In their joint propaganda, the Israeli regime and its western backers manage an astonishing feat.  While relentlessly projecting an image of Israelis/Jews as eternal victims, simultaneously they project exactly the opposite image: brutal, invincible power.

A woman of Nabi Saleh argues with Israeli border policemen after they invaded her house, December 30, 2011.  Photo: Oren Ziv/Activestills

All tyrants – aka the 1% – devote vast energy and resources to keeping the rest of us convinced that they are invincible, and therefore resistance is futile.  The longer they can keep us under this illusion, the longer they can hold power over us, aka the 99%.  When tyrants fall, nearly always the collapse begins when they can no longer sustain these two illusions, that they are invincible and that we are powerless.

To that end, a very handy power tool has just been released:  ‘Targeting Israeli Apartheid: a BDS handbook.’

It comes from the highly respected UK-based research group, Corporate Watch.  Their mandate is to expose socially and environmentally destructive corporate actions, as well as corrupt links between business and power, economics and politics.  They’ve probed the oil industry, globalisation, genetic engineering, the food industry, toxic chemicals, migration, privatisation and other areas, cataloguing corporate crimes and mapping the often hidden machinery of economic and political power.

‘Targeting Israeli Apartheid: a BDS handbook’ is a lively, meticulously researched, well organized, richly illustrated guide to who exactly is doing what to whom, where, and how we can effectively rebuke those who profit from crime.

Under a Creative Commons licence, the handbook can be downloaded free in pdf format.

As a useful companion resource, I recommend the excellent Who Profits.  They do similar in-depth research from inside Israel.  (Check them out in chapter 17, Our Way to Fight.)

Israel and its backers have at their disposal the most powerful weapons of mass destruction on the planet.  What do we have?  Each other, and a few handy tools.

‘Targeting Israeli Apartheid: a BDS handbook.’  383 pages, downloadable as pdf, or consult it online.

An essential power tool for anyone who cares about a just peace in Palestine-Israel and wants to do something about it but doesn’t know where to begin.