thousand people, including from the Arab world and from South Africa.’

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