A Ledger article on Jan. 8 reveals the deep Israeli fear of the continuing success of a time-honored, nonviolent manner of confronting oppression ["Israel lists 20 groups to be denied entry over boycott calls"].
Israel continues to conduct and expand the longest military occupation in modern history — a series of military and civil actions clearly illegal under international law.
Those “activists” who are now banned from entering Israel include two Nobel Peace Prize winners, Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa and Mairead Maguire of Northern Ireland. Also banned are members of the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), the United Methodist Church, the United Church of Christ and those notorious rabble rousers, the Quakers, all of whom have adopted policies to divest their investment funds from companies whose products contribute toward the maintenance and expansion of Israel’s ongoing construction of “settlements” on stolen land, namely, the West Bank and East Jerusalem.
These divestment and boycott actions are not aimed at the state of Israel, per se, as could be inferred from the article's quotes from Israeli spokesmen. They are aimed at companies like Caterpillar, Motorola and Hewlett Packard, to name a few, which profit from Israel’s daily dehumanization of Palestinians, Christian and Muslim alike.
Israel’s attempts to portray calls for boycott, divestment and sanctions as anti-Israel are false. The issue is one of justice and human rights, which Israel is certainly not even attempting to apply in Occupied Palestine.
The Rev. Dr. Tony Kester Wolfe, Lake Wales