Studio Ceramics, a premier boutique purveyor of high quality wall and floor tiles, is the first company ever sued under a new Israeli law banning “discrimination according to place of residence” after telling a journalist who lives in a settlements that it “does not deliver to the territories.”
Should Studio Ceramics ought to be forced to deliver their tiles and toilets to the territories, even if doing so is (a) more dangerous, (b) more expensive, and (c) a contravention of their political beliefs?
This is a segment from The “Tragic Flaws” Edition.
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Photo: Studio Ceramica’s Playground tile collection catalogue.
If I were a legal alien in Israel, say with a post of some kind in Israel proper for a year, the geographic delivery law discussed in this piece would cover me as well. If an Israeli citizen next door can get delivery, so can I. The law is then not limited to Israeli citizens. If a Palestinian lives in the territories in the same radius distance as an Israeli citizen who enjoys delivery, then so long as the Palestinian is a bona fide resident she must enjoy delivery too. A business cannot be expected to determine legal residence beyond an address.
The only exception I see might be endangerment. At times in the US there have been areas firetrucks would not enter at night without police escort. A fortiori so for private business; since no escort would be forthcoming, they would not enter–and I suspect this true of ambulances at times. In this West Bank case, a claim of endangerment to avoid same radius delivery by civil commerce amounts to civil society creation of apartheid. The State, forcing delivery for settlers, induces civil commerce to blot out the prior resident class of Palestinians. But at no point does the State forbid delivery to these areas. The State, then, can claim it has not mandated apartheid separation. To say, then, that evolving apartheid is solely possible as a State act is here seen false, since it is unrealistic to expect the IDF to escort individual delivery vehicles. Fear, induced by IDF protection of settlements, which includes the appropriation of security zone buffers, thus induces change in civil commerce attitude. The State acts, civil society extends the attitude underlying the act.
Congratulations, National Right. You’ve crafted another winner.