Boycott goes prime-time in Israel
http://972mag.com/boycott-goes-prime-time-in-israel/85974/
The countrys number-one news show runs lengthy piece on the growing movement and blames it not on anti-Semitism or Israel-bashing, but on settlements.
On Saturday night the boycott of Israel gained an impressive new level of mainstream recognition in this country. Channel 2 News, easily the most watched, most influential news show here, ran a heavily-promoted, 16-minute piece on the boycott in its 8 p.m. prime-time program. The piece was remarkable not only for its length and prominence, but even more so because it did not demonize the boycott movement, it didnt blame the boycott on anti-Semitism or Israel-bashing. Instead, top-drawer reporter Dana Weiss treated the boycott as an established, rapidly growing presence that sprang up because of Israels settlement policy and whose only remedy is that policys reversal.
In her narration, Weiss ridicules the settlers and the governments head-in-the-sand reaction to the rising tide. The segment from the West Banks Barkan Industrial Park opens against a background of twangy guitar music like from a Western. To the world its a black mark, a symbol of the occupation, she reads. But here they insist its actually a point of light in the area, an island of coexistence that continues to flourish despite efforts to erase it from the map. A factory owner who moved his business to Barkan from the other side of the Green Line makes a fool of himself by saying, If the state would only assist us by boycotting the Europeans and other countries causing us trouble
The Barkan segment ends with the manager of Shamir Salads saying that between the European and Palestinian boycott, hes losing about $115,000 to $143,000 a month in sales. In my view, he says, it will spread from [the West Bank] to other places in Israel that have no connection to the territories.