Posted By Steven Plaut On July 26, 2013
The
Israeli Far Left has long been promoting an international boycott of all Jews
and Jewish settlements located outside Israel’s pre-1967 “Green Line,” meaning
the Jews living in what the Left calls “occupied Palestinian territory.” The
mischief of the Left has caused serious damages to numerous Israeli enterprises
and business. Just one such example is the Ahava cosmetics company, one of the
most recent targets of the Left because its headquarters are located outside the
“Green Line.” Ariel University in Samaria has been the target of the most
venomous attacks by the Far Left both in Israel and abroad, who are demanding
total international boycott of it. Israeli Arab enterprises and entrepreneurs
that operate in the West Bank are not targeted by these discriminating
bigots.
In recent days the European Union has announced that it too will be
implementing a broad boycott against all commercial interests of Jews located in
Judea and Samaria, the so-called “West Bank,” possibly including Jewish
“settlers” who are simply people living in the suburbs of Jerusalem. Indeed
most “settlers” in the “West Bank” live in Jerusalem suburbs. There can be no
doubt that this new economic assault against Israel in the form of the EU
boycott was itself largely motivated by the lobbying activities of the Israeli
Left. These people and their many picayune foreign-financed NGOs have long
urged others, including anti-Israel groups and governments abroad, to join in
the boycott against “settlers.” The radical Left has been unable to
persuade the Israeli electorate that all settlers must be vanquished from their
homes and all settlements eradicated, so they prefer to achieve their agenda
anti-democratically, by means of recruiting foreign hostile international
pressures and sanctions against Israel.
While members of the Israeli Non-Left have long been at wit’s end
about what sort of appropriate response there should be to these boycott
campaigns by the radical Israeli Left, there is in fact a perfect response to
them, one that has been staring us all in the face for years. The very best
response by Jewish patriots and friends of Israel to the boycott campaign by the
radical Left is to boycott the boycotters. Sure, most of the boycotters do not
themselves have any commercial interests that can be boycotted in any serious
“Boycott the Boycotters” campaign. But there are exceptions. And the most
effective, most promising, and most morally-unambiguous response to the Leftist
boycott of “settlements” must be the call for an international boycott of the
Arledan company.
Why the Arledan company? Because it is largely owned by the founder
of Peace Now, Tzali Reshef. He is a leading proponent of boycotting Israeli
settlers and settlements. Moreover, the company does business not only in
Israel but also in the US and Europe and so would be particularly vulnerable to
a Boycott the Boycotters campaign that carried over into these continents.
Tzali Reshef is one of the most radical, most anti-democratic, and
most vocal promoters of international efforts to boycott settlers and
settlements. Most delicious of all is the fact that his own company can be
harmed simply by letting the Bash-Israel lobby know that it is involved in
construction outside Israel’s “Green Line” pre-1967 borders in Jerusalem
suburbs. [Ironically, Arledan has already been targeted by anti-Israel activist groups
for participating in this construction.] Reshef’s own malevolent political
activities would then bite him in his own pocketbook! Reshef can be made to pay
a price for his Boycott-Settlers initiatives simply by passing on information to
the Anti-Israel lobby that his own company deserves to be boycotted by them.
What irony it would be should Reshef be penalized by sanctions against his own
company coming from BOTH the Zionist-patriot camp and from the Destroy-Israel
movement!!
The 60 year old Tzali or Tsali (short for Betzalel) Reshef was one of
the original founders of “Peace Now.” He sat in the Israeli parliament
briefly. He is a lawyer by training, frequently files leftist politicized
“petitions” to the courts to advance the Left’s agenda, and has been involved in
the filing of anti-democratic SLAPP harassment lawfare suits in Israel designed
to suppress the freedom of speech of critics of the Far Left. Reshef is also
the CEO of and a major stockholder in Arledan. In 2004 Yediot Ahronot reported that
he was making 1.4 million shekels a year. This rose to two million shekels by
2009. Not a bad windfall for a socialist! Reshef and Peace Now have been
trying to create a broad socialist party in Israel, but we were
unable to find any evidence on the web of his using his enormous Arledan wealth
to alleviate poverty and redistribute (his own) wealth in order to build
equality in wealth distribution.
Before becoming CEO in 2004 he was chairman of the board of directors
at Areldan. Other major investors in the company include Tzali’s father,
brother and sister. In 2010 Tzali Reshef was involved in a conflict that became
the focus of media interest when a number of large investors in Arledan
(investors who were NOT Reshef family members) opposed the compensation package Reshef was paying
himself. Israel’s Securities and Exchange Commission claimed his package was
approved illegally.
Arledan is a public company whose shares trade on the Tel Aviv stock
exchange, but the Reshef family are the major shareholders. Arledan is a major
real estate holding company in Israel. It is a classical ownership “pyramid” of
the sort that political parties and public figures in recent years have been
demanding be reformed and reined in. Finance Minister Yair Lapid could tackle
Arledan as his very first foray against pyramid structures (he was elected on a
platform of fighting against them). The Arledan “parent” holding company owns
other holding companies, including Arledan Luxembourg and Arledanamerica, which in turn own other companies. In
2008 (the last year for which it posts its accounts on its web site), Arledan
lost 24 million shekels. According to the Tel Aviv stock exchange, it also had
a (small) loss in 2011, although made profits in between. It held 600 million
shekels in assets, with a net worth of 240 million NIS (about $67 million).
Among Arledan’s other holdings is a 90% ownership in the Keter book publishing
house. It also owns about half of Telsys, a company that imports and markets computer
components.
Reshef tried but failed to enter the Knesset on the Labor Party
ticket in 1996. He became a Knesset member from the Labor Party in 2002, and
used his time in the Knesset to demand an “end to occupation.” Later he joined
far-leftist semi-Marxist Meretz and ran unsuccessfully on its party slate. He
is on the “Board of Sponsors” of the anti-Israel Far-Leftist “Palestine-Israel
Journal.” He also admits that he is a manipulator.
Peace Now has long led the campaign for boycotts of Israeli settlers
and settlements. Reshef himself is cited on the Peace Now web site as endorsing
the boycott. According to the site, Tzali Reshef stated: “Peace Now
calls and will call upon the public to boycott the goods of the settlements. It
is our duty to say, ‘no further, you’ve [referring to the pro settlement bloc in
the Knesset] crossed the line.’ PN also immediately set up a Facebook page
headed ‘Prosecute Me! I Boycott the Settlements,’ and within two days over 6000
people had joined it.” Reshef has
also called for division of Jerusalem.
Moreover, when a bill was submitted to parliament to penalize those
who boycott Israel and/or settlements, Reshef denounced the initiative as anti-democratic and
illegal. He also called for
violating the law if it passes, a curious position for an officer of
the court. He insists there is a natural right to boycott anyone one chooses.
Well, I say that we apply his principles and call for a world boycott of his
Arledan company as our natural right!
So, comrades, we need your help! Spread the world! Let everyone you
know hear about the need to Boycott the Boycotters. Drop an email to Tzali at
tzaly@arledan.co.il
and let him know why you are boycotting his company. Email addresses
of other company officers are here. Spread the word in the US, Israel and
everywhere. Get a Boycott Arledan bumper sticker.
The moral response to the Boycott Settlements movement must be to
boycott the boycotters! Make them pay a price!
Sauce for the lemming is now sauce for the
gander!
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