Avoda Ivrit: Boycott Israeli Arab labor to force Palestinian emigration from Israel. Abandon minimum wage in Israel.

Boycott, yes

Our calls to boycott the Arabs have been compared to the Nazi boycott of the Jews. There are major differences. Jews constituted 1.2% of German population in 1932. The boycott amounted to sentencing Jews to sustenance labor since a population so small and spread so thinly is economically inefficient. German Jews could not easily emigrate for a better life: only half of them had moved from Germany before 1939. Even so, Germans had a right to refuse to buy Jewish products and services. One is entitled to spend his money as he wishes.

Israeli Arabs constitute from 19% of Israeli population on the average to a third in the younger age groups. Israeli Arabs settle in compact enclaves. Arab communities run autonomous black market economies. The Arabs can be economically viable – on their natural level – independently of Jews. Alternatively, Israeli Arabs can sell their property in Israel at fair value, move to any Muslim country, and buy there comparable property much cheaper. Instead, Arabs parasitize on the Jewish economy.

Israeli employers can import Nepalese to work for $50 disposable income a month. That would displace all Israeli labor in low-skill sectors such as agriculture and services. The Israeli government, as any other, mitigates the entrepreneurial drive for profits with a concern for its citizens, and restricts labor immigration and institutes a minimum wage. Such restrictions on free employment drive up prices and represent a major indirect tax. Israeli consumers willingly pay for products and services at a higher price than the price which would be established in a free market with free movement of foreign labor and no minimum wage limits. Israeli consumers willingly subsidize Israeli low-skill workers. Why not Nepalese? Because Israeli Jews somewhat care about their neighbors, and not a bit – about the poor Nepalese. Why then the Arabs? Almost no Jew cares about their well-being. The Israeli government enfranchises Arabs to benefit from it minimum wage and shields them from foreign – say, Nepalese – competition – for no rational reason. Many Arabs work in the black market economy at below the minimum wage, but their real wages are still pegged to the minimum wage benchmark.

A liberal option to end Jewish consumers’ subsidies to Arabs is to open Israel’s borders to temporary workers who would not be entitled to minimum wage and pension benefits. Jewish employers would prefer hard-working, anti-Muslim, and nice Nepalese to Arabs even at similar wages, but imagine the boost to the Israeli economy from the influx of people who work for $200 a month and leave after a few years. Imagine services provided at $1 per hour. The Nepalese would quickly displace the Arabs in every occupation short of terrorism. The free market can work political miracles.

The boycott is not a barbaric instrument. Patriotic consumer programs encouraging citizens to “Buy local” are common in many countries. While some argue that Israeli Arab citizens enjoy equality and should not be discriminated against, a boycott of Palestinian products is unobjectionable. Israel is the only state in the world that imports goods from an entity that routinely attacks it. Jewish soldiers and civilians die from Palestinian bullets while Jewish consumers crunch Palestinian carrots. An economic boycott of Palestine would be a military tool designed to extinguish popular support for Arab militants. Palestinian producers and traders pay taxes to their Hamas-led government and to Hamas directly. Jewish consumers’ money buys bullets to kill Jews.

Politically correct societies condemn discrimination but accept preference. It is okay for a Christian to donate to Christian charity that doesn’t benefit Jews or Muslims. Jewish consumers don’t refuse Arab goods, but canlegitimately give preference to Jewish goods. People go to one supermarket and dislike another, or buy milk from one farm, and not similar milk from another producer. Consumers necessarily prefer and discriminate. Various groups call for boycotting products of factories not ecologically- or labor-friendly. Some call for buying products made by minorities or handicaps – at the expense of other producers. Religious preference – or call it discrimination – is arbitrarily singled out for prosecution.

In the 1920s, Zionist leftists spearheaded Avodah Ivrit, the movement to buy Jewish-made products. They acted on socialist grounds, seeking to reform Jews into a working class. Fine. We also object to Jewish employers exploiting poor Arabs at low wages. Their wages must be raised to levels comparable to Jewish wages. Incidentally, at comparable wages Jewish employers would hire Jews rather than Arabs. US leftists boycott the goods from low-wage countries where the Western corporations allegedly exploit the population at sustenance wages. Jews, likewise, could boycott Israeli companies – down to restaurants – that employ poor, underpaid Arabs.

In the 1940-50s, the Jews pushed the Arabs out of Israel because the Arabs were too many, around 40% of the Israeli population. Today, Arabs constitute 34% of the Israeli population in the 0-9 age group. An economic boycott is the least drastic means of re-establishing Israel’s Jewish identity.

Danny the Admin 2007 June 12

Jewish identity dictates pushing everyone else out of the Land of Israel.

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Danny the Admin 2008 February 25

Well, obviously Judea is a Roman-English names; written in Hebrew, it would be Yehuda. If you’re so careful, then “Medinat” is superfluous.

Danny the Admin 2008 April 28

Moshe, the history you mentioned is “yours” (mine) or “ours”? Hasn’t you dissociate yourself from Jews a bit too much?
Our tortured history, our history of tortures taught me one thing: Never again. That’s why we want a state without Arabs.
European Zionism poisoned the Arab-Jewish relations? Was there Zionism in 1834 when Arabs butchered Jews in Palestine? Is Zionism responsible for pogroms in Morocco and Libya on mid-nineteenth century?
Jeremy: The Nazis also brushed their teeth, won’t you? German depictions of Jews as parasites were wrong as Jews were actually the most productive German citizens. The opposite is true about Israeli Arabs. But Germans would be right to expel Jews from a German state into the Jewish country. That’s what we want for Arabs – to live happily among their likes in 22 countries of their own.

Danny the Admin 2008 April 30

To put it politely, Dor, what a moronic comparison is yours, between the transfer and the Final Solution!
I believe the six million Jews would love to be forcibly moved to Switzerland instead of Auschwitz.

Arabs are citizens of Israel.
As citizens, they have unalienable democratic right to breed, become a majority, and vote the Jewish state out of existence.
Do you allow them such right?
Even before they reach the majority status, they are already a third of Israel’s young, so the largest Knesset bloc. Would you allow an Arab member of the Security Cabinet? A Defense Minister?
There is a fundamental impossibility of a Jewish state incorporating Arab citizens.

Danny the Admin 2008 May 01

In Hebrew, state is inseparable from nation. For example, Edom is both a nation and a place of its habitation.

Danny the Admin 2008 May 14

It’s a sort of bizarre to hear lectures on the State of Israel from Cincinnati. I suggest you to spit on the reformist “rabbi” who told you that nonsense. In the Jewish state, justice means justice of the Torah, not Jeffersonianism (which was never practiced even in the US, to be sure). Freedom – only for law-abiding Jews (the Jewish law, of course). What do you mean by preservation, I don’t know. We don’t preserve values, we live by them – and that means expelling the Arabs. And about acceptance, you might be shocked but Torah is non-accepting. The Torah disperses capital punishment for myriad seemingly trivial offenses. But you’re right on one thing: we don’t seek equality. It is a Jewish state.

Danny the Admin 2008 May 20

As Rabbi Kahane had called it, “arrogance of ignorance.” So you want to teach me Judaism? Good.
Tell me, then, where it says in the Torah about democracy? I don’t recall a commandment to vote every four years on whether we should keep the Torah law. And, as an “observant Jew,” you possibly heard about one Rambam who commented at length on what it means, “You shall only appoint a king over yourself from among your brothers” – that’s not even a petty official in the Land of Israel can be non-Jewish.
And frankly, I don’t believe an observant Jew would describe the rabbis’ devotion to halacha as “narcissism.”
Regarding the Israeli Arabs, you’re imagining the things. There is no need to kill a significant number of them. Since we have tanks, and they don’t, they will leave whether they want it or not. Those who run fast might even receive compensation – which they denied to our brothers who fled their countries.

Danny the Admin 2008 June 01

Personally, I see no problem with apartheid: the Blacks were offered a state (Bantustans) of their own but wanted to live in the state built by whites.
Anyhow: If there are patriotic programs, say, “Buy American”, why cannot we have a “Buy Jewish” drive? And I don’t think that various antisemites depend on us for excuses to deride Israel.

Danny the Admin 2008 July 01

First, Judaism is a religion, not race. There are many Jews of Arab ethnicity. Any Arab who honestly embraces Judaism is welcome to stay in my country.
Second, I would be grateful for Americans and Europeans to push Jews out to Israel.

Danny the Admin 2008 July 05

Uh, why should we give Arabs loans? There are plenty of needy Jews around.

Danny the Admin 2008 July 08

Why are you speaking silly leftist slogans? Try mustering a few words of your own.

IN THE EYES OF GOD WE ARE ALL THE SAME

Would that hold for Hitler, the Arab murderers, or Michael Lerner? Use your brains: if God views all people similarly, how comes there are commandments and punishment?

YOU CANT CHANGE THE PAST BUT YOU CAN CHANGE THE FUTURE.

That what commies thought. No, you cannot change the future, there are laws of nature. If Arabs were killing us here for the last century and a half, I can safely assume they won’t change in the future. At least, the burden of proof is on them.