I do not buy Israeli produce. I do not boycott films with Gal Gadot in them and if things improve in Israel and the Palestinian territories, I will go back to buying produce from Israel, so long as they are not from the West Bank. I had typed consume earlier, but my wife buys most our shopping, and a lot of it is on-line, so I may be inadvertently consuming Israeli produce as this boycott is a personal one.
My family know that I also will not knowingly consume anything made by Nestlé, something the children do take advantage of because the know that any chocolate or ice-cream at home made by Nestlé is safe from me. Likewise, I will not knowingly buy anything made in Burma, or Myanmar as it is now called. I have to say knowingly as I did have an amazing winter coat bought for me from there, but when it came to replacing it, I refused to get the same which was still available.
When younger I also took part in the boycott of South Africa, my contribution to this being not using Barclays Bank as a student, but around this time, things were improving in South Africa with Nelson Mandela being freed. I also took part in the protests at the South African Embassy before I went to university, but stopped doing so once the path to peace became more apparent.
But back to Israel. Settlement expansion in the West Bank is continuing. Right now, violence is taking place with innocents on both sides being killed. Extremists on both sides seem to want war over peace, a blind eye being turned towards attacks by extremists by Israel by the state itself. Considering the history of murder that Jews have faced because of hatred towards them, I understand the desire for a nation state. Watching A Small Light made my cry, and talking about it on the weekend, I felt teary again. Put simply, I understand some of the fear that anyone Jewish must feel when they see hatred being directed towards them considering the millions that were murdered during the time of the Nazi's let alone what has happened before, including in the UK.
But I should still have the right to boycott the goods of the state of Israel when it is allowing such unjust oppression of the Palestinian people. If I had the option, I would also boycott goods made in Gaza over the human rights issues there, as well as goods made in the Palestinian parts of The West Bank due to the lack of democracy there. I hope Parliament does not ban the boycott.
