3-3-2014 Is a Settlement Boycott Best for Israel? - Lara Friedman, Daniel Gordis New York Times Room for Debate

http://www.nytimes.com/roomfordebate/2014/03/02/is-a-settlement-boycott-best-for-israel?utm_source=Is+a+Settlement+Boycott+Good+for+Israel%3F+%28NYTimes%29&utm_campaign=Is+a+settlement+boycott+good+for+Israel%3F&utm_medium=email

 

Gordis:  Israelis already overwhelmingly favor making a deal if the Palestinians meet them midway. A poll last week indicated that approximately 75 percent would vote for a deal that gave up most of the West Bank, and even split Jerusalem, in return for a genuine peace. Such a population does not need to be boycotted; in fact, boycotting would backfire. If and when Israel eventually elects a hard-right leader, wholly uninterested in a deal, it will be in large measure because Israelis became convinced that there was no way to get a fair hearing in the court of international opinion, even when they were willing to make the deal. The West will then have failed once again, and the boycotts will have wrought precisely the opposite of what their proponents say they hope to accomplish.

 

 

Friedman:  There is nothing senseless about boycotting settlements. It is a carefully considered policy, grounded in support for Israel and the two-state solution. It is needed because many Israelis, their leaders and their defenders have come to believe that wanting peace – or claiming to – or shifting focus to what Palestinians have or have not done, absolves Israel of responsibility to ensure that, by its own actions, peace does not become unattainable.


Posted by Judith Ferster, AIME member

 

 

 


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