Old Cigarette Commercials

It's not difficult to see how corporate marketing created the ideal consumer market in the USA. These old tobacco commercials may seem silly to people today; but, in their day they were highly compelling, resulting in an explosion of smoking behaviour. Massaging the masses is what its all about.

Winston on the Flintstones (1960)



The sobering context for all this is presented in a remarkable documentary, Century of the Self, not to be missed. One of the segments which impressed me the most, details how the tobacco industry aligned itself with the Women's Liberation Movement to double their profits. Warning: this might disturb some viewers (especially, women).

Virginia Slims



We didn't always think the Marlboro Man was someone to model ourselves after. Hope you enjoy these below and I trust you will have moments of revelation as to the ugly face behind the mask of marketing. For 'rational' creatures, humans certainly seem to be well managed by 'irrational' persuasion.


Marlboros




Philip Morris - I Love Lucy (1964)



Camels



Viceroys

US pipeline games with China

I am appalled at the mentality of Americans and the English when they are asked a question about why their countries are sending troups to Afghanistan. It seems that few have even a vague notion of why this expensive military invasion persists. Even more appalling is the Western media reports that purport to explain what is happening in China's Xinjiang province. I refer here to the recent regional disturbance between the Uygurs and Han people in Xinjiang.

Western media would have one believe this civil unrest is the result of Chinese communist dictators squelching the rights of outlying indigenous peoples. Of course, one expects nothing less of Western media journalism which supports the farcical notion of democracy of the West spread to the lucky countries of Asia and the Mideast.

Yet the real story of the conflicts in this outlying area of China may be quite different than the mainstream media insinuates. As with many other sensationalist propaganda from the West, the essential detail of energy pipeline politics is omitted from the front page analysis.

Below, F. William Engdahl, one of my favorite economists, has a more rational explanation for the civil unrest in Xinjiang recently...one that details the energy pipeline concerns of the U.S. in constraining the unstoppable Sino/Soviet alliance of providing energy to Europe and Asia. Indeed, all conflicts now about 'democracy' can be re-interpreted as 'oiligarchic' concerns.

Is Washington Playing a Deeper Game with China?

by F. William Engdahl
author of Full Spectrum Dominance: Totalitarian Democracy in the New World Order
July 13, 2009
Source
July 12 —After the tragic events of July 5 in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region in China, it would be useful to look more closely into the actual role of the US Government’s ”independent“ NGO, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED). All indications are that the US Government, once more acting through its “private” Non-Governmental Organization, the NED, is massively intervening into the internal politics of China.

The reasons for Washington’s intervention into Xinjiang affairs seems to have little to do with concerns over alleged human rights abuses by Beijing authorities against Uyghur people. It seems rather to have very much to do with the strategic geopolitical location of Xinjiang on the Eurasian landmass and its strategic importance for China’s future economic and energy cooperation with Russia, Kazakhastan and other Central Asia states of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

The major organization internationally calling for protests in front of Chinese embassies around the world is the Washington, D.C.-based World Uyghur Congress (WUC).

The WUC manages to finance a staff, a very fancy website in English, and has a very close relation to the US Congress-funded NED. According to published reports by the NED itself, the World Uyghur Congress receives $215,000.00 annually from the National Endowment for Democracy for “human rights research and advocacy projects.” The president of the WUC is an exile Uyghur who describes herself as a “laundress turned millionaire,” Rebiya Kadeer, who also serves as president of the Washington D.C.-based Uyghur American Association, another Uyghur human rights organization which receives significant funding from the US Government via the National Endowment for Democracy.

The NED was intimately involved in financial support to various organizations behind the Lhasa ”Crimson Revolution“ in March 2008, as well as the Saffron Revolution in Burma/Myanmar and virtually every regime change destabilization in eastern Europe over the past years from Serbia to Georgia to Ukraine to Kyrgystan to Teheran in the aftermath of the recent elections.

Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED, was quite candid when he said in a published interview in 1991: "A lot of what we do today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."

The NED is supposedly a private, non-government, non-profit foundation, but it receives a yearly appropriation for its international work from the US Congress. The NED money is channelled through four “core foundations”. These are the National Democratic Institute for International Affairs, linked to Obama’s Democratic Party; the International Republican Institute tied to the Republican Party; the American Center for International Labor Solidarity linked to the AFL-CIO US labor federation as well as the US State Department; and the Center for International Private Enterprise linked to the US Chamber of Commerce.

The salient question is what has the NED been actively doing that might have encouraged the unrest in Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region, and what is the Obama Administration policy in terms of supporting or denouncing such NED-financed intervention into sovereign politics of states which Washington deems a target for pressure? The answers must be found soon, but one major step to help clarify Washington policy under the new Obama Administration would be for a full disclosure by the NED, the US State Department and NGO’s linked to the US Government, of their involvement, if at all, in encouraging Uyghur separatism or unrest. Is it mere coincidence that the Uyghur riots take place only days following the historic meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization?

Uyghur exile organizations, China and Geopolitics

On May 18 this year, the US-government’s in-house “private” NGO, the NED, according to the official WUC website, hosted a seminal human rights conference entitled East Turkestan: 60 Years under Communist Chinese Rule, along with a curious NGO with the name, the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organisation (UNPO).

The Honorary President and founder of the UNPO is one Erkin Alptekin, an exile Uyghur who founded UNPO while working for the US Information Agency’s official propaganda organization, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty as Director of their Uygur Division and Assistant Director of the Nationalities Services.

Alptekin also founded the World Uyghur Congress at the same time, in 1991, while he was with the US Information Agency. The official mission of the USIA when Alptekin founded the World Uyghur Congress in 1991 was “to understand, inform, and influence foreign publics in promotion of the [USA] national interest…” Alptekin was the first president of WUC, and, according to the official WUC website, is a “close friend of the Dalai Lama.”

Closer examination reveals that UNPO in turn to be an American geopolitical strategist’s dream organization. It was formed, as noted, in 1991 as the Soviet Union was collapsing and most of the land area of Eurasia was in political and economic chaos. Since 2002 its Director General has been Archduke Karl von Habsburg of Austria who lists his (unrecognized by Austria or Hungary) title as “Prince Imperial of Austria and Royal Prince of Hungary.”

Among the UNPO principles is the right to ‘self-determination’ for the 57 diverse population groups who, by some opaque process not made public, have been admitted as official UNPO members with their own distinct flags, with a total population of some 150 million peoples and headquarters in the Hague, Netherlands.

UNPO members range from Kosovo which “joined” when it was fully part of then Yugoslavia in 1991. It includes the “Aboriginals of Australia” who were listed as founding members along with Kosovo. It includes the Buffalo River Dene Nation indians of northern Canada.

The select UNPO members also include Tibet which is listed as a founding member. It also includes other explosive geopolitical areas as the Crimean Tartars, the Greek Minority in Romania, the Chechen Republic of Ichkeria (in Russia), the Democratic Movement of Burma, and the gulf enclave adjacent to Angola and the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and which just happens to hold rights to some of the world’s largest offshore oil fields leased to Condi Rice’s old firm, Chevron Oil. Further geopolitical hotspots which have been granted elite recognition by the UNPO membership include the large section of northern Iran which designates itself as Southern Azerbaijan, as well as something that calls itself Iranian Kurdistan.

In April 2008 according to the website of the UNPO, the US Congress’ NED sponsored a “leadership training” seminar for the World Uyghur Congress (WUC) together with the Unrepresented Nations and Peoples Organization. Over 50 Uyghurs from around the world together with prominent academics, government representatives and members of the civil society gathered in Berlin Germany to discuss “Self-Determination under International Law.” What they discussed privately is not known. Rebiya Kadeer gave the keynote address.

The suspicious timing of the Xinjiang riots

The current outbreak of riots and unrest in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang in the northwest part of China, exploded on July 5 local time.

According to the website of the World Uyghur Congress, the “trigger” for the riots was an alleged violent attack on June 26 in China’s southern Guangdong Province at a toy factory where the WUC alleges that Han Chinese workers attacked and beat to death two Uyghur workers for allegedly raping or sexually molesting two Han Chinese women workers in the factory. On July 1, the Munich arm of the WUC issued a worldwide call for protest demonstrations against Chinese embassies and consulates for the alleged Guangdong attack, despite the fact they admitted the details of the incident were unsubstantiated and filled with allegations and dubious reports.

According to a press release they issued, it was that June 26 alleged attack that gave the WUC the grounds to issue their worldwide call to action.

On July 5, a Sunday in Xinjiang but still the USA Independence Day, July 4, in Washington, the WUC in Washington claimed that Han Chinese armed soldiers seized any Uyghur they found on the streets and according to official Chinese news reports, widespread riots and burning of cars along the streets of Urumqi broke out resulting over the following three days in over 140 deaths.

China’s official Xinhua News Agency said that protesters from the Uighur Muslim ethnic minority group began attacking ethnic Han pedestrians, burning vehicles and attacking buses with batons and rocks. "They took to the street...carrying knives, wooden batons, bricks and stones," they cited an eyewitness as saying. The French AFP news agency quoted Alim Seytoff, general secretary of the Uighur American Association in Washington, that according to his information, police had begun shooting "indiscriminately" at protesting crowds.

Two different versions of the same events: The Chinese government and pictures of the riots indicate it was Uyghur riot and attacks on Han Chinese residents that resulted in deaths and destruction. French official reports put the blame on Chinese police “shooting indiscriminately.” Significantly, the French AFP report relies on the NED-funded Uyghur American Association of Rebiya Kadeer for its information. The reader should judge if the AFP account might be motivated by a US geopolitical agenda, a deeper game from the Obama Administration towards China’s economic future.

Is it merely coincidence that the riots in Xinjiang by Uyghur organizations broke out only days after the meeting took place in Yakaterinburg, Russia of the member nations of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, as well as Iran as official observer guest, represented by President Ahmadinejad?

Over the past few years, in the face of what is seen as an increasingly hostile and incalculable United States foreign policy, the major nations of Eurasia—China, Russia, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan have increasingly sought ways of direct and more effective cooperation in economic as well as security areas. In addition, formal Observer status within SCO has been given to Iran, Pakistan, India and Mongolia. The SCO defense ministers are in regular and growing consultation on mutual defense needs, as NATO and the US military command continue provocatively to expand across the region wherever it can.

The Strategic Importance of Xinjiang for Eurasian Energy Infrastructure

There is another reason for the nations of the SCO, a vital national security element, to having peace and stability in China’s Xinjiang region. Some of China’s most important oil and gas pipeline routes pass directly through Xinjiang province. Energy relations between Kazkhstan and China are of enormous strategic importance for both countries, and allow China to become less dependent on oil supply sources that can be cut off by possible US interdiction should relations deteriorate to such a point.

Kazak President Nursultan Nazarbayev paid a State visit in April 2009 to Beijing. The talks concerned deepening economic cooperation, above all in the energy area, where Kazkhastan holds huge reserves of oil and likely as well of natural gas. After the talks in Beijing, Chinese media carried articles with such titles as “"Kazakhstani oil to fill in the Great Chinese pipe."

The Atasu-Alashankou pipeline to be completed in 2009 will provide transportation of transit gas to China via Xinjiang. As well Chinese energy companies are involved in construction of a Zhanazholskiy gas processing plant, Pavlodar electrolyze plant and Moynakskaya hydro electric station in Kazakhstan.

According to the US Government’s Energy Information Administration, Kazakhstan’s Kashagan field is the largest oil field outside the Middle East and the fifth largest in the world in terms of reserves, located off the northern shore of the Caspian Sea, near the city of Atyrau. China has built a 613-mile-long pipeline from Atasu, in northwestern Kazakhstan, to Alashankou at the border of China's Xinjiang region which is exporting Caspian oil to China. PetroChina’s ChinaOil is the exclusive buyer of the crude oil on the Chinese side. The pipeline is a joint venture of CNPC and Kaztransoil of Kazkhstan. Some 85,000 bbl/d of Kazakh crude oil flowed through the pipeline during 2007. China’s CNPC is also involved in other major energy projects with Kazkhstan. They all traverse China’s Xinjiang region.

In 2007 CNPC signed an agreement to invest more than $2 billion to construct a natural gas pipeline from Turkmenistan through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to China. That pipeline would start at Gedaim on the border of Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan and extend 1,100 miles through Uzbekistan and Kazakhstan to Khorgos in China's Xinjiang region. Turkmenistan and China have signed a 30-year supply agreement for the gas that would fill the pipeline. CNPC has set up two entities to oversee the Turkmen upstream project and the development of a second pipeline that will cross China from the Xinjiang region to southeast China at a cost of some $7 billion.

As well, Russia and China are discussing major natural gas pipelines from eastern Siberia through Xinjiang into China. Eastern Siberia contains around 135 Trillion cubic feet of proven plus probable natural gas reserves. The Kovykta natural gas field could give China with natural gas in the next decade via a proposed pipeline.

During the current global economic crisis, Kazakhstan received a major credit from China of $10 billion, half of which is for oil and gas sector. The oil pipeline Atasu-Alashankou and the gas pipeline China-Central Asia, are an instrument of strategic 'linkage' of central Asian countries to the economy China. That Eurasian cohesion from Russia to China across Central Asian countries is the geopolitical cohesion Washington most fears. While they would never say so, growing instability in Xinjiang would be an ideal way for Washington to weaken that growing cohesion of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization nations.

Copyright © 2009 F. William Engdahl

Enoughism - Or how Less is More

Ever wonder why when you have enough money, you don't have enough time to enjoy it? We seem to have the money to buy books on how to appreciate the 'now' and become happier - but not the time to actually read them and experience their promised contentment and pleasure. Time is the one essence of life which is truly limited.

There are only 24 hours to a day and there are only so many days to our lives. How many hours in the day do modern people spend to make money to buy things? And are these things they buy really necessary at all?

I recall a lecture in International Trade, where the instructor compared the GDP of the USA to the GDP of the Eurozone. (This was a few years ago.) Her conclusion seemed to be that more GDP is better. But after looking into the figures, I discovered that not only is the GDP of Europeans less than US GDP, but their work week was also significantly shorter. Most Europeans enjoy from 7 to 10 weeks of paid holidays from work. Yes, Europeans spend more time on leisure activities and more time with their loved ones. From my perspective, this is a healthier lifestyle: GDP does not a happy heart make.

Americans are the best 'consumers' in the world. Looking at the definition of consumerism: Consumerism is the equation of personal happiness with consumption and the purchase of material possessions. Now John Naish has brought us its antithesis, Enoughism.

Enoughism is the theory that there is a point where consumers possess everything they need, and by buying more it actually makes their life worse off. Enoughism emphasizes less spending and more restraint in buying behaviour of consumers. Unlike Consumerism which Mirriam-Webster defines as "the theory that an increasing consumption of goods is economically desirable", Enoughism is an antonym to consumerism.

It is true that if people enjoy what they have (when their necessities are provided for), that corporations will be very unhappy indeed - because their profits will shrink. The ultra rich will have to be satisfied with only 150 pairs of shoes, only 2 townhouses, only 2 Rolls Royce etc. I don't just don't give a flying fart...let them adjust. That's what we all must do if we are to create a sustainable lifestyle on earth for the future. I am not an economic commodity for the use of the elite capitalists: economies exist for the well being of people primarily, all people not just a few.

I have blogged on this issue twice recently:
To consume: the definition
Lessons from Scarcity

One thing is for sure: either we will collectively say 'enough is enough' voluntarily NOW; or future generations will be forced to exist on what is 'not enough'. I hope the conclusion we come to is that More is LESS - less happiness, less loving, and less quality living and less time for the people we love.



Related reading

The New Anti-Consumerism

Conspicuous consumption

The Century of the Self (Video)

"We are governed, our minds are molded, our tastes formed, our ideas suggested, largely by men we have never heard of." - Edward Bernays

To many in both politics and business, the triumph of the self is the ultimate expression of democracy, where power has finally moved to the people. Certainly the people may feel they are in charge, but are they really? The Century of the Self tells the untold and sometimes controversial story of the growth of the mass-consumer society in Britain and the United States. How was the all-consuming self created, by whom, and in whose interests?

Irish4Palestine: ZIONISTS SMEAR CATHOLICS

Irish4Palestine: ZIONISTS SMEAR CATHOLICS

Isreal picks a fight with Ireland

It seems that Zionists and AIPAC will go to any lengths to stifle anyone critical of their murderous regime. There is no end to whom Zionists will pick a fight with.

Now it's Mary Robinson, first woman president of Ireland and former UNHR high commissioner who has supported Palestinian rights and criticised the tactics of Israel against the Palestinian people. Mary Robinson has been included to receive the 2009 Presidential Medal of Freedom Award by Obama.

Zionists object of course - anyone who criticizes Israel's bloody tactics in Palestine cannot possibly be a good person. That pretty well means that a majority of people in the world are on Israel's and AIPAC's black list. The Irish people have long supported Palestine and protested the savage treatment of its people by Israel with boycotts of Israeli products and humanitarian aid to the Palestinian people.

Usually, the Irish like just about every country and nationality in the world. And, I might add, are welcomed everywhere, especially on UN peace keeping missions because of their congenialality and resolution of tense conflicts with good will rather than bombs and bullets. Israel should get some sort of medal itself for raising the hackles on Irish backs and being boycotted not only by Irish people, but also by Irish academia, a feat no other nation has accomplished in Irish history. Congratulations to Israel.

I would here argue the merits of case affirming Israel's violation of human rights, but it would takes weeks to list all the proven instances of its blatant disregard for human rights over decades. And of course, I would be arguing with people whose minds are immersed in Israeli propaganda. Only a fool argues with fools.

Before or after you read the following article you might want to review Mary Robinson's credentials in the area of human rights activities.

Mary Robinson
Mary Robinson: Human rights are good for business
Global Elders

Jewish groups decry Obama's choice of
Ireland's Mary Robinson for award

Protests against the former Irish president, who critics say is anti-Israel, could become problematic for President Obama.

By Peter Wallsten

August 7, 2009
Source
Reporting from Washington -- Jewish congressional members and lobbying groups are protesting President Obama's decision to award the Presidential Medal of Freedom to former Irish leader Mary Robinson, who they say has a long record of harshly criticizing Israel.

The award announcement prompted the first criticism of Obama by the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a group he courted during last year's campaign. Jewish groups in the U.S. have been largely supportive of the president. But the Robinson award is the latest in a series of recent disagreements with Obama, and some Jewish leaders are growing skeptical of his commitment to Israel.

Last month, Obama hosted Jewish leaders at a White House meeting designed to soothe tensions over his differences with Israel over the future of Jewish settlements in the West Bank and lingering concern over the tenor of his outreach to the Muslim world.

By Thursday, several members of Congress -- including two Jewish Democrats -- had rebuked the decision to bestow the country's highest civilian honor on Robinson during a White House ceremony planned for Wednesday.

Among their concerns was her role as the United Nations' high commissioner on human rights in the 2001 World Conference Against Racism in Durban, South Africa. The U.S. and Israel pulled out of the conference over objections to a document it produced accusing Israel of racism in its treatment of the Palestinians.

Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center and a member of the Jewish caucus to the conference, said Thursday that Robinson "allowed the event to be hijacked by extremists who had no interest in peace."

The episode, Cooper said, "degraded" the global human rights effort, setting the stage for the second racism conference, held this spring, in which a keynote speaker was Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a fierce enemy of Israel who has questioned whether the Holocaust occurred.

Robinson "simply did not have the guts . . . to step into the fray and say it can't be this way," Cooper said. "She's a nice woman and a good person, but the fact that you mean well isn't a prerequisite to get our nation's highest honor."

Robinson, Ireland's president from 1990 to 1997, told Irish reporters this week that the accusations had no merit and blamed the controversy on "a lot of bullying by certain elements of the Jewish community."

"They bully people who try to address the severe situation in Gaza and the West Bank," she told a radio network, according to an account in the Belfast Telegraph.

Rep. Shelley Berkley (D- Nev.) said Thursday that the "biased views expressed by Mary Robinson against the nation of Israel remain deeply troubling, and her tarnished record of actions on this issue cannot be erased with the awarding of the Presidential Medal of Freedom."

Berkley blamed Robinson for the "highly charged anti-Jewish attacks against Israel and its supporters" at the 2001 conference and said her actions "deserve to be condemned."

Another Jewish Democrat, Rep. Eliot L. Engel of New York, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that awarding the Presidential Medal of Freedom to Robinson was a "screw-up" and a "mistake."

A White House spokesman, Tommy Vietor, on Thursday stood by the president's decision, calling Robinson a key figure in history. "Mary Robinson was the first female president of Ireland, whom we are honoring as a prominent crusader for women's rights in Ireland and around the world," Vietor said. "She has dedicated her career to human rights and working to improve an imperfect world.

"As with any public figure, we don't necessarily agree with every statement she has ever made," Vietor said, "but it's clear that she has been an agent of change and a fighter for good."

Still, the controversy looked to be growing.

The World Jewish Congress on Thursday accused Robinson of an "endorsement of Palestinian violence as legitimate political activity, and the outrageous equating of the Holocaust to the suffering of the Palestinians," adding that Robinson's record "renders her unqualified to receive the nation's highest civilian honor."

The criticism from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, which called on Obama to "firmly, fully and publicly repudiate [Robinson's] views on Israel," was especially problematic for the president.

As a candidate, he delivered well-received speeches to the group as he presented himself as a staunch supporter of Israel. AIPAC's incoming president, Lee Rosenberg, is a Chicago friend of Obama's and was a key fundraiser during the campaign.

Defenders of Robinson point to a 2003 op-ed she wrote in the New York Times deploring the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe, and they note that during the 2001 racism conference she waved a booklet of anti-Semitic cartoons and declared, "I am a Jew."

But critics point to a 2002 report compiled by the late Rep. Tom Lantos of California, a Holocaust survivor and delegate to the Durban conference, who said that Robinson's conduct "left our delegation deeply shocked and saddened" by her remarks about Israel.

Related

Irish Noble Peace Prize Winner shot by Israeli Army VIDEO
Cynthia McKinney
More Evidence: Israel, British Gas & Gaza
Israel poisons Palestinian water
Picture of demolitions in Palestine

Jews boycott Israel

It is really very important to distinguish betweens Jews and Zionists as groups: and to realise that many Jewish people do not support the atrocities of Israel. While Jewish refers to race, Zionist refers to a political attitude about Israel. I do not have any argument with Jews; but I do with Zionists who support Israel's occupation of Palestine, whether they are Jewish or not.

Among Jews who don't support Zionists are Gilad Atzmon, Leonard Cohen, Noam Chomsky among so many others, all geniuses in their own fields.

Many Israeli soldiers have spoken out against the atrocities of Israel here (30 min) and here (6 min). You tube has many such videos in which young jews in Israel have condemned their own government's occupation of Palestine which are very sobering.

Since France recently made it illegal to boycott Israel, I find the article below quite refreshing.

Jews plan Israel's boycott

From The Jewish Chronicle
Leon Symons
July 30, 2009
Source

The JC has revealed plans developed by Jews For Justice For Palestinians (JFJFP) to cause maximum damage to Israel by extending boycotts.

At the anti-Israel organisation’s recent annual meeting, activists discussed a survey of its members which showed clear support for a comprehensive boycott. More than 400 JFJFP activists responded to the survey.

The meeting considered three options, based on the survey results: “1. That we maintain our present position; 2. That we will consider, on a case-by-case basis, smart boycotts against the occupation; 3. That we will consider, on a case-by-case basis, smart boycotts but
not restricted to the occupation.”

The meeting voted for the third option, which would enable JFJFP to initiate or support boycotts of all Israeli goods and services.

In a letter sent to members on Monday, after the meeting, the executive recommends option two, which would widen the group’s activities beyond its current focus on the settlements to taking in everything connected to what it terms the “occupation”.

This would mean boycotting companies, goods and services that could be shown to be connected directly to the Occupied Territories. That would include targeting those who refuse to say whether or not they worked in the Occupied Territories.

In explaining the detail of this option, the JFJFP executive say: “By targeting Israel’s policy of colonisation, this also avoids the accusation — important for an organisation like JFJFP — of being anti-Israel.”

Recommending option two, the executive say it is, among other things, best “for minimising the inevitable misrepresentation of our position in such a way as to make work directed at those who belong to Jewish communal organisations much harder than it is at present”.

The survey shows that the executive is worried about the impact of adopting a wider boycott strategy on the group’s reputation among Jews. Question two asks: “Do you think adopting a broader boycott position would make JFJFP more, or less, attractive to Jews in Britain who take issue with Israeli policy but have not chosen to express that concern by becoming a JFJFP signatory?”

Two-hundred and forty seven out of the 417 respondents said they thought JFJFP would be much less attractive. Another 96 stayed neutral.

JFJFP currently supports a ban on the importation of all settlement produce and claims it was “a very significant contributor to the process whereby the UK government strongly objected to the mislabelling of goods produced in the occupied Palestinian territories”.

It also supports the boycott of companies such as Caterpillar, which it says is “involved in home demolitions and the destruction of, for example, olive groves in order to build the barrier”.

It backs the boycott of companies involved in supporting settlements and demands “an end to the sale of arms to Israel and any purchase of arms or security equipment from Israel”.

The meeting also included a series of workshops exploring how anti-Israel activists should respond to various situations, using recent events as the basis for discussion.

These included the Zionist Federation’s hire of the Bloomsbury Theatre, the Edinburgh Film Festival’s acceptance of Israeli sponsorship and the announcement of a Leonard Cohen concert in Israel.

Read the full results here