Boycott is top story in Israel's No. 1 paper

[shaayecanaan]

The Yedioth story reports that some members of “Breaking the Impasse,” a recently formed group including the biggest names in Israeli and Palestinian business, took their warning to Netanyahu a week ago in a meeting ahead of Wednesday’s World Economic Forum in Davos. “Israel must reach a diplomatic solution – urgently,” a statement from the business leaders said. The group, led by Israeli high-tech partriarch Yossi Vardi and Munib al-Masri, long-time titan of the Palestinian economy, are to meet in Davos after the four-day conference to plan their next moves.

http://972mag.com/the-writing-on-the-wall-boycott-is-the-top-story/86041/

[bemildred]

1. Should be a good dustup when the Tech Titans and the Territory Grabbers get into it.

And long overdue, is Israel heading for the future or the past?

[shaayecanaan]

2. The TV piece on which the front page was based...

had an interview with Tzipi Livni, in which she said:-

Weiss: “What does this all mean? What is it going to be like here? South Africa?”

Livni: “Yes. I spoke with some of the Jews who are living in South Africa now. They say, ‘We thought we had time. We thought we could deal with this. We thought we didn’t need the world so much for everything. And it happens all at once.’”

Black congressional leaders first proposed sanctions against South Africa in 1972. The bill sat and gathered dust for fourteen years. House Democrats picked it up essentially as a point scoring exercise against House Republicans. Amazingly, the House Republicans let it pass without a filibuster, figuring it would be killed either by the Senate or Reagan and not wanting to be accused of racism themselves.

Even more amazingly, it passed a Republican controlled Senate, albeit in watered down form. Reagan had already signalled he would veto the sanctions, so perhaps some Republican Senators felt that they had the luxury of letting it go through. However, that put them in a bind - once the Act came back to Congress, they would look gutless if they failed to vote for it again. Nearly all of them did, and the veto was overridden.

Both South Africa and the US probably thought the sanctions were watered down and ineffectual anyway. However, the effect on capital inflows into South Africa was profound. International investors balked at the mere mention of US sanctions and decamped virtually overnight. Within a year, South Africa was a pariah state.

[bemildred]

3. It's always good to be right.

Last edited Tue Jan 21, 2014, 01:36 PM - Edit history (1)

I was pretty sure Bibi would get us here before he was done, if he held onto office long enough. Even Sharon was smart enough to know he had to give at times, talk nice at times. But Bibi is tone deaf, he has no idea.

It's easy to plug the little leaks and dribbles, but when they start to multiply, there is nothing you can do, and the reason they start to multiply is because a certain threshold of people who care about the issue is crossed, and they won't shut up. It goes "viral", and suddenly it is safe to say things that before were taboo, excluded from the discussion. You have to keep the volume of outrage, so to speak, below that level.

That is why what Snowden did has the NSA so stonkered, he blew up their whole fucking dam.

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

4. Kick.