‘A Serious And Constructive Message’

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National Chairperson of the Ireland Palestine Solidarity Campaign Fatin Al Tamimi outside RTÉ Studios in Donnybrook, Dublin 4 in March, calling for RTÉ to boycott the Eurovision Song Contest which is taking place in Tel Aviv

I usually find Mark Paul a precise and interesting writer. However, his language in his opinion piece is unusually slipshod.

He describes the call for a boycott of the Israeli-hosted Eurovision song contest as “indiscriminate”, “blunt” and “ill-defined”.

It is none of those things: it is a peaceful, calibrated and proportionate attempt to exert leverage over the Israeli government so that it might change its egregious policies towards Palestinians.

Far from a failure to “communicate fairly” with Israelis, the boycott call is sending a serious and constructive message – that so long as its policies are persisted with, the Israeli government will not be allowed reap the propaganda and other benefits it very consciously seeks to accrue from its sponsorship of cultural events like the Eurovision.

For this mild and measured boycott call to be equated with anti-Semitism is, among other things, an insult to the many Jews (including Israelis) who support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign in defence of Palestinian rights.

Andy Storey,
Sandycove,
Co Dublin.

Reaction to Eurovision boycott call (The Irish Times letters page)

Eurovision boycott stirs painful memories for Jewish people (Mark Paul, The Irish Times)

Rollingnews

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16 thoughts on “‘A Serious And Constructive Message’

  1. Jimmy

    It’s funny how there is a deafening silence on the actions of Saudi Arabia in Yemen or Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Irish seem to be utterly obsessed with Israel and Jews.

  2. shitferbrains

    As Omar Barghouti – the face of the Palestinian BDS movement – keeps saying , there should be no Jewish entity in Palestine. So why the likes of Bob Story keeps bombarding the media with a sanitised version of what BDS means is beyond me.

    1. pedeyw

      Could you link some of Barghouti’s quotes? A quick google hasn’t given me anything.

  3. eoin

    Won’t be watching this year.

    I hope there’ll be a livestream venue close by for the “Palestine You’re A Vision” concert at National Stadium which will be taking place at the same time.

  4. shitferbrains

    Another and more considered letter in todays IT…..

    …… empirically illustrates how the inexorable path to Auschwitz, Treblinka and Sobibor started with the isolation of Jews through an initial process of boycott. Therefore, I too have taken the same oath as Paul, who “swore . . . that I would never support a boycott that even risked giving the mistaken impression of targeting Jewish people.” – Yours, etc,

    Even risked.

      1. shitferbrains

        And Jewish people have assured you of that, have they ? I don’t mean the handful of cranks trotted – pun intended – out by the BDSers ? I mean the 95% of jewish people who identify in some form or another with Israel despite any distaste they might have for its current policies.

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