Thursday, July 22, 2010

The Palestinian boycott of goods from the settlements

Picked up on an article from 'Channel News Asia' in Norman Finkelstein's blog on the Palestinian boycott of settlement products. "Israeli settler and industrialist Avi Elkayam, 35, has no patience with the Palestinian boycott of settlement products. “It’s economic terrorism,” he shouts shaking his fist."

However, he is not too worried about the effects of the boycott. After all, only "about five percent of the 300,000 dollars a month his sweets factory rakes in comes from Palestinians" and he also uses his "Jewish ingenuity" by labelling the goods as coming from Tel Aviv .... "Jewish ingenuity"? Seems like common sense from a business point of view to me. Of course, with 22,000 Palestinians working in Israeli settlements, and a few of them working for Avi, there would be a problem if the PA does indeed enact a law banning Palestinians from working in settlements as of January 1. Might even make it a trifle difficult for Avi's "Jewish ingenuity" to have the desired effect.

Difficult decisions ahead here and the 22,000 Palestinians working in the settements do, of course, have families to feed. Nevertheless, every Palestinian has to be aware that should they buy into Netanyahu's "economic peace plan", Israel will continue to avoid any real political process and the occupation will continue indefinitely.

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