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    Anon

    Doubtless the Palestnians would have plenty more land to grow their strawberries on if Jewish settlers would refrain from stealing it.

    http://lawrenceofcyberia.blogs.com/photos/maps/landloss.html

    I don't personally boycott 'Israeli' produce, but I can see right through this faux concern for the Gazan farmer. The Israelis will say, with crocodile tears streaming from their eyes, "Look what you are doing to the poor Palestinian families!", whilst continuing to support the polciy of collective punishment that has been imposed on the people of Gaza for as long as I can remember. And I see the example used to highlight the perceived plight of Palestinian producers under a boycott of Israeli export companies is... the economic misery caused by the Israeli-imposed blockade on Gaza!

    "There aren't any other local non-Israeli companies they can turn to."

    Perhaps there would be if the Israelis didn't keep them in an overcrowded, open prison where 21,000 buildings were damaged or destroyed by the IDF during their last major assault on Gaza. Ater all, The Jordanians are able to export, and so are the Egyptians, but not so the Palestinians. I wonder why.

    Judy

    Duh.. Gaza has no settlers in it whatsoever. All the Israeli settlements in it were dismantled when the Israelis withdrew in 2006.

    Collective punishment? Open prison? Don't you know that Gaza has a border with Egypt too? Would Britain have an open border with a regime that was dedicated to destroying it, regularly launched rockets into its territory etc.

    The concern I quoted was by a Palestinian Arab farmer for herself.

    There's also the West Bank, where there are vast tracts of uncultivated land. You should look around the internet a little more for the other side of the story. Even try reading some serious historical research that doesn't feed your own propaganda story.

    Where's your evidence that Palestinian land has been "stolen"? Land ownership before, during and after the British Mandate did not make those who worked the land owners of it, nor was did it belong to a Palestinian state, because none has ever existed.

    There are malls and luxury hotels and supermarkets and shops bursting with produce in Gaza, and it's not a joke that Ramallah is called the Paris of the West Bank. It doesn't quite fit your myth of the poor impoverished Palestinians imprisoned in their misery, does it though? All those AK47s and rockets they're so fond of toting don't come cheap.

    The Palestinian Authority has one of the largest civil authority payrolls in relation to the total population in the world. That's the wonderful impact of all the billiions that are channelled to them via US and EU funds.

    But even so, the West Bank, like Israel, is achieving great economic growth rate which this country would give its eye teeth to have. And almost everyone of those burgeoning enterprises involves some sort of partnership and mutual benefit with Israeli enterprises. But it doesn't quite fit your rage and misery mythology, does it?

    Anon

    I have visited the DRC, Afghanistan and Ethiopia, and in all of them I have seen luxury shopping malls. Every country has its rich, who tend to spend their money in luxury shopping malls. The "luxury shopping mall" meme can be found all over the internet and is used as part of a spurious attempt by Zionists to deny the impoverishment and suffering of the Gazans at the hands of the Israelis. It is usually accompanied by some photos of luxury food items, which purport to show how well-fed and happy your average Gazan is with his lot. Of course, photographs also show there were swimming pools at Auschwitz, but it doesn't follow that Auschwitz was operated as something akin to a Butlin's Holiday camp. I am surprised that for someone who so readily accuses others of believing one-sided, internet-based propaganda, you have yourself fallen hook, line and sinker for the old "luxury shopping mall" routine.

    All those AK47s and rockets they're so fond of toting don't come cheap. The Palestinian Authority has one of the largest civil authority payrolls in relation to the total population in the world. That's the wonderful impact of all the billions that are channelled to them via US and EU funds.

    Awww, are these the rockets AK47s that killed 13 Israelis during Cast Lead, while the Israelis notched up 1,400 Palestinian dead? One has to at least make an effort to defend one's life and land, no matter how pathetic or futile that might seem against one of the most well-equipped armed forces on earth.

    I shouldn't think Israel's undeclared stockpile of nuclear weapons - reputedly larger than Great Britain's - comes cheap either, but then what the heck when you can get billions of dollars off the American taxpayer as the self-proclaimed economic miracle of the Middle East! Hey, why not get the US to fight your wars for you and provoke another one with Iran on the basis of it trying to develop... a nuclear weapon!!

    I'm not going to boycott Israeli products because it's not going to be long before Israel is wiped off the map anyway - but not "wiped off the map" in the sense you're thinking. I mean wiped off the map in the same way the Soviet Union was.


    P.S. I recommend some serious historical research in the form of Shlomo Sand's The Invention of the Jewish People (2008).

    P.P.S. I used to be pro-Israel, but like a lot of people I did an about-turn after Cast Lead. Frankly, I should've known better in 2006 and a long time before.

    Avi in Jerusalem

    Does anyone know if there are any other countries involved in serious internal or external disputes that the Co-op boycotts? China? The USA? The UK? Russia?

    Anon

    “Forget all about the stories they’re selling you in the media about how we want to talk but [Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas] doesn’t, and so forth. I’m telling you, we’re not talking with the Palestinians because this government has no interest in talking with the Palestinians … I know from up close what is going on in that area.”

    -Yuval Diskin, former chief of Shin Bet – Guardian, today.

    Miriam Allen

    The news that they are going to ban those products from Israel is never easy to accept. I am very close from the two countries. I am sad because the two might give advantage to each other.

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