by Beate Zilversmidt
After many hesitations, I dare to say it now: I am in favor of an international boycott.
We owe it to the Palestinian farmers who use non-violent ways of defending their land. We owe it also to those courageous and proud young people who day after day come to the villages to give a hand to these heroic farmers. But, in spite of the non-violent persistence of Palestinians, and the solidarity of young, and sometimes old people, from Israel and from all over the world, still the point of no return will soon be reached. They can't do it without help from the international society. And from nobody else but the normal people is quick intervention to be expected. The way to boycott goes through Budrus and Bil'in.
The Gaza Disengagement Plan has acted for more than a year already as a smoke screen. Behind the show of the 'titanic struggle' between Sharon and the settlers (his past and future friends) an enormous ongoing land grab is what we are supposed not to see meanwhile, on the West Bank.
By settlement extension and erection of the so-called 'Separation Fence', ever more facts are being created on a daily scale. The aim: preventing any possibility of a viable Palestinian state in the 22% of Palestine remaining after 1948, and occupied by Israel in 1967.
The only way to put down the fire before it devours everything, is the giving up by the Palestinians of what was lost in 1948 - however difficult it is to be pragmatic when so much was lost and the humiliation is going on daily; and on the other hand the giving up by the Israeli side of what was 'gained' in 1967, from a position of strength to invest in peace and good neighborliness. The Palestinians stand prepared, a majority of the Israeli people also, but not their government.
Sharon the 'peacemaker' has no intention of seriously coming to terms with the Palestinians, however moderate their leadership. He has nothing to offer them, nothing but the loss of their last remaining aspirations, allowing them a few reservations, perhaps. And in the process, another generation of Israelis also sees the hope of living a normal life disappear behind the horizon and all are doomed together to decades more of hating and being hated and a lot more of bloodshed. And nobody can even guarantee that also here Apartheid will be dissolved in the end with all involved parties still there to start living together peacefully.
It is no accident that in recent months there are increasing initiatives for boycott of and divestment from Israel, whether by British academics or Presbyterian and Anglican churches in the U.S. as well as in the World Council of Churches in Geneva. It is the natural reaction of people in different countries who see the abyss into which Israel, Palestine and the entire Middle East are plunging, while the diplomats and heads of state do nothing.
Far from being 'anti-Semitic' or 'one-sided', an intensive international boycott can prove to be Israel's salvation, the means of pressure under which a two-state solution can still be implemented, the occupation ended. Only then can there be hope that the detrimental land war would stop and that Israel and Palestine start a new and better direction with a lot of issues still to be solved between them, but from a more equal position.
The moment for men and women of goodwill to act is now.
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