New Profile is a feminist organization that includes males and females. Our feminism is different from the general line of feminism in Israel. In many feminist organizations, what they are doing is bringing women to be equal to males. That means if males can go to the army and be pilots and combat soldiers, females should also be allowed to do so. We are non-militaristic, as I think are most of the organizations that oppose the Occupation. New Profile’s main purpose is to transform Israel from a militaristic society to what we call a “civil-ized” society.
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I support BDS because it is a nonviolent means of pressuring governments. People, institutions and governments abroad can participate in BDS: sanctions by governments; divestment by governments and institutions, like pension funds or universities. To be effective, the boycott should apply across the board and include academic, cultural, and government institutions as well as corporations and private businesses. I do not believe that individual academics should be boycotted, but the universities definitely should be; they cooperate fully in the militaristic aims of Israel’s government.
My idea of boycott is not merely for economic reasons. Israelis will begin to feel that Israel is being delegitimized if enough artists and sports teams refuse to cross the picket line and perform in Israel so long as it refuses to agree to justice for Palestinians and peace and security for all. Cultural boycott, should it become widespread, will of course anger many Israelis, but perhaps it will also cause some of them to think and then to question.
I think that economic pressure as divestment, if it spreads widely enough, will potentially have impact on the government via pressure from the private business sector. Just recently a major Dutch pension fund, PFZW, decided to divest from 13 Israeli companies to the sum of about 97 billion Euros – a considerable amount of money.37 Should this kind of divestment spread widely, it will hit Israeli companies hard, but that gives me no pleasure. Members of my own family and many other families in Israel, including poor ones, will be hurt by it. But, since I believe that BDS is the most potent nonviolent means of pressuring governments, and since I hope it will be able to bring about change, I feel strongly that we must pursue it.
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More here.