In the Words of Uri Avnery, a leader of the Israeli Left: A Boycott Against Israel Will Not Work
This past week, Israel was afforded the visit by a group called "The Elders," comprised of former heads of state and moral leaders like Archbishop Desmond Tutu of South Africa. Avnery, a former journalist and Knesset member and today, in his mid 80s, a leader of Gush Shalom, which is a fairly far left portion of the peace camp, writes a response to calls for global activists not to use an international boycott against Israel. He writes this for the Palestinian news agency, Ma'an and it can be accessed on line, but considering Avnery's prominence on the left in Israel and the respect he yields, too, among 'post-Zionists,' anti-or non-Zionists, in addition to many on the Zionist left, I am reprinting it here on the jump. It is, I think, an eloquent argument to the left on why Israel is not South Africa.
Avnery, from Ma'an:
Tutu's prayer - Uri Avnery
Published yesterday (updated) 01/09/2009 00:51
How much did the boycott of South Africa actually contribute to the fall of the racist regime? This week I talked with Desmond Tutu about this question, which has been on my mind for a long time.
No one is better qualified to answer this question than he. Tutu, the South African Anglican archbishop and Nobel Prize laureate, was one of the leaders of the fight against apartheid and, later, the chairman of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission which investigated the crimes of the regime.
This week he visited Israel with the Elders, an organization of elder statesmen from all over the world set up by Nelson Mandela.
The matter of the boycott came up again this week after an article by Dr Neve Gordon appeared in the Los Angeles Times, calling for a worldwide boycott of Israel. He cited the example of South Africa to show how a worldwide boycott could compel Israel to put an end to the occupation, which he compared to the apartheid regime.
I have known and respected Neve Gordon for many years. Before becoming a lecturer at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, he organized many demonstrations against the separation wall in the Jerusalem area, in which I, too, took part.
I am sorry that I cannot agree with him this time - neither about the similarity with South Africa nor about the efficacy of a boycott of Israel.
There are several opinions about the contribution of the boycott to the success of the anti-apartheid struggle. According to one view, it was decisive. Another view claims its impact was marginal. Some believe that it was the collapse of the Soviet Union that was the decisive factor. After that, the US and its allies no longer had any reason for support the regime in South Africa, which until then had been viewed as a pillar of the worldwide struggle against communism.
"The boycott was immensely important," Tutu told me. "Much more than the armed struggle."
It should be remembered that, unlike Mandela, Tutu was an advocate of non-violent struggle. During the 28 years Mandela languished in prison, he could have walked free at any moment, if he had only agreed to sign a statement condemning "terrorism." He refused.
"The importance of the boycott was not only economic, but also moral," the archbishop explained. "South Africans are, for example, crazy about sports. The boycott, which prevented their teams from competing abroad, hit them very hard. But the main thing was that it gave us the feeling that we are not alone, that the whole world is with us. That gave us the strength to continue."
To show the importance of the boycott he told me the following story: In 1989, the moderate white leader, Frederic Willem de Klerk, was elected president of South Africa. Upon assuming office he declared his intention to set up a multiracial regime. "I called to congratulate him, and the first thing he said was: Will you now call off the boycott?"
It seems to me that Tutu's answer emphasizes the huge difference between the South African reality at the time and ours today.
The South African struggle was between a large majority and a small minority. Among a general population of almost 50 million, the whites amounted to less than 10 percent. That means that more than 90 percent of the country's inhabitants supported the boycott, in spite of the argument that it hurt them, too.
In Israel, the situation is the very opposite. The Jews amount to more than 80 percent of Israel's citizens, and constitute a majority of some 60 percent throughout the country between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. 99.9 percent of the Jews oppose a boycott on Israel.
They will not feel the "the whole world is with us," but rather that "the whole world is against us."
In South Africa, the worldwide boycott helped in strengthening the majority and steeling it for the struggle. The impact of a boycott on Israel would be the exact opposite: it would push the large majority into the arms of the extreme right and create a fortress mentality against the "anti-Semitic world."
(The boycott would, of course, have a different impact on the Palestinians, but that is not the aim of those who advocate it.)
Peoples are not the same everywhere. It seems that the blacks in South Africa are very different from the Israelis, and from the Palestinians, too. The collapse of the oppressive racist regime did not lead to a bloodbath, as could have been predicted, but on the contrary: to the establishment of the Truth and Reconciliation Committee. Instead of revenge, forgiveness. Those who appeared before the commission and admitted their misdeeds were pardoned. That was in tune with Christian belief, and that was also in tune with the Jewish Biblical promise: "Whoso confesseth and forsaketh [his sins] shall have mercy." (Proverbs 28:13)
I told the bishop that I admire not only the leaders who chose this path but also the people who accepted it.
One of the profound differences between the two conflicts concerns the Holocaust.
Centuries of pogroms have imprinted on the consciousness of the Jews the conviction that the whole world is out to get them. This belief was reinforced a hundredfold by the Holocaust. Every Jewish Israeli child learns in school that "the entire world was silent" when the six million were murdered. This belief is anchored in the deepest recesses of the Jewish soul. Even when it is dormant, it is easy to arouse it.
(That is the conviction which made it possible for Avigdor Lieberman, last week, to accuse the entire Swedish nation of cooperating with the Nazis, because of one idiotic article in a Swedish tabloid.)
It may well be that the Jewish conviction that "the whole world is against us" is irrational. But in the life of nations, as indeed in the life of individuals, it is irrational to ignore the irrational.
The Holocaust will have a decisive impact on any call for a boycott of Israel. The leaders of the racist regime in South Africa openly sympathized with the Nazis and were even interned for this in World War II. Apartheid was based on the same racist theories as inspired Adolf Hitler. It was easy to get the civilized world to boycott such a disgusting regime. The Israelis, on the other hand, are seen as the victims of Nazism. The call for a boycott will remind many people around the world of the Nazi slogan "Kauft nicht bei Juden!" - don't buy from Jews.
That does not apply to every kind of boycott. Some 11 years ago, the Gush Shalom movement, in which I am active, called for a boycott of products from the settlements. Its intention was to separate the settlers from the Israeli public, and to show that there are two kinds of Israelis. The boycott was designed to strengthen those Israelis who oppose the occupation, without becoming anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic. Since then, the European Union has been working hard to close the gates of the EU to the products of the settlers, and almost nobody has accused it of anti-Semitism.
One of the main battlefields in our fight for peace is Israeli public opinion. Most Israelis believe nowadays that peace is desirable but impossible (because of the Arabs, of course). We must convince them not that peace would be good for Israel, but that it is realistically achievable.
When the archbishop asked what we, the Israeli peace activists, are hoping for, I told him: We hope for Barack Obama to publish a comprehensive and detailed peace plan and to use the full persuasive power of the United States to convince the parties to accept it. We hope that the entire world will rally behind this endeavor. And we hope that this will help to set the Israeli peace movement back on its feet and convince our public that it is both possible and worthwhile to follow the path of peace with Palestine.
No one who entertains this hope can support the call for boycotting Israel. Those who call for a boycott act out of despair. And that is the root of the matter.
Neve Gordon and his partners in this effort have despaired of the Israelis. They have reached the conclusion that there is no chance of changing Israeli public opinion. According to them, no salvation will come from within. One must ignore the Israeli public and concentrate on mobilizing the world against the State of Israel. (Some of them believe anyhow that the State of Israel should be dismantled and replaced by a bi-national state.)
I do not share either view - neither the despair of the Israeli people, to which I belong, nor the hope that the world will stand up and compel Israel to change its ways against its will. For this to happen, the boycott must gather worldwide momentum, the US must join it, the Israeli economy must collapse and the morale of the Israeli public must break.
How long will this take? Twenty Years? Fifty years? Forever?
I am afraid that this is an example of a faulty diagnosis leading to faulty treatment. To be precise: the mistaken assumption that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict resembles the South African experience leads to a mistaken choice of strategy.
True, the Israeli occupation and the South African apartheid system have certain similar characteristics. In the West Bank, there are roads "for Israelis only." But the Israeli policy is not based on race theories, but on a national conflict. A small but significant example: in South Africa, a white man and a black woman (or the other way round) could not marry, and sexual relations between them were a crime. In Israel there is no such prohibition. On the other hand, an Arab Israeli citizen who marries an Arab woman from the occupied territories (or the other way round) cannot bring his or her spouse to Israel. The reason: safeguarding the Jewish majority in Israel. Both cases are reprehensible, but basically different.
In South Africa there was total agreement between the two sides about the unity of the country. The struggle was about the regime. Both whites and blacks considered themselves South Africans and were determined to keep the country intact. The whites did not want partition, and indeed could not want it, because their economy was based on the labor of the blacks.
In this country, Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs have nothing in common - not a common national feeling, not a common religion, not a common culture and not a common language. The vast majority of the Israelis want a Jewish (or Hebrew) state. The vast majority of the Palestinians want a Palestinian (or Islamic) state. Israel is not dependent on Palestinian workers - on the contrary, it drives the Palestinians out of the working place. Because of this, there is now a worldwide consensus that the solution lies in the creation of the Palestinian state next to Israel.
In short: the two conflicts are fundamentally different. Therefore, the methods of struggle, too, must necessarily be different.
Back to the archbishop, an attractive person whom it is impossible not to like on sight. He told me that he prays frequently, and that his favorite prayer goes like this (I quote from memory): "Dear God, when I am wrong, please make me willing to see my mistake. And when I am right - please make me tolerable to live with."
The author is an Israeli writer and founder of the Gush Shalom peace movement. A member of the militant Zionist Irgun movement as a teenager, Avnery served in Israel's Knesset from 1965-74 and 1979-81.
You write like a Pravda hack.
Avnery wrote his opinion in response to the growing support for BDS among Israeli leftists, including Neve Gordon, who article prompted Avnery's response. You did not quote Neve Gordon, or any of the other Israelis who support BDS. You of course wouldn't quote a Palestinian opinion on the effectiveness of BDS. Because they don't matter, do they? Quality journalism!!!
BTW, here are's a critique of Avinary:
http://azvsas.blogspot.com/2009/08/uri-avnery-muddle-headed-zionist.html
September 1, 2009 12:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have a simple question: If Avnery's thinking is correct, then why are we boycotting Muslim states (Iran) and Muslim peoples (e.g., Gazans) with which we disagree?
I guess restricting the diets of Jews is offensive, but restricting the diets of Palestinians is "instructive."
September 1, 2009 1:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
we "boycott" countries that seized Americans as hostages and will not submit their supposed nuclear energy program to outside inspections, not because of their religious beliefs.
September 1, 2009 2:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
False. The International Atomic Energy Agency has, in fact, been inspecting Iran's nuclear facilities. Perhaps you are referring to the denigrated Israeli propaganda that US intelligence officially disagrees with.
September 1, 2009 3:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
I didn't know that the people in Gaza had a nuclear program. Or are you unable to distinguish between an Iranian and a Palestinian?
September 1, 2009 4:39 PM | Reply | Permalink
why are we boycotting Muslim states (Iran) and Muslim peoples (e.g., Gazans) with which we disagree
Do you believe those boycotts are achieving their intended goals?
September 1, 2009 5:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, unless the goal is starve innocent people. This is why the opposition to the BDS movement is so ironic. People in rich societies react in horror at the thought they could be sanctioned. But think nothing of talking about "crippling sanctions" on others. Yes, Hillary Clinton, I talking about you.
September 1, 2009 7:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
As an Israeli who read Uri Avnery for almost 50 years (since his first weekly "Haolam Haze"), let me tell you that if he thought a boycott could help take Israel out of the occupied territories, he wouldn't hesitate one second to support it. But his analysis is right on. The Holocaust syndrome is still so strong among the Israelis that such a boycott surely will backfire. However, a boycott on the produces of the settlements in the West Bank can be effective and should be imposed.
September 1, 2009 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
The success of a boycott would depend entirely on who was backing it.
Israel is unlikely to be very much disturbed by a boycott lead by Iran. But it would be exceptionally disturbed by a boycott led by members of the Jewish diaspora.
The South African boycott was effective because the Whites considered themselves an integral part of the Anglosphere. And when the boycott began they had a huge amount of support for their position from the likes of Enoch Powell and the racist Monday Club faction of the Tory party in the UK and the overt supporters of segregation like Jessie Helms, Strom Thurmond and so on in the US.
Could the same happen in Israel, well of course it could. That is precisely why everyone gets so excited about the issue.
There are many problems with the factual basis for the claims made. The figures cited in the article overstate the proportion of Jews living in the borders controlled by Israel for a start. Jews are at best a bare majority of the population. That is why it is so important to pretend that the two state solution remains viable.
It is not too hard to see how this plays out from here. The US Israel lobby is already over-fond of playing the 'holocaust' card and the 'Nazi' card. I have seen plenty of AIPAC/CAMERA stuff that equates Josh Marshall to a Nazi, what do you think they say about Jews who are less sympathetic to Israel? Or non-Jews?
Ultimately the desperation of these people to deny any and all criticism, even the mere possibility of legitimate criticism of Israel will have the opposite effect to the one they intend. Every day they will demand that people take sides. Well, we have just seen where that has left the GOP.
September 1, 2009 7:52 PM | Reply | Permalink
Boycott first, ask questions later
September 1, 2009 1:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
Boycott! Israel's badge of victimhood has expired. Enough!
September 1, 2009 1:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
Highly disingenuous claims abound here. If the occupation is in large part an effort to preserve Israel as a Jewish state, then how much difference does it make that the South African regime subscribed to a different race theory than the Israelis? Both are subjecting indigenous populations to oppressive control, severely restricted rights, and economic deprivation in the service of a project to maintain one ethnicity's control of the State.
Also, the boycott is a red herring as long as billions in U.S. foreign aid directly subsidizes the occupation, the expropriation of Palestinian lands, and the building of settlements. Stop buying things from Israel? Why don't we just stop giving Israel money to steal land from the Palestinians and imprison them in huge open-air jails first?
September 1, 2009 2:04 PM | Reply | Permalink
DSC,
BDS is a call to end cooperation with the state of Israel and all institutions and organizations complicit in the oppression of Palestinians.
Ending support for Israel is one part of it. There is no contradiction. As a consumer and member of various institutions, (trade unions, universities, etc) BDS allows you to participate and help rather than wait for the US government. If you think you can stop aid, by all means do it.
September 1, 2009 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
But Avnery would have people do neither.
And by this logic, there is no sanction or overt pressure that could EVER be exerted against Israel as a nation without confusion arising over Hitler's genocide.
And what form would this "persuasive power" take? Verbal cajoling? And why would this gentle and loving nudging motivate the Israelis to finally do what is right any more than any of the other nudging over the last half century?
For Avnery, there appears to be little urgency, little "desparation." Any overt pressure such as a boycott will be confused with the Holocaust. Armed struggle is out of the question. For Avnery, there's all the time in the world to just talk about it for another 60 years.
Ignoring the disingenousness of that statement, that makes it acceptable how? And it's not just a "national conflict" -- clearly the Israelis view it as a religious and ethnic conflict as well, as Avnery himself makes clear later in his piece.
That's rich. He's saying that the occupying Afrikaners from Europe and native South Africans had so much in common (because Afrikaners exploited black labor), while the Semitic peoples living within the borders of Israel are just sooooo different. Historically, this is simply ludicrous.
This anti-boycott piece is just a shallow rationalization for doing nothing, doing nothing while settlements continue to expand and the Palestinians go without, doing nothing and waiting for Obama as Jesus to step into the Holy Land and make peace with words alone.
Just because differences, real or imagined, can be pointed out between South Africa and Israel does not mean Israel is not a reprehensible apartheid state, especially as it pretends to be some gleaming democracy. And I'll tell you what's not moral, Mr. Josh -- to allow this gross injustice to continue without taking any concrete action.
September 1, 2009 2:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Avnery should fear a boycott of Israel because it would be effective.
September 1, 2009 2:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
twirling fartknocker - That was beautiful.
Unfortunately Josh has his head so far up Zionism that he can't hear the truth - but the Zionism Bamboozle must continue!
September 1, 2009 6:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
keep in mind that tpm and josh are now becoming part of the media establishment. congratulations, josh! i love your cafe. as such, tpm needs to show aipac, adl, etc. that tpm is on the 'right' side of the i-p conflict. moreover, tpm is expecting big $ from marc andreeson. don't want to rock the boat with accusations of josh being a 'self-hating' jew and running an 'anti-semitic' website.
by the way, i love jews who are called self-hating jews by other jews.
September 3, 2009 8:14 AM | Reply | Permalink
Why does Israel think it is above all others?
http://www.wrmea.com/backissues/0393/9303040.htm
September 1, 2009 2:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
They are the "chosen" people chosen by GOD.
September 1, 2009 4:53 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, they are the People Who Chose Themselves. Has God ever told you directly that the ancient Israelites were "chosen" or were you shown a book (series of scrolls actually) that was originally written in Hebrew/Aramaic/Greek that told you so?
September 1, 2009 7:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
The "chosen people" idea is bull and has really very little to do with explaining anything.
First, at least all monotheistic religions claim a privileged relation with God, and some other as well. Do you know what "Jesus Saves" means? It means the person who says it believes I am damned.
So all this harping about Jews claiming they are chosen is anti-Jewish bigotry masquerading as support for Palestinian rights. Please cut it out.
When you add ethnicity into it it gets worst. But again, Christians should own it. The Dutch protestants were the first to call themselves the Chosen People as a nation when they fought for independence against Spain. And then the colonists in America adopted this idea, calling it "manifest destiny" and used it to justify their genocides. Germans also used it, as you know the "Deustchland uber alles" refrain most likely.
Early Zionists adopted the racist concepts of choseness from white christian ideology, not from Jewish religion which they generaly spurned. Today you have in Israel a resurgence of "god chose us so we can kill Arabs" ideology on the Right. But this is not the cause of the conflict. on the contrary, this is mostly a post 1967 phenomenon that is getting worse because it is a RESULT of the occupation.
September 2, 2009 6:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
One of the problems with talking about "the Zionists" is that they were a diverse lot. Some were very religious and worried for the Jews' religious soul. Some may have taken over Christian notions of "chosenness," but that idea is in Judaism (or was) and Judaism is its principle provenance for Zionists (as far as I've read).
That said, I agree with you basic point here.
September 2, 2009 3:54 PM | Reply | Permalink
I'm married to a Palestinian, so that is the basis of my support for their cause.
And opposing the ludicrous claim of "Choseness" is hardly bigotry, any more than oppposing White Supremacy or Manifest Destiny makes me bigoted against my fellow whites.
The lie that God gave Canaan to any group is the jet fuel for the engine of ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.
September 2, 2009 6:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a matter of fact, that is simply false.
For the last 2000 years, Jews living all over the world believed God promised them the land of Israel. That Jewish belief, objectively, did not lead any Jews to commit any crime against Palestinians for 2,000 years. Neturei Karta, a strongly pro-Palestinian religious Jewish group, opposes the state of Israel. And every one of them believes they are the chosen people and God promised them the land of Israel.
The people who invented Zionism were secular, mostly atheists, who read the bible as history/mythology, not as sacred religious texts, and derived their concept of national right over the land from ideas that were popular in Europe among Christians.
Bottom line: some Jews who believe they are chosen by God are pro-Palestinian. And some Jews who don't even believe in God think they have the right to dispossess Palestinians.
Which means that logically, there is no correlation between adherence to the Jewish religious concept of choseness and politics in the Middle East.
September 2, 2009 6:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
PS. apologies for the tone of my initial comment above. It wasn't my intention to disparage your motives.
September 3, 2009 6:29 AM | Reply | Permalink
Thank you for this addendum. I really enjoy your posts, particularly your refusal to accept the standard narrative.
And as you know, original intentions mutate over time. Whatever the original goals of Herzl, his vision hardy reflects those Religious Settlers and the Russians currently plaguing the Palestinians on the West Bank.
September 3, 2009 8:32 AM | Reply | Permalink
Same same.
I did say that there is a resurgence of Jewish fundamentalism in Israel today (and in the US) that interprets the bible in ways that combine Jewish religion and modern racism. That is uncontestable. The problem with the discussion of "chosenness" is that it reverses the historical logic by tracing back Zionist racism to Jewish religious belief. That is historically false. Zionist racism is a variant of European racism that developed in Europe in the 18th century in conjunction with colonialism, whereas Jewish religion in its rabbinical form is 1500 years older. In contrast, the modern Jewish fundamentalism we see today grew under the influence of the success of Zionism on religious Jews, not the other way around.
The equation of Zionism with Jewish religious tradition, beyond being historically false, leads to bad and self-defeating politics. First, it gives Zionism what they want, the right to represent Jews and Jewish identity, and therefore an opportunity to argue that challenging them is antisemitic. Second, it obscures the link between apartheid in Palestine and global Western domination, colonialism, global exploitation and whiteness. And third, because of the latter, it lends itself perfectly to be hijacked by the whole gamut of white supremacists.
September 3, 2009 9:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
As always, any discussion of Israel descends to its right to exist in the first place. I understand, with reluctance, that many non-Jews do not care about a place where Jews could live without being scapegoated for everything that goes wrong, and attacked while the world looks the other way.
There has to be an answer to this problem that does not mean the end of the Jewish state. Settlements are not the answer, of course, not is the claim to the biblical Eretz Yisrael reasonable.
But the world recognized the problem and the State of Israel in 1948, then looked away (as always) when the surrounding states attacked it. Sixty-one years later, the only response many can come up with is to question whether Israel should even exist and to organize a boycott to force Israel to accede to that goal.
As usual.
September 1, 2009 2:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
Those talking points are outdated.
The other Arab states got involved in a war with Israel after a few hundred thousand Palestinians had already been driven from their homes--the fighting between Israeli Jews and Israeli Arabs started in late 1947. The Arabs objected to the UN partition plan which had awarded 55 percent of the land to one-third of the people (Jews, though as it happened, the "Jewish" area had almost as many Arabs living there as Jews).
As for the other Arab states, Transjordan's role was ambiguous at best as an Arab ally, but you really ought to read more about this yourself. It sounds like you still believe in the old heroic stories about Israel's founding, and that things only went wrong after 67 with the settlements. I favor a two state solution because, as Avnery points out, the two sides don't seem to want to live together, but if you examine how Israel became a majority Jewish state (via ethnic cleansing) you might understand why others don't see their right to exist as a Jewish state as morally indisputable.
I myself am skeptical of this boycott for the reasons Avnery gives, though some of his statements are simply ludicrous, as pointed out above. But a targeted boycott aimed at the settlers might work. And I don't think the US should continue its blanket support of Israel no matter how badly they behave. Unless we want to make them the 51st state, but then discrimination based on ethnicity or religion would be outlawed.
September 1, 2009 3:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
The existence of a "Jewish state" requires some acceptance that the state will remain in the control of Jews, as uncomfortable as that may make others feel. The history of the relationship between Jews and those who hate Jews simply for that reason, has required that such a state be established. (You do not agree with this, as is your right, but your historical "truths" are yours; I am not required to accept them or the blindness they represent).
The attack that followed was not in defense of any "Palestinians" but the very establishment of a Jewish state in what was called "Palestine." It continues to this day.
To use the phrase "ethnic cleansing" a phrase which suggests what happened in Serbia is taking place in Israel, is nothing short of disgusting, but we have come to expect this kind of talk, as well as comments above, such as "from where I sit it actually looks like Israel is a huge cause of hard feelings towards the Jews in general and Israeli Jews in specific." There is no reasoning one can do with people who talk this way.
I heard the Soviet emigre musician, Regina Spektor, being interviewed the other day when she was asked whether her family considered returning to Russia, which they left when she was 9. The premise of the question was whether the anit-semitism of the Soviet Union has been ended or lessened in Russia. She said that family members and friends who remained after she left in 1989 said things had, unsuprisingly gotten worse since the communists who oppressed them had been replaced by people who blamed the Jews for the communists in the first place.
Such is the story for centuries. Whatever people don't like is caused by the Jews. If a Jewish state is established, it can be blamed for even more.
Go ahead and boycott Israel. I suspect those who want to do this, have not been among its supporters in the first place.
September 1, 2009 3:57 PM | Reply | Permalink
You know, barth, putting quotation marks around the words Palestinians or Palestine is revealing--and very defeating to any argument based upon actual reality.
September 1, 2009 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Anti-semitism would be a sufficient justification for a Jewish state if it had been established in a land which was not already inhabited by other people. The fact remains that Israel is a Jewish state today because of ethnic cleansing in 1948, and the policies in place today have amount to apartheid. If you aren't willing to recognize this, you're just another ideologue cherrypicking only those facts which agree with your worldview. No one else can cure you of this--you have to be willing to be open-minded, and it doesn't appear that you are. It's easier for you to think that anyone who is aware of facts you find uncomfortable must be an anti-semite--nevermind that I agree that there is hatred on both sides and don't support BDS. I must be bad, because I said something harsher than you want to hear about Israel.
September 2, 2009 9:16 AM | Reply | Permalink
You make some interesting points...
"Anti-semitism would be a sufficient justification for a Jewish state if it had been established in a land which was not already inhabited by other people."
Tintin: So, if I understand you, Zionism isn't racist per se, but only insofar as it shoved other people out of the way.
"The fact remains that Israel is a Jewish state today because of ethnic cleansing in 1948, and the policies in place today have amount to apartheid."
Tintin: I think if you read Morris, you'll see that the cleansing that took place in 1948 was a bit more complex in nature than is often portrayed.
But another point is raised here: Are we re-fighting 1948? Or are we re-fighting 1967? Some people see no difference.
My view is a grave injustice was done to the Palestinians for which Israel is largely, though not solely, responsible. She should lead the movement to repair that injustice by helping to build a Palestinian state, in all practicality, will exist in a federation with Israel and, who knows, maybe other states adjoining. Moreover, given the change in historical circumstances facing the Jewish people, the Zionist ideology has to evolve as well.
Personally--and I admit it's a prejudice--I have a hard time completely giving up the notion of Israel a "safe haven," perhaps because the Holocaust is a relatively recent event (certainly as recent as the Naqba). Nonetheless, anti-Semitism, though not extinguished, is not what it used to be. But I think this "back door" can be made to accommodate a fair and free Israeli society that treats all its citizens equally. And soon, I think, I hope, the felt need for it will disappear entirely.
However, if one says that 1948 coupled with the Zionist ideology is a sin from which Israel can't recover except by undoing 1948, then this is going to be a long, protracted battle. And I'm not sure it's going to be an entirely just battle either. Here's why...
Much talk is made of "the indigenous people" of Palestine. But what does this category really mean? Seems to me the generations of Israelis born in Israel ARE indigenous people under any meaningful definition of the word. Otherwise, you have to say that a people isn't indigenous until they've lived somewhere for, say, 1000 years.
(And then, what are we to say of the Palestinians--many in the elite of their people--who, according to Morris, "moved back" to Lebanon and Syria?)
Am I, an American, an "indigenous" person of North America? My folks came here in 1915. Am I legit? Or do I have to go back to the Mayflower to be legit? Even then, would I be indigenous?
If we accept the theory that Native Americans crossed over the Bering Strait...are they "indigneous?" Most people would say so. But still, it's only a function of time...and all Israel has to do is hang for a few hundred years.
So basically, I think progressives are ill-advised to hang too much on the notion of "indigenous people" as if that were some clear and sacrosanct principle.
September 2, 2009 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
1948 cannot be undone. And if you read the BDS declaration you will see that this is not a demand and that Palestinians do not use that language. But Palestinians must be "made whole" as the language of justice says. First, unequivocally, all aspects of apartheid must go.
That is fairly simple. "indigenous," like black, is a racialized identity created through relations of power. Just as "black" was created through slavery, "indigenous" was created through colonization. The victims of these racializations have reclaimed these words as positive repositories of claims for restitution and redress. Hence, you will never be "indigenous," even if your family is in America since 1600. Because within the racialized order established by colonialism your family was never treated as such.
Likewise, Israeli Jews will never be "indigenous" to Palestine, regardless of where they have been born. A society based on justice and equality might render these racialized identities moot or at least quaint. But we cannot dispose of these racialized identities in the name of equality as long as the power differentials they encapsulate persist.
September 2, 2009 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
That is fairly simple. "indigenous," like black, is a racialized identity created through relations of power. Just as "black" was created through slavery, "indigenous" was created through colonization. The victims of these racializations have reclaimed these words as positive repositories of claims for restitution and redress. Hence, you will never be "indigenous," even if your family is in America since 1600. Because within the racialized order established by colonialism your family was never treated as such.
Usually you are fairly clear but the above passage borders on the word salad category
September 3, 2009 12:35 AM | Reply | Permalink
Calling something you are unfamiliar with "world salad" doesn't help you deepen your understanding. Maybe you don't understand because you never tried to understand what race and racism are.
You can user google, but as a public service, here's a place to start:
http://aad.english.ucsb.edu/docs/Omi-Winant.html
September 3, 2009 4:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
I won't call this "word salad" because I'm tired of the venom on these threads, including my own.
But as to this...
"That is fairly simple. "indigenous," like black, is a racialized identity created through relations of power. Just as "black" was created through slavery, "indigenous" was created through colonization. The victims of these racializations have reclaimed these words as positive repositories of claims for restitution and redress. Hence, you will never be "indigenous," even if your family is in America since 1600. Because within the racialized order established by colonialism your family was never treated as such."
Though I understand what you're saying, it is hard to make sense of it outside of its context within a political theory or analysis. By this definition, for example, I'm "indigenous" to Hungary, or thereabouts. My family was essentially squeezed out of Hungary and fled to the United States in the early part of the last century. Others of them fled in the 30s. Perhaps I have a claim to make there somewhere and somehow.
But in what way does it make sense to call me "indigenous" to Hungary? And even there, though our family history has been lost beyond that, there's some real sense in which we didn't "originate" there, either. So where would I put my claim, assuming I wanted to? Surely, everyone comes from somewhere?
Under your definition, there would appear to be "indigenous" peoples and non-indigenous peoples. Thus the DAR are not indigenous to America, but Native Americans are even if, as is theorized, they walked across the Bering Straits to get here. Yet, if that's true, and they killed off some other folk on their way to the East Coast, can they really be called "indigenous?" After all, they displaced someone to get here.
The word "indigenous" means "innate" or "of the original origin." And some Native American myths have them springing forth from rocks and various parts of the natural environment. When you read around the literature on the IP conflict, much is made of Palestinian blood stretching back to... And much is made of Jewish blood stretching back to... And much is made of Jews not being the Jews of old book, but the Khazari... All in an attempt to prove or disprove each people's indigenous origins in the region. Strikes me all as a vaguely racist attempt to prove ownership of a piece of land based on DNA. But the end result of this reasoning is, I think, that the Jews don't belong anywhere, aren't indigenous anywhere, are visitors everywhere.
If one's right to be anywhere is based ultimately on being "indigenous," then those people who aren't indigenous really don't have a leg to stand on. Ultimately.
I think the word has problems. The only sense I can make of it is "was there before X" and the "before" can be any stretch of time you like, since almost any stretch is arbitrary. I mean, if DAR aren't indigenous to the USA after 400 years, then who is indigenous? Cultural and historical ties feel "cleaner" and more intuitively correct and less racially tainted and more easily verified. Definitions that depend on political and power relations strike me as highly contingent and dependent on how one chooses to analyze the situation.
It would seem also that "indigenous," like black, is a racialized identity created through relations of power" would have some problems in that the colonialist wants to say that the people he finds inhabiting the land are NOT indigenous--that HE is the indigenous one and has a prior or a superior right to the land.
Anyway, your answer is interesting, but it's hard to make sense of it outside of a particular political analysis. Course, maybe any analysis involves a political analysis. But, to bring our last discussion forward, I still think that categories such as "sephardi" and "ashkenazi" have discernible meanings APART their political definitions or functions within a particular power structure. Sure, the sephardim may well be oppressed, but they have an identity and culture that predates, and isn't "touched" by their oppressed situation.
September 3, 2009 7:24 PM | Reply | Permalink
You are trying to create logical categories out of what are historical and political processes that have attached themselves to adjectives. The adjective 'gay' means someone with a generally sunny disposition. The political term means someone who identifies as and claims right as a member of a group based on sexual orientation. The fact you have a sunny disposition doesn't make you gay, and the fact that you were born in the US doesn't make you member of the indigenous people of America. Because these terns evolved out of politics of oppression and resistance to oppression. You are welcome to claim that you have been oppressed by Hungary, organize others with similar history, and claim your passport back, and I'll support that. But as long as that struggle does not objectively exist, the fact that it is theoretically possible does not justify anything.
The political category is the the result of specific struggles not of theoretical possibilities of struggles. So that is simply not true under "my" definition. Indigenous people in America are people who for a couple of centuries, since 1500, were persecuted, murdered and displaced because they were defined as "indigenous" and "natives" disparagingly, at a time when the people who killed them, even though they were often born in the same place, took pride in their "non-indigenous," superior, provenance. That history created the political categories. Now indigenous people are using, inter alia, the tools of international law to seek to expand their rights and recover from these centuries of discrimination and murder.
That if is a complete misrepresentation of the issue. The rights claimed by indigenous people are the rights that non-indigenous people, i.e. colonizers and their descendants, already have. Rights should be based on universal concepts of rights, which are systematically denied to indigenous people BECAUSE they are the indigenous people in their respective areas.
The colonialist can say whatever he or she wants. And truth is the colonizers have use the most outlandish ideas to justify what they did to the natives. And the ideas of the Spanish butchers of Latin America were no less good and convincing for their time. Indeed they were very convincing, as the proof is they convinced most Spaniards. On the other hand, oppression, dispossession, and worse, are facts that are easily visible to the most obtuse observer. So you can listen to the excuse of the colonizer or you can support the rights of the victims. Now go back to the texts of Ben Gurion and Herzl and you will see that they had no problem referring to Palestinians as "natives" at the time when the word meant "someone a European can freely piss upon".
And of course Palestinian and Jewish identity existed before the former became oppressed and the later oppressor in Palestine. That is not my point. These identities, like all identities, were shaped and evolved through these relations of power, some categories changed and other new categories were created that did not exist before. Ashkenazi In Israel no longer means someone who prays to God in the Ashkenaz style, but a Jew of European origin. Mizrahi is a new category that did not exist before and tok over the opposite side of Ashkenazi instead of Sepharadi.etc. Etc. Etc.
September 4, 2009 6:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Okay, we've fallen off the board, and I appreciate your willingness to discuss this at length. I find I understand what you're saying, but still don't fully accept it.
The "gay" seems inapposite, only in that "gays" were never called gay by their oppressors. It was a term THEY took on their own.
As to oppressors creating the category of "indigenous" through the act of oppression...I can't really see it. They called them "natives" because they were there before and because there were differences between the two groups. They ADDED to that label the idea that the former were inferior to them.
Moreover the pro-Palestinian argument seems to rest, ultimately, on the notion that "we were here first, we are indigenous to this region, and you are not." The pro-Zionist argument seems to rest on the notion that the Jews are also "indigenous" to the region--they didn't just come from afar to a place where they didn't "belong."
So defining these words simply in terms of their role in "the struggle" falls short only because you need the term to JUSTIFY the struggle. To take the Hungary example. If I were to take up the struggle for my rights as an indigenous Hungarian, I'd have to point--in some sense--to my having been there "before," if only through my family.
True, right now my "struggle" to reclaim my rights within Hungarian society is theoretical--because I haven't taken it up. But in order to take it up and put a moral foundation under it, I'd have to show that I really WAS from Hungary and wasn't just making up my claim. IOW, I'd have to show that I was, in some sense, "indigenous" to Hungary. And if someone came along and proved I had never been there, and my family had never been there, much of the wind would go out of my struggle (at least in the eyes of others).
Thus, if someone were to prove--as some have tried and failed to do--that the Palestinians filtered into the region to work in Jewish businesses, their moral claim to the land would be less. Their moral claim to be treated WELL in accordance with the rights of man would NOT be less--would be untouched by whether they'd been there a century or an hour--rights like this travel with the person--but their claim to be the rightful possessors of all of historical Palestine would be less.
Anyway, I'll read your link, and thanks for all the information you've provided, including the links to books below. I've checked into some of your Web sites and gather you post under "Gabriel" as well.
September 4, 2009 1:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
In the United States, the racial category of "black" evolved with the consolidation of racial slavery
Carl Gutierrez-Jones
Department of English
University of California, Santa Barbara
Can you explain hoy something such as racial category can evolve out of race? It’s word salad time again in the English Department.
Since when does a person in the department of English claim expertise in such concepts as "race"??
It does not help explaining a word salad by quoting from another's cockamamie pronouncements.
That there are races in the human species is an undeniable fact. Politics has nothing to do with it. Africans consider themselves as Africans and not Caucasians. Asians have no problem identifying themselves as such.
Sure there are ambiguous cases such as Gutierrez tries to make a big deal out of. A person who is of mixed race may be such a case. Like Obama. He himself has no problem and no shame in calling himself an African American and he has said so many times. For you and your English teacher friend to pontificate that Obama or any other person of the African race is somehow a victim of false classification is laughable.
September 3, 2009 10:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
It is like saying thre is no such thing as being bald because there are intermediary cases, as in Jack is getting bald...etc
go read something that is relevant to the topic namely fuzzy logic. Here is a good source
http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/logic-fuzzy/
September 3, 2009 10:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
Youm might as well also look at sortals in the same encyclopedia.
September 3, 2009 10:14 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess I really touched a raw nerve. I also guess you are trained in computer science or another hard science. So take a deep breath, calm down, and try to be a bit more open, as you clearly don't know a lot about what you are talking.
The English department is indeed one of the places in which race and racism are discussed. Since race is constructed in language, through arguments, theory, law, writing etc. knowing how to read texts carefully is a very useful expertise to have when dealing with race and racism, although not a sufficient one.
Here's another good collection of resources: http://www.pbs.org/race/000_About/002_04-background-02.htm
September 4, 2009 7:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm suspicious of your insistence on claiming that people have been conned into calling themselves Black as if there is anything wrong with being a black man. Perhaps a little racism peeking through there?
September 3, 2009 10:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
this is not what I claimed. Educate yourself on the history of racism in the US.
September 4, 2009 7:44 AM | Reply | Permalink
Tintin--
I'm not crazy about any form of nationalism, but it isn't racism until it involves the mistreatment of another group. Unfortunately nationalism often ends up that way.
Israel as a refuge for Jews is a laudable idea--it wouldn't have to involve mistreatment of Arabs. Israel has a haven for Jewish culture is also laudable.
I agree that Israelis are "indigenous" in your sense of the word (meaning born there) and haven't ever said anything that even hints at the notion that they should be forced out of Israel.
I think we agree on intermediate and long-term goals. In the short run, a two state solution where the Palestinian state is truly viable with help from the Israeli side to make up for the damage they've done. Hopefully the two sides learn not just to get along, but actually like and respect each other. And in the long run, maybe both sides would see that they could have all they want by unifying, but that's up to them.
September 2, 2009 12:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sorry, I didn't see this. I agree. And thanks for bringing me up short with respect to Purple.
September 2, 2009 4:55 PM | Reply | Permalink
On, Tintin, you feel the need to cite Benny Morris, who in his dotage has: (1) bemoaned the failure of Israel's Founders to ethnically cleanse all Arabs from Israel; and (2) advocated using nuclear weapons against the Iranians.
The company you keep, eh?
September 2, 2009 6:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
I cite and commend Benny Morris because, AFAIK, his historical writings are accurate. That seems like a good reason.
I think he went off the rails on the Iranian rant, but that doesn't impeach his historical writings.
In fact, he had a HUGE role in cracking the shell around the traditional view of Israel's founding.
September 2, 2009 7:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
Morris wrote one good book, Israel's Border Wars, and one kind of OK book, the Birth of the Palestinian Refugee Problem. It is only kind of OK because Morris writes the history of the refugees with practically no reference to their own experience and accounts. All sources are from Israeli archives and the narrative is devoid of cultural and social analysis, as if all actions take place in the void. Finally, his "theoretical conclusion" is a thin apology that his own evidence belies.
The rest is pretty bad. Righteous Victims in particular is just awful, full of sheer propaganda and little insight.
Morris was the first to write the history of 1948 with declassified IDF records. That is important, but he is hardly the person who discovered 1948. Of course, no Palestinian has ever forgotten it. His work looks more groundbreaking than it is on the basis of the refusal to listen to the accounts of the victims.
September 3, 2009 5:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Did he "refuse," or was he unable?
For example, he notes his inability to access corresponding Arab archives. And in fact, the Jewish archives (I believe) were newly declassified when he started writing.
At least in what I've read, he's not writing a man-on-the-street (whether Jew or Arab) experience of the events. His primary goal, as I understand it, is to get behind the official Israeli view of events.
September 3, 2009 4:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
I guess I should add...who do you suggest I read instead?
September 3, 2009 4:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
http://www.amazon.com/Returns-Zionism-Politics-Scholarship-Israel/dp/1844672603/ref=ntt_at_ep_dpt_1
http://www.amazon.com/Expulsion-Palestinians-Transfer-Political-1882-1948/dp/0887282423/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252011979&sr=1-2
http://www.amazon.com/Image-Reality-Israel-Palestine-Conflict-Revised/dp/1859844421/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252012036&sr=1-3
http://www.amazon.com/Making-Arab-Israeli-Conflict-1947-1951/dp/1850438196/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252012083&sr=1-4
http://www.amazon.com/Israels-Border-Wars-1949-1956-Infiltration/dp/0198292627/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252012116&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Ethnic-Cleansing-Palestine-Ilan-Pappe/dp/1851685553/ref=cm_syf_dtl_pl_9_rdssss0
http://www.amazon.com/Occupiers-Law-Israel-West-Bank/dp/0887282008/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252012521&sr=8-2
http://www.amazon.com/Drinking-Sea-Gaza-Nights-Under/dp/0805057404/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252012560&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Gaza-Strip-Political-Economy-Development/dp/088728261X/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252012587&sr=1-3
http://www.amazon.com/Overlooking-Nazareth-Ethnography-Exclusion-Anthropology/dp/0521564956/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252012743&sr=1-1
I also think literature is a useful tool, especially
http://www.amazon.com/Gate-Sun-Elias-Khoury/dp/0312426704/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1252012668&sr=1-1
http://www.amazon.com/Men-Sun-Other-Palestinian-Stories/dp/0894108573/ref=pd_sim_b_4
September 3, 2009 5:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
Historical method is more complicated than can/wont : here is a good summary of the issue: http://www.merip.org/mer/mer230/230_beinin.html
September 3, 2009 5:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The attack that followed was not in defense of any "Palestinians" but the very establishment of a Jewish state in what was called "Palestine." It continues to this day."
Barth, if you read Benny Morris, I think you'll come away with an appreciation for the complexity of what happened. And I don't mean this to attack your position, as the same is true for ALL the positions on what happened and why.
Thus far in my reading, it's not at all clear that the surrounding Arab states objected to a Jewish state per se.
September 2, 2009 10:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Barth! "the world recognized the problem"? Who recognized what problem? I don't recall many nations having an input into the creation of the Racist State of Israel . . . .
and richard f - I only hate racists that act like you. If Israel stops being a racist state, it will get the support it needs. As for now, it needs to be boycotted and nudged towards extinction. Spend all the money you want on Israeli goods - they are going to need it when we cut off their welfare checks.
September 1, 2009 3:51 PM | Reply | Permalink
I wasn't around in 1948, but I gather that the United Nations resolved the Mandate by establishing, uh,two independent states. The Jews agreed to this and, hence, the State of Israel was born and quickly recognized by most of the world's governments. (I am sorry you were not consulted.)
The Arab dominated states promptly declared war. Two of them have ceased their war; the others continue to this day.
September 1, 2009 8:13 PM | Reply | Permalink
What kind of war is Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States fighting? The never ending war for more bling?
These David & Goliath stories were always false.
September 1, 2009 8:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The United Nations General Assembly approved yesterday a proposal to partition Palestine into two states, one Arab and the other Jewish, that are to become fully independent by Oct.1. The vote was 33 to 13 with two abstentions and one delegation, the Siamese, absent.
The decision was primarily a result of the fact that the delegations of the United States and the Soviet Union, which were at loggerheads on every other important issue before the Assembly, stood together on partition. Andrei A. Gromyko and Herschel V. Johnson both urged the Assembly yesterday not to agree to further delay but to vote for partition at once.
The Assembly disregarded last minute Arab efforts to effect a compromise. Although the votes of a dozen or more delegations see-sawed to the last, supporters of partition had two votes more than the required two-thirds majority, or a margin of three."
How Members Voted
The roll-call vote was as follows: For (33) - Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Brazil, Canada, Costa Rica, Czechoslovakia, Denmark, Dominican Republic, Ecuador, France, Guatemala, Haiti, Iceland, Liberia, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Nicaragua, Norway, Panama, Paraguay, Peru Philippines, Poland, Sweden, Ukraine, South Africa, Uruguay, the Soviet Union, the United States, Venezuela, White Russia.
Against (13) - Afghanistan, Cuba, Egypt, Greece, India, Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Turkey, Yemen.
Abstentions (10) - Argentina, Chile, China, Colombia, El Salvador, Ethiopia, Honduras, Mexico, United Kingdom, Yugoslavia.
Absent (1) - Siam.
Above from http://www.nytimes.com/learning/general/onthisday/big/1129.html#article
So, barth. Some people may have a problem with your acceptance of this United Nations proclamation. I do. It is fucked up. Look at that roll call and tell us what it represents to you.
September 1, 2009 8:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Seems to me you can't argue for certain UN resolutions and against others. This argument is circular: You like certain resolutions and you don't like others. Israel likes some and doesn't like others. Where does that leave you?
September 2, 2009 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
"Where does that leave you?" Posted by Tintin
It leaves me with the Powers That Be telling everyone to "STFU" and "do what we say".
There is no justice in the continuing ethnic cleansing of Palestine. There will never be peace for a Jewish Israel.
September 2, 2009 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Britain voted against the end of its mandate in Palestine.
I don't know what other conclusions you are drawing from this, but an endless war doesn't seem to be a legitimate response to it.
But, then again, the bulk of the comments below this post display the same centuries long hatred for Jews that we have certainly come to expect. Nobody has ever claimed, for instance, that Jews are the only group to suffer; indeed, Jews have been at the forefront of the campaign for civil rights for all Americans and against other forms of racism throughout the world.
The program under which Jews would be systematically exterminated was established in a western nation, said to be as advanced a civilization as there was on earth. People throughout Europe and this country (including some Jews) consistently said that reports of what was going on in Germany were exaggerated, but the eyewitness accounts, not just of prisoners, but of General Eisenhower and the news correspondents accompanying the AEF, showed just the opposite, though, of course, holocaust deniers continue to peddle their garbage.
The again, maybe this is worth listening to
or you can read this
All of this followed centuries of pogroms and Dreyfuss and every other excuse to murder or otherwise beat up on Jews. The tenor of so much of the hateful bile in this series of comments is no different.
Look, you can keep blogging about how you don't like Jews because of Israel, or accuse us of trying to "kick the next guy in the ass" or the other vile shit passed off as commentary from a progressive web site but that doesn't make it any less hateful. To those who do not endorse those attacks, look at the company you are in.
And yes, oh commenter who does not like being called a self-hating Jew, being Jewish does not bring understanding of the plight of other Jews. Someone I deeply admire said it as well as can be said:
"Sometimes it feels that if there were no more Jews, or Israel (for the two are synonymous- Israel is the geographic embodiment of the nation) all of this would stop. Even some Jews feel that way. Many of us try to un-Jew ourselves all the time. It comes from a mixture of fear, guilt of surviving while others didn't, and embarrassment. We are the root of our and the World's problems, it seems. It is the Jews themselves that you will hear speak out most strongly against Israel. The instinct that drives them is the same instinct that drove them to blend in, and then be very surprised when they were put in the ghetto, too. The were surprised when they were put on the train, too. They were surprised when they were put in the gas chamber, too. They were surprised all the way till Death. Because 'they weren't like those OTHER Jews'... Well. A Jew is a Jew is a Jew is a Jew.
And if anyone thinks that speaking out against Israel is anything other than thinly veiled anti-semitism [she means ant-Jewishness oh semanticists], they are deeply mistaken."
September 2, 2009 6:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
"And if anyone thinks that speaking out against Israel is anything other than thinly veiled anti-semitism [she means ant-Jewishness oh semanticists], they are deeply mistaken."
Barth...I don't know what the right word is, so I'll just say it...this is a ridiculous assertion. EVERY COUNTRY UNDER THE SUN can be legitimately criticized for things it does wrong. This is so obvious that it shouldn't even be a topic of discussion.
There are lots of understandable reasons IMO why this level of sanity is hard to achieve when it comes to Israel...but it is true nonetheless. You can't say that Israel, let alone any other country, is beyond reproach, can you? Really?
Now, I will agree that an indefinable amount of Israel criticism IS some form of anti-Semitism, or even Uncle Jake-ism. And sometimes, it IS hard to distinguish them. I think it was MLK who said that the truth in the mouth of liars is a lie. Same here.
But it is wrong morally--and wrong tactically, if you will--to draw a wall around Israel and say that all criticisms of her impeach the honesty and integrity and morality of the critic. It won't wash and it does Israel enormous harm.
Imagine, for example, that Americans had adopted the same attitude toward America. (We do sometimes.) We'd still have slavery. We'd still have Jim Crow. The Japanese would still be in camps. There'd still be WASP-only want ads in the NY Times. We wouldn't have the EPA or the EEOC or the Civil Rights laws. Or all of the things that made America a much worse place then than it is now. We'd be going amen to GWB if criticizing America were the same as being unAmerican or a traitor to the country.
And the same thing applies to every other country on earth. One of the goals of Zionism was that Jews would, at last, join all the other peoples of the earth. We'd be jes' folks. Like everyone else. Well, if that's so, then Israel should be subject to the same criteria as any other country on earth.
Certainly the prophets would agree.
September 2, 2009 7:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, the prophets would probably hold Israel to a HIGHER standard.
September 2, 2009 7:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
She (the author) nor I did not mean Israel is beyond reproach, and you know that. She (and I) are speaking about the existence of the State of Israel which, if you read the stuff above and below these posts, is the issue at hand.
September 2, 2009 8:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
She and you are using the awful history of Western depravity to justify becoming part of it.
You talk about assimilation? What kind of assimilation is worse than the one championed by the state of Israel, joining in with the butchers, toasting former Nazis, supporting every mass murderer in every corner of the globe, taking pride in finally being accepted as "Western," that is as butchers and usurpers, no longer oriental but orientalists? Are you ashamed of your Jewish forebears, of their suffering, of their powerlessness, of their 'otherness,' that you celebrate finally having been accepted into the ranks of their butchers?
September 3, 2009 8:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are, apparently, comparing Israel to Nazi Germany and Jews to fascists. You are suggesting that Israel has established camps to exterminate people they do not want in their country and that they are systematically murdering them. If you can point me to anything that suggests that (not military ventures into areas from where rockets have been launched into Israel, or from where other hostile attacks have commenced) we can have a rational discussion. I expect though nothing more than just broad attacks as Israel's very right to exist. Look at the map of the area, even of just the portion that covered the British mandate, and tell me that this little sliver of land was too much to dedicate to a Jewish state. Never mind. I have your point.
September 3, 2009 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
Barth writes: "She (the author) nor I did not mean Israel is beyond reproach, and you know that. She (and I) are speaking about the existence of the State of Israel which, if you read the stuff above and below these posts, is the issue at hand."
Okay, I agree with you...in part.
Let me put it this way: The established Jewish community has done a great job of supporting Israel in a straightforward way. Money. Programs. Lobbying. Aliya in some cases.
The established Jewish community has done--as far as I can see and perhaps you can correct me on this--a poor job of carving out a space in which we, as members of this community, or the community as a whole, have been able to be critical of Israel where she needs criticizing.
To be sure, nothing has stopped individual Jews from criticizing Israel. Nothing has stopped some Jewish organizations from doing the same thing. They have been met with the "anti-Semite" label, often if not always, but let's leave that aside.
So here's my point: Because Jews haven't carved out this space, and because we've worked against the carving out of this space, the full range of criticisms have been jumbled together.
You find the "death to Israels" rubbing shoulders on blogs with the "Israel needs to reform its policies toward Palestinians." It all gets lumped into the same pot. And that's because the established Jewish community has not set aside a "space" in which a vigorous debate about Israeli policies can take place.
We have only one gear and one direction. Now, with the advent of J Street and like organizations, some space has been created. But we Jews who support Israel (however we support her) always feel that we are holding the line against the barbarians. And there ARE barbarians out there. And, in fact, "the" argument does jump around from 1948 to 1967...from genuine criticism of policies to a hatred of Israel's very existence. So it is confusing. And no one wants to become an abettor of anti-Semitic views or of people who simply want to see Israel gone.
But the reason this happens, IN PART, is that we, as Israel supporters, have not found a way to criticize Israel in the public square in any meaningful way.
We SAY there are legitimate criticisms of Israel, but when we're out in public, our big effort goes toward holding the line against the barbarians. I UNDERSTAND THAT. I more than sympathize with it. But if in fact Israel needs help finding a new, better direction, then WE need to be at the forefront of that...AS HER SUPPORTERS. And yet I fear that what we aren't and don't do that as a community, and that leaves the field open to a confused array of concerned friends and determined foes.
Now, it's true, Israel is her own country. She has the right to go her own way. I'm not Israeli. I don't vote there or pay taxes there. Nor am I in danger if she's attacked. I have family there, but still, I'm not in the line of fire.
And I don't know what impact a loving and critical diaspora would have on Israel's policies any way. Maybe none at all. Who knows? Certainly, we should be able to influence Congress to take a saner look at the situation.
Since her founding, Israel has NOT been just like any other country, particularly as regards her relationship to the diaspora. There's a close and loving bond there.
There has to be room within that bond for real, substantive criticisms of her about the CORE issues, not just the peripheral ones, just as there's room for that within a marriage or any other familial relationship.
So, I guess, bottom line, Israel's existence is NOT "the issue at hand" in all these posts or all the posts on this site. You may know that the founder and owner (I guess) of TPM, Josh Marshall, supports Israel's right to exist. Virtually all the commentators on this topic are Jewish, and they all are big supporters of Israel's right to exist as far as I can tell, despite what some commentators may say about them. Some live there and are citizens of Israel.
So it's not rational to say that TPM, or the key bloggers, or even most of the commentators (taken as a whole) want to see Israel gone. You have to read people, sometimes over time, and think deeply about what they're saying and what they're trying to say. (Because sometimes, writing quickly, they don't say it well.)
September 3, 2009 3:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Remarkable that only Israeli haters are commenting. The idea of a boycott is counter productive to any change. Plus Avnery doesn't mention one other argument - for Jews like me who oppose the current government and want a two state solution but support the idea of Jewish state, a boycott would cause me to greatly increase my purchase of Israeli goods and make generous contributions to the state of Israel. The contributions of Jews from around the world will counter the effects of a necessarily porous boycott.
September 1, 2009 2:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Richard,
Do your worst! Please.
Civil Rights were not won in the US with appeals to the goodness of the KKK. They were not won in South South Africa by making nice to White Supremacists, and they will not be won in Palestine by pandering to Jewish Supremacists.
Justice will win. And your punishment will be that your grandchildren will be ashamed of you.
September 1, 2009 3:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your insinuation that I am a Jewish Supremacist is simply wrong. I support a Jewish state (and the creation of a Palestinian state). With regard to your statement that I will be punished by my grandchildren who will be ashamed of me, you exhibit an astouding moral arrogance. My children have been to Israel and hold the same views I do - support for Israel while being critical of the current government. My grandchildren, too young to have their own views, are likely to hold the same views.
September 1, 2009 4:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
Don't worry Richard, your children will change their opinions when it will become socially costly to hold them. See all the people around you that support Jim Crow? Guess not.
You are a Jewish supremacist because you support a Jewish state in which the native people are second class citizens. Of course you will deny it.
But you are one.
September 1, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
And you, sir, are a Jew hater posing as an opponent of Israel. (Plus the Palestinians are not "native peoples". The Jews were in that area of the world at least as long as the people who call themselves Palestinians). And once again, your moral smugness shows as you pretend to know what my children or grandchildren will do in the future. I doubt very much that their support of Israel will prove socially costly to them. Don't bother responding. This debate has gone on enough. You won't convince me of the merits of your position by leveling accusations and prophecies of punishment in the future and I won't be able to change your mind.
September 1, 2009 5:12 PM | Reply | Permalink
As I said, Richard, I am not trying to convince you. Let me repeat myself.
Do your worst!
September 1, 2009 5:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
richard f - "Plus the Palestinians are not "native peoples". The Jews were in that area of the world at least as long as the people who call themselves Palestinians"
- So who does that make "native"? Surely not the Cohens of Chicago or the Feinsteins of California. It must just mean "Jewish" Semites.
September 1, 2009 6:34 PM | Reply | Permalink
ding, ding, ding richard f you have just exposed yourself:
Plus the Palestinians are not "native peoples".
We have heard this before: "a land without a people for a people without a land" or Golda Myer's "there is no such thing as a Palestinian"
Classic denial of the existence and therefore the rights of the Palestinians. Surely you are sophisiticated enough to know that these old Zionist talking points are no longer operative. Try to stay relevant, modern hasbara have stopped this nonsense.
September 2, 2009 3:06 AM | Reply | Permalink
"the people who call themselves Palestinians". No more need be said.
September 2, 2009 11:26 AM | Reply | Permalink
Indeed, as we are all aware nothing bad has ever happened to black people.
September 1, 2009 3:16 PM | Reply | Permalink
Wait...
Israel is a place where Jews can live without being blamed for bad stuff?
Really? You sure about that?
Cause from where I sit it actually looks like Israel is a huge cause of hard feelings towards the Jews in general and Israeli Jews in specific.
September 1, 2009 3:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
"from where I sit it actually looks like Israel is a huge cause of hard feelings towards the Jews in general and Israeli Jews in specific."
That makes sense or, ahem, my point.
September 1, 2009 4:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Ah, no. Your point is that people who reject your racial/chauvenistic argument, i.e., the concept of "Jewish state" are themselves racist/bigoted. Big non sequitur.
We can play word games about the Gallic tribes that inhabited current-day France and Germany. We can bemoan the loss of sovereignty of the Burgundians and the Alimani and the Scoti. But in the real world, the descendants of those tribes are full and equal citizens of France and Germany and the UK. It's inconvenient that the Palestinians didn't just disappear. I guess they forgot to read the memo about that the land being uninhabited before the Zionist Pioneers arrived to "redeem" the land.
And why does land need redeeming? Does land sin?
September 1, 2009 4:59 PM | Reply | Permalink
Let me just see if I understand the position that "Israel is a huge cause of hard feelings towards the Jews in general and Israeli Jews in specific."
You mean, then, that you maintain hard feelings against, say, Senator Feingold (or Marc Chagall, or Kevin Youkilis or, umm, me) because of Israel or that you can understand why people might have such feelings about Jews given the fact that Israel exists.
If there was no Israel, you would like us more?
Where have you been hiding all these centuries?
September 1, 2009 8:18 PM | Reply | Permalink
So logically disjointed, I have no ideas what you are trying to say.
September 2, 2009 6:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
A boycott may be less effective than some would like, but it is never ineffective. And to those who suggest it would backfire. What does backfire mean? They will find ways to get around the boycott? They will continue to repress the Palistinians? They will develope an arrogance towards the US and refuse to work with us on foreign policy? All of this is going on now!
September 1, 2009 3:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
Filmmaker Udi Aloni, son of Shulamit Aloni, founder of Meretz and former Education Minister, asks fellow Israeli filmmakers to support a cultural boycott of Israel:
http://www.counterpunch.org/aloni08282009.html
But JA Mort will never make a post about that, wouldn't she? Just as she never cared for Avneri for the last 50 years of his anti-occupation struggle. She just used opinions when they suit her prejudice and ignore them when they don't.
September 1, 2009 3:31 PM | Reply | Permalink
Do you have even the slightest idea who Jo-Ann even is? You're incredibly ignorant about her background, not to mention insulting to no purpose.
September 1, 2009 4:33 PM | Reply | Permalink
I form my opinions by what I read.
September 1, 2009 4:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Josh,
You're quite right that the poster is
Alas, this is true about the attitude of majority of comment authors on your otherwise excellent site, when the subject is Israel. And I don't think you can escape some responsibility for that. Just look at your set of title posters, who produce vast majority of your Middle East related posts: Mondoweiss crowd, Cobban, MJ, - and think about the crowd they attract. As one of the comment authors put it some time ago, I'm a progressive, therefore I'm for Palestinians and against Israelis. So Weiss and Cobban will give grades for progressiveness, dehumanize Israelis and warm up the mob to Kristallnacht-leading boycotts. What Dostoyevsky called "slavery of petty progressive ideas" should be opposed just as firmly as any other slavery.P.S. It goes without saying that opinions I despise have as much right to be aired as any other. OTOH I'm sure that a person who would use your site as his/her single source of news and opinion about Israel, Middle East and related issues will come away badly misinformed and biased. The answer to bad speech is good speech, not limited speech. Good, informed speech about Middle East (e.g. Levy, Amitai, Sleeper) is a rare commodity on TPM, but it doesn't have to stay that way.
September 1, 2009 5:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
As a Jewish holder of an Israeli citizenship, I object to your attempt to dehumanize me by suggesting that I must share your racism or else be called a Nazi for not sharing it.
September 1, 2009 5:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
anatol - You are wrong.
Josh has a reflexive impulse to insult and belittle those who question his support of Zionism and/or his clique. Josh offered zero support of his accusations of evildoer being "incredibly ignorant" and "insulting to no purpose". I find great purpose behind the statements of evildoer.
As for Josh's insults (see above), they sure do appear to be formed in order to squash dissent here.
Your insults and demagoguery - "dehumanize Israelis and warm up the mob to Kristallnacht" - appear to be asking/begging for a response, though. I, for one, appreciate it. Thanks for your good work!
September 1, 2009 6:50 PM | Reply | Permalink
I just noticed that you also called attention to Avnery's latest. So I'm asking you the same question.
Do you usually pay attention to the far left in Israel? Avneri writes every week. When was the last time you noticed him? And he is not considered far left by most Israelis on the far left. Do you regularly quote and republish the view of far left Israelis? Michael Warshavsky? Gadi Algazi? Rueven Aberjel? Sami Shalom Shitrit? Yael Lerer? Rachel Giora? What about Palestinians? Azmi Bishara? Hanin Zuabi? Omar Barghouti?
Did you care to objectively describe the range opinions in the far left in Israel about the boycott?
Or do you only notice the opinions of one person on the far left in Israel when he writes something that fits in with the prejudices of the US liberal mainstream?
September 1, 2009 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
a while back i was debating with myself who was wiser. was it Dov Yermiya, the israeli who at the age 94 renounced zionism, or Uri Avnery who tried to convince him otherwise. with this plea by Avnery to not back BDS i have my answer. it ain't Avnery.
September 1, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hey Jo-Ann Mort - What the fuck is "the Zionist left"? Is that some sort of soft and fuzzy racism that you and Josh can support?
September 1, 2009 3:41 PM | Reply | Permalink
Well... every other child out here in reality learns that most of the industrialized world was at war with Germany and the Nazis while the Holocaust took place. That's hardly an endorsement of Hitler's policy. If history lessons are well prepared, they may also learn that for the first two years of the war, the Soviet Union was the Nazi regime's ally, although that detail gets more and more fuzzy and disposable in presentation, as time goes by.
What, exactly, constitutes this self-referential definition of "silence"? How, given the history of the war and the chronology of the Holocaust, is it justified? Tell me how, in the midst of this most tragic and deadly human conflict, could Europe's trapped, imprisoned Jews be rescued any more quickly than they were. The war didn't end until Allied troops physically overwhelmed this powerful and implacable foe, until Hitler's bunker was forced open and its surviving occupants forced to surrender. Give me one, realistic alternative strategy. Just one.
September 1, 2009 6:45 PM | Reply | Permalink
Your ignorance is only exceeded by your hatred of Jews, or vice versa. (Nobody, nobody was fighting the Nazis on behalf of the Jews being slaughtered. Nobody. And, folks, were TPM around in the 1930s and 40s...ah, never mind....Talking to people with thee views is a waste of time.)
September 1, 2009 8:08 PM | Reply | Permalink
Whenever the "Everyone hates the Jews" argument is unsheathed, I think we know who is losing the verbal joust. It's kinda arrogant to claim that people disagree with you just because they are bad. Have you ever considered that you might not be persuasive?
I'm sympathetic to your plight. You are trying to justify ethnic nationalization to an audience of a diverse democracy. Your road is long, grasshopper.
September 1, 2009 8:26 PM | Reply | Permalink
yeah, that was a pretty weak comeback, and completely ignored the very direct question asked...
September 1, 2009 8:32 PM | Reply | Permalink
Actually, Barth gave the only answer to the question that has sufficed up to now.
September 1, 2009 11:10 PM | Reply | Permalink
Good answer.
September 2, 2009 12:17 AM | Reply | Permalink
OK, I'll give you one strategy.
American Jews tried to organize a boycott of Germany as soon as Hitler rose to power. The effort collapse thanks to the arduous efforts of the World Zionist Organization and the Labor Zionist leadership in Palestine in support of the "engagement" with the Nazis. Read about it HERE.
September 2, 2009 4:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Link doesn't seem to work.
September 2, 2009 3:58 PM | Reply | Permalink
(Nobody, nobody was fighting the Nazis on behalf of the Jews being slaughtered. Nobody.)
Really? The half-million Jewish soldiers in the US armed forces, who enlisted at twice the national average weren't fighting on behalf of the Jews being slaughtered?
A good description of the very successful "the entire world was silent" meme is "Big Lie."
September 2, 2009 1:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
That is some revision of history. a important reason a lot of people did not defend the Jews as strongly as might have been possible was that they did not defend themselves, and a lot of that is the fault of the Zionist leadership: Here is Lenny Brenner's assessment of the impact of the zionist collaboration with the Nazis:
While the WZO was busy saving the property, or, more properly, a piece of the property of the German Jewish bourgeoisie, the “£1,000 people”, thousands of Germans – including many Jews – were fighting in Spain, against Hitler’s own Condor Legion and Franco’s Fascist army. The Ha’avara certainly assisted the Nazis in that it demoralised Jews, some of whom were Zionists, by spreading the illusion that it was possible to come to some sort of modus vivendi with Hitler.
It also demoralised non-Jews to know that a world-wide Jewish movement was prepared to come to terms with its enemy. Certainly the Ha’avara removed the million-strong Zionist movement from the front line of anti-Nazi resistance. The WZO did not resist Hitler, but sought to collaborate with him and, as can be seen in the proposals of Arlosoroff and Weizmann for a liquidation bank, only Nazi unwillingness to extend their linkage prevented the development of an even greater degree of co-operation. Those Zionists, as with World Jewry, who tried to oppose Hitler, must also be severely faulted for their own failure to create an effective Jewish, or even Zionist, boycott machine, but at least they must be credited with some moral stature in that they tried to do something to attack the Nazis. By comparison Weizmann, Shertok and their co-thinkers lose our respect, even if we only set them against their Zionist critics and ignore all other Jewish opinion. At best, it can be said of Weizmann and his ilk that they were the equivalent of Neville Chamberlain; moral and political failures.
After th war and the Holocaust, a contrite and remorseful Nahum Goldmann, mortified at his own shameless role during the Hitler epoch, wrote of a dramatic meeting he had with the Czech Foreign Minister, Edvard Benes, in 1935. Goldmann’s vivid account of Benes’s warning to the Jews says all that will ever need to be said on the Ha’avara and the abject faeilure of the WZO to resist the Nazis:
September 2, 2009 7:07 AM | Reply | Permalink
Right on. The twisting of history to suit Israel's own ends is sickening.
Likewise, Hitler was responsible for the deaths of over 50 million people in all. Yes, the Jewish Holocaust was beyond horrible, but what about the millions of non-Jewish people Hitler sent to the gas chambers? Did those people not exist or matter? What about the millions he killed in battle? The Russians alone lost over 20 million people repelling Hitler's armies.
When you read things about what every "Jewish Israeli child learns," you can't help but wonder if Jewish deaths are somehow more important than the deaths of others to Israelis.
September 1, 2009 8:27 PM | Reply | Permalink
How silly, of course Jewish lives are more important to the jewish state, duh. 3,000 innocent Palestinians men, women and children dead for one (still alive) captured Israeli soldier.
It is just the same as US lives being far more important than any other (apart from Israeli) lives, 3,000 dead for 1 million Iraqis or one plane load of US americans equals outrage, one plane load of Iranian citizens (blown up by the USA) equals not even a sorry, let alone outrage.
Go figure.
September 1, 2009 10:07 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, in comparisons to South African Apartheid, the Jews are not being likened to the blacks. In Israel, Avnery, who wears the sunscreen?
September 1, 2009 7:03 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have reached the point of going crazy when called a self hating Jew because I believe that Israel is an Apartheid state and I support BDS campaigns as I supported them against South Africa.
To those who try to tar me with with their own sh*t, I say" f*ck, you.
And I have concluded that Israel as a racist state is the number one cause of anti-semitism the world over. NO justice; no peace.
What far left in Israel? What two-state solution? The one where the occupiers cut off water and then try to convince u.s environmentalists that they have superior technology to offer to U.S. governments? Too late for that one.
I was raised that the essence of Jewish identity is understanding others oppression as being the same as ours. The state of Israel is a goyisha idea rooted in a colonial elitist history. Not what my bubbie taught me.
September 1, 2009 8:30 PM | Reply | Permalink
I have tremendous respect for Uri Avnery, He raises a number of important things to think about, so I will think about them. But I do have a few preliminary reactions.
First, is there any practical way to boycott, isolate or sanction the colonies in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, and not the entire state? If that could be done, then the majority of Israelis - whom we are frequently assured oppose the colonization movement and dislike the settlers - could demonstrate their support for the end of the occupation and colonization, and their acceptance of the future State of Palestine, in solidarity with the international community and against the minority settler community and rightist government that is organizing the colonization of the occupied territories in violation of international law. Then the situation would be more parallel to the South Africa situation.
If Avnery would oppose that more limited boycott as well, on similar grounds, then I'm afraid that undercuts his argument. Because it then appears that the problem is not that the boycott fails to discriminate between a minority who are in the wrong and a majority who can be enlisted on the side of international law and justice. Rather it would appear that the problem is that the majority of Israelis are just on the wrong side of the international community and international law.
One part of Avnery's argument is not entirely persuasive. Yes, it is true that a boycott will probably spark a rallying of the whole country of Israel around the cry that the whole world is antisemitic and against them. In fact, I would hazard that a boycott might even spark a new wave of Israeli-based terrorism against western interests, just as was the case in the days of Begin and the Irgun. But no matter what sanctions against Israeli behavior are proposed, threatened or implemented, they are probably going to generate Holocaust-syndrome reactions of the "whole world is against us" kind. For as long as I have been paying attention to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, such reactions have been a more or less daily occurrence, here and in Israel, even in the face of criticisms that would now strike us as relatively uncontroversial. what else is new?
The world has tried 42 years of constructive engagement with Israel following UN 242, with all carrots and no sticks, while reserving all the sticks for Arabs and Muslims. And yet in response we have received 42 years of unrelenting colonization and attempted acquisition of territory by force. Surely some stick of some kind must now be found to mix in with the carrots, and its use must at least be threatened. If not a boycott, then what?
The question isn't really whether Israelis will be inspired and uplifted and join hands with the international community. The questions is whether even if they grumble and scream and complain bitterly, in 99.9% unison, they will nevertheless be compelled to knuckle under to the will of the community. When people talk about sanctioning Iran or North Korea or the Sudan, they don't generally ask whether this will make the majority of Iranians, North Koreans and Sudanese love us and support us. They only ask whether the sanctions will work to compel the desired behavior.
I do have one really, really big worry about this boycott movement, and the differences between such a movement in the US and the similar movement for divestment in South Africa. I wonder whether the movement can possibly achieve the message discipline and positive image it will need to be effective, or will instead shoot itself in the foot in an ugly fashion and make matters worse. To be effective, I believe the movement would have to adhere to a strictly limited aim of ending the colonization and occupation of the territories, returning to the pre-1967 border, and establishing a two-state solution along lines long proposed by the broad international community, a community that accepts and recognizes the existence of Israel and its internal political structure. The problem is that such a movement will be bound to bring lots of other people out of the woodwork: people who are trying to bring an end to the state of Israel altogether; people who are trying to radically alter Israel's internal politics; and then the whole gang of genuinely antisemitic kooks and conspiracy theorists, LaRouchian nutjobs, neo-nazis, etc. with their large, ugly and noisily grinding axes. We aren't going to have just a bunch of nice progressives denouncing the obvious awfulness of white supremacism. We are also going to have fellow-travelers, many from the far right, running on about rich Jewish bankers, Jewish money, Jewish conspiracies, Jewish noses, Jewish foreskins, Jewish this and Jewish that. So how does the movement keep these people in their cages, and prevent its message from being infected and undermined by association with the disreputable?
September 1, 2009 9:32 PM | Reply | Permalink