The ‘Erase’ to Condemn Israel
Israel’s parliament has passed a law against encouraging boycotts on Israel. Naturally, the parliamentary debate and the text of the bill itself were in Hebrew. Thus, the American news media get to explain what’s in the bill, why it was passed, and what it means. That’s where the problem arises. It also leads to an Internet age trick that tells volumes about how the American media operates nowadays. First, the background, then the rather shocking trick.
Fairly typical of coverage is the New York Times article by Isabel Kershner, headlined “Israel Bans Boycotts Against the State.” It casts the central conflict around the bill in these terms:
Critics and civil rights groups denounced the new law as antidemocratic and a flagrant assault on the freedom of expression and protest. The law’s defenders said it was a necessary tool in Israel’s fight against what they called its global delegitimization.
The article’s text makes it clear who the “good guys” and “bad guys” are supposed to be and portrayed the law as “antidemocratic” and a sign of creeping totalitarianism in the Middle East’s only democratic state.
In fact, as even Kershner reported, there is a debate within the Israeli government about the law, with Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein backing the bill and Knesset legal adviser Eyal Yinon arguing that elements of it border on unconstitutional restrictions on speech. There will almost certainly be a legal challenge and the law might well be modified or overturned completely. That is normal democratic procedure.
If the reporting wasn’t bad enough, the newspaper also published an editorial, “Not Befitting a Democracy,” that begins dishonestly:
Israel’s reputation as a vibrant democracy has been seriously tarnished by a new law intended to stifle outspoken critics of its occupation of the West Bank.
After all, the law is not focused on justifying the country’s policy on the West Bank — an argument used since the Times expects its readers to agree that the law is terrible if posed in those terms — but primarily against boycotts organized by those who want to wipe the country as a whole off the map.
..i believe the law states that if a business is boycotted and can prove that
the boycott has hurt their business significantly, that they have legal recourse.
That’s it, nothing more.
The solution to the BDS campaign is to beat them at their own game by outspending them.
Whenever I find one of them online line advocating boycott I always make a point of buying something made in Israel and telling them about it. The BDS movement is a pathetic fail. I think the Knesset is giving it more attention than it deserves.
“Aside from the Palestinian Authority, the majority of anti-Israel grassroots’ boycott efforts in the West come from groups supporting or even directed by Hamas, which opposes a two-state solution and negotiations with Israel altogether.”
This seems to be the heart of it. You have organizations who claim to boycott Israel, but in fact are supporting terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah. If you look deeper into many of these “boycotts” you will tend to find a terrorist organization lurking about.
Several observations: The boycott law is actually quite mild. It allows people harmed by the law to sue the boycotters for damages, and it allows the State of Israel to refuse to do business with boycotters or those calling for boycotts. Those all involve civil law, not criminal law. Those who accuse the law of being anti-democratic are hyperventialing. Also, to call the law unconstitutional is absurd: Israel has no constitution.
As for the NYT’s having erased the paragraphs you mention, are you surprised? After all, it no longer follows its overt motto of, “All the news that’s fit to print,” but rather, its covert one: “All the news that fits our views, that’s what we print.”
Jack, I agree with you that the law is rather mild. However one need not show damages in order to sue. That’s the one aspect that seems a bit extreme. Still I’m sure there will be legal challenges and I wouldn’t be surprised if the law would be nixed by the High Court of Justice. But the criticisms of the bill are over the top.
And yes, you’re correct about the motto of the Times.
There’s no news whatsoever in the Times: It’s all opinion, daily scripture for the leftist faithful. “All the slant that fits.”
Thanks, David, for this additional example of propaganda from the NYT. The list of examples by now must be close to a million. Soon it will be so long denials will no longer be possible. Or did that happen many years ago?
I’m sorry, what are you doing reading the Slimes? It really does you nor the rest of us any favors…
Israel doesn’t have a constitution, so I’m not sure how this or any other law can be deemed “unconstitutional.”
Boycotts = economic terrorism
The BDS movement focuses only on JEWISH-owned businesses in Judea and Samaria, but what about boycotting Arab businesses? THAT is what’s racist & undemocratic.
Does anyone outside of NY read the NYT?
Oh no, it’s only ranked 37th _worldwide_ according to this link: http://www.wan-press.org/article2825.html?var_recherche=100+largest
One only has to look at the share price of The NY Times Co. to see it is irrelevant both financially as well as intellectually.
Perhaps the times is blubbering over boycotts because its stock has been ” boycotted ” by investors for years.
Does the NYTimes have a future? Perhaps for wrapping packages.
Not surprisingly, PJM is much more sanguine about the anti-boycott law than the Likud’s own Speaker of the Knesset, Reuven Rivlin:
http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/the-parliamentary-fists-of-the-majority-1.373411
According to an article in Tablet Magazine, the move ever rightward of Likud and its allies can be partially explained by the influx of Russians:
‘As Richard Pipes, professor emeritus of history at Harvard and a former Soviet expert, suggested in a recent essay in Foreign Affairs, given the Russians’ iron-fisted history, they have traditionally expected their leaders to be groznyi, a word that, applied to Czar Ivan IV, was improperly translated as “terrible” but really means “awesome.” This, Pipes wrote, explains why a 2003 survey found that 22 percent of Russians supported democracy, while as many as 53 percent actively disliked it. Pipes called this phenomenon, still very much in force today, a flight from freedom, and he explained it had much to do with Russia’s perception of itself as a country under permanent siege.’
http://www.tabletmag.com/news-and-politics/72834/left-for-dead/
Joseph,
I specifically wrote that there’s a debate between two of the country’s top legal officers about the law. The point is that the critics of the law – as quoted by the Times – engaged in extreme hyperbole, when, in fact, the law is not especially extreme – even by American standards. It establishes torts not criminal violations.
The reaction to NGO’s in Israel isn’t the result of a “rightward” shift, but a growing recognition that NGO’s are doing diplomatic damage to Israel without any accountability.
Does anyone expect the Times to be a neutral newspaper anymore? The N.Y.Times is not even a newspaper now. It’s just a propaganda tool of the left. Nothing in it should be taken seriously. It has no creditability.
Just another in a long list of examples of why the times tag line SHOULD be, “all the news that’s fit to wrap a fish in”. Or better yet, “all the news that’s fit to line a bird cage with”.
Considering the nitpicking detail with which Gerstman criticizes the Times’ reporting (most of which doesn’t stand up to reasonable scrutiny except to those ideologically dedicated), one would expect him to be a little more subtle, balanced and accurate in his own reporting. Alas, he is not. Two small examples:
Gerstman writes:
1)” … Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein backing the bill and Knesset legal adviser Eyal Yinon arguing that elements of it border on unconstitutional restrictions on speech.”
This complete misrepresents their positions. Weinstein said the law was probably unconstitutional but that if required to he would defend it in court. Yinon said flat out it was unconstitutional.
The facts are that Weinstein and his deputy sought significant changes in the bill before the vote but said many or most had not been accepted. His deputy stated that there were “significant legal problems in the law even in its final version.” Weinstein said he would defend it but as the attorney-general, that is his job. That does not mean he is “backing” the bill. To say otherwise is, to put it nicely, misleading.
Yinon’s statement: “The broad definition of a boycott on the state of Israel is a violation of the core tenet of freedom of political expression and elements in the proposed bill are borderline illegal.”
He is saying the intent of the law strike at free speech, which is a serious enough indictment of the law. Moreover, the “elements” he speaks of are the core of the law, namely the definition of a boycott and the means of awarding damages. If those two “elements” are removed then the law has no substance.
Furthermore, he said these elements not only border on illegality but probably go beyond that.
See for their original words in Hebrew as quoted in the media:
http://news.nana10.co.il/Article/?ArticleID=814430
http://news.walla.co.il/?w=/22/1839711
2) “Aside from the Palestinian Authority, the majority of anti-Israel grassroots’ boycott efforts in the West come from groups supporting or even directed by Hamas, which opposes a two-state solution and negotiations with Israel altogether.”
This is devoid of any factual basis. (Is the Norwegian Labor Party directed by Hamas or supported by it? Where does Hamas get all the cash and human resources to conduct a worldwide oepration? I have enver heard of such an allegation. Have you or any (non-ideological) organization investigated the sources of funding for the “majority” of BDS organizations?)
But even if the claims you are making were true, the law would have absolutely no effect. All the BDS organizations in the world can operate freely because the law only applies to Israelis. So in other words, the tiny number of Israelis who want to engage in boycott activities are having the free-speech rights trampled on to no practical benefit.
In short, the law is a gratuitous and politically motivated attack on free speech, period.
As far as AG Weinstein’s comments I depended on Kershner’s reporting.
“However, Attorney General Yehuda Weinstein gave the bill his approval.”
I don’t think his reservations change anything.
As I pointed out, the bill will be subject to review, if it is found to be outside of the legal norms of Israel, it will be reversed.
The BDS movement doesn’t hide its intents or alliances. Those allied with it are either ignorant or malevolent.
BDS is an activity not an expression, and a law imposing civil penalties on people who boycott Israel is hardly an assault on freedom.
The point of my article was to point out that there was a significant piece of information confirming that last point that the Times excised without explanation was dishonest.
David, I do not know who you are as I have not seen other posts by you. If you are an American, you should direct your energies toward the American system, which no longer has any regard for the power of law. At least in Israel debate about legal principles turns into relevant government decisions. In America, “precedent” has lost all power, because interpretation is left to Federal Government employees from all three branches that disregard a law’s history of application and its underlying principles.
I cite these egregious examples: Holder of the DOJ on the application of voter rights law only to minorities and again the DOJ on the GunWalker scandal leading to the deaths of American agents and perhaps hundreds, or even thousands of Mexicans. I cite as well the Federal courts’ shutting down debate prior to his election on the Constitutional question of Obama’s birth facts and his eligibility to hold the office of President of the United States.
Law either protects everyone or no one. Obama’s America, unlike Israel, is draconian in who it prosecutes and, as well, who it decides not to prosecute. As long as Jonathan Pollard sits in an American jail, you should have nothing whatsoever to say about the fairness of Israel’s legal system. If you do not believe that Pollard’s status as a political prisoner and international BDS efforts are logically tied together, then you do not believe in law, but in its convenience as a tool to those who wield power.
I would also like to comment on BDS and NGO activities in Israel as atypical of most every other country in the world. The last time any country was subjected to subterranean subversion by so many surrogates in the form of foreign governments’ support was when the British attempted to force America into World War II. Israel, it seems, is fair game for Norway, which does not even share a common border with Israel. Have they no problems of their own to address? How would Britain like it if Israel threw financial and logistical support to the English Defense League? What if Israel gave covert support to Ron Paul or Michelle Bachmann?
To establish order of law using Pollard, who tried to sell secrets to Pakistan, accepted thousands of dollars and gifts in espionage payments, and continued to attempt to disclose classified information from his prison cell, do you really think he’s the sterling example of justice gone bad?
At the time of Pollard’s sentencing there was a rule that mandated parole at thirty years for prisoners like him if they had maintained a clean record in prison. That parole date would be November 21, 2015. Also, Pollard was eligible to apply for parole after eight years and six months, though he has never done so.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Pollard
Does the West not realize that Israel is a doomsday device?
Israel will return to the good graces of the NYT nuts when it begins to parrot Obamaesque apology to Islam and bows to the dominate Muslim caliphate.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/143637#.TjMNMGPzOSo