This is a guest post by Arthur C
Yachad is “The pro-Israel pro-peace voice of British Jews”.
While supporting a Palestinian state, and opposing the Israeli right, I believe that Yachad is generally opposed to boycotts, the singling out of Israel and the demonisation of Israelis.
I would therefore have expected Yachad to have reacted with pain and a degree of anger to Hawking’s boycott of Shimon Peres’ conference. After all Peres is the winner of the Nobel Peace Prize and is the politician most closely associated with the struggle for Israel-Palestine peace. So a boycott of somebody like Peres is, in effect, a boycott of Yachad’s own position.
However, I have checked on Yachad’s twitter stream, Facebook page, and website. I can’t see any comment from them at all.
They’ve posted on other things. Something about the arrest of the Grand Mufti of Jerusalem. Something about a talk by Philippe Sands QC and Michael Sfard from Peace Now’s Settlement Watch. A repost of an article by Hannah Weisfeld from last year.
This should have been Yachad’s moment. They ought to have been all over this issue.
Why weren’t they?
(I am a Yachad supporter – this is a genuine question.)
UPDATE
Yachad has now posted a link to a piece by Matt Hill, opposing a general boycott but supporting a boycott of specific companies and institutions.
