December 22, 2006

Leon Rosselson explains Israel boycott

Here's a letter from singer songwriter, Leon Rosselson in yesterday's Guardian:
As a signatory of the letter supporting a cultural boycott of Israel, may I make the following points? 1) The boycott is not, as the objectors seem to think, aimed at individual Israelis but at state-sponsored events and institutions. 2) There are apartheid-like laws in Israel - for example, the right of return that applies only to Jews, the ban on non-Jews owning state land, the bar on any Palestinian Israeli from living in Israel with a Palestinian spouse not resident in Israel. In the occupied territories roads are maintained for Jews only. 3) By defining itself as a Jewish state, Israel denies full citizenship to its non-Jewish population. 4) Israel's right to exist as a Jewish state is threatened, in the long run, by what Israelis like to call "the demographic problem". To put it crudely, too many Arabs. The policy of "transfer", one way or another, will be put into practice, continuing the ethnic cleansing started in 1948. 5) I may not live to see it, but I believe the only just solution is a single secular state with equal rights for all its citizens.
Leon Rosselson
Wembley Park, Middlesex
And what's wrong with that?

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