Goodwin Ginger who wrote "The Poisoned Well of Popular Debate," as well as Elleni Centime Zeleke you mentioned earlier, obviously means well, but what they say is not realistic. Ginger says: "The facts are so overwhelming, so well documented that they can simply be pointed out and a rational conversation can be forced" (at <http://canadianobserver.wordpress.com/2006/06/08/24/>). That's an index of a profound misunderstanding -- the misunderstanding that arises because Ginger is such a good person -- of our contemporary political terrain (even in Canada, let alone the United States). You talk about Israel critically, and the mainstream press has only two responses for you, no matter what you talk about or how you talk about it: ignore you (if you are obscure) or criticize you (if you have fame or institutional weight on your side, as in the case of the PCUSA, NAFTHE, and CUPE).
The very fact that this discussion about boycotting and divesting from Israel is getting _any play at all_ in the major mainstream media is a big plus for Palestinians, as The Forward recognizes: "In a serious setback to Israel's diplomacy and public relations, two major unions — one in Britain and one in Canada — voted this week to urge boycotts of the Jewish state, with one targeting university professors and the other calling for economic divestment. . . . While economic boycott has long been a tactic leveled against Israel by a host of Arab states, the recent calls for boycott by two major labor unions on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean may be signaling a new form of anti-Israel activism in the West — and one that comes with teeth. It also may be a sign that the stances on Israel once reserved for the extreme left and right wings in Europe and North America are now moving closer to the political center" (Rebecca Spence, "Unions in Britain, Canada Urge Boycotts Against Israel," 2 June 2006, <http://www.forward.com/articles/7880>). -- Yoshie <http://montages.blogspot.com/> <http://mrzine.org> <http://monthlyreview.org/>