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Source: http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/feb/19/israel-boycott-painful-truths-middle-east
Those Calling for a Boycott of Israel Are Ignoring Some Painful Truths
(Guardian-UK) Yair Lapid - This past weekend, 700 British artists had a letter published in the Guardian in which they called on others to boycott Israel until what they term the "colonial occupation" ends. As someone who supports the creation of a Palestinian state, it has been a long time since I saw a letter so shallow and lacking in coherence. The fact that the majority of the signatories are unaware of the reality here in the Middle East doesn't reassure me. I wonder if anyone told the signatories that in 2000 and in 2008 Israel offered the Palestinians the chance to build an independent state on over 90% of the territories, and on both occasions the Palestinians refused? Do they know that Gaza is ruled by Hamas, a terrorist organization that punishes homosexuality with hanging? As artists - who by definition are people with imagination - let's imagine the IDF puts down its weapons and stops protecting the people of Israel for 24 hours. What do they think would happen? Radical Islamists would kill us all. Women and children first. That's what they're doing to their brethren across the Islamic world. To end the conflict Israel only has one demand: security for our citizens. We don't believe that's unreasonable. In 2005, Israel pulled out of Gaza without any demands, took down the settlements and removed the army. The Palestinians kicked out the Palestinian Authority and brought in Hamas - a fundamentalist Islamist terror group of the worst kind. And after a few months they began building terror tunnels into Israeli territory and started massive rocket and mortar fire upon Israel's innocent civilian population. The writer served as Israel's finance minister and was a member of the security cabinet.