“J Street Big Takes a Serious Shot at Peter Beinart’s Call for Boycott”

May 1, 2009

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the head of J Street, the left-wing pro-Israel gorup, tells Marc Tracy that Peter Beinart’s call for a boycott of goods made in West Bank settlements is completely counterproductive:

“He thinks that pressure on settlers on an individual basis will get them to rethink their enterprise,” he explained. “I don’t think that’s going to happen. They think the world is against them, and this will only reinforce their belief that they’re right and reestablish their intensity to hold onto the land.”

I don’t have much good to say about Beinart’s call for a boycott, because I find economic warfare targeting Jews so distasteful, for obvious historical reasons. (As readers of Goldblog know, I would like to see the settlers out of the West Bank as well, but this is a very bad way to go about achieving the goal.) And to be completely blunt, I’m not that interested in debating Peter’s new book, which I’ve just finished reading, because I find his recounting of recent Middle East history one-sided and filled with errors and omissions.

Read the full article here.