Democracy Gone Astray

Democracy, being a human construct, needs to be thought of as directionality rather than an object. As such, to understand it requires not so much a description of existing structures and/or other related phenomena but a declaration of intentionality.
This blog aims at creating labeled lists of published infringements of such intentionality, of points in time where democracy strays from its intended directionality. In addition to outright infringements, this blog also collects important contemporary information and/or discussions that impact our socio-political landscape.

All the posts here were published in the electronic media – main-stream as well as fringe, and maintain links to the original texts.

[NOTE: Due to changes I haven't caught on time in the blogging software, all of the 'Original Article' links were nullified between September 11, 2012 and December 11, 2012. My apologies.]

Thursday, October 02, 2014

Poll: 24 percent of Jewish Israelis boycott Arab businesses

Nearly a quarter of Israeli Jewish consumers are boycotting Arab businesses, a poll released on Tuesday found.

Some 24 percent of respondents said they refuse to patron Arab shops, down from 47 percent during a similar Geocartography poll conducted during the Gaza war, Globes reported.

However, the figures should be taken with a grain of salt: According to the poll, only 29 percent of respondents said they did in fact boycott Arab businesses during the war, meaning that 18 percent out of the 47 percent polled during the hostilities between Israel and the Palestinian factions in Gaza did not abide by their professed convictions.

According to Globes, the new survey found that 51 percent said they would boycott businesses that refused to fire employees who spoke out against the Israeli army, down from 57 percent during the war.

Globes reported that Arab supermarkets, which suffered a severe drop in sales during the war, have yet to fully recuperate, a month after the war. According to a large supplier, sales are down by 10 percent compared to before the conflict.

However, the owner of the Big Zol supermarket chain, Yusef Askar, told Globes that though sales dropped by 50 percent during the war in his Shfaram branch, half of whose customers are Jews, the tide has since turned.

"Our shops are in the Jewish neighborhoods, and only one shop is in an Arab neighborhood. The Jews stopped coming to the Shfaram branch, and came back when the war was over," he told Globes.

Original Article
Source: haaretz.com/
Author: Haaretz

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