Anti-boycott ruling opens all Israel to boycott

Pro-Palestinian demonstrators chanting anti-Israeli slogans parade in Paris, August 9, 2014. Photo by AP

A defeat for Israel, a victory for settlers and BDS

By effectively equating Israel proper with the occupied territories, Israel’s High Court has made life harder for pro-Israel, pro-peace activists.

By Lara Friedman, Ha’aretz
April 19, 2015

The High Court’s decision to uphold the so-called Anti-Boycott Law will, regrettably, be a boon to Israeli settlers and their supporters, whilst giving a gift to activists worldwide who support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel.

By approving legislation to curb boycotts of Israel and “areas under its control,” the High Court effectively equated the two, giving a kosher stamp (deliberately or not) to Israel’s control of territory beyond the Green Line, and in doing so legitimized Israeli settlements.

Settlers and their supporters will be overjoyed at this victory, for it is not about economics (nobody ever argued that boycotts would financially dry up settlements) but, rather, politics. With this ruling, the High Court has taken a step toward formalizing and codifying Israel’s de-facto annexation of the West Bank, by further erasing the Green Line, and shackling to the settlements the 96 percent of Israelis who live inside “Israel proper,” including the many who have zero interest in seeing their futures being hijacked by and tied to the settlers’ expansionist, Greater-Israel agenda.

Joining the settlers in celebrating this ruling will be activists from the opposite end of the political spectrum: those who support the BDS movement, including those who are plainly anti-Israel. Among these activists are those who declared it a victory when SodaStream decided to move out of a West Bank settlement to a site inside Israel, and who announced that they will continue to call for a boycott of the company after the move, consistent with the global BDS movement’s policy of targeting Israeli companies in general. If the settlers are overjoyed to see the High Court rule that settlements must be treated like Israel, these BDS activists are equally happy to see the High Court rule that Israel is, in effect, no different to the settlements.

Make no mistake: until Israel changes its pro-settlement, pro-occupation policies, the only real challenge to the global BDS movement is activism and policies that distinguish between Israel and the Occupied Territories, like those advocated by groups like Americans for Peace Now and those reflected in the European Union’s directive on settlements. Making such a distinction demonstrates that supporting Israel need not be synonymous with supporting settlements. It is an approach that is unapologetically both pro-Israel and pro-peace – telling activists that the right way to press for changes in Israeli policies is not seeking to target and punish all of Israel and its citizens, but to specifically target settlements and the occupation.

After the Anti-Boycott Law was passed by the Knesset back in 2011, I wrote that those who oppose boycotting the settlements leave the field open for those who call for boycotting everything Israeli. “If American Jews refuse to differentiate between Israel and the settlements in our activism,” I wrote, “we can’t complain when others insist on doing the same.” The Israeli High Court appears to have overlooked this fact, coming down not only on settlers who want to erase the Green Line, but also those anti-Israel activists who wish to do so.

 
From L, the UN partition plan, the 1949 armistice, now. 

If the High Court’s ruling is intended to insulate Israel from international pressure over settlements, it won’t work. Quite the contrary: it puts Israel further out of step with its closest friends in the international community – including allies in Europe who are increasingly making clear, in rhetoric and in policies, that they are out of patience with Israeli governments who give lip-service to the two-state solution while forging ahead with actions on the ground that disclose a Greater Israel agenda. The court’s ruling will fuel, rather than fend off, the trend toward the internationalization of action targeting Israeli policies that are inimical to the two-state solution – by individual countries and at the United Nations.

Likewise, if this ruling was intended to shield Israel from the effects of BDS, it will likely have the opposite effect. Successive Israeli governments have shrugged off every form of popular criticism and pressure, foreign and domestic, over their settlement policies, apparently confident that such protests are and will always be toothless. With this overtly pro-settlement ruling, the High Court will only energize the BDS movement, while making life harder for pro-Israel, pro-peace forces that have been urging – and will continue to urge – activists to draw a line at the Green Line.

Lara Friedman is the Director of Policy & Government Relations for Americans for Peace Now. Follow her on Twitter: @Lara_APN

The Cliff Hotel in the East Jerusalem village of Abu Dis, May 3, 2015. The hotel was commandeered by police in 2002, then confiscated by the state under the Absentee Property Law. The Ayyad family which owns it has been involved for years in legal battles to stop the separation wall being built between their home and their hotel (failed) and to get the hotel returned to them (partial success). Photo by Olivier Fitoussi

Israel’s Low Court of Justice helps perpetuate the occupation

The institution that has always betrayed its role as the guardian of human rights, international law and justice in the West Bank is continuing its inglorious tradition.

By Gideon Levy, Ha’aretz
April 19, 2015

The process of tearing off the masks and lifting the veils is in full swing — now at the High Court of Justice as well. Last week saw three disgraceful rulings that expose its real image. We can now no longer talk loftily about “the beacon of justice” or the “guardian of influence.” The great and illustrious names — Meir Shamgar, Aharon Barak and Dorit Beinisch — have been replaced by gray jurists.

But actually, nothing has changed. The institution that has always betrayed its role as the guardian of human rights, international law, equality and justice in the occupied territories is continuing its inglorious tradition. Now we’ve lost the pretention and superficiality — and it’s better that way.

Israel has never had someone to guard its ethical image in light of the crimes of the occupation. Israel has to deal with the issue most fateful for its image and future without the High Court. It’s time to acknowledge this and draw the necessary conclusions.

Following last week’s rulings, no doubts remain: We’ve got apartheid and military tyranny in our backyard without any legal safeguards — and now also without any disguises. We’re about to get our most nationalist government — and there is no one to stop its laws.

Behold the most recent rulings by the fortress of Israeli justice. The so-called Anti-Boycott Law was approved in principle, as was the prohibition against Palestinian security prisoners studying behind bars. And for dessert, the state can continue confiscating Palestinian assets in Jerusalem simply because the owners are in the West Bank. We’re talking about heinous injustice, utter inequality before the law and glaring nationalism.

This is the court’s typical rubber stamp for the security apparatus. In such a situation, what do we have a High Court for? In practice, its damage outweighs its use. So maybe we should stop petitioning it on issues of the occupation.

According to the wind blowing through the High Court, it’s now prohibited to fight the occupation using the most legitimate means — a boycott. To provide a foundation for its rulings, the court needs to quote from the Passover Haggadah. The honourable justices found no better justification for a situation where it’s permitted to preach and confiscate everything but the products of injustice.

These justices of law also signed the ruling barring Palestinian convicts from studying in prison. Serial killers can study there, but not security prisoners, some of whom are political prisoners. Why? Ask the High Court. Its justices said “terror organizations” finance these studies. Is there a more pathetic excuse?

The justices were also asked for an explanation on the permission for confiscating the life’s work of a Palestinian hotel owner in East Jerusalem, who lives in Abu Dis, beyond the separation barrier. True, the court determined that this was valid only in “the very rarest” of cases, but the Israeli eye, which is used to “the very rarest,” especially in the territories, is winking in every direction.

Now the dogs will stop barking as the convoy races downhill at an even more terrifying speed. If the High Court’s wrath once fell on the occupation, it doesn’t anymore. The High Court has told us that all the occupation’s injustices are permitted.

Everything will find its justification, whether in the Haggadah or elsewhere — the assassinations, house demolitions, collective punishments, administrative detentions and some of the tortures. And of course the settlements are continuing without disturbance, with or without the High Court.

The justices, it has been reported, fear that Likud MK Yariv Levin, Mr. Anti-Democracy, will be appointed justice minister. Don’t worry, your honours. When it comes to the occupation, there is no difference between them. When it comes to the occupation, there have never been judges in Jerusalem — not high and certainly not of justice.