Chapters Indigo Founders Funding Israeli Soldiers
April 3, 2007
This is something that I just learned about yesterday but has been out for a couple of months or so. It turns out that the founders of Chapters Indigo, the Canadian online book seller, founded a an organization to fund the educational aspirations of ex-Israeli soldiers.
The organization is called Heseg and distributes up to $3M per year to provide scholarships and other support to former 'Lone Soldiers' in the Israeli military. 'Lone Soldiers' are individuals who have no family in Israel but decide to join the Israeli military.
In essence its their own little incentive program to recruit soldiers for the Israeli military.
Now, I personally haven't done anything by way of research into Palestinian Israeli history of conflict and have of course learned nothing useful from the mainstream news over the past 20 years (other than the mantra about Palestinian terrorism over and over ad naseum). My first impression was what is a Canadian corporation doing taking sides in a foreign war (yes to me its an ongoing war) and actively recruiting for a foreign army. But, its not really the corporation doing it but rather it's majority shareholders. Then, on the other side, what do I care if someone wants to spend their money supporting a cause of their choosing.
I do know that the Isreali's have managed to strategically envelope some of the best Palestinian farms lands in their building of their wall. Not cool.
Below is a video from a protest calling for a boycott.
Protest Video
I noticed that the commentator didn't present clear rationale for their protest other than colonization and apartheid in general terms. Their probably so wrapped up in their own position that they think it's obvious - it's not. And I really don't have time to find out the whole story.
Not sure what to make of it really. We all know that our resource companies (oil, gas, mining and others) are exploiters and destroyers of developing nations but when I find out a bookseller's owners are actively promoting war by recruiting for a foreign government, I get disturbed.
I guess I might be more sympathetic to the Palestinians if the Arab world hadn't attacked the Israeli's so many times over the years. But who knows in the current upside down, black is white and white is black world, the Israelis might have taken a page the the CIA handbook and provoked some of those wars. File this one in the who the hell knows file.
Heseg web site
Call to boycott from verbena19.wordpress.com