skinster wrote:Considering she was offered 6 times more than she's paid for shows usually, to play for apartheid, I'm guessing that yes, there are some in Israel who care. I don't really care much for her but appreciate her solidarity here. For zionists and Israelis who do care for her, feel free to look at their tears responding to her Twitter page where she cancelled the gig.
Look, - yes there are a lot of people in Israel who would have loved to see her. Absolutely. However, you are confusing entertainment with politics. There is absolutely no impact of Lana’s concert on anything Israeli. Everyday life in Israel is unchanged regardless of the status of the concert, - whether or not it proceeds or it gets cancelled.
My point is simple here, - BDS has never worked. All it did is this, - it created a lot of ‘noise’, but no substance. In order for the boycott to be felt, it needs a political and most importantly economic dimension. For example, with South Africa back in 1970s and 1980s the boycott worked to a point, but even then the effect was rather flimsy. Note that that boycott was by far better organized and stronger in every respect. It involved UN and individual governments of many nations. The boycott you are talking about, is nothing like it. It is a bug bite at best.
skinster wrote:Wasn't that the company that was forced to move out of the settlements in the West Bank?
Really? Forced? It was a business decision. Clearly, Soda Stream did not want to lose any business over BDS. It was by far cheaper to move, then to face a possibility (not certainty) of sale losses. For your information, - the Arab workers staged multiple meetings with administration asking not to move! In business, we often do what is necessary to maximize the revenue and offset the unnecessary headaches, which is what the BDS would have been for Soda Stream. It is very unlikely that Soda Stream would have lost all that much regardless of the move. Anyway, BDS in this case accomplished one thing only, - it made nearly 600 Arabs unemployed!
skinster wrote:Anyway, whether BDS is working or not can be considered by how many millions the Israeli government is putting towards attacking the movement and activists within it, how Israel is forcing certain countries to legally criminalize the movement, and stuff like your anger at it.
Look, you got to do the math here. The 2016 Israeli GNP was 320 billion. The ‘millions’ they spend on countering BDS is not even a pocket change, - it is a lot less than that. No country so far, that is no country that actually matters, endorsed BDS. Many states in US actually criminalized the BDS activities. Call it what you will, - Israeli efforts or local initiatives, - who cares, nobody that actually matter in any shape or form supports BDS.
You should really ponder a different issue, - ask yourselves, why is it BDS is not working? Is it possible that BDS platform fundamentally goes counter to western values and is anti-Semitic in nature? No self-respecting organization or a country will ever come close to BDS. You want prove? Easy…why not boycott China, Saudi Arabia, Russia, Iran, half a dozen African countries, etc. etc. If you want to boycott Israel, you must boycott them too! But you don't!
Think about it, - you and the BDS characters are only interested Israel! This is the reason, why people who actually think for living will never touch BDS with a 10-foot pole!
skinster wrote:Where are Israel's borders again?
Really? Israeli borders, as we speak, are de facto next to Jordan, Gaza, Lebanon and Syria. Perhaps you should look at the map and see what territory Israeli actually controls. Furthermore, Mr. Abbas just now intimated that he may not be against a confederation with Jordan and Israel, instead of pushing for the independent Palestine. Here you go with the borders of the future!
My point to you was that Zionist dream is a reality now. The Jews finally, after 2000 years, have a place to live without a fear of persecution and with defensible borders. This is a fact. If the borders move a bit, as a result of accommodation with the Arabs, it is fine, because it will not change the defensibility criterion.
However, it seems in a light of Trump’s recent decision regarding UNRWA and upcoming peace plan, most of the West Bank will remain in Israeli hands.
skinster wrote:With regard to apartheid states and history, I believe I'm on the right side of history.
Please educate yourself as to what apartheid is. Google it! Otherwise your comments are misplaced. There is no apartheid in Israel. Stop that, - it is not intelligent.
skinster wrote:Reverse the process of the theft of the entirety of Palestine? Perhaps not right now, but things aren't looking good for Israel's future if it continues its dream of being an ethnosupremacist state in a land where half of the people are occupied or imprisoned and lack basic human rights.
Funny…I heard it all before. Easy for you to scream ‘theft’. Prove it! Prove that any land was ‘stolen’. Show that ownership of the land in question changed hands without the due process. If it were as easy as you think, the Arabs of Palestine would have inundated the courts everywhere with jurisdiction with claims and they would have won and Israel would be shamed! But it never happened.
They can’t do it, because they have no case in any court. So, - Palestinian Arabs head for the court of public opinion, and they scream real loud like you do. Notice, that people or countries or organizations that actually matter, pay virtually no attention to it. Something for you to think about, right?
The land that you are so concerned about is at best under dispute and dispute only, it is not ’stolen’. Disputes get solved by the parties who want to solve them. The Arabs, so far, have shown no desire to solve the dispute, they choose to scream ‘theft’ instead. So they get nothing for now. When they come to the table, hopefully soon, they will get what is fair at that time. So far, the pattern has been, - the longer they wait , the less they are offered.
Israel is developing and Israeli needs as a sovereign state supersede the needs of displaced people. With this in mind, the displaced Arabs must be taken care off, and, I am sure, they will be, - but their needs will be secondary to that of Israel. This is how the international law and the politics work.
To wit, - the political posture of Hamas is untenable and that of PA is not intelligent, as history shown. The Arabs needs smarter leaders. Israelis are waiting for those. The last comments by Mr. Abbas, as mentioned above, are the first ones that actually deserve attention.
OK?