{"id":247,"date":"2014-02-02T22:54:48","date_gmt":"2014-02-02T22:54:48","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gphrc.org\/?p=247"},"modified":"2014-02-03T09:45:01","modified_gmt":"2014-02-03T09:45:01","slug":"247","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gphrc.org\/index.php\/247\/","title":{"rendered":"\u2018FT\u2019 blast on settlements will strike fear at Hasbara Central (if not among liberal Zionists and \u2018glitzy blondes\u2019)"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/h1>\n
James North and Phil Weiss on February 1, 2014\u00a0
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\"BfPZtTACMAE28TH-484x580\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Lost in Translation (graphic: Stephanie Westbrook)<\/p>\n

An editorial in this weekend\u2019s\u00a0Financial Times, t<\/a>he salmon-colored tribune\u00a0 of London\u2019s City, the financial district, is certainly striking terror into Hasbara Central in Israel\u2013 if not at the State Department in Washington. In forceful language that looks like it could have been lifted from a Palestine solidarity publication, the FT says that Scarlett Johansson has \u201caccidentally turned a searchlight on an important issue\u2013whether it is right or lawful to do business with companies that operate in illegal Israel settlements on Palestinian land\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

We cannot describe the issue any more clearly than the anonymous FT leader-writer has already done:<\/p>\n

Ms Johansson says the company\u00a0 [SodaStream] is \u201cbuilding a bridge to peace between Israel and Palestine\u201d. That is naive\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

And at a time when Peace Now, J Street, the Forward, Rabbi Andy Bachman, and other liberal Zionists in the US have only praise for Johansson and her settlement of choice, Ma\u2019ale Adumim, the sprawling development on a hill east of Jerusalem that blocks Palestinian access to the city, the FT doesn\u2019t suffer fools:<\/p>\n

The status of the settlements is clear in international law even if Israel chooses to ignore this and expand its colonisation of Palestinian land, while ostensibly negotiating on the creation of a Palestinian state\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\u201cYou\u2019ll note that there\u2019s not one of Isabel Kershner\u2019s favorite tropes in her NY Times articles\u2014the discredited point that Israel asserts that the occupied Palestinian territory isn\u2019t occupied (which would make civilian colonization illegal) but rather that it is \u2018disputed\u2019 (and therefore not subject to Geneva IV),\u201d our friend Ilene Cohen points out.<\/p>\n

The FT then refers to the EU policy of restricting funds so they don\u2019t go to settlements.<\/p>\n

That is not a boycott. It is the application of the law. Yet if Israel maintains its occupation, and spurns the peace terms being negotiated by US secretary of state John Kerry, such distinctions will erode. European pension funds are already starting to pull their investments in Israeli banks with branches in the settlements\u2026<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Compare the prevarications of the State Department spokesperson who says the SodaStream boycott\u00a0is illegitimate and so are the settlements<\/a>\u00a0to the FT\u2019s bright line distinction.<\/p>\n

The paper doesn\u2019t mince any words in ending its editorial, language we wish we would read in the New York Times:<\/p>\n

It is disingenuous to romanticise settlement enterprises. The occupation imprisons thousands of the Palestinians\u2019 young men, gives their land and water to settlers, demolishes their houses and partitions the remaining territory with scores of checkpoints and segregated roads. There are almost no basic foundations for an economy. The way to create Palestinian jobs is to end the occupation and let Palestinians build those foundations \u2013 not to build \u201cbridges to peace\u201d on other people\u2019s land without their permission.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Astonishing. And important. Coming here before long, we hope.<\/p>\n

The editorial is accompanied by a piece of analysis of Johansson\u2019s achievement in doing the SodaStream Super Bowl ad. Peter Aspden and Reid\u00a0write<\/a>:<\/p>\n

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[T]his is the age of social media, in which reputations can be trashed within minutes. The anti-Johansson lobby gleefully pounced on a line from the SodaStream ad \u2013 \u201cIf only I could make this message go viral!\u201d says the actress huskily \u2013 and has duly\u00a0granted her wish<\/a>\u00a0with a plethora of doctored images and online slogans (\u201cSet the bubbles free, not the Palestinians!\u201d).<\/p>\n

Perhaps the biggest disappointment for fans of Ms Johansson\u2019s acting talents is the sheer banality of the ad. The star\u2019s stiff and cliched turn is strangely reminiscent of Bill Murray\u2019s performance-within-a-performance in her breakthrough film of 11 years ago. The cool indie beauty of that time has turned disappointingly corporate. Something appears to have been lost in translation all right.<\/p>\n

As for the anti-Israeli lobby, it is discovering to its pleasant surprise that a sprinkle of stardust can grant instant worldwide access to a long-fought and infernally complicated campaign\u2026<\/p>\n

It is hard to believe that such portentous issues should suddenly become the focus of the world\u2019s attention thanks to a glitzy blonde pushing a fizzy drink. But this is a multi-layered world. Celebrities on the make think twice \u2013 that brand \u201cambassadorship\u201d you are after may turn out to be a more complicated job than you have ever imagined.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

James North and Phil Weiss on February 1, 2014\u00a0 Lost in Translation (graphic: Stephanie Westbrook) An editorial in this weekend\u2019s\u00a0Financial Times, the salmon-colored tribune\u00a0 of London\u2019s City, the financial district, is certainly striking terror into Hasbara Central in Israel\u2013 if not at the State Department in Washington. In forceful language that looks like it could […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-247","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bds"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gphrc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gphrc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gphrc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gphrc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gphrc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/gphrc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":259,"href":"https:\/\/gphrc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247\/revisions\/259"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gphrc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gphrc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gphrc.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}