Doesn't that say something about Iraqi unions?
> whereas Palestinian unions *are*, a boycott can
> work in a limited range of circumstances, and one such instance
> (previously) was South Africa. Of course the same excuses were raised
> then by apartheid's apologists, who said that good old SA was being
> targeted unfairly, and it was all gesture politics etc. I can't vouch
> for it, but I like to think that some of the solidarity that was shown
> the victims of apartheid contributed to the international isolation of
> that regime, the application of sanctions, and the final success of
> the ANC. Only a little bit, I admit, but at least it was something.
It is not for me to decide the means and ends of liberation in Israel/Palestine, for it it is up to Palestinians and Israeli leftists who are committed to decolonization to decide them, but I'd just raise it as a point of consideration: perhaps the ANC is not a good model of a liberation movement, given what South Africa is today: see Figure 2 of <http://hdr.undp.org/hdr2006/statistics/countries/country_fact_sheets/cty_fs_ZAF.html>, and observe the trend of the human poverty index since 1994 when the ANC won the elections. There is no question that the ANC achieved an end to apartheid, and no one can dismiss that achievement, but it is possible that _how_ you end apartheid makes a difference in what kind of post-apartheid society you can build.
On 6/1/07, Bryan Atinsky <bryan at alt-info.org> wrote:
> Lenin's Tomb wrote:
> > Incidentally, you lot finger-wagging and claiming it will never work
> > haven't yet answered the point that the Zionists are going mental over
> > this - *even though* the decision doesn't even amount to a boycott
> > yet.
>
> This is very true...the media and govt here are presently going into
> overdrive about the issue...much more than I remember it was with the AUT.
>
> I think that they feel this time around there is more momentum to it and
> fear a snowballing effect.
On one hand, momentum for rethinking Israel is building in various quarters, due to many reasons. The Palestinians in Israel are beginning to assert themselves more forcefully to put equality of all citizens of Israel on the agenda (to which Tel Aviv's renewed repression of Azmi Bishara attests); and the USA's disastrous Iraq War, Israel's failed Lebanon War, incipient changes in the Jewish diaspora's opinion about Israel, Hizballah's growing ideological influence over the Arabs, Iran's ability (so far) to withstand the empire's many-sided attacks on its sovereignty, Russia's reemergence as a global power with a Middle East policy of its own that differs from the USA's, economic liberalization under dictatorship in Arab states (especially in Egypt) to which an increasing number of Arabs are beginning to respond by demand for democracy, the USA's low interest rates and China's economic growth that have together kept commodity prices higher than usual, giving populists of various stripes in the South a good deal of room for maneuver, and so on -- all these factors are changing the terrain of struggle in the Middle East, in favor of those Palestinians and Israelis who believe that another world is possible, if not now, sometime in the near future.
On the other hand, the Palestinians over all are in disarray, perhaps more than ever. -- Yoshie