Nora Clean’s guide to boycotting Zionist entities
This is a guest post by Nora Clean (with Brian Henry)
Now that the stars have gone back to Hollywood, I can say that our boycott of the Toronto International Film Festival was a success. True, we got tons of negative press, with lots of people observing that we’re idiots and bigots. But for two solid weeks, we got to say nasty things about Israel, and the media reported it – and after all that’s the point, right?
But, oh dear. John Greyson withdrew his little documentary on the Sarajevo queer festival in order to spark the “Boycott TIFF!” movement, and it’s not like anyone’s exactly clamouring to see his flick.
I thought it would be cool to get it shown in Gaza. But the Hamas minister of culture? He wasn’t entirely encouraging.
He’s like, “Dear, Ms. Clean: I’m afraid our policy is to ban un-Islamic activity. Normally, if anyone tries to show a movie in Gaza, we shoot him in the knee and send him to an Israeli hospital. But for Mr. Greyson’s homosexual film, we will behead him. Yours in solidarity, etc. etc.”
Oh, well. Maybe I can organize a special showing at Le Select Bistro, the Toronto restaurant that sparked the “Boycott the Royal Ontario Museum!” movement.
It’s like this: Israel lent the ancient Torah scrolls and other fragments of Hebrew holy books known as the Dead Sea Scrolls to the ROM for a special exhibit. Whoa! Talk about cultural imperialism. Those scrolls are Palestinian!
I’m so upset no other restaurant in Toronto gets this that I’m boycotting all of them!
But most especially, we’ve got to boycott the Liquor Control Board!
Listen: I’ve got two favourite groups – the Israeli Apartheid Movement, which tries to keep Zionists apart from the rest of mankind, and Co-dependent Jewish Voices, a group for Jews who have converted to anti-imperialism but are still confused. You might have heard them called Lefty Jews for Jesus, you know because of their identity issues and because the United Church funded them (but regretted it).
Anyway, the Apartheid Movement and the Co-dependents organized a demo against the LCBO, because it sells Israeli wines. And what happened? Hundreds of Jews showed up and bought out the store’s entire stock! That’s so not fair!
And Zionists play the same trick all the time. The Tel Aviv films at TIIF all sold out, and ticket sales for the Dead Sea scrolls skyrocketed. Now marketing people actually phone and ask to be boycotted!
Don’t let it get you down, though, because next, you’ve got to burn all your Leonard Cohen books, CDs and posters.
Whenever those of us in the movement hear that some musician plans to tour Israel, we bombard them with mail, begging them to enforce Israeli apartheid. But they ignore us! They just go and play concerts in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem, as if Israelis are people, too.
And don’t forget to boycott Starbucks – though maybe you already know about this from the news. British anti-Zionists decided that the chairman of Starbucks, Howard Shultz, has a Zionist-sounding name, so they started fire-bombing Starbucks franchises. Whoa! Talk about revolutionary.
The next step was a biggy for me because I’m no longer a perky 14-year-old, but you’ve got to boycott Wonderbra. Not many people know this, but they’re a Zionist entity!
So how do you get this info? Well, the apartheid movement keeps a list and so does Stormfront. But if you visit their site, don’t go thinking the swastika and the Iron Cross are anti-Zionist symbols. True, Marc Garlasco of Human Rights Watch thinks SS jackets and Iron Crosses are way cool, but his fetish hasn’t been approved yet.
Next, whatever you do, stay out of hospitals! Okay, maybe you’ve been in a horrific accident, but the miracle procedure that could save your life was probably developed in Israel! Better to take two aspirins and stay in bed.
In The Shock Doctrine, Naomi Klein – who is the coolest anti-Zionist ever – she says Israelis actually like terrorism, because it creates a market for stuff they’re good at making.
I confess, at first I didn’t get this, but when I thought about how important Israeli medical know-how is to the world, it began to make sense!
Finally, to enforce Israeli apartheid, we’ve got to get radical. Think about this: the first two Hebrew letters are alef and bet. Yes, Alef-bet … Alphabet! So, as of the end of this sentence, I’m taking the ultimate step and boycotting the written word – that’ll show those Zionists!
“Nora Clean” is a caricature. Brian Henry is a Toronto writer and editor and a frequent contributor to H-Antisemitism, a scholarly forum for the discussion of the history of antisemitism. He blogs sporadicallyhere: http://brians-op-eds.blogspot.com/
Comments
| 10 October 2009, 10:35 am |
Very good, very good indeed.
| 10 October 2009, 10:50 am |
Thanks for a good Saturday morning laugh Brian.
I honestly thought that the Dead Sea Scrolls bit was just clever satire until I clicked on the link. Truth really is stranger than fiction! When history, particularly that still within living memory, becomes an issue of competing ‘narratives’, you know that a society is in serious trouble.
| 10 October 2009, 11:39 am |
Hilarious and brilliant.
| 10 October 2009, 12:10 pm |
Excellent article. I’m waiting for the anti-Israel boycotter to turn down a life-saving procedure or medicine because it was produced/invented by an Israeli.
Of course, its almost impossible to live a modern life without an Israeli produced or influenced product. Its amusing that boycott information and organising relies on Israeli influenced technology.
| 10 October 2009, 1:20 pm |
Just hilarious!
However, those organising the boycott would simply dismiss the whole piece as islamophobia or arabaphobia. And as for all the wonders, both medical and technological, that Israelis have invented, this crowd would just say the real price for such inventions was payed for in Palestinaian blood, or somesuch.
They’re immature simpletons who can only emote and never reason.
| 10 October 2009, 1:31 pm |
Wonderful!
| 10 October 2009, 2:05 pm |
“Of course, its almost impossible to live a modern life without an Israeli produced or influenced product. Its amusing that boycott information and organising relies on Israeli influenced technology.”
And the best thing is: the Zionists can’t boycott back! Or if they did boycott Arab-Palestinian know-how and technology, no-one would notice!
| 10 October 2009, 2:05 pm |
Great stuff.
| 10 October 2009, 2:12 pm |
And the best thing is: the Zionists can’t boycott back! Or if they did boycott Arab-Palestinian know-how and technology, no-one would notice!
As Kilroy-Silk said:-
In a column for the Sunday Express last weekend, headed We owe Arabs nothing, Kilroy-Silk said: “Apart from oil – which was discovered, is produced and is paid for by the west – what do they contribute? Can you think of anything? Anything really useful? Anything really valuable? Something we really need, could not do without? No, nor can I.
He was pilloried (not the least by MCB who said it was anti-Muslim). We then got MCB replies about all the Arab contributions to history and the story of who invented “zero”. Bollocks because Kilroy-Silk said “Today” and not “in all of history”.
You just reminded me of that incident and how it entered into a mythology that is false.
| 10 October 2009, 2:15 pm |
Priceless!
Cookiecutter, of course the ISM “soldiers” and others of their crackbrained ilk wouldn’t be aware enough to ask whether they were about to be treated with Israeli-designed or Israeli-developed drugs or equipment if their own lives were in danger.
| 10 October 2009, 2:28 pm |
“all the Arab contributions to history and the story of who invented “zero”
Actually, the round Zero is also a Zionist invention.
The Arab/Indu Zero is not round. It was the “Zionist” (Jew) Ibn Ezra who in his Sefer ha-Mispar (Book of Number) developed the small circle for the zero, which he called galgal (Hebrew for wheel) – our number system inherited this galgal rather than the Islamic dot.
In your face!
| 10 October 2009, 2:34 pm |
Didn’t the Indians devise the number system that became known as Arabic numerals?
| 10 October 2009, 2:38 pm |
My source is Paul Kriwaczek, “Yiddish Civilization. The Rise and Fall of a Forgotten Nation”, Vintage Books, 2005, p. 72.
| 10 October 2009, 2:44 pm |
“Didn’t the Indians devise the number system that became known as Arabic numerals?”
Yes. The Arabs adopted it.
| 10 October 2009, 2:49 pm |
Yes Sue they did , went to the lecture. The Arabs, bless em, did very little but did pay a lot of zionists (Jews) to translate everything Greek and Latin into Arabic they were too busy conquering and colonising to bother to read much of it.
| 10 October 2009, 3:04 pm |
Hilarious.
Also check the ‘How to Boycott Israel’ video:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=saeky9I5T9c&feature=related
It’s in a similar vein.
| 10 October 2009, 3:25 pm |
Boycotting be b*gg*r*ed -
Here’s the REAL THING:
GOT THAT STRAIGHT ?
| 10 October 2009, 4:26 pm |
Very funny. Thanks!
| 10 October 2009, 5:05 pm |
These bloody Zionists don’t allow me to boycott the Israeli Tax Authority and the Transport Police!
| 10 October 2009, 5:07 pm |
The video is brilliant and should be bookmarked
| 10 October 2009, 5:41 pm |
Yes: brilliant!
Any boycott would have to be managed with paper work, for pc’s & sites run on Israeli soft & hardware components are infected with virtual zionist entities.
| 10 October 2009, 6:27 pm |
Makes me miss Toronto. It should be said, that this stuff is pretty much ignored by 99% of the city.
| 10 October 2009, 6:40 pm |
Another Penny,
Thanks for the YouTube link – it’s brilliant.
| 10 October 2009, 6:49 pm |
Hilarious, you have made my day:)
| 10 October 2009, 7:25 pm |
Also, let’s not forget that Israel has just agreed at the recent Istanbul conference to help out the IMF, as detailed in Dr. Yuval Steinitz’s speech below.
http://www.imf.org/external/am/2009/speeches/pr33e.pdf
So no borrowing from the IMF either for all the boycott-loving recession-struck Europeans or developing countries in need of aid.
| 10 October 2009, 10:48 pm |
Another Penny, I enjoyed your Youtube video even though the sound isn’t working on my computer. The lettuces and tomatoes had me foxed, though. Are they GM or something? What harm have they done to the poor Muslims?
| 10 October 2009, 11:18 pm |
Joe -it’s because they’re grown using taftefot: drip-feed irrigation.
| 10 October 2009, 11:39 pm |
Israelinurse, thank you. Drip feed irrigation! Wow! Those diabolical Zionists are really plumbing the depths of evil this time! Not even Dr. Evil himself would have stooped so low!
But how can the prospective boycotter tell the difference? By the time the lettuces and tomatoes reach the supermarket, don’t they look exactly the same as any other non-sinful, non-Zionist lettuces and tomatoes?
| 11 October 2009, 7:54 am |
“But how can the prospective boycotter tell the difference? By the time the lettuces and tomatoes reach the supermarket, don’t they look exactly the same as any other non-sinful, non-Zionist lettuces and tomatoes?”
You can’t. That is the evil of the Emancipation of Jewish lettuces and tomatoes. First they were grown in their own separated plots and people knew which were good tomatoes and lettuces and which were of the Semitic race. But now they mingle. You might have them in your own salad without knowing!
| 11 October 2009, 8:03 am |
“These bloody Zionists don’t allow me to boycott the Israeli Tax Authority and the Transport Police!”
LOL.
| 11 October 2009, 10:49 am |
Yoni
To confirm your opinion, al-Farabi’s teacher was a Nestorian Christian. At least al-Farabi had the good manners to thank in writing the reverend Father for directing him to the neo-Platonic political philosophical tracts that al-Farabi then merrily plagiarised in the Ninth Century.
| 11 October 2009, 3:30 pm |
It wasn’t just Toronto’s Jewish population who bought Israeli wines last April. Non-Jewish people who are also offended by the demonization of Israel came out in support too.
| 11 October 2009, 3:45 pm |
The Zionists may not have a lot to boycott, but I take care not to purchase products produced in Iran (a lot of dried fruit comes from the Islamic republic) and there is a chain of gift stores that sells neck schmattehs manufactured in Palestine to the fashionistas.
| 11 October 2009, 4:16 pm |
The Zionists may not have a lot to boycott
Lynne, there are all those universities in the Muslim world which produce important research papers, major technological advances, Nobel prizes for physics and chemistry, and so on. Such as, let me quote you a few examples. There’s … well, give me a little time, I’ll get back to you on that one.
| 11 October 2009, 5:01 pm |
“That is the evil of the Emancipation of Jewish lettuces and tomatoes.”
Fabian – you forgot the dastardly plan to to smuggle in Zionist slugs via the lettuces:-)
| 11 October 2009, 5:48 pm |
Speaking of boycotters:
While this year’s selection seems to be worthwhile, I was disappointed that no Israeli author received. There are at least three such authors worthy of the award:
The most mentioned is Amos Oz, though, I would prefer either A.B. Yehoshua, or David Grossman.
Also worthy of the award are Aharon Appelfeld and if he is still alive, S. Yzhar.
Is it possible that the Nobel committee is boycotting Israeli writers?
| 11 October 2009, 7:56 pm |
Following the principle apparently adopted by the Peace Prize committee, maybe Oz, Yehoshua and Grossman would havea better chance of recognitin by the Nobel committee were just aspiring novelists.
| 11 October 2009, 7:57 pm |
Following the principle apparently adopted by the Peace Prize committee, maybe Oz, Yehoshua and Grossman would havea better chance of recognitin by the Nobel committee were just aspiring novelists.
| 11 October 2009, 7:57 pm |
Following the principle apparently adopted by the Peace Prize committee, maybe Oz, Yehoshua and Grossman would havea better chance of recognitin by the Nobel committee were just aspiring novelists.
| 11 October 2009, 8:13 pm |
As to the LCBO wine buycott – I will be maintaining my boycott of Manischewitz. Because it’s vile, vile stuff and shouldn’t be fed to Hamas or Hezbollah suspects as torture it’s so bad. I mean I think Taken’s approach to interrogations should be a starting point (could be more effective to put the nails through the testes before attaching the jumper cables), but force feeding anyone Manischewitz is just wrong.
| 12 October 2009, 6:14 am |
Lynne T,
I wish someone would manufacture neck schmattehs with an Israeli flag motif – turn it into an Israel-supporting accessory, rather than a terrorist chic symbol.
| 12 October 2009, 7:34 am |
There are, Brian.
http://mad.walla.co.il/archive/311913-5.jpg
| 12 October 2009, 2:29 pm |
Brian from TO
I’ll ask my ex-pat Israeli buddy if her son has any manufacturing connections back home. I think there was a group of German leftists who tried sporting keffiyehs with motifs that spoke to the true murderous nature of “the resistence”, but I think the honour of creating a pro-Israel keffiyeh belongs to an Israeli fashion company.
Every time I see young women wearing the damned things I feel ill for two reasons: the witless embrace of a movement that is extremely racist, xenophobic, sexist and that rejects a non-violent approach to resolving the conflict and the damned things look like bad knock-offs of a tallis, which I suspect is the origin of the keffiyeh in the first place. I’m no scholar, but I’d bet there isn’t a single reference in the Qu’ran and haddiths that instructs Muslim men to wear garments with fringes all around and tassels tied in the corners. (Modern sources note that the wearing of the keffiyeh was common in Iraq, which, of course, once had a very substantial Jewish community.)
| 13 October 2009, 11:34 am |
nice bit of muslim / arab bashing here, you must be all so proud
Hilarious! :)