A Jewish woman (self-identified) who attended the talk in Victoria wrote an eloquent protest to Shaw TV, the company that banned the video of it (see previous post, Our Way to Fight, banned in BC!).

She also sent a note to me, which included this: “I noted your use of the word apartheid in your comments on the Shaw decision, something you have not stressed in the past…. I do not think the application of this term will open hearts and minds…  Better a different nomenclature in my view….one of mutual regard, justice, and human rights, equality… terms Jews recognize and relate to.”

I understand her point.  It got me thinking about the naming of things, and the uses of language – both important to me.  After all, these are my tools.

I am angrier as a person than as a writer.  As a writer I take it as a responsibility to filter my own reactions in order to do the best job I can in conveying the stories and contexts of people I write about.  Sometimes that means holding, even biting my tongue.

However, as situations evolve, for better or worse, the naming of them should also evolve.  It seems irresponsible not to write as clearly as possible what I see, hear and believe.  We are inundated with endlessly repeated images and language that blur meaning and distort reality, and too often we are led to believe what should be patently unbelievable.  How else, given all that we know by now about the monstrous wars of aggression on Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya, how else could we now be led sheep-like towards a monstrous war of aggression on Iran?

In the past I held back from using the phrase Israeli apartheid, not because it’s provocative, nor because I really doubted it, but because I didn’t understand its application to Israel-Palestine well enough to confidently absorb this borrowed term into my own language.

In using borrowed words like ‘apartheid,’ I tend to learn from people I trust who are more deeply immersed in and affected by situations that the words try to describe.  Here that means Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank, and Israeli and North American Jewish activists.  All of whom use descriptive language far more emphatic and forceful than mine.  It is from them that I learned to say Israeli apartheid.  Also I learned it from South Africans, Jewish and not, who know apartheid when they see it, as it’s defined by the United Nations, and confirm that what they see in Palestine-Israel is without any doubt apartheid.

From everything I read, see and hear from people and sources I trust, conditions in Israel-Palestine are deteriorating rapidly, most horrifically of course for Palestinians, but also more insidiously for many Israelis.  Under the circumstances, sometimes I feel ashamed for being too cautious in my language, when honesty seems to cry out for much stronger words.

This comment came to the blog yesterday from Kevin Neish:  “I’m an ISM [International Solidarity Movement] connected activist who’s been to Palestine as a human shield and was on board the Mavi Marmara when it was attacked by the IDF.  I attended Mr. Riordon’s Victoria event and I felt it was an extremely balanced presentation, to the point that I was actually upset that he was leaning too far towards accommodating the Zionist Israeli positions.  If peaceful, moderate discussions are not permitted on issues like this then it will sadly only encourage violent responses and solutions to happen.”

I understand his point about the danger of leaning too far.  It makes me squirm, as it should.  And I can’t take the easy line of many smug politicians, ‘Well, if both sides are critical of what I do, then I must be doing something right!’  Hiding behind such glib nonsense, they seek to absolve themselves of responsibility for their own thoughts, words and actions.

This struggle with language, with naming things, is one of the primary reasons why I write the blog.  I see it as a kind of ‘open book,’ which lets me follow stories that might otherwise seem to end where the book does.  Obviously life and history don’t work like that, so the blog is a useful vehicle for transcending the finite entity that is a book.

It also lets my language to evolve as it should, in parallel to reality, so that I can name things as I see them.

Our Way to Fight has arrived.  Got a message this morning from Victoria, the capitol of British Columbia, Canada:

“Feb 4 Program, Our Way to Fight, is being censored by Shaw.  We have just received an email saying that Shaw TV cannot broadcast our scheduled program:  Our Way to Fight: Peace-work Under Siege in Israel-Palestine, by Michael Riordon, as it is too ‘unbalanced’ and ‘controversial.’  You can watch the program here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oxGUJtWVSpo, and decide for yourself.”

Shaw TV is the community cable arm of Shaw Communications, one of Canada’s largest telecommunications corporations.  Based in Calgary, Alberta, it controls telephone, internet and television networks, including digital satellite, and broadcasting stations from Hamilton, Ontario, to Victoria.  As a federally licensed community cable network, Shaw TV is required to air locally created programming.

The program that Shaw banned is a 29-minute video of a talk/reading I gave last November at the University of Victoria.  I read several excerpts from Our Way to Fight, interwoven with commentary.  The event was sponsored by Independent Jewish Voices, the Coalition Against Israeli Apartheid, and University of Victoria: Social Studies.  The talk was recorded by videographer Linda Taffs of Pasifik.ca, a collective of concerned citizens aiming to foster direct democracy.  (Which in itself is a rather ‘controversial’ idea, at least to the 1% who are inclined to prefer a well-managed democracy that protects their stuff and controls dissent.)

As to Shaw’s excuses for banning the program:

Yes, the talk was ‘unbalanced,’ so is the book – but only in the sense that both feature Israelis and Palestinians engaged in non-violent struggle for a just peace in Palestine-Israel, but no settlers, no generals, no presidents or prime ministers, no war-pushers.  All of these have ample outlets to air their views widely and continuously without any help from me.  In fact it is their views that the corporate media defines as ‘balance.’

And ‘controversial’?  Well, yes.  Anything that dares to counter the official version is bound to be ‘controversial.’  That’s the job, isn’t it, to counter or at least to complicate the noisy dominance of the official version.  In that version,  Israeli settlements/colonies, ethnic cleansing and apartheid – all of them illegal under international law – are not deemed to be ‘controversial.’  Not in the eyes of the corporate gatekeepers.

This is exactly why we need – desperately need – principled, courageous independent media like Pacifik.ca, books like Our Way to Fight, and people who care enough about freedom – the real thing, not the official version – to stand with them.

After the talk, a man asked me to sign his copy of the book.  When I asked him to whom I should sign it, he said, “To me, Rabbi ___.”   Because he spoke quietly, standing close to me, I assume that he wouldn’t welcome my passing on his identity via the internet.   He said, “Thank you for what you’re doing.  It takes courage, but it’s exactly what we need.”  He smiled, nodded, and departed.

The banned Pacifik.ca program is here.  Catch it while you can, and decide for yourself.

Same goes for the book.

Sabra hummus, widely sold in food stores, is the target of a growing boycott movement due to its notorious financial support of two Israeli army brigades responsible for war crimes and illegal occupation over many years.

On the Electronic Intifada*, editor Ali Abunimah reported this week that the Strauss Group, the company that makes Sabra hummus, is trying a new tactic to combat the boycott.

* (Founded in 2001, the Electronic Intifada is an excellent online source of news and analysis that focuses on Palestine, its people, politics, culture and place in the world.)

A reader wrote to Electronic Intifada after seeing a new ad for Sabra hummus on a children’s cable channel in the United States:

“On Nick Jr. this morning they had a commercial with hijabi women [Muslim women wearing a head covering] in it and I was excited to see that!  They showed some other multicultural people (I remember a rastafarian looking group) and back to the Muslims weighing chickpeas etc.  Everyone gathers at a huge table in a beautiful field and they reveal the commercial is for Sabra hummus.”

The 30-second ad, called ‘Sabra World Table,’ opens with a young, blonde woman ringing a bell outside a beautiful suburban home – this presumably is the person with whom the ad viewer is supposed to identify.

An Arab woman in a far-away market place hears the bell and is summoned to action, rather like a genie hearing the call of its master.  The marketplace looks strikingly like the markets of Hebron or the Old City of Jerusalem, which Israel has invaded, settled and done its best to place off limits to indigenous Palestinian inhabitants, merchants and customers.

Then another man, who looks like a character from Fiddler on the Roof, hears the bell in what appears to be a caricature of an east European shtetl [historically, a village or small town with a large Jewish population in Central or Eastern Europe], and improbably lifts up a basket of olives.

Other “colorful” ethnic characters – including Africans and Asians – leap into action at the sound of the white woman’s bell and bring “the fresh flavors of the world” to her suburban backyard.

Reading between the lines/images, this ad:

• makes no mention of Israel, where the Strauss Group financially supports the Givati and Golani brigades of the Israeli army.
• The ad depicts hummus, Sabra’s main product, as simultaneously “ethnic” and exotic but at the same time not belonging to any specific culture.  This continues Israel’s attempts to appropriate Arab foods, including hummus, falafel, maftoul (“Israeli coucous”) and most recently Palestine’s traditional olive oil culture and production,  and to erase their origins.
• The linking of Sabra hummus with a happy feast of people from diverse backgrounds is grossly inconguous with the reality of escalating racism against Africans in Israel, and the continued ethnic cleansing of Palestinians whose traditional ways of life the ad both caricatures and purports to celebrate.

Ironically, the appearance of the new ad strongly suggests that the growing movement to boycott Sabra is having an impact.

Students all over the US have raised awareness about Sabra’s support for the Israeli army.  In May last year, for example, students at Chicago’s DePaul University voted by a huge margin to ban Sabra hummus.

Most recently, Illinois high school student Nadine Darwish wrote about her successful effort to have her school offer an ethical alternative to Sabra-brand hummus.  It’s an inspiring story about overcoming fear and taking principled action.

There are alternatives to Sabra: Make your own.  Buy local brands.  It’s a small thing to do, but better than nothing.  And it will leave a better taste in the mouth.

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.