On 11 July, the Israeli knesset (parliament) passed a law which makes the Israeli left's campaign of boycott against settlements in occupied Palestine illegal.
In March, we commented:
"In Britain, as things currently stand, the issue of boycotting the settlements is difficult to separate out from the reactionary and counter-productive drive for a general boycott of Israel. In Israel itself it is quite a different matter. Gush Shalom initiated a boycott of settlement products thirteen years ago as part of a more general political campaign against Israeli colonialism in the Occupied Territories. Recent years have seen actors refuse to perform in Ariel, the largest Israeli settlement in the West Bank, and academics refuse to deal with the 'University Centre' there.
"The original draft of the law mandated criminal charges and fines for those who broke it. Left activists welcomed this, because it would have meant the possibility of going to prison in defiance of the law. Now, instead, anyone who feels hurt by a boycott will be given the right to sue its organisers - a process which the well-organised and well-funded settlers can use to paralyse solidarity activists by tying them up in thousands of law suits.
"This is a question of democratic rights in Israel, but it is also about making solidarity with Israelis who make solidarity with the Palestinians. Clearly the law is aimed against anti-occupation boycotts, not any others (not, for instance, religious boycotts against non-kosher shops!) This is part of a general stepping up of repression against pro-Palestinian Israelis - symbolised by the case of Israeli anarchist Jonathan Pollak, in jail for taking part in an anti-occupation protest.
"The law is also, as Gush Shalom puts it, "blatantly annexationist". It is part of a drive to establish the settlements as a permanent part of Israeli territory. And even as it oppresses the Palestinians, the occupation corrupts Israeli society."
We need to support the Israeli left, Jewish and Arab, in their fight against this noxious law.
For more coverage see the Gush Shalom website
