Boycotts of Israel

36 results back to index


pages: 276 words: 71,950

Antisemitism: Here and Now by Deborah E. Lipstadt

anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, belling the cat, Black Lives Matter, Boycotts of Israel, Cass Sunstein, Donald Trump, en.wikipedia.org, epigenetics, fixed income, ghettoisation, Jeremy Corbyn, microaggression, Oklahoma City bombing, Stephen Hawking, Steve Bannon, Steven Pinker, The Bell Curve by Richard Herrnstein and Charles Murray, Timothy McVeigh, union organizing, WikiLeaks, zero-sum game

“The PACBI Call for Academic Boycott Revised: Adjusting the Parameters of the Debate,” PACBI—Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel, January 28, 2006, pacbi.org/​etemplate.php?id=1051; Donna Robinson Divine, “The Boycott Debate at Smith,” in Nelson and Brahm, The Case Against the Academic Boycott of Israel, p. 136; Gabriel Noah Brahm and Asaf Romirowsky, “Anti-Semitic in Intent if Not in Effect,” in Nelson and Brahm, The Case Against the Academic Boycott of Israel, p. 80. 6. Mark Yudof, “We Must Defeat BDS Macro-Aggression,” Times of Israel, December 9, 2015. 7. Cary Nelson, “The Problem with Judith Butler,” in Nelson and Brahm, The Case Against the Academic Boycott of Israel, p. 195. 8.

Martha Nussbaum, “Against Academic Boycotts,” in Nelson and Brahm, The Case Against the Academic Boycott of Israel, pp. 43, 45. 22. American Association of University Professors, “On Academic Boycotts,” in Nelson and Brahm, The Case Against the Academic Boycott of Israel, pp. 31–38. BDS: ANTISEMITISM OR POLITICS? 1. “The PACBI Call for Academic Boycott Revised: Adjusting the Parameters of the Debate”; “PACBI Guidelines for the International Academic Boycott of Israel,” Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel, July 31, 2014, www.pacbi.org/​einside.php?id=69+. 2. Ellen Willis, “Is There Still a Jewish Question?

Benny Morris, One State, Two States: Resolving the Israel/Palestine Conflict (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2009), pp. 168–69, as quoted in Nelson and Brahm, The Case Against the Academic Boycott of Israel, p. 192. 7. Himmelstein, “Stanford Professors Take Stand against Divestment.” 8. Richard Pérez-Peña, “Scholars’ Group to Disclose Result of Vote on an Academic Boycott of Israel,” New York Times, December 16, 2013; Mitchell Cohen, “Anti-Semitism and the Left That Doesn’t Learn,” in Nelson and Brahm, The Case Against the Academic Boycott of Israel, p. 159. 9. Mark Yudof, “BDS and Campus Politics: A Bad Romance,” Inside Higher Ed, December 14, 2015. 10.


pages: 556 words: 95,955

Can We Talk About Israel?: A Guide for the Curious, Confused, and Conflicted by Daniel Sokatch

activist lawyer, affirmative action, Albert Einstein, Berlin Wall, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, cognitive dissonance, coronavirus, COVID-19, Donald Trump, European colonialism, facts on the ground, indoor plumbing, Live Aid, lockdown, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mount Scopus, one-state solution, Salesforce, Suez crisis 1956, the map is not the territory, Thomas L Friedman, traveling salesman, urban planning, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

That’s why BDS is such a difficult issue to get one’s head around. CONFLATING CALLS TO BOYCOTT THE SETTLEMENTS WITH CALLS TO BOYCOTT ISRAEL Muddying the waters further is the fact that the Israeli government and its allies love to purposefully conflate criticism of Israel’s West Bank settlements, especially any calls by Israelis or anyone else to hold Israel accountable for the settlement enterprise, with the BDS movement proper. Remember the anti-boycott law we read about in chapter 14, which made it a civil offense for any Israeli to call for boycotts against Israel, including the settlements? This is all part and parcel of the Israeli government’s campaign to erase the Green Line from the mental maps of all Israelis and from the consciousness of the world.

HereGONGOs launched an online video campaign featuring pictures of prominent human rights activists: Peter Beaumont, “Rightwing Israeli Group Accused of McCarthyism over Anti-artist Campaign,” Guardian, Jan. 28, 2016, https://www.theguardian.com/world/2016/jan/28/israel-im-tirtzu-accused-mccarthyism-anti-artist-campaign. HereMade it a civil offense for Israelis to call for a boycott of Israel or its settlements: Jonathan Lis, “Israel Passes Law Banning Calls for Boycott,” Haaretz, Nov. 7, 2011, https://www.haaretz.com/1.5026309;Jonathan Lis, “Israel’s Travel Ban: Knesset Bars Entry to Foreigners Who Call for Boycott of Israel or Settlements,” https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/.premium-israel-bars-entry-to-foreigners-who-call-for-boycott-of-settlements-1.5445566. HerePunished Arab municipalities and institutions for commemorating: Jack Khoury and Jonathan Lis, “Human Rights Groups Petition High Court to Overthrow ‘Nakba Law,’” Haaretz, Apr. 5, 2011, https://www.haaretz.com/1.5007904.

Over the past decade, Netanyahu’s ruling coalitions have promoted rhetoric, policy, and, especially, a raft of legislation designed to strengthen the power of the Jewish majority at the expense of the Arab minority; constrain and diminish democratic institutions like the judiciary and civil society, which serve as a check and balance on the power of the ruling coalition; and protect, expand, and perhaps prepare the way for potential annexation of the settlements. This legislation (much of which we will take a closer look at in part 2) includes laws that: •Made it a civil offense for Israelis to call for a boycott of Israel or its settlements and prohibited entry into Israel of foreigners who did the same. Yes, technically you can be denied entry into Israel if you’ve ever publicly called for people not to buy products made in Israel’s West Bank settlements. •Punished Arab municipalities and institutions for commemorating the 1948 war (known by Israelis as the War of Independence) as the Nakba, or “Catastrophe,” by stripping them of state funding.


pages: 840 words: 224,391

Goliath: Life and Loathing in Greater Israel by Max Blumenthal

airport security, Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Boycotts of Israel, centre right, cognitive dissonance, corporate raider, crony capitalism, European colonialism, facts on the ground, gentrification, ghettoisation, housing crisis, intentional community, knowledge economy, megacity, moral panic, Mount Scopus, nuclear ambiguity, open borders, plutocrats, surplus humans, unit 8200, upwardly mobile, urban planning, WikiLeaks, Yom Kippur War, young professional, zero-sum game

“Today, if an American citizen or an American company participates in a boycott of Israel, they can expect very heavy fines; economic fines and even jail sentences of several years,” Elkin claimed. It’s a very far-reaching law, and it is an active law,” he claimed. But this was false—there was no law in the United States threatening these boycotters of Israel with any form of punishment. The only American legal provision remotely similar to Elkin’s bill was an obsolete, Cold War–era rule that suspended tax breaks to companies that observed the Arab League’s old boycott of Israel—and which had never been applied in any case.

The bill represented a streamlined version of a previous proposal that would have punished boycotters with actual jail time while deporting any non-citizen who called for boycotts of Israel in their own country. In its new, diluted form, the bill explicitly punished speech considered harmful to the Jewish state, allowing any Israeli who felt his or her business was damaged by another Israeli’s call for a boycott—no evidence required—to sue the perpetrator in a civil court. The bill read: “It is forbidden to initiate a boycott against the State of Israel, to encourage participation in it or to provide assistance or information in order to promote it.” Anat Mattar was one of the first Israeli citizens to publicly promote a boycott.

list=PL84C61219C00A874E. 220Application of Israeli Sovereignty: Tovah Lazaroff, “Likud Politicians Call on Israel to Annex Area C,” Jerusalem Post, January 1, 2013, http://www.jpost.com/Diplomacy-and-Politics/Likud-politicians-call-on-Israel-to-annex-Area-C. 220While he casually labeled: Chaim Levinson, “Right-Wing Extremists Cite Israeli MK as Source on IDF Movements in West Bank,” Ha’aretz, January 8, 2012, http://www.haaretz.com/news/national/right-wing-extremists-cite-israeli-mk-as-source-on-idf-movements-in-west-bank-1.406158. 220this is a battle between: Harriet Sherwood, “Israel Prepares to Pass Law Banning Citizens from Calling for Boycotts,” Guardian, July 11, 2011, http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jul/11/israel-law-banning-citizens-boycotts. 222The settlers are the real: Yossi Verter, “The settlers Are the Real Government of Israel,” Ha’aretz, July 15, 2011, http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/week-s-end/the-settlers-are-the-real-government-of-israel-1.373415. 222admirable objectives: Einat Wilf floor speech at Knesset [Hebrew], http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SAvwomw_tBQ. 222she remembered she was: Verter, “The settlers are the real government” 223I approved the law: Jonathan Lis, “Netanyahu: Boycott Law Reflects Democracy in Israel,” Ha’aretz, July 13, 2011, http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-boycott-law-reflects-democracy-in-israel-1.373058. 223leading Israel into an abyss: Leslie Susser, “Livni Sticks to Her Guns,” Jerusalem Post, June 30, 2011, http://www.jpost.com/JerusalemReport/Israel/Article.aspx?id=227306. 223you gave in to that pressure: Lahav Harkov, “Netanyahu at Knesset: I Approved ‘Boycott Bill’ into Law,” Jerusalem Post, July 13, 2011, http://www.jpost.com/DiplomacyAndPolitics/Article.aspx?


pages: 338 words: 101,967

Israel: A Simple Guide to the Most Misunderstood Country on Earth by Noa Tishby

An Inconvenient Truth, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bernie Sanders, Black Lives Matter, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, Burning Man, centre right, COVID-19, disinformation, epigenetics, European colonialism, failed state, fake news, Ferguson, Missouri, financial engineering, George Floyd, haute couture, if you build it, they will come, it's over 9,000, Jeremy Corbyn, lockdown, post-work, psychological pricing, RAND corporation, Silicon Valley, Social Justice Warrior, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, women in the workforce, Yom Kippur War

BDS, in its current incarnation, was founded in 2005 by Omar Barghouti, a Qatari-born Palestinian with an MA and in the process of receiving a PhD from Tel Aviv University. If you haven’t caught the irony, allow me to hand it to you: Barghouti became an advocate for the academic boycott of Israel while holding a degree from an Israeli university. The BDS movement now has a professional US headquarters, yet it still presents itself as a “grassroots” Palestinian movement. We will get to this soon, too, I promise. So, given the antisemitic history of boycott movements against Israel, is BDS antisemitic or “just” anti-Israel? Let’s use the criteria created by Natan Sharansky, a world-renowned human rights activist who spent nine years in a Soviet prison and was only the fourth non-American to receive the US Presidential Medal of Freedom.

Why can’t more Yazidi women come to Israel to be helped, without being afraid of being killed when they go back to Iraq? And not only is the help not being received by our neighbors, the “boycott Israel” movements have become legitimate, and Israel of all places has become in some circles the regional Death Star. Activists from Baghdad to Berkeley to Brandeis are crying for sanctions and boycotts, effectively trying to stop Israel from helping the world and her neighbors advance in technology, healthcare, and agriculture, to stop Israelis from hiring Palestinians in Rawabi, and from helping traumatized Yazidi women.

On its website, it’s official statement is this: Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) is a Palestinian-led movement for freedom, justice and equality. BDS upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity. So far, so good. I fully stand for the above as well. The popular narrative is that BDS pushes for a boycott of Israel only in reaction to Israeli policies in the occupied territories and only in order to press the Israeli government to do the right thing and give the Palestinians a state so they can live side by side with Israel. At first glance, this looks good, too. It’s a politically correct, highly sympathetic message, which is likely why the movement has gained support from some members of the US House of Representatives, including Representative Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), Representative Ilhan Omar (D-MN), and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).


pages: 285 words: 81,743

Start-Up Nation: The Story of Israel's Economic Miracle by Dan Senor, Saul Singer

"World Economic Forum" Davos, agricultural Revolution, Albert Einstein, Apollo 11, Apollo 13, back-to-the-land, banking crisis, Benchmark Capital, Boycotts of Israel, call centre, Celtic Tiger, clean tech, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Fairchild Semiconductor, friendly fire, Gene Kranz, immigration reform, labor-force participation, mass immigration, military-industrial complex, Neil Armstrong, new economy, pez dispenser, post scarcity, profit motive, Robert Solow, Silicon Valley, smart grid, social graph, sovereign wealth fund, Steve Ballmer, Suez crisis 1956, unit 8200, web application, women in the workforce, Yom Kippur War

A notable exception was Subaru, which for a long time had the Israeli market nearly to itself but was barred from selling in the Arab world.3 Every government of the Arab League established an official Office of the Boycott, which enforced the primary boycott, monitored the behavior of secondary and tertiary targets, and identified new prospects. According to Christopher Joyner of George Washington University, “Of all the contemporary boycotts, the League of Arab States’ boycott against Israel is, ideologically, the most virulent; organizationally, the most sophisticated; politically, the most protracted; and legally, the most polemical.”4 The boycott has at times taken on unusual targets. In 1974, the Arab League blacklisted the entire Baha’i faith because the Baha’i temple in Haifa is a successful tourist attraction that has created revenue for Israel.

So, in a sense, Yossi Gross should thank France. Charles de Gaulle hardly intended to help jump-start the Israeli technology scene. Yet by convincing Israelis that they could not rely on foreign weapons systems, de Gaulle’s decision made a pivotal contribution to Israel’s economy. The major increase in military R&D that followed France’s boycott of Israel gave a generation of Israeli engineers remarkable experience. But it would not have catalyzed Israel’s start-up hothouse if it had not been combined with something else: a profound interdisciplinary approach and a willingness to try anything, no matter how destabilizing to societal norms. CHAPTER 12 From Nose Cones to Geysers If most air forces are designed like a Formula One race car, the Israeli Air Force is a beat-up jeep with a lot of tools in it. . . .

In addition to an overdependence on global venture capital, Israeli companies are also overdependent on export markets. Over half of Israel’s GDP comes from exports to Europe, North America, and Asia. When those economies slow down or collapse, Israeli start-ups have fewer customers. Because of the Arab boycott, Israel does not have access to most regional markets. And the domestic market is far too small to serve as a substitute. Israeli companies will also find it harder to negotiate exits—like Given Imaging’s IPO on the NASDAQ or Fraud Sciences’ sale to PayPal—which are often the means by which Israeli entrepreneurs and investors ultimately make their money.


On Palestine by Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé, Frank Barat

Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, cognitive dissonance, conceptual framework, David Brooks, facts on the ground, failed state, ghettoisation, Naomi Klein, Nelson Mandela, one-state solution, Stephen Hawking

One of the lasting achievements is a substantial boost in the opportunities for labor organizing which had been crushed under the previous regime. Again, that’s the kind of topic that you are not supposed to talk about here, but it’s important. FB: What do you make of the American Studies Association passing a resolution endorsing an academic boycott of Israel? How important do you think that is? NC: Well, that’s what I had in mind when I was bringing up the Jenin fiasco. It’s very much like it. It was not prepared; it was guaranteed to create a backlash that would overwhelm it. It was not thought out properly. The result is that there has been a shift from concern with Israeli crimes and US support for them to the issue of academic freedom.

So even though I agree that more studies will be useful and are important, I do think that the educational process is happening during and after a resolution like the ASA one is passed. The debate in the US is on academic freedom, but people are also asking questions like why is the ASA, a respected institution, asking to boycott Israel? This question might not have been raised if the resolution had not been passed. IP: I think what Noam is trying to say, if I understood correctly, at least this is what I think, is that it is the other way around. You have not yet won the argument that Israel, as a political entity, is problematic.

To this day, you read articles by scholars that are suppressing it. These are things you have to deal with. This conversation between Noam Chomsky, Ilan Pappé, and Frank Barat was recorded on January 17, 2014, and has been condensed and edited. * A study by the Alternative Information Center from 2009, “Academic Boycott of Israel,” can be found online. Chapter Four The Future FB: Is an Israeli Spring possible? NC: For the last ten years especially, there has been a very strong shift in Israeli mentality and politics toward the right, nationalism, toward more extremism, there is a kind of circling the wagons mentality which was also true in South Africa toward the end.


pages: 556 words: 141,069

The Profiteers by Sally Denton

Albert Einstein, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Bay Area Rapid Transit, Berlin Wall, Boycotts of Israel, clean water, company town, corporate governance, crony capitalism, disinformation, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, energy security, Fall of the Berlin Wall, G4S, invisible hand, James Watt: steam engine, Joan Didion, Kitchen Debate, laissez-faire capitalism, Lewis Mumford, megaproject, Mikhail Gorbachev, military-industrial complex, mutually assured destruction, Naomi Klein, new economy, nuclear winter, power law, profit motive, Robert Hanssen: Double agent, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Hersh, Silicon Valley, trickle-down economics, uranium enrichment, urban planning, vertical integration, WikiLeaks, wikimedia commons, William Langewiesche

That long relationship with Saudi Arabia, as well as Bechtel’s ties with the leaders of Libya, Iraq, and Iran—Qaddafi, Hussein, and the Shah, respectively—had long sparked distrust among Israeli leaders. Despite working with all of Israel’s neighbors on hundreds of projects in the region, Bechtel built nothing in Israel. The company had long been dogged by allegations of systemic, companywide anti-Semitism, due in part to its unwavering support of the anti-Jewish Arab boycott prohibiting trade with Israel. At a time when oil companies fostered a growing suspicion of Israel in response to its declaration of an independent state and its 1948 war with the Arabs, Steve Sr.’s remarks often included blatant anti-Jewish sentiment. He routinely referred to Jewish associates as “He’s a Jewish fellow, you know,” as if the distinction indicated a stereotyped trait.

“As guardian of Islam’s Holy Places, he felt a personal responsibility to recapture what had been lost, and his hatred of Israel went deeper than the antipathy and wounded pride common to all Arabs.” For nearly thirty years, complying with the boycott presented no problem for Bechtel. The boycott prohibited Arabs from trading with Israel directly, from dealing with firms that traded with Israel, and from conducting any business with firms that had Jewish ownership. The League kept a blacklist of more than fifteen hundred firms—mostly American—which the Arab nations shunned. Because Bechtel was one of the few American companies to side with the League against Israel, its political and economic clout in the region rose.

Despite the intensive petitioning by Simon and Kissinger, the Justice Department filed suit against the company on January 16, 1976, charging that Bechtel and four of its divisions or subsidiaries had refused to subcontract work in the Middle East to American companies blacklisted by the Arab League as part of their economic boycott of Israel. While Shultz distantly defended Bechtel’s role with the League, Weinberger bore the brunt of the criticism. As general counsel, he had approved the company’s compliance with the boycott. Unwilling or unable to restrain his pro-Arab partiality, he advocated a bellicose confrontation with the Justice Department.


The Case for Israel by Alan Dershowitz

affirmative action, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, different worldview, disinformation, facts on the ground, Jeffrey Epstein, Nelson Mandela, one-state solution, RAND corporation, Silicon Valley, the scientific method, Thomas L Friedman, Timothy McVeigh, trade route, Yom Kippur War

There is nothing morally wrong with holding such complicitors accountable so long as the consequences imposed on them are proportional to their complicity. The U.S.-led economic sanctions against Iraq, Libya, and Cuba are collective punishments imposed on large populations for the deeds of their leaders. So were the sanctions and boycotts imposed against Israel by the Arab League. Israel’s policy of demolishing the homes of terrorists or those who harbor them is a soft form of collective punishment directed against the property of those who are deemed somewhat complicit. That it occasionally has an impact on innocent people detracts from its moral purity, but to a considerably lesser degree than widespread economic sanctions directed against entire nations.

If the United States were ever to become as even-handed as the international community has been, it would surely encourage continuing aggression against the Jewish state. It would also be morally wrong. Even-handedness toward those whose actions are not morally equivalent is an immoral and dangerous form of artificial symmetry. c30.qxd 6/25/03 8:37 AM 30 Page 197 Should Universities Divest from Israel and Boycott Israeli Scholars? THE ACCUSATION Israel’s actions, more than those of any other nation, warrant divestment and boycott. THE ACCUSERS “We the undersigned . . . call on MIT and Harvard to divest from Israel.” (Noam Chomsky, signing a petition for divestment) “Divestment is wrong in principle. . . . “Divestment is ‘unprincipled’ and ‘it would be loved by Alan Dershowitz, Lawrence Summers and Marty Peretz who are delighted to have more atrocities and violence against Palestinians.’

., the Iranian threat to annihilate Israel) • Political anti-Semitism The denial of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination The de-legitimization of Israel as a state The attribution to Israel of all the world’s evils—Israel as the “poisoner of international wells” c31.qxd 6/25/03 8:38 AM Page 211 THE CASE FOR ISRAEL 211 • Ideological anti-Semitism (which surpasses the Zionism = Racism rhetoric) to “Nazify” Israel • Theological anti-Semitism. The convergence of Islamic anti-Semitism and Christian “replacement” theology, drawing on classical hatred of Jews • Cultural anti-Semitism. The mélange of attitudes, sentiments, and discourse of “fashionable” salon intellectuals • Economic anti-Semitism, which goes beyond the Arab boycott of Israel to include extra-territorial application of restrictive covenants against countries trading with Israel • Holocaust denial • Racist terrorism against Jews • Denial to Israel of equality before the law in the international arena. The singling out of Israel for differential and discriminatory treatment in the international arena Whether or not one accepts each of these sets, there can be little doubt that some of these must be included in any comprehensive catalog of bigotry.


pages: 359 words: 104,870

Extreme Rambling: Walking Israel's Separation Barrier. For Fun. by Mark Thomas

Boycotts of Israel, Dr. Strangelove, facts on the ground, liberation theology, Ocado, one-state solution, urban planning, urban sprawl

The Barrier is mile after mile after mile of self-delusion.’ The more I think about it, the more the layers of irony begin to pile up: as Israelis turn their back on the West Bank, so the rest of the world starts to be evermore drawn to it. As Israel turns further from the Middle East, looking instead to the West, so the calls for boycotts on Israel grow even louder from Europe. This Barrier does not only isolate the West Bank. Tiredness gets the better of us in the restaurant and we leave while the place is still full, and before Cherie Blair pops in for a nightcap. Outside we say our final goodbyes and promise to keep in touch. Phil and I are staying in East Jerusalem before flying home tomorrow, and the hotel has the harp music playing when we walk in past the overgrown plants and scruffy easy chairs.

Mike and Martin and Janet at Roast Beef Productions. Amy at Phil Mac’s. Jake, Liz, Ali, Sarah and Rae at Ebury Press. As usual thanks to JL, CB and IJ … No! You’re the best! appendix FULL TEXT OF THE Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions CALL IN 2005 Palestinian Civil Society Calls for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel until it Complies with International Law and Universal Principles of Human Rights 9 July 2005 One year after the historic Advisory Opinion of the International Court of Justice (ICJ) which found Israel’s Wall built on occupied Palestinian territory to be illegal; Israel continues its construction of the colonial Wall with total disregard to the Court’s decision.

In light of Israel’s persistent violations of international law; and given that, since 1948, hundreds of UN resolutions have condemned Israel’s colonial and discriminatory policies as illegal and called for immediate, adequate and effective remedies; and given that all forms of international intervention and peace-making have until now failed to convince or force Israel to comply with humanitarian law, to respect fundamental human rights and to end its occupation and oppression of the people of Palestine; and in view of the fact that people of conscience in the international community have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as exemplified in the struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through diverse forms of boycott, divestment and sanctions; and inspired by the struggle of South Africans against apartheid and in the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance to injustice and oppression; we, representatives of Palestinian civil society, call upon international civil society organisations and people of conscience all over the world to impose broad boycotts and implement divestment initiatives against Israel similar to those applied to South Africa in the apartheid era. We appeal to you to pressure your respective states to impose embargoes and sanctions against Israel. We also invite conscientious Israelis to support this Call, for the sake of justice and genuine peace. These non-violent punitive measures should be maintained until Israel meets its obligation to recognise the Palestinian people’s inalienable right to self-determination and fully complies with the precepts of international law by: 1) Ending its occupation and colonisation of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall; 2) Recognising the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and 3) Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.


pages: 293 words: 89,712

After Zionism: One State for Israel and Palestine by Antony Loewenstein, Ahmed Moor

Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, cognitive dissonance, colonial rule, drone strike, facts on the ground, gentrification, ghettoisation, land reform, Naomi Klein, no-fly zone, one-state solution, Ronald Reagan, Rosa Parks, young professional

“I understand that this means that I have a certain responsibility in the situation. I can’t shy away from the power dynamics which exist between us but at least I am trying to work through them.” Cohen is a prominent Israeli activist who has most recently been involved in international boycott campaigns of Israel. Early in the work of the AATW, he lost his eye after being hit directly with a rubber bullet fired by an Israeli border police officer. At the core of the power dynamics of which Cohen speaks is the dominant ideology in Israeli society, Zionism. For the majority of activists in AATW, Zionism is not an issue they devote any time to.

For example, Israeli academic and activist Jeff Halper advocates a South African-style anti-Apartheid struggle against Zionism.12 Others endorse the same strategy in the struggle to end the occupation, without explicitly calling for a unitary state.13 While such a movement could be a way forward, there is nothing comparable at the popular level calling for a one-state solution. The Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel may be one such pathway towards the goal, but it is as yet still too diffuse and ineffective. In any case, as the veteran peace activist, Uri Avnery, points out, the two situations are so different that such an approach is doomed.14 The South African regime had few international supporters, whereas Israel commands the unstinting support of Jewish communities worldwide and the near unconditional support of the world’s only superpower, the United States.

Maybe that sort of Zionism can find expression in a liberal nationalism that is both “Jewish and democratic”. About the contributors OMAR BARGHOUTI is an independent Palestinian researcher, commentator and human rights activist committed to upholding international law and universal human rights. He is a founding member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI)and the Palestinian Civil Society Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. He holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in electrical engineering from Columbia University, NY, and a master’s in philosophy from Tel Aviv University. He is the author of BDS: The Global Struggle for Palestinian Rights.


pages: 387 words: 120,092

The Idea of Israel: A History of Power and Knowledge by Ilan Pappe

affirmative action, Ayatollah Khomeini, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, disinformation, double helix, facts on the ground, feminist movement, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, mass immigration, Mount Scopus, Nelson Mandela, New Journalism, one-state solution, postnationalism / post nation state, stem cell, Suez canal 1869, urban planning, Yom Kippur War

But the 1980s saw a flourishing of NGOs and university study modules that investigated gay issues, thus adding to the sense of pluralism in the local academy and society. Unfortunately this new openness was later used by mainstream academia to deflect any attempt to criticise it for complicity in the occupation or the oppression of the Palestinians. The Israeli academic establishment attempted to fend off calls for an academic boycott of Israel earlier in the 2000s by turning to gay and lesbian lobbying groups around the world – a move that was later dubbed ‘pinkwashing’. Broadcasting Tel Aviv as the most gay-friendly city in the West (a title it wins frequently) was one of the main campaigns supported by the government in order to undercut the boycott.

In that area, Israeli law would be imposed, hence the need to prepare a racist infrastructure for the future, expanded, and possibly final State of Israel. Post-Zionists were also targeted. The most important law in this respect is the 2011 Law for Prevention of Damage to State of Israel Through Boycott, which defined as a criminal act, bearing the risk of lengthy imprisonment, any support for a boycott of Israel or for an action abroad considered to constitute delegitimisation. To this was added more recently a proposal for a law that would limit foreign funding for human and civil rights organisations in the state. As yet it has not passed. Finally the legal reality in Israel reflects the ideological stance of the powers that be.


pages: 279 words: 72,659

Gaza in Crisis: Reflections on Israel's War Against the Palestinians by Ilan Pappé, Noam Chomsky, Frank Barat

"Friedman doctrine" OR "shareholder theory", Ayatollah Khomeini, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, desegregation, disinformation, European colonialism, facts on the ground, failed state, friendly fire, ghettoisation, Islamic Golden Age, military-industrial complex, New Journalism, one-state solution, price stability, Suez crisis 1956, too big to fail

Tauris, 2001), 16-46. 3 United Nations Archives, UNSCOP Verbatim Report in United Nations General Assembly Files, Second Session, August-November 1947. 4 See Ali Abuminah, One Country: A Bold Proposal to End the Israeli-Palestinian Impasse (New York: Holt McDougal 2007); Ghada Karmi, Married to Another Man: Israel’s Dilemma in Palestine (London: Pluto Press, 2007); Joel Kovel, Overcoming Zionism: Creating a Single Democratic State in Israel/Palestine (London: Pluto Press, 2007); and Jamil Hilal, ed., Where Now for Palestine? The Demise of the Two-State Solution (London: Zed Books 2007). 5 The Web site of that campaign is the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel, www.pacbi.org. 6 See Meron Benvisiti, “The Binationalism Vogue,” Haaretz, April 30, 2009. This was written as a response to the March 2009 Boston conference declaration. 7 The Italian journalist and writer Paolo Barnard is the senior political correspondent of RAI and he posted seven short clips titled “Palestine-Israel: the Missing Narratives,” on YouTube in May 2009. 8 Shimon Peres, Now and Tomorrow (Tel-Aviv: Mabat Books, 1978), 20. 9 See David Landau, “Maximum Jews, Minimum Arabs,” Haaretz, November 13, 2003.


pages: 356 words: 97,794

The Biggest Prison on Earth: A History of the Occupied Territories by Ilan Pappé

Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, facts on the ground, friendly fire, ghettoisation, low skilled workers, Mount Scopus, New Urbanism, offshore financial centre, one-state solution, Panopticon Jeremy Bentham, Suez crisis 1956, Thomas Kuhn: the structure of scientific revolutions, urban planning, urban sprawl, Yom Kippur War

This decision on the currency was swiftly followed by an intensive Israel campaign around the world for foreign and Israeli investment in the territories, and later that month it encouraged Israeli companies to use local firms in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip as fronts for exporting Israeli goods to the Arab world – an attempt to break the Arab trade boycott on Israel.1 The ideological imperative was to keep the territories; the economic logic was that it might be too expensive. In order to minimize the expenditure of creating a new reality on the ground foreign aid was necessary; this was eventually forthcoming, in particular from the American taxpayers’ pocket and later almost solely from the EU.


The Economic Weapon by Nicholas Mulder

anti-communist, Boycotts of Israel, Bretton Woods, British Empire, capital controls, classic study, deglobalization, European colonialism, falling living standards, false flag, foreign exchange controls, global pandemic, guns versus butter model, Monroe Doctrine, power law, reserve currency, rising living standards, Suez crisis 1956, transatlantic slave trade, éminence grise

Avraham Barkai, From Boycott to Annihilation: The Economic Struggle of German Jews, 1933–1943 (Hanover, NH: University Press of New England, 1990), pp. 17–23; Christoph Kreutzmüller, “Picketing Jewish-Owned Businesses in Nazi Germany: A Boycott?” in Christoph Kreutzmüller, Boycotts Past and Present: From the American Revolution to the Campaign to Boycott Israel (Cham: Palgrave Macmillan, 2019), pp. 97–114. 51. Samuel Untermeyer, Civilization’s Only Weapon against Hitlerism (New York: Non-Sectarian Anti-Nazi League, 1934); Moshe R. Gottlieb: “The First of April Boycott and the Reaction of the American Jewish Community,” American Jewish Historical Quarterly 57, no. 4 (June 1968): 516–556, and “The Anti-Nazi Boycott Movement in the United States: An Ideological and Sociological Appreciation,” Jewish Social Studies 35, nos. 3–4 (July–October 1973): 198–227; Rona Sheramy, “There Are Times When Silence Is a Sin: The Women’s Division of the American Jewish Congress and the Anti-Nazi Boycott Movement,” American Jewish History 89, no. 1 (2001): 105–121. 52.


pages: 1,335 words: 336,772

The House of Morgan: An American Banking Dynasty and the Rise of Modern Finance by Ron Chernow

Alan Greenspan, always be closing, bank run, banking crisis, Bear Stearns, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Black Monday: stock market crash in 1987, Bolshevik threat, book value, Boycotts of Israel, Bretton Woods, British Empire, buy and hold, California gold rush, capital controls, Carl Icahn, Charles Lindbergh, collective bargaining, Cornelius Vanderbilt, corporate raider, death from overwork, Dutch auction, Etonian, financial deregulation, financial engineering, fixed income, German hyperinflation, Glass-Steagall Act, index arbitrage, interest rate swap, junk bonds, low interest rates, margin call, Michael Milken, military-industrial complex, money market fund, Monroe Doctrine, North Sea oil, oil shale / tar sands, old-boy network, paper trading, plutocrats, Robert Gordon, Ronald Reagan, short selling, stock buybacks, strikebreaker, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, the market place, the payments system, too big to fail, transcontinental railway, undersea cable, Yom Kippur War, young professional

Of $14.5 billion in deposits by the OPEC states, 78 percent resided in six banks—Morgan Guaranty, Bank of America, Citibank, Chase, Manufacturers Hanover, and Chemical. Senator Church proved correct in worrying that petrodollars would enlist the political allegiance of bankers in disturbing ways. The sheiks wanted to use letters of credit as a way of enforcing compliance with the Arab boycott of Israel. Under this arrangement, banks had to certify that goods being exported to the Middle East didn’t originate in Israel or with blacklisted American companies, didn’t bear the Star of David, and wouldn’t travel aboard Israeli planes or ships. In 1976, the American Jewish Congress singled out Morgan Guaranty and Citibank for loyally executing this dirty work and cited their “pivotal role in the implementation of the Arab boycott.”7 Morgan Guaranty executed 824 letters of credit including the language of the boycott, although they protested and successfully expunged the offensive language in two dozen cases.

As its Middle East fame spread, Morgan Grenfell found at its doorstep people who required inside knowledge of Arab finance or introductions into Persian Gulf diplomatic circles. In 1975, it drew a suitor who demanded an ironclad guarantee of confidentiality—Henry Ford II. Emissaries from Ford Motor posed a maddening riddle: how could the company, blacklisted by the Arab boycott, operate in both Israel and Egypt? This seemed the political equivalent of squaring the circle. Ford Motor was a pariah in the Middle East. From 1950 to 1966, it had operated an assembly plant in Alexandria, Egypt. Then an Israeli Ford dealer got permission to assemble Fords in Israel from imported parts. Despite the absence of direct Ford investment or personnel in Israel, the Arab League threatened a regional boycott of Ford cars if the Israeli deal weren’t scuttled.

Instead, he touched off a furious reaction from Harold W. McGraw, Jr., who called in Yerger Johnstone of Morgan Stanley and defense lawyer Martin Lipton and unleashed a blistering counterattack. McGraw picked up any brickbat at hand. He sued American Express for libel, said it cooperated with the Arab boycott of Israel, asked the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission to study antitrust problems, chastised American Express as a menace to the First Amendment, and raised a dozen other issues, bogus and legitimate. In the ultimate slap, McGraw chided American Express for not paying interest on the float from its traveler’s checks.


The Oil Kings: How the U.S., Iran, and Saudi Arabia Changed the Balance of Power in the Middle East by Andrew Scott Cooper

addicted to oil, Alan Greenspan, An Inconvenient Truth, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, banking crisis, Boycotts of Israel, energy security, falling living standards, friendly fire, full employment, Future Shock, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, interchangeable parts, Kickstarter, land reform, MITM: man-in-the-middle, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, peak oil, Ponzi scheme, Post-Keynesian economics, RAND corporation, rising living standards, Robert Bork, rolodex, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Hersh, strikebreaker, unbiased observer, uranium enrichment, urban planning, Yom Kippur War

But it ran aground when liberal and conservative members of Congress protested the sale of sophisticated weapons systems to a country still technically at war with Israel. They were reluctant to be seen doing favors for the world’s richest oil producer during an election campaign. For good measure, lawmakers expressed support for legislation that if signed into law would punish any American company that complied with the Arab trade boycott of Israel. Gerald Ford appealed to Republican opponents of the deal not to antagonize the Saudis and to keep their support for Israel in its proper perspective. “The Saudis have been very helpful in keeping oil prices under control,” he reminded Senators Jacob Javits and Clifford Case in the Oval Office.

Simultaneously in Washington, Ambassador Alireza had a 4:51 meeting with President Ford and National Security Adviser Scowcroft. The ambassador handed Ford a letter from King Khalid pledging “to reach a reasonable and acceptable minimum increase” in the price of crude oil. Khalid wrote that he had taken note of President-elect Carter’s pledge to oppose “any legislation against the boycott of Israel, and that he will use leverage on Israel to prevent it from committing any act of aggression against the Arabs in Southern Lebanon. Undoubtedly, this was a good initiative on his part, and we would like to wish him every success during his presidency for the good of his country and the world at large.”


pages: 479 words: 102,876

The King of Oil: The Secret Lives of Marc Rich by Daniel Ammann

"RICO laws" OR "Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations", accounting loophole / creative accounting, anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, book value, Boycotts of Israel, business intelligence, buy low sell high, energy security, family office, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Michael Milken, Mikhail Gorbachev, Nelson Mandela, oil shock, peak oil, purchasing power parity, Ronald Reagan, subprime mortgage crisis, Suez crisis 1956, trade liberalization, transaction costs, transfer pricing, Upton Sinclair, Yom Kippur War

She suggested the two nations cooperate in the construction and management of a pipeline. The meeting was top secret, as Iran did not officially recognize Israel. The shah had his own regional interests, and he had no desire to damage his relationship with the Arab world. The Arab nations considered Israel a pariah, and together they had organized a boycott of Israel. Nevertheless, the shah, whom the Israelis referred to by his cover name “Landlord,” signaled that he was prepared to enter into secret negotiations. The Iranians were represented by the National Iranian Oil Company (NIOC), and the Israelis sent high-ranking government representatives as well as members of the Mossad to the talks—a fact that underscored the project’s immense strategic importance.


pages: 362 words: 108,359

The Accidental Investment Banker: Inside the Decade That Transformed Wall Street by Jonathan A. Knee

AOL-Time Warner, barriers to entry, Bear Stearns, book value, Boycotts of Israel, business logic, call centre, cognitive dissonance, commoditize, corporate governance, Corrections Corporation of America, deal flow, discounted cash flows, fear of failure, fixed income, Glass-Steagall Act, greed is good, if you build it, they will come, iterative process, junk bonds, low interest rates, market bubble, market clearing, Mary Meeker, Menlo Park, Michael Milken, new economy, Ponzi scheme, pre–internet, proprietary trading, risk/return, Ronald Reagan, shareholder value, Silicon Valley, SoftBank, technology bubble, young professional, éminence grise

Third, the transaction that secured Weinberg’s place as an iconic adviser and Goldman’s place as the premier Jewish banking house, was reflective of changes in the industry and society at large. Henry Ford’s deep and well-documented anti-Semitism makes it highly unlikely that he would have invited a Jew into the inner family sanctum. Henry Ford II, however, was committed to erasing his grandfather’s legacy of bigotry. He would later publicly refuse to join the Arab boycott of Israel, at significant cost to the company.10 And Sidney Weinberg wasn’t just a Jewish banker, he looked and sounded like one. At 5′ 4″, Weinberg looked “less like an elder statesman than like a kewpie doll.”11 Weinberg never converted, changed his name, or lost his thick Brooklyn accent, unlike many aspiring financiers before and after him.


pages: 409 words: 118,448

An Extraordinary Time: The End of the Postwar Boom and the Return of the Ordinary Economy by Marc Levinson

affirmative action, airline deregulation, Alan Greenspan, banking crisis, Big bang: deregulation of the City of London, Boycotts of Israel, Bretton Woods, business cycle, Capital in the Twenty-First Century by Thomas Piketty, car-free, Carmen Reinhart, central bank independence, centre right, clean water, deindustrialization, endogenous growth, falling living standards, financial deregulation, flag carrier, floating exchange rates, full employment, George Gilder, Gini coefficient, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, guns versus butter model, high-speed rail, income inequality, income per capita, indoor plumbing, informal economy, intermodal, inverted yield curve, invisible hand, It's morning again in America, Kenneth Rogoff, knowledge economy, late capitalism, Les Trente Glorieuses, linear programming, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, Multi Fibre Arrangement, new economy, Nixon shock, Nixon triggered the end of the Bretton Woods system, North Sea oil, oil shock, Paul Samuelson, pension reform, Phillips curve, price stability, purchasing power parity, refrigerator car, Right to Buy, rising living standards, Robert Gordon, rolodex, Ronald Coase, Ronald Reagan, Simon Kuznets, statistical model, strikebreaker, structural adjustment programs, The Rise and Fall of American Growth, Thomas Malthus, total factor productivity, unorthodox policies, upwardly mobile, War on Poverty, Washington Consensus, Winter of Discontent, Wolfgang Streeck, women in the workforce, working-age population, yield curve, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game

The oil shock upset the equilibrium in Canada, setting off a boom in oil-rich Alberta while crippling import-dependent Quebec. The reverberations were even more disquieting in Japan. As petroleum prices rose through 1973, the Japanese did not anticipate serious trouble; their country had little engagement with the Middle East, and many Japanese companies had even complied with the Arab boycott against Israel. But Japan’s neutrality in Middle Eastern affairs did not spare it from pain when oil prices spiked. The Japanese did not block highways or threaten gas station attendants, but anxiety over the end of cheap petroleum ran very deep: every drop used to fuel Japan’s huge industrial base was imported.


pages: 225 words: 64,595

Catch-67: The Left, the Right, and the Legacy of the Six-Day War by Micah Goodman

Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, European colonialism, mass immigration, one-state solution, public intellectual, Yom Kippur War, zero-sum game


pages: 414 words: 121,243

What's Left?: How Liberals Lost Their Way by Nick Cohen

"hyperreality Baudrillard"~20 OR "Baudrillard hyperreality", anti-communist, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, centre right, critical race theory, DeepMind, disinformation, Etonian, failed state, Fall of the Berlin Wall, Farzad Bazoft, feminist movement, government statistician, Great Leap Forward, haute couture, kremlinology, liberal world order, light touch regulation, mass immigration, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, Naomi Klein, no-fly zone, plutocrats, post-industrial society, profit motive, public intellectual, Ralph Nader, road to serfdom, Ronald Reagan, Scientific racism, sensible shoes, the scientific method, union organizing, upwardly mobile, Yom Kippur War

The Independent and New Statesman produced neo-Nazi iconography, while an article reprinted by the London Review of Books won the praise of a former leader of the Ku Klux Klan for explaining that a Jewish ‘Lobby’ controlled American foreign policy. The Church of England’s General Synod, university lecturers and architects called for boycotts of Israel and none of them felt the need to explain why they didn’t demand boycotts of states which had committed far greater crimes against humanity, up to and including genocide. When you asked them why they were singling out Jews for special treatment, they cried that the Jews always said that criticism of Israel was ‘antisemitic’, even though no serious scholar, journalist, Jewish organization or Israeli politician did anything of the sort.


pages: 769 words: 224,916

The Bin Ladens: An Arabian Family in the American Century by Steve Coll

American ideology, anti-communist, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, borderless world, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, business climate, colonial rule, Donald Trump, European colonialism, Fall of the Berlin Wall, financial independence, forensic accounting, global village, haute couture, high-speed rail, independent contractor, intangible asset, Iridium satellite, Khyber Pass, Korean Air Lines Flight 007, low earth orbit, margin call, Mount Scopus, new economy, offshore financial centre, oil shock, Oscar Wyatt, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Saturday Night Live, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, urban planning, Yogi Berra

Salem ordered Cadillacs for the Saudi royal family and had them fitted with armor so that they could repel machine-gun fire. With Sowell’s help, he also ordered about a dozen Lincolns and shipped them over to the kingdom from New Orleans. He ordered five thousand cases of Tabasco sauce and flew it to Saudi Arabia—he said he liked the taste. Coca-Cola was subject to the Arab boycott against Israel, so Salem discovered an alternative soft drink called Mello Yello and had it shipped home in vast quantities. He found a small plastic airplane toy that tickled him and he bought thousands to take home as gifts. To decorate the desert gardens of a palace his family firm was building for Crown Prince Fahd, he shipped home in refrigerated containers what seemed like a substantial portion of the vegetation of the American Southwest: 481 large American cacti, 360 small cacti, 485 mixed cacti, 100 yucca trees, 625 orchids, and more than 5,000 other desert plants, bushes, and trees.7 Salem invited Fahd himself to Panama City, according to Sowell.


pages: 752 words: 201,334

Like Dreamers: The Story of the Israeli Paratroopers Who Reunited Jerusalem and Divided a Nation by Yossi Klein Halevi

Apollo 11, back-to-the-land, Boycotts of Israel, Burning Man, facts on the ground, friendly fire, ghettoisation, illegal immigration, mass immigration, Mount Scopus, New Journalism, out of africa, Ronald Reagan, Suez crisis 1956, Transnistria, Yom Kippur War

How had the pioneer statesmen and their hero generals become so complacent, so arrogant, that they had failed to notice the growing strength of Arab armies and the prewar buildup on the borders? The world had never seemed to Israelis a more hostile place than it did in late October 1973. The Arab oil boycott, which punished pro-Israel countries with a suspension of oil deliveries, pressured Third World countries to sever relations with the Jewish state, while panicked European governments suddenly discovered the Palestinian cause. Only two countries—the United States and Holland—stood with Israel. And who knew for how much longer?

AND THEN, UNEXPECTEDLY, Gush Emunim received a gift. On November 10, 1975, the UN General Assembly voted, 72 to 35, with 32 abstentions, to declare Zionism a form of racism. The resolution, initiated by Arab nations and endorsed by the Soviet and Muslim blocs, was the culminating moment of the growing Arab success, impelled by the oil boycott, to isolate Israel. Sitting in solemn assembly, the UN in effect declared that, of all the world’s national movements, only Zionism—whose factions ranged from Marxist to capitalist, expansionist to conciliatory, clericalist to ultrasecular—was by its very nature evil. The state of the Jews, the Israeli political philosopher J.


pages: 708 words: 176,708

The WikiLeaks Files: The World According to US Empire by Wikileaks

affirmative action, anti-communist, banking crisis, battle of ideas, Boycotts of Israel, Bretton Woods, British Empire, capital controls, central bank independence, Chelsea Manning, colonial exploitation, colonial rule, corporate social responsibility, credit crunch, cuban missile crisis, Deng Xiaoping, drone strike, Edward Snowden, energy security, energy transition, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, experimental subject, F. W. de Klerk, facts on the ground, failed state, financial innovation, Food sovereignty, Francis Fukuyama: the end of history, full employment, future of journalism, high net worth, invisible hand, Julian Assange, Kickstarter, liberal world order, Mikhail Gorbachev, millennium bug, Mohammed Bouazizi, Monroe Doctrine, Nelson Mandela, no-fly zone, Northern Rock, nuclear ambiguity, Philip Mirowski, post-war consensus, RAND corporation, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Hersh, Silicon Valley, South China Sea, statistical model, Strategic Defense Initiative, structural adjustment programs, too big to fail, trade liberalization, trade route, UNCLOS, UNCLOS, uranium enrichment, vertical integration, Washington Consensus, WikiLeaks, zero-sum game, éminence grise

Netanyahu said his Bar Ilan address last June [where he outlined his conditions for Palestinian statehood] had been difficult for him, but it had united Israelis in support of accepting a demilitarized Palestinian state. The current GOI had also restrained construction in settlements more than its past several predecessors. Netanyahu then contrasted his efforts with the PA, which he said is maintaining a “political and economic boycott” of Israel, setting preconditions for negotiations, supporting the Goldstone Report in the UN, and is now talking about a unilateral declaration of independence. Israel wants to engage, but the Palestinians do not. [09TELAVIV2777] Of course, Netanyahu repeatedly demonstrated the limits of his own willingness to engage core Palestinian demands.


pages: 1,145 words: 310,655

1967: Israel, the War, and the Year That Transformed the Middle East by Tom Segev

affirmative action, anti-communist, Ascot racecourse, Berlin Wall, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, cuban missile crisis, distributed generation, friendly fire, full employment, ghettoisation, government statistician, illegal immigration, invisible hand, mass immigration, Mount Scopus, open borders, Ronald Reagan, Yom Kippur War, young professional

Moshe Bornstein, a Holocaust survivor, was the owner of the Israeli beverage company Tempo, and had been trying for years to win the Israeli franchise to make Coca-Cola. The company had repeatedly turned him down, apparently fearing that manufacturing the beverage in Israel would lead to its boycott in Arab countries.* Israel and Jewish organizations in America consistently fought against the Arab commercial boycott, and Israel even kept a special consul in New York specifically for that purpose. In 1966 the consul was the journalist Yuval Elitzur, a writer for Maariv. Elitzur frequently worked with Arnold Forster, an official of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, who, as Elitzur described, launched an initiative called “Operation Coca-Cola.”


pages: 387 words: 123,237

Doppelganger: A Trip Into the Mirror World by Naomi Klein

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 2021 United States Capitol attack, 3D printing, anti-communist, anti-globalists, autism spectrum disorder, benefit corporation, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, bitcoin, Black Lives Matter, blood diamond, Boris Johnson, Boycotts of Israel, Cambridge Analytica, capitalist realism, ChatGPT, citizen journalism, Climategate, contact tracing, coronavirus, COVID-19, crisis actor, critical race theory, dark matter, deep learning, deepfake, deplatforming, disinformation, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, fake news, false flag, feminist movement, George Floyd, glass ceiling, global pandemic, global supply chain, green new deal, Greta Thunberg, hive mind, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet Archive, Jeffrey Epstein, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, lab leak, Lewis Mumford, lockdown, Mark Zuckerberg, mass immigration, mass incarceration, medical residency, military-industrial complex, moral panic, Naomi Klein, Nelson Mandela, neurotypical, new economy, opioid epidemic / opioid crisis, Parler "social media", pattern recognition, Peter Thiel, phenotype, profit motive, QAnon, QR code, Ralph Waldo Emerson, randomized controlled trial, Rosa Parks, Scientific racism, Scramble for Africa, shared worldview, sharing economy, Sheryl Sandberg, Shoshana Zuboff, Silicon Valley, Slavoj Žižek, smart cities, social distancing, Steve Bannon, surveillance capitalism, tech billionaire, tech bro, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, TikTok, trade route, transatlantic slave trade, trickle-down economics, union organizing, W. E. B. Du Bois, Wayback Machine, women in the workforce


pages: 517 words: 155,209

Kingdom of Olives and Ash: Writers Confront the Occupation by Michael Chabon

airport security, banking crisis, Berlin Wall, Black Lives Matter, Boycotts of Israel, call centre, clean water, Donald Trump, facts on the ground, Fellow of the Royal Society, glass ceiling, land tenure, mental accounting, microdosing, Mount Scopus, Nelson Mandela, off grid, off-the-grid, Right to Buy, Skype, traveling salesman, WikiLeaks

But they exist, they are there, sometimes demoralized, but always active, and they—I call them the righteous ones—are for me the best guarantee of a different future for Israel, of peace and friendship with their neighbors and of coexistence and cooperation with the Palestinians. I am and will always be against the “academic boycott” that threatens Israel. I will always be against “collective punishment” in which the righteous ones often pay for the misdeeds of the sinners. More so in this case, because it is absurd to penalize universities in Israel for the excesses of their government. Universities are often the best foci of resistance to the policies of Netanyahu, the places where the most constructive ideas and initiatives are developed in favor of a just and sensible agreement between Palestinians and Israelis. 2.


pages: 687 words: 209,474

Six Days of War: June 1967 and the Making of the Modern Middle East by Michael B. Oren

Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, cuban missile crisis, European colonialism, friendly fire, Mount Scopus, open economy, Seymour Hersh, Suez crisis 1956, Yom Kippur War

But then, in an address to the Mapai leadership, the same Eshkol could also warn: “We are surrounded by a serious encirclement of hostility and that which doesn’t succeed today could well succeed tomorrow or the day after. We know that the Arab world is now divided in half…but things can always change.”66 THE CRISIS Two Weeks in May In the face of Arab and UN Condemnations and boycotts by Western ambassadors, Israel marked its independence. The parade had been pared down to a mere twenty-six minutes, 1,600 soldiers and a few vehicles—“a boy scouts march,” Colonel Lior derided it. Eshkol’s decision to put the lowest possible profile on the celebrations elicited bitter criticism from his opponents, most vocally Ben-Gurion, who accused him of kowtowing to international pressure.

Even the Syrians finally relented and agreed to send a brigade to fight alongside the Iraqis in Jordan. Combined, the Arab armies could field 900 combat aircraft, over 5,000 tanks, and a half million men. Added to this was immense political might. Arab oil producers had agreed to boycott any countries that assisted Israel, to nationalize their refineries and even destroy their pipelines. The Suez Canal, warned Nasser, could be blocked. Arabs across North Africa, throughout the Fertile Crescent and the Gulf, felt bound by a single, exalted effort, as expressed by President ‘Aref of Iraq: “Our goal is clear—to wipe Israel off the face of the map.


pages: 223 words: 60,936

pages: 677 words: 121,255

Giving the Devil His Due: Reflections of a Scientific Humanist by Michael Shermer

Alfred Russel Wallace, anthropic principle, anti-communist, anti-fragile, barriers to entry, Berlin Wall, Black Lives Matter, Boycotts of Israel, Chelsea Manning, clean water, clockwork universe, cognitive dissonance, Colonization of Mars, Columbine, cosmological constant, cosmological principle, creative destruction, dark matter, deplatforming, Donald Trump, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, fake news, Flynn Effect, germ theory of disease, Great Leap Forward, gun show loophole, Hans Rosling, heat death of the universe, hedonic treadmill, helicopter parent, Higgs boson, hindsight bias, illegal immigration, income inequality, intentional community, invisible hand, Johannes Kepler, Joseph Schumpeter, Kim Stanley Robinson, laissez-faire capitalism, Laplace demon, luminiferous ether, Mars Society, McMansion, means of production, mega-rich, Menlo Park, microaggression, military-industrial complex, moral hazard, moral panic, More Guns, Less Crime, Multics, Oklahoma City bombing, Peter Singer: altruism, phenotype, positional goods, power law, public intellectual, race to the bottom, Richard Feynman, Ronald Coase, Silicon Valley, Skype, social intelligence, Social Justice Warrior, stem cell, Stephen Hawking, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, Suez crisis 1956, TED Talk, the scientific method, The Wealth of Nations by Adam Smith, Timothy McVeigh, transaction costs, WikiLeaks, working poor, Yogi Berra

“The Latest Example of Political Correctness Run Amok: A Misguided Revolt at One of the Most Liberal Colleges in America.” Business Insider. April 18. https://read.bi/2Hyrs5L 4. King Jr., Martin Luther. 1963. “I Have a Dream…” Speech by the Rev. Martin Luther King at the “March on Washington”. US Government Archives. https://bit.ly/2fmjJXA 5. BLM (#blacklivesmater), BDM (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions of Israel), MSM (Main Stream Media), LGBTQI (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual, questioning, intersex), SJW (Social Justice Warriors), #metoo (Harvey Weinstein), #TakeAKnee (NFL national anthem protests), Dreamers (children of illegal immigrants born in the USA), Google Memo (the firing of James Demore), Milo (Yiannopoulos), Charlottesville (neo-Nazis), Evergreen (protests against professor Bret Weinstein), Berkeley (protests against Milo, Ann Coulter, et al.), Yale (protests over Halloween costumes), Middlebury (protests against Charles Murray), Parkland (school shooting), microaggressions (offensive words or phrases), safe spaces (places for students to go after hearing offensive speech), no platforming (disinvitation of speakers), hate speech (v. free speech). 6.


pages: 1,071 words: 295,220

Rise and Kill First: The Secret History of Israel's Targeted Assassinations by Ronen Bergman

Ayatollah Khomeini, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, card file, conceptual framework, cuban missile crisis, disinformation, Edward Snowden, facts on the ground, friendly fire, glass ceiling, illegal immigration, Julian Assange, Kickstarter, Marshall McLuhan, operational security, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Hersh, Stuxnet, unit 8200, uranium enrichment, WikiLeaks, Yom Kippur War

He came to the conclusion that only a political solution with the Palestinians—the two-state solution—could end the 150-year conflict, and that the result of Netanyahu’s policies would be a binational state with parity between Arabs and Jews and a concomitant danger of constant repression and internal strife, replacing the Zionist dream of a democratic Jewish state with a large Jewish majority. He was anxious that the calls for an economic and cultural boycott of Israel because of the occupation would become bitter reality, “just like the boycott that was imposed against South Africa,” and even more anxious about the internal division in Israel and the threat to democracy and civil rights. At a rally in central Tel Aviv before the March 2015 elections, calling for Netanyahu to be voted out, he addressed the prime minister: “How can you be responsible for our fate if you are so frightened of taking responsibility?


pages: 496 words: 131,938

The Future Is Asian by Parag Khanna

3D printing, Admiral Zheng, affirmative action, Airbnb, Amazon Web Services, anti-communist, Asian financial crisis, asset-backed security, augmented reality, autonomous vehicles, Ayatollah Khomeini, barriers to entry, Basel III, bike sharing, birth tourism , blockchain, Boycotts of Israel, Branko Milanovic, British Empire, call centre, capital controls, carbon footprint, cashless society, clean tech, clean water, cloud computing, colonial rule, commodity super cycle, computer vision, connected car, corporate governance, CRISPR, crony capitalism, cross-border payments, currency peg, death from overwork, deindustrialization, Deng Xiaoping, Didi Chuxing, Dissolution of the Soviet Union, Donald Trump, driverless car, dual-use technology, energy security, European colonialism, factory automation, failed state, fake news, falling living standards, family office, financial engineering, fixed income, flex fuel, gig economy, global reserve currency, global supply chain, Great Leap Forward, green transition, haute couture, haute cuisine, illegal immigration, impact investing, income inequality, industrial robot, informal economy, initial coin offering, Internet of things, karōshi / gwarosa / guolaosi, Kevin Kelly, Kickstarter, knowledge worker, light touch regulation, low cost airline, low skilled workers, Lyft, machine translation, Malacca Straits, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, Masayoshi Son, megacity, megaproject, middle-income trap, Mikhail Gorbachev, money market fund, Monroe Doctrine, mortgage debt, natural language processing, Netflix Prize, new economy, off grid, oil shale / tar sands, open economy, Parag Khanna, payday loans, Pearl River Delta, prediction markets, purchasing power parity, race to the bottom, RAND corporation, rent-seeking, reserve currency, ride hailing / ride sharing, Ronald Reagan, Salesforce, Scramble for Africa, self-driving car, Shenzhen special economic zone , Silicon Valley, smart cities, SoftBank, South China Sea, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, stem cell, Steve Jobs, Steven Pinker, supply-chain management, sustainable-tourism, synthetic biology, systems thinking, tech billionaire, tech worker, trade liberalization, trade route, transaction costs, Travis Kalanick, uber lyft, upwardly mobile, urban planning, Vision Fund, warehouse robotics, Washington Consensus, working-age population, Yom Kippur War

With terrorism and anti-Semitism on the rise in Europe, the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called upon all Jews to return to Israel and fortify its demographic base. Yet, like Turkey and Russia, Israel feels increasingly shunned by the European Union, which has pushed for an independent state for Palestinian Arabs, while European groups have launched divestment and boycott campaigns against it. Israel’s response has been to double down on democratic illiberalism: in 2018, its parliament passed a resolution declaring the state’s raison d’être as being a home for Jews and Jewish values, with no mention of minority rights. Even though the United States provides robust military assistance to Israel—and Donald Trump recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital—Israeli leaders know that many American Jews challenge the need for a special alliance they feel provides the Israeli government excessive impunity.


pages: 382 words: 105,819

Zucked: Waking Up to the Facebook Catastrophe by Roger McNamee

"Susan Fowler" uber, "World Economic Forum" Davos, 4chan, Albert Einstein, algorithmic trading, AltaVista, Amazon Web Services, Andy Rubin, barriers to entry, Bernie Sanders, Big Tech, Bill Atkinson, Black Lives Matter, Boycotts of Israel, Brexit referendum, Cambridge Analytica, carbon credits, Cass Sunstein, cloud computing, computer age, cross-subsidies, dark pattern, data is the new oil, data science, disinformation, Donald Trump, Douglas Engelbart, Douglas Engelbart, driverless car, Electric Kool-Aid Acid Test, Elon Musk, fake news, false flag, Filter Bubble, game design, growth hacking, Ian Bogost, income inequality, information security, Internet of things, It's morning again in America, Jaron Lanier, Jeff Bezos, John Markoff, laissez-faire capitalism, Lean Startup, light touch regulation, Lyft, machine readable, Marc Andreessen, Marc Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, market bubble, Max Levchin, Menlo Park, messenger bag, Metcalfe’s law, minimum viable product, Mother of all demos, move fast and break things, Network effects, One Laptop per Child (OLPC), PalmPilot, paypal mafia, Peter Thiel, pets.com, post-work, profit maximization, profit motive, race to the bottom, recommendation engine, Robert Mercer, Ronald Reagan, Russian election interference, Sand Hill Road, self-driving car, Sheryl Sandberg, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, Skype, Snapchat, social graph, software is eating the world, Stephen Hawking, Steve Bannon, Steve Jobs, Steven Levy, Stewart Brand, subscription business, TED Talk, The Chicago School, The future is already here, Tim Cook: Apple, two-sided market, Uber and Lyft, Uber for X, uber lyft, Upton Sinclair, vertical integration, WikiLeaks, Yom Kippur War

Collective action enabled the country to build the best public education system in the world, as well as the interstate highway system, and to send men to the moon. The average American enjoyed an exceptionally high standard of living. Then came the 1973 oil crisis, when the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries initiated a boycott of countries that supported Israel in the Yom Kippur War. The oil embargo exposed a flaw in the US economy: it was built on cheap oil. The country had lived beyond its means for most of the sixties, borrowing aggressively to pay for the war in Vietnam and the Great Society social programs, which made it vulnerable.


pages: 1,800 words: 596,972

The Great War for Civilisation: The Conquest of the Middle East by Robert Fisk

Albert Einstein, Ayatollah Khomeini, Berlin Wall, Boycotts of Israel, bread and circuses, British Empire, call centre, clean water, colonial rule, cuban missile crisis, disinformation, dual-use technology, Farzad Bazoft, friendly fire, Howard Zinn, IFF: identification friend or foe, invisible hand, Islamic Golden Age, Khartoum Gordon, Khyber Pass, land reform, Mahatma Gandhi, Mikhail Gorbachev, music of the spheres, no-fly zone, Oklahoma City bombing, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Hersh, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, the market place, Thomas L Friedman, Timothy McVeigh, Transnistria, unemployed young men, uranium enrichment, Yom Kippur War

I watched the future Iraqi leader carefully, and when his eyes briefly met mine I noted a kind of contempt in them, something supercilious. This was not, I thought, a man who had much faith in conferences. And he was right. The Saudis made sure that they didn’t anger the United States, and after three days of deliberation the Arab mountain gave forth a mouse. Egypt would be put under an economic boycott—just like Israel—and a committee would be dispatched to Cairo to try to persuade Sadat to renounce Camp David. To sweeten the deal, they were to offer him $7 billion annually for the next ten years to support Egypt’s bankrupt economy. The unenviable task of leading this forlorn delegation to Cairo fell, rather sadly, to Selim el-Hoss, the prime minister of Lebanon whose own war-battered country was then more deeply divided than the Arab world itself.

But the Syrians could also be uncompromising. They would not accept what the Americans called “confidence-building measures”—the presence of military observers, an end to propaganda campaigns—before the start of Israeli withdrawal from occupied Arab land. There would be no end to the Arab economic boycott of Israel and no agreements on water resources until the Israelis had undertaken “a comprehensive withdrawal from occupied territories.” In their private discussions with the Americans, the Syrians had also insisted that they would negotiate on the Palestinian question as well as on Golan in order to prevent the Israelis exploiting what Damascus feared was the weakest Arab team at the conference, the joint Jordanian–Palestinian delegation.


pages: 801 words: 229,742

pages: 632 words: 171,827

Israel: A Concise History of a Nation Reborn by Daniel Gordis

Albert Einstein, Ayatollah Khomeini, back-to-the-land, Berlin Wall, Boeing 747, Boycotts of Israel, British Empire, facts on the ground, illegal immigration, mass immigration, Mikhail Gorbachev, Mount Scopus, post-oil, public intellectual, Ronald Reagan, Seymour Hersh, Suez canal 1869, Suez crisis 1956, uranium enrichment, Yom Kippur War

Particularly among Israel’s political Right, there were many who would never forgive Kissinger for having delayed arms shipments when they had been so desperately needed. France’s support of the Arab state by supplying military equipment surprised few, but Israelis were stunned that Britain—which, like much of post-oil-boycott Europe, was abandoning Israel and moving toward the Arabs—had imposed an embargo on military aid to the region. When Britain finally broke its own embargo, it was by training Egyptian helicopter pilots. When Israel complained, Britain told Israel that they were better off having those pilots training in England than at the front in the Middle East.


pages: 572 words: 134,335

pages: 497 words: 144,283

Connectography: Mapping the Future of Global Civilization by Parag Khanna

"World Economic Forum" Davos, 1919 Motor Transport Corps convoy, 2013 Report for America's Infrastructure - American Society of Civil Engineers - 19 March 2013, 9 dash line, additive manufacturing, Admiral Zheng, affirmative action, agricultural Revolution, Airbnb, Albert Einstein, amateurs talk tactics, professionals talk logistics, Amazon Mechanical Turk, Anthropocene, Asian financial crisis, asset allocation, autonomous vehicles, banking crisis, Basel III, Berlin Wall, bitcoin, Black Swan, blockchain, borderless world, Boycotts of Israel, Branko Milanovic, BRICs, British Empire, business intelligence, call centre, capital controls, Carl Icahn, charter city, circular economy, clean water, cloud computing, collateralized debt obligation, commoditize, complexity theory, continuation of politics by other means, corporate governance, corporate social responsibility, credit crunch, crony capitalism, crowdsourcing, cryptocurrency, cuban missile crisis, data is the new oil, David Ricardo: comparative advantage, deglobalization, deindustrialization, dematerialisation, Deng Xiaoping, Detroit bankruptcy, digital capitalism, digital divide, digital map, disruptive innovation, diversification, Doha Development Round, driverless car, Easter island, edge city, Edward Snowden, Elon Musk, energy security, Ethereum, ethereum blockchain, European colonialism, eurozone crisis, export processing zone, failed state, Fairphone, Fall of the Berlin Wall, family office, Ferguson, Missouri, financial innovation, financial repression, fixed income, forward guidance, gentrification, geopolitical risk, global supply chain, global value chain, global village, Google Earth, Great Leap Forward, Hernando de Soto, high net worth, high-speed rail, Hyperloop, ice-free Arctic, if you build it, they will come, illegal immigration, income inequality, income per capita, industrial cluster, industrial robot, informal economy, Infrastructure as a Service, interest rate swap, Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), Internet of things, Isaac Newton, Jane Jacobs, Jaron Lanier, John von Neumann, Julian Assange, Just-in-time delivery, Kevin Kelly, Khyber Pass, Kibera, Kickstarter, LNG terminal, low cost airline, low earth orbit, low interest rates, manufacturing employment, mass affluent, mass immigration, megacity, Mercator projection, Metcalfe’s law, microcredit, middle-income trap, mittelstand, Monroe Doctrine, Multics, mutually assured destruction, Neal Stephenson, New Economic Geography, new economy, New Urbanism, off grid, offshore financial centre, oil rush, oil shale / tar sands, oil shock, openstreetmap, out of africa, Panamax, Parag Khanna, Peace of Westphalia, peak oil, Pearl River Delta, Peter Thiel, Philip Mirowski, Planet Labs, plutocrats, post-oil, post-Panamax, precautionary principle, private military company, purchasing power parity, quantum entanglement, Quicken Loans, QWERTY keyboard, race to the bottom, Rana Plaza, rent-seeking, reserve currency, Robert Gordon, Robert Shiller, Robert Solow, rolling blackouts, Ronald Coase, Scramble for Africa, Second Machine Age, sharing economy, Shenzhen special economic zone , Shenzhen was a fishing village, Silicon Valley, Silicon Valley startup, six sigma, Skype, smart cities, Smart Cities: Big Data, Civic Hackers, and the Quest for a New Utopia, South China Sea, South Sea Bubble, sovereign wealth fund, special economic zone, spice trade, Stuxnet, supply-chain management, sustainable-tourism, systems thinking, TaskRabbit, tech worker, TED Talk, telepresence, the built environment, The inhabitant of London could order by telephone, sipping his morning tea in bed, the various products of the whole earth, Tim Cook: Apple, trade route, Tragedy of the Commons, transaction costs, Tyler Cowen, UNCLOS, uranium enrichment, urban planning, urban sprawl, vertical integration, WikiLeaks, Yochai Benkler, young professional, zero day

* * * *1 Similarly, in September 2015, British Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne became the first British minister to visit China’s restive, Muslim-populated Xinjiang province, where he lobbied on behalf of British businesses for deals in industrial parks catering to the emerging Eurasian Silk Roads. *2 Coca-Cola is the market leader in Iran as well. Sold by Coke’s Irish subsidiary, it is bottled by the local joint venture partner Khoshgovar. *3 Similarly, for every European country that launches a boycott, divestment, and sanctions initiative against Israel on behalf of the Palestinians, some hedge fund or Chinese construction company launches a new investment with it. *4 Though Ukraine lost Crimea, it still controls Crimea’s electricity supply. A series of attacks by Ukranians on power transmission lines in November 2015 plunged Crimea into darkness


The Battle for Jerusalem, June 5-7, 1967 by Abraham Rabinovich

Boycotts of Israel, disinformation, invention of gunpowder, Mount Scopus, Yom Kippur War

The troops had had nothing substantial to eat in two days, and commanders permitted their men to break into food shops. (Journalists were to find shutters on jewelry shops and camera stores undisturbed.) The most sought-after beverage was not spirits but Pepsi-Cola, which the Arab boycott had succeeded in banning from Israel and which most of the young Israelis had never tasted. In one grocery the starving men wolfed down yogurt, smearing on their sooty faces a white harlequin mask. << Chapter >> Home | TOC | Index Mopping Up 329 Occasionally, Arab hospitality surfaced even toward an occupying army.


pages: 956 words: 288,981

pages: 722 words: 225,235

The Yom Kippur War: The Epic Encounter That Transformed the Middle East by Abraham Rabinovich

Boycotts of Israel, disinformation, friendly fire, Mahatma Gandhi, Seymour Hersh, Yom Kippur War

It was Kissinger’s impression that the Egyptians were leaving an opening for border adjustments on the West Bank and even for an Israeli presence along the Jordan River, aimed at preventing any Arab army from linking up with the West Bank. Once Israel declared its readiness for a pullback, said Ismail, demilitarized zones would be created on both sides of the Israeli-Egyptian border. Israeli vessels would be permitted to use the Suez Canal and Egypt would end its boycott of companies trading with Israel. There would, however, not be diplomatic relations or open borders. This would have to await an Israeli settlement with Syria (including full withdrawal from the Golan Heights), Jordan, and the Palestinians. Arab control of East Jerusalem and the Temple Mount was nonnegotiable. Kissinger was skeptical about Israel agreeing to these terms, even though they were far better than anything any Arab state had yet offered.