“A caravan of vehicles blocked inbound lanes on Airport Way to protest the conflict in Gaza on Monday afternoon, the Port of Portland reports.”

  • JentuEnglish
    4·
    11 months ago

    In 1977 when anti-apartheid protesters determined that the federal government wasn’t budging on its stance on apartheid in South Africa, they got a bunch of businesses and investors to end their involvement with the apartheid state (which had a major impact on getting the apartheid system dismantled). Due to the fact that there are anti-BDS laws specifically for Israel, it’s not possible to take this approach this time, so the only way to get businesses who invest in Israel to stop funneling money over there is to stop sources of income (or block the entrance of major contributors like they did for Disneyland). It’s not that protesters think they’ll get Biden to change his mind, it’s that protesters want to hurt the bottom line of all companies until something changes. Since the US gov listens to corporations way more than civilians, this is about the only way to do it without violence.

    About your sentence on it needing to be a much larger concerted effort with air travel, I’d say that it really doesn’t. If companies notice that they suddenly won’t be making as much money as they did the previous quarter (even if they’re still making tons of money), they freak out.

    • almar_quigley@lemmy.worldEnglish
      4·
      11 months ago

      Let me know when this kind of protesting has an effect. What source does pdx airport have for access to any of these peoples bottom lines? I’m not against protesting by any means, but this is a little like people telling me to recycle as if that can even remotely offset what corporations are doing to the environment (I do recycle for the record). That change needs to be taken to the right place to be enacted against the right people. This protest probably only served to inconvenience a bunch of random citizens.

      • JentuEnglish
        3·
        11 months ago

        Assuming people from the greater Portland area fly into and out of PDX, here’s some places headquartered in the area that could be affected by protests at the airport:

        • Intel, which must have quite a bit of airline traffic at PDX invests heavily in Israel.
        • Adidas, which must have quite a bit of airline traffic at PDX uses an Israeli Manufacturer.
        • Wells Fargo (and BoA), which must have quite a bit of airline traffic at PDX has given loans to Israeli weapons manufacturers.
        • Boeing, which must have quite a bit of airline traffic at PDX provides weapons to Israel.
        • HP, which must have quite a bit of airline traffic at PDX runs the biometric ID system that Israel uses to restrict Palestinian movement as well as other systems for the IDF.
        • Siemens, which must have quite a bit of airline traffic at PDX is involved in the building of Israeli infrastructure.

        So while, yes, the protests definitely inconvenienced random citizens, it has a pretty good chance of also affecting these companies as well.