think west bank.
think gaza.
it's ugly there.
and they're problems for israel politically both internally and internationally, the colonial thing that's happening, in different forms, in both these areas. it doesn't matter if the right doesn't like to look at it--except to the extent that the interests of the right coincide with those of the extreme right and the...um...ethically challenged elements in the idf who find it useful for whatever budgetary reasons to maintain a colonial presence in the west bank. but you know all this. it's just not fun to look at.
for a neat little summary of the sides to this israel=apartheid debate, which isn't new and isn't likely to go away & isn't without it's limitations/problems:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Israel_...rtheid_analogy
and talking hasn't helped--there seems to be no willingness to confront the settler-dominated far right in the west bank. conflict certainly hasn't helped. i don't think a boycott is going to do much either, personally---but it's something.
and it's obviously discomfiting enough that those fine retro-fellows in the netanyahu government feel the need to support suppressing the right to dissent as a way to limit the damage they think it could do them.
this is a really stupid move, even by the low standards the netanyahu regime has conditioned folk to apply to them.