Kauft Nicht Bei Araber!

I don't like adopting Nazi analogies. I really don't. And people who assert that Israel is a Nazi state are, I think, suffering from -- being generous -- a gross lack of proportion. Less generously, they're simply being anti-Semitic.

But to say that Israel is not the sum of its worst elements is not to say that its worst elements don't exist. Israel has its fascists, same as everywhere else. And right now, a group of far-right extremists are mapping out businesses in Jerusalem which employ Arabs, the goal being "to warn the public" against buying from them. In every respect, it is reminiscent of the anti-Semitic boycotts against Jewish shops that were Nazi bread-and-butter (and live on in the BDS movement).

The persons behind this boycott call hail from the Yitzhar settlement -- a center of Jewish extremist activity and noted terrorist hotspot. Indeed, many of the activists are currently in Jerusalem because they've been barred from the West Bank, on suspicion that they were plotting terrorist attacks. So they likely aren't just racist extremists, but violent racist extremists too.

I ask again -- what is the policy for excommunication? How do we formally expel these insults to Judaism from the faith? They don't deserve to be considered part of our people, and if the Israeli government isn't willing to crackdown against "price tag" fanatics, then its the religious bodies that are going to have to step up to the plate.