by Judith Bergman
-- the history of the Danish BDS movement is still being written, and it might turn out to be much shorter than its propagators would like it to be. Having received a considerable amount of complaints regarding the bus ads, the bus company, Movia, decided to have them removed after reviewing them and finding them to be "unnecessarily offensive."
A few years ago, as I was standing in an expensive Danish supermarket, deciding what fruits and vegetables to buy, a middle-aged couple entered the shop and loudly began debating what they should buy for dinner. Looking around the fruit and vegetable section, the man proclaimed in a pious voice that whatever they were buying, for sure they were not going to support the Israeli avocados on display. He visibly twitched when I demonstratively went over and filled my basket with Israeli avocados, as if my life depended on eating them in huge quantities.
Many Europeans proudly describe themselves as "political consumers," yet their politics are extremely limited in scope. While nothing on earth makes their blood pressure soar quite so much as encountering Israeli produce in their local supermarket, they happily stuff themselves with Iranian dates and pomegranates, Egyptian carrots and green beans and Turkish cherries and grapes. They dress themselves in cheap clothes produced by overexploited, underpaid children working under slave-like conditions in Bangladesh and Pakistan, and they do not give it a second thought if young women on death row in China sewed their jeans, as long as they get their money's worth. If North Korea produced anything other than grief and nuclear weapons, they would rush to consume its produce, as well.
In a letter to EU foreign policy chief Federica Mogherini, 16 of the EU's 28 foreign ministers recently asked her to push forward the process of labeling goods produced in Israeli settlements. "We would like to draw your attention to the letter dated 13th April 2013 sent to your predecessor on EU-wide guidelines on the labeling of settlement produce/products. ... We remain of the view that this is an important step in the full implementation of EU long-standing policy, in relation to the preservation of the two-state solution." Austria, Belgium, Britain, France, Spain, Italy, Sweden, Malta, Ireland, Portugal, Slovenia, Croatia, Finland, Denmark, the Netherlands and Luxembourg were all signatories to the letter.
"[The] continued expansion of Israeli illegal settlements in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, and other territories occupied by Israel since 1967, threatens the prospect of a just and final peace agreement," the letter further reads.
What this means in plain language is that the continued Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria bothers the post-colonial European so much that the issue is pushed to the very top of the EU foreign policy agenda.
Yet, one has to marvel at the timing of this openly hostile EU initiative. More than 500,000 people, among them thousands of children, have been ruthlessly murdered in Syria; Yezidis and Christians, among them countless women and children, are being murdered, raped, mutilated, tortured, beheaded and sold into slavery from Syria and Iraq to Nigeria and Kenya.
Now, what could possibly be more important, at this point in time, than preventing an Israeli orange from the "wrong" side of the Green Line from ending up in the politically sensitive belly of a squeamish, "peace-loving" European?
The call for economic warfare against Israel by the 16 EU foreign ministers certainly emboldens and encourages the rabid hatred of Israel among Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement activists across Europe. On Monday, Copenhagen residents woke up for the first time in Danish history to a bizarre poster plastered across 35 bus lines calling for a boycott of Israeli products. The poster featured two middle-aged women, "Charlotte and Lizzie," from the wealthy suburb of Hellerup. The text read: "Our conscience is clean! We neither buy products from the Israeli settlements nor do we invest in the settlement industry." Several maps depicted in the ad made it clear that the creators of this campaign consider all of Israel to be "occupied" and grossly manipulated the viewer into believing this as fact.
Behind the bus ad is the so-called Danish-Palestinian Friendship Association, which aims to vilify and demonize Israel in the Danish public. The bus ads were to constitute "phase one" of a long and far-reaching campaign whose declared aim is to convince all commercial and public outlets in Denmark to boycott Israeli products and divest from Israeli companies. On the campaign's website, the organizers directly refer to the letter of the 16 EU foreign ministers, claiming it as legitimization for their actions.
However, the history of the Danish BDS movement is still being written, and it might turn out to be much shorter than its propagators would like it to be. Having received a considerable amount of complaints regarding the bus ads, the bus company, Movia, decided to have them removed after reviewing them and finding them to be "unnecessarily offensive."
"When it comes to Israel, it is difficult to differentiate between Israel the nation and Israel the religion, and in combination with the relatively aggressive message implied in a boycott, it comes across as offensive. Many of the complainants remarked that it reminds them of World War II, when a boycott of Jewish products was also urged" explained Movia Area Manager Camilla Struckmann.
"The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for good people to do nothing" is an old, almost clichéd, adage attributed to the British conservative philosopher Edmund Burke. Nevertheless, it is still very much applicable. As the buses made their first rounds with the ad in Copenhagen on Monday, spreading their incendiary message, there were probably those who believed that the best strategy would be to keep a low profile, hoping that the Danish public would not "get" the campaign anyway. Yet, a considerable number of Danes decided that they had had enough of the incessant campaigns launched against Israel in the public sphere and stood up against it.
People often think that their voices do not matter and that their actions will make no difference. The obstacles often seem insurmountable, and the feeling that one is merely a small, unimportant cog in a huge machine can overwhelm anyone.
This story tells a different truth. Every complaint, every call to action, however small, matters -- including yours.
Judith Bergman is a writer and political analyst living in Israel.
Copyright - Original materials copyright (c) by the authors.
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