Once again Uri Avnery is using his blog to criticize the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel. Under the title "Red and Green," Avnery comments on the long and interesting program recently broadcast on Israeli Channel 10 on the growing international isolation of Israel.
Avnery, the veteran journalist and activist, repeats his main arguments against "boycott Israel" campaign and the need to focus only on the boycott of settlers and settlement products. I have already reacted to a similar criticism by Avnery , but the well-deserved authority of Uri Avnery within the international solidarity movement requires a debate of what I consider to be his (very few indeed) mistaken views.
"Indeed there is no need for a world-wide [BDS] organization [the reportage] says, because all over the place there is a spontaneous surge of pro-Palestinian and anti-Israeli feeling. Following the "Cast Lead" operation and the flotilla affair, this process has gathered momentum," summarizes Avnery.
After this summary, Uri's blog focuses on a criticism of the campaign of boycotting Israel. His main argument is that the campaign doesn't distinguish between Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT). For Avnery, while the OPT should be totally freed from Israeli control and domination, the territories west of the "Green Line" are "naturally" Israeli, just as Manchester is Great Britain and Hanover is Germany. There should be no challenge to this reality and, as Uri said once, he will be the first to defend Israel from any such challenge. For Avnery, the colonial nature of the State of Israel is obsolete within 1948.
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