This week's postings on JfJfP.com

This week, February 1-7, 2016 Israel’s NGOs are a motif, not because of the impending anti-NGO act but because much of the little we know about how Israel functions comes from NGOs.

A particularly pernicious NGO, which is entirely secretive about its funding, is Im Tirzu which has been hyper-active recently in publishing lists of progressive, and thus treacherous Israelis. It certainly influenced the drawing up of the ‘Transparency’ (anti-NGO) bill:
Im Tirtzu hunts the traitors in the cellar

Sadly there doesn’t seem to be an NGO which focuses on identifying the characteristics of the Israeli economy.

Lack of knowledge about the economy is just one point made by Lee Jones in his impressive and salutory comparison of the BDS movements directed at South Africa and Israel.
A critique of Palestinian BDS

The mixed leadership of the ANC benefited from the presence of several white communists well-versed in the tools of economic analysis.

The need for an effective analysis of how the economy works is just one point. His primary point is that in South Africa, the outside boycott of South Africa, encouraged by the ANC, was an adjunct to the mass mobilisation of Africans rather than an attempt to create a mass movement where none exists. The ANC was the clear leader of the mass of Africans, its universalism seeing off the the more exclusive PAC and Inkatha parties.

There are of course plenty of Palestinian and Israeli intellectuals but there seems to be no role for them in either Hamas or Fatah which have been shaped by intense sectarianism for the last decade.

Outside the remit of the parties there are joint Palestinian/Israeli initiatives where opposition to the Occupation has to be the uniting theme:
Jews and Arabs repeat their joint protest against occupation

Jewish opposition to the Occupation is there but rarely makes as much splash as when someone refuses to do compulsory military service given this citizen army is the icon of Israel. Refusenik Tair Kaminer also writes an eloquent statement on why she won’t help enforce the occupation.
‘I did not want to spread more hatred and fear’

A new attempt at a lasting reconciliation of Palestinian factions is being made but this time by sending delegations of members to do the talking.
Hamas and Fatah delegate reconciliation talks

The raison d’être of Likud is to enforce ‘security’ against a nearby enemy. Iran no longer fits the bill so the danger of Hamas is being talked up in the Knesset and some media. The generals’ fear is that Hamas will hear these words as preparations for another attack on Gaza.
Fighting talk

The character of Israel as a unique Jewish state was entirely dependent on American largesse for the first decades of its existence (and it still is). However a new generation of young Jews, instead of pretending Palestinians did not exist, recognises that they do and money should not go to Israeli bodies which entrench occupation. This is changing the nature of American giving.
Depending on America philanthropy

Oddly, though Israel has many wealthy people and companies, they have no habit of dispensing money to charities so everything from the most expensive weapons to the smallest NGO is dependent on American money.

Those early donors either turned a blind eye to, or supported and paid for, the violence that has been used to subdue Palestinians since before the state of Israel was founded.
Settler terrorism – it made Israel

Israel, like Saudi Arabia, does not exactly plead lack of resources when it refuses to accept refugees or recognise the category ‘asylum seeker’. Rather, non-Jewish foreigners threaten ‘the security and identity’ of Israel. Build more walls and more ‘holding camps’.
Welcome for refugees Israeli-style

And more besides.

The Palestinians have no such clear leadership.