A VERY GOOD EDITORIAL
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 25 May 2010
"In recent weeks, the US- and Israeli-backed Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) has made a show of calling on Palestinians to boycott goods manufactured in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Despite the rhetoric of defiance and resistance, and exaggerated screams of anguish from Israeli settler groups, the PA effort actually appears designed to co-opt, undermine and abort the much broader Palestinian civil society campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), and to reassure Israel of the continued docility and collaboration of its puppet regime in Ramallah.....
BDS represents the broad consensus of Palestinian society, but the PA settlement boycott campaign actually violates and calls on people to defy the BDS call. During a photo opportunity where he affixed a sticker to the door of his house attesting that it was free of settlement goods, Abbas emphasized, "We are not boycotting Israel, because we have agreements and imports from it."....
Ali Abunimah, The Electronic Intifada, 25 May 2010
"In recent weeks, the US- and Israeli-backed Ramallah-based Palestinian Authority (PA) has made a show of calling on Palestinians to boycott goods manufactured in Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Despite the rhetoric of defiance and resistance, and exaggerated screams of anguish from Israeli settler groups, the PA effort actually appears designed to co-opt, undermine and abort the much broader Palestinian civil society campaign of boycott, divestment and sanctions (BDS), and to reassure Israel of the continued docility and collaboration of its puppet regime in Ramallah.....
BDS represents the broad consensus of Palestinian society, but the PA settlement boycott campaign actually violates and calls on people to defy the BDS call. During a photo opportunity where he affixed a sticker to the door of his house attesting that it was free of settlement goods, Abbas emphasized, "We are not boycotting Israel, because we have agreements and imports from it."....
The PA's insistence on abiding by agreements Israel constantly violates is further evidence -- if it were needed -- of the PA's terminal subservience......
....Notably this decree does not impose any penalties on Palestinian businessmen who sell goods and provide services to the settlers. In recent years credible allegations have repeatedly surfaced that a number of senior PA and Fatah officials, including most notoriously former PA Prime Minister Ahmed Qureia, and their family members have grown rich from selling cement to Israel for construction of settlements and the apartheid wall .....
The PA is not just attempting to undermine the independent BDS and grassroots campaigns, but to co-opt them precisely because of their growing power, popularity and legitimacy as liberation strategies, in the hope that some of that legitimacy will rub off on the Ramallah regime....
The PA is not just attempting to undermine the independent BDS and grassroots campaigns, but to co-opt them precisely because of their growing power, popularity and legitimacy as liberation strategies, in the hope that some of that legitimacy will rub off on the Ramallah regime....
The PA in Ramallah has, notably, offered no support to the courageous international flotilla currently en route to Gaza in another attempt to break the blockade amid threats of violence from Israel. Why has the PA not called on its "friends" and benefactors in the "international community" to send their navies to protect this peaceful, nonviolent flotilla and ensure it gets through to Gaza? In practice, PA policy amounts to full support for the siege.
Some people have been impressed by the PA's anti-settlement campaign considering it a "step in the right direction." But no one should be fooled. Palestinians and their allies should remain clearly focused on the simple truth that those who continue to coordinate with the Israeli occupation forces to hunt down Palestinians by night cannot don the mantle of popular resistance by day."
Some people have been impressed by the PA's anti-settlement campaign considering it a "step in the right direction." But no one should be fooled. Palestinians and their allies should remain clearly focused on the simple truth that those who continue to coordinate with the Israeli occupation forces to hunt down Palestinians by night cannot don the mantle of popular resistance by day."
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