'Made in Israel settlements'

[DavidB.]

Well, it's nice to know which products I need to buy

[DavidB.]

Tzipi Hotovely, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs and fulltime FF.

[DavidB.]

FTFY

top kek. You don't like a Likud politician, what a surprise

Of course this is serious issue for Israel, as Israeli producer now have to prove the products haven't been made in the occupied territories, and if they cheat and it's discovered, the effects will be ugly. Also for size of the Israeli export around 1/3 goes to Europe (mainly EU).

You greatly overestimate the amount of products made in yishuvim in Yehuda and Shomron. These products fall in two categories: 1) mass production, like Sodastream -- but these companies have often already left, as there were only a few, and 2) niche products for people whose very purpose it is to buy products from Yehuda and Shomron. As to category 1, Arabs will lose their jobs. As to category 2, nothing will change, since the people who specifically buy, say, wine from Yehuda and Shomron, like me, might buy even more stuff from there over this insane measure. These products, by the way, account for a negligible percentage of the Israeli GDP.

The EU consistently pushes for anti-Israel measures that are purely symbolical, such as the recognition of "Palestine" and this, while in reality EU countries cooperate closely with Israel. That is tiresome, pointless, disingenuous, and discriminatory, but not too problematic in terms of consequences.

[DavidB.]

And as has been pointed out before, this will likely lead to the Israeli companies who employ Palestinian workers in the West Bank to close those factories and move to within the 1948 markings, causing a loss of jobs for those workers.

As much as I like you and value your posts, it frankly saddens me to see pro-Israel people resort to claims such as "Arabs will lose their jobs if you boycott products from J&S" in order to justify the Jewish presence in Yehuda and Shomron and in order to denounce (quasi-)boycotts against Jewish companies in J&S. I mean, you're factually 100% right and I won't argue about that, and we absolutely agree about the fact that this boycott is bad, but I'm afraid this argument will convince absolutely nobody. The symbolic value of this quasi-boycott obviously trumps the (negligible) effects of it, and both the EU and the PA seem interested in these symbolics rather than the effects, so continuing to argue about its effectiveness is like speaking another language, which is generally not fruitful in advocating your cause.

Israel failing to focus on the reasons why this is symbolically wrong rather than effectively is illustrative of the failure of Israel's side (StandWithUs, Israel Project etc. etc. etc.) to understand what this conflict is essentially about, and that's partly because the political elites themselves have forgotten this -- the mainstream right (i.e. Likud) much more than the mainstream left, because Likud's position is as intellectually dishonest as it gets, even if I prefer it to the intellectually honest yet anti-Zionist position of the mainstream left. We need to understand what our cause is essentially about, and it's not about democracy, Arab jobs, hummus or startups (as much as I like all of them) -- it is about Jewish rights to Israel, and in this case specifically to Judea and Samaria. We have a right to be there and this is the argument we should present as convincingly as possible to the world.

[DavidB.]

I see what you're saying, but I feel like that's a different issue that we need to debate separately.

What I want to focus on when it comes to this specific issue of the European labeling and possible boycott is that they very clearly care more about hurting Israel than they do about helping the people they claim to be standing for. In fact, they're willing to actively hurt them if it hurts Israel too.

They know. And they don't care about it. Frankly almost nobody does. Why do they not care? Because they think defying Jewish claims to Judea and Samaria (and, in the long run, to all of Israel) is symbolically right and will in the long run lead to justice "on the ground".

And even though I very clearly understand your point, this is exactly why we cannot discuss these issues separately. We need to speak the same language as the people who constantly deny Jewish claims to Israel. We need to tell people why embracing Jewish claims to Israel, to Judea, to Samaria, and to Jerusalem is the only just thing to do. We need to tell the world the real story, the story of a people that came back to its land rather than "invaded" it. The story of Jewish continuity in Zion and continuity of longing for Zion.

As long as we keep arguing that boycotting Israel or parts of Israel is bad because of Arab jobs, as long as we keep telling people why Israeli startups are great while people are interested in justice and the other side tells its story along the lines of justice (even though they clearly advocate a disgusting distortion of that), we fail to see what this issue is essentially about: our claims to the land, our claims to live on the land. And if we are to lose "the PR war", it is because people on our side are too shy to tell people the most beautiful and compelling story there is.

(This is also why it is Jews who lead charters of JVP and SJP. There is one thing they want: justice. For if you are an 18-year-old college kid, you want the world to be just, and you see it as your mission to contribute to that. So they feel justice is important (they might even connect this to concepts like tikkun olam which they have heard about in Reform shul, probably without understanding it), and they are already interested in the issue because they are Jewish. The only thing the Israeli side can talk about is fycking startups and beautiful beaches and democracy. And then they meet this person talking about their grandparents being forced to move from Ramla. It sounds compelling, and all of a sudden it seems like Israel's existence is based on a big lie. They have never learned what our story is about, who the Maccabees were, who the first Zionists were, what value Israel has for Jews, because if you are not raised religious (and I wasn't) you're probably not gonna learn it (and even if you are raised religious you're probably not going to learn it because their education is often sh*t, too). And all we keep doing is talk about Israel's prosperity, the beautiful Ayalon highway, hummus, LGBT rights, and "eventually a two-state solution but not now". Most people who do this are honest and they mean it, but all of Israel's beauty and modernity only makes the country look uglier to the college kid who believes the story they heard. It is one of the tragedies of our time that Jewish kids our age are not taught our story of justice, the real story. I am all for coexistence, for startups, for democracy, but I argue along the lines of justice for the Jewish people, not on the basis of the Shoa or on the basis of "indefensible borders", but on the basis of our ties to the land, our history, present, and future in the land. A future based on coexistence and justice. This is the compelling story people need to hear about.)

[DavidB.]

Again, none of this is really about Jewish rights to the land. I'm sure EU bureaucrats couldn't care one way or the other. The problem is that settlements are in violation of international law. This is solvable in one or two ways: get out of the occupied territories, or do what you're supposed to do when you've taken over a territory, namely give full citizenship rights to everyone who lives there. In other words, put up or shut up, none of this inbetween bull****.

Not true. The debate about the Israeli-Arab conflict goes much further than international law, not solely because international law is only relevant if 1) deemed relevant and 2) the actors who interpret it matter. Nobody really bases their position in the Israeli-Arab conflict on international law, not even actors in international relations. International law is only the framework that actors use to implement what they think is just (or strategically beneficial). People base their position in the Israeli-Arab conflict on what they think is just. The last part of your post is your sincerely held opinion, but it is based on your assessment of what is just, not on what is international law.

[DavidB.]

Now true international law isn't worth the paper its written on and hasn't ever been. My point is that the reason the EU is taking these actions is not because they somehow don't believe in Jewish rights to the land (they really couldn't care much either way), but because Palestinians in the West Bank do not have rights, most importantly voting rights. Even if you managed to convince the Europeans of the Jewish connections to the West Bank, their logic would still stand.

Glad we agree about the (lack of) real importance of international law. However, I do not necessarily agree with the rest of your post. If one convinces Europeans and Americans that Jewish presence in J&S is just, the problem of J&S Arabs being "stateless" obviously still stands and Europeans/Americans will continue to find their situation important, but at least it would lead to a better understanding of the fact that both groups have a legitimate claim to the entire land. And if people were to understand this, Europeans and Americans might pressure Israel to giving Arabs voting rights, which I could understand, but they would not pressure Israel toward ceding J&S, which would then be considered a legitimate part of Israel -- and pressuring Israel toward ceding J&S and moving toward an imposed two-state "solution" is obviously what Europe's labelling policy is about.

[DavidB.]

Pretty sure Americans and Europeans have better things to worry about .
(Now obviously one could ask why are they bothering with labeling then, it's much harder to get someone to stop wasting their time on something than to waste time on it.)

And EU pressuring for voting rights for Palestinians is well and good, but do you realize what would happen to anyone who dared advocate for that? It wouldn't be pretty.

Well, let me make this clear: I am obviously not in favor of currently advocating that, and I am certainly not in favor of the US and the EU acting like colonialists and pressuring Israel to do so (I think both peoples, not the EU and the US, should decide to a common future in one state). The point is that I would consider such pressure a far less harmless outcome than the endless nonsense about ceding J&S, the nonsense about a two-state "solution" that would neither lead to justice nor to peace being the panacea for all of the Middle East's problems.

And whereas Americans and Europeans certainly do have better things to worry about (and they better start doing so), the fact is that they are worrying about the Israeli-Arab conflict, which affects Israel. It will, indeed, be too hard to stop them from doing so. That is why I want them to have a better understanding of Jewish rights, which would lead them to expressing their worry over the current status-quo in ways that are less harmless and more prone to lead to justice in the future (i.e. toward a one-state solution instead of a two-state "solution").

(But I'm off to the gym now, reply to this thread later.)

[DavidB.]

Then you'll fail to be convincing.  That right you trumpet is based upon a particular interpretation of an ancient text that itself is no longer accepted by many in the developed world as being inerrant truth, the US and Russia excepted, and even then you're fighting an uphill battle.  Or is there some non-theological basis for a Jewish "right" to the West Bank you were referring to?

Again, I'm not going to discuss Zionism with you since it has been abundantly clear to me that you are someone who is very disrespectful to Jews in general, regardless of Zionism/Israel (well, save for the "I'm Jewish and that's it"-crowd), and to me in particular. I wonder if that is derived from religion or that it's just you. However, I do not waste my time arguing with SJP people and similarly I will not waste my time arguing with you.

However, my point is not derived from a "religious" tradition but from the fact that Jews are indigenous to Israel. You do not have to be religious in order to relate to indigenous rights issues.

[DavidB.]

Without such a rationale, you'll never be able to convince those of a non-theological bent that Israelis have a right of return while the Arabs do not.

Which is, therefore, also not something you have seen me saying. I am getting so sick of the people who deliberately misrepresent my arguments, which is something I have experienced on Atlas far too often lately. Seriously. I sometimes do this in the heat of the debate if I disagree with a politician, but doing this to another poster is the height (low?) of disrespect.

(This is not an invitation to futher debate with you -- on the contrary, it reminds me of what kind of person you are -- but rather a rebuttal of you misrepresenting my views.)

[DavidB.]

Jews who returned to the Netherlands were fycked over by both the people and the government. Many ordinary people wanted to take advantage of them and weren't happy with Jews returning to their homes, which led them to being horrible, whereas the government decided to let these people pay taxes for the time that they had been outside the country.

[DavidB.]

I really don't give a crap what you think of Jewish self-determination.

Quoted for truth. The only Jewish term that seems to apply to NYMillenial is "chutzpah", specifically the cutzpah to tell Jews where they can live and where they cannot live. Those days are over, dude.

[DavidB.]

There wasn't a single true remark in your post, so please just stop posting, you moron.

[DavidB.]

Reminds me of any post you make about Israel/Europe not being safe for Jews after WW2, tbh. Lmao.

I understand all Jews might look the same to someone like you, but I was not the one with whom you discussed that issue, it was Rubio Republican. I only made a post on the Dutch situation after WWII.