H/T Shirl in Oz
From The Australian:
Gerard Henderson, Jana Wendt, Paul Howes, Warren Mundine, Sandy Gutman and Michael Danby take a stand against the anti-Israel campaign last month. Picture: Jane Dempster Source: The Australian
IN Brisbane next Saturday, a group of anti-Israeli protesters will march on a Jewish-owned chocolate shop as part of a radical national campaign that risks morphing into an ugly platform for anti-Semites.
The targeting of the Israeli-owned Max Brenner chocolate shop chain in Australia by a coalition of anti-Israeli groups is testing the limits of the law, ethics and tolerance. Nineteen protesters were arrested and three policemen injured early last month when a rally outside a Max Brenner shop in Melbourne, similar to the one planned for Brisbane, turned violent.
The spectacle of protesters breaking the law in an attempt to harm a legal Jewish business was all the more abhorrent because it invited obvious historical parallels to the anti-Semitic targeting of Jewish businesses in 1930s Nazi Germany. The violence was so damaging to the pro-Palestinian cause that even some Palestinian groups were critical of it.
“People who were there told me it was really out of hand and pretty stupid the way they did it,” says Jim Barr, president of the country’s peak pro-Palestinian group, the Australia Palestine Advocacy Network. “We certainly don’t want to create public sympathy for Max Brenner, which is what we did. I support the Brenner campaign but it needs to be done well.”
What concerns many people about the Max Brenner campaign, apart from the shadow of history, is that it is directed against something that, although foreign owned, is a legitimate legal business in this country. That it is a chocolate shop only underlines the tenuous nature of claims that it bears some responsibility for Israel’s military and human rights policies in the occupied territories.
“In a democratic society anybody should be allowed to protest, but I find it really distasteful that a Jewish business is being targeted in this way,” Australian Workers Union national secretary Paul Howes says. “If people are upset about the handling of the Middle East process then fine, but why don’t they protest outside the Israeli embassy and direct their protest to the Israeli state rather than a Jewish business? If people do not like the policies of the Australian government, I wouldn’t expect there to be a protest outside the RM Williams store.”
But Samah Sabawi, spokeswoman for the advocacy group Australians for Palestine, defends the targeting of Max Brenner because it makes a greater impact than traditional protests.
“Standing outside an embassy is not always the most effective form of protest,” she says. “We live in a democratic society and we have a choice of different types of campaigns.”
The Max Brenner campaign in Australia is part of the global campaign known as Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, which seeks in part to boycott Israeli businesses as a means of pressuring Israel to improve its human rights record. The campaign in Australia involves a loose alliance of the radical Left, including greens, unions, socialists and Marxists, in addition to at least 14 separate pro-Palestinian groups.
screw internment camps.. muzznazis need to be shipped out to their forming caliphate on our best Titanic ships…
“it invited obvious historical parallels to the anti-Semitic targeting of Jewish businesses in 1930s Nazi Germany. ”
The German American Bund did just this before WWII broke out. They also worked to prevent America from entering the war.
After war broke out they engaged in espionage and sabotage against the United States.
Remind you of any groups funcitoning within the borders of western countries at this moment?
The author said, “That it is a chocolate shop only underlines the tenuous nature of claims that it bears some responsibility for Israel’s military and human rights policies in the occupied territories.” I want to know why any rational person thinks attacking Jewish owned shops damages Israel.
Not long ago, Muslim student groups propagated the rumour that Starbucks raises money for the IDF. This led to the trashing of Starbucks stores during riots all over Europe before and after op Cast Lead. Leftists love to add accelerants to these rumours as they typically hate business. So you have an antisemitic symbiosis with Muslim groups making absurd claims about businesses with an Israeli connection, or, as is the case with Starbucks, just a Jewish board member or two, and anti-business leftists happy to add gas to the efforts.
I said rational people, this leaves out the left and those they support.