I know, we've got enough problems with Rumpus, so who has
energy for his Israeli buddy, Netanyahu?
Author and Forward columnist Peter Beinart does. I like what
he says about Israel's new law banning entry to:
any person "who knowingly issues a public call for
boycotting Israel" or any territory "under Israeli control,"
which includes settlements in the West Bank.
That might exclude me from entering Eretz. For though I completely
believe in Israel's right to exist, I do not believe even a little in its right
to seize and settle on West Bank land just as much as its expansionists, drunk
on fantasies about Biblical Judea and Samaria, would like. In fact, were there
a sane way to boycott just settler products — I'm not sure there is — I'd subscribe.
So, I can see myself landing in Ben Gurion Airport, ready
for my first visit in quite some time, eager to see if I can get in a little
Yiddish to compensate my nonexistent Hebrew, and being told if I refuse to buy
hilltop olives or Area C oranges, I will not be allowed to get a tan in Eilat.
I think Beinart is on target when he suggests that though
this law is meant to defend Israel against initiatives by the BDS/JVP movement
to isolate, starve and subvert it as a Jewish State, it will in fact do the opposite, deepening the wedge between Diaspora
Jews and Israeli hardliners. The effort to keep Israel from being
isolated it will further isolate it.
I wonder if I'd be allowed to make Aliyah to Eretz Yisroel.
As a Jew I'd be allowed to, as all Jews are. But maybe not as Jew who will refuse
on principle to savor settlement tomatoes, delicious as I've heard they are?
http://forward.com/opinion/365320/i-support-boycotting-settlements-should-i-be-banned-from-israel-with-my-chi/?attribution=home-hero-item-text-3&attribution=home-hero-item-text-3
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