This is a cross-post from Marc Goldberg
In a poll taken by the Huffington Post UK a staggering 79% of readers believed that the world’s most famous living physicist, Stephen Hawking, was right to boycott Israel. His decision has set off a wave of arguments both for and against boycotting the Jewish state that are being played out around the world. In truth the argument for a boycott is not a new one, the Boycott Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israel has been running for several years now, though with Professor Hawking they have gained perhaps their biggest supporter so far.
To look at the reason that Israel is hi-lighted by the hardcore of the BDS movement as opposed to any of the other countries in the world it’s worth taking a look at the Electronic Intifada website. The article “As Jews we say Birthright Trips Must End”provides as good an example as any other of the way in which the movement views Israel, the following line is telling:
“Settler-colonialism must be opposed, no matter where it takes place. For non-Israeli Jews living in other settler-colonial countries, we must also be accountable to other processes of de-colonization. No group of people have the right to live anywhere that mandates the explicit exclusion of anyone else.”
The same language is used by Ali Abunimah in his most recent article in the Guardian’s Comment is Free, he says that;
“Palestinians are an occupied, colonised people, dispossessed at the hands of one of the most powerful militaries on earth.”
In other words there are two sides to this story, a colonial entity coming to steal the land of Palestine, versus the weak, defenceless natives who had their land stolen. Thus Palestinians take the role of the weak natives and Israelis the strong colonial power. Naturally if the real colonial power, Britain, exists in this narrative at all it is merely as a barely interested referee.
This language of colonialism is especially meaningful to the citizens who come from countries that once had empires and long ago relinquished their hold on them. The Jews, who are depicted as white Europeans together with Zionism which is constantly depicted as a European, colonial movement is exactly the cause that would grab your average European and attract them into the fray. After all they have learnt about the ills of colonialism their whole lives.
Naturally the constant comparisons between Zionism and colonialism entirely ignore the fact that Jews weren’t coming to Palestine to build some sort of Jewish empire and to harvest the resources of a new territory for profit but to escape from the brutality inflicted upon them elsewhere. Zionism was so popular because of the oppression of Jews and its message that Jews could take their lives into their own hands and make them better through statehood.
I have often heard Palestinians and BDS supporters argue that the suffering endured by Jews is not the fault of Palestinians and ask why Palestinians should have to suffer because of it. To ask this question is to ignore the fact that the plight of the Palestinians exists not because Jews moved to Palestine but because of the way that the Arab Palestinian community chose to respond to their arrival. However if your view of Palestinians is that they were and continue to be weak, uneducated natives the mere idea that there could have been some kind of response by Palestinians to the challenges of the Zionist movement is ridiculous. Funnily enough it’s these same racist views that led to the colonisation of the world in the first place that now makes middle class Europeans feel the need to get involved in Palestine. After all if the big Europeans didn’t step in to help them how would these weak ‘natives’ be able to survive on their own?
In fact contrary to the belief of the BDS camp it’s clear that Palestinians played a very active role in the way that Israel was formed, in the breakdown of relations between Jews and Arabs and the eventual war for Israel’s Independence. The picture of an incredibly powerful European invader armed with modern technology against which Palestinians had not the slightest chance simply doesn’t stand up to serious examination. Though the BDS movement depends almost entirely on the perception that Palestinians are a weak native people being utterly brutalised by European whites come to exploit them to make their own arguments for BDS work.
Although BDS talks a great deal about notionally empowering Palestinians to take control of their own destiny it encourages a victim mentality at the same time. On the one hand Abunimah argues above that the IDF is, “One of the most powerful militaries in the world” and on the other tells Palestinians that Israel can be made to disintegrate. I wouldn’t blame anyone on the ground for being uncertain how to proceed. Palestinians are expected to see themselves as helpless victims unable to control their own destiny on the one hand and on the other are expected to stand up to that overwhelming power and destroy the whole country.
The end result is that the Palestinian Authority comes under attack from the BDS movement whenever it appears as though they are about to negotiate an end to the very issues that Palestinians, those actually living under Israeli occupation, hate the most. The checkpoints, settlements, Israeli army patrols and all parts of the occupation itself that are so detested could be a thing of the past were the PA to feel secure enough in its own base to talk to Israel. Unfortunately BDS, focused as it is on Palestinians simply being victims, could never countenance the PA taking power into their own hands and sitting across the table from an Israel they continue to argue is nothing more than a relic from a European, colonial past. As a point of fact BDS increasingly asserts that the PA has no legitimacy to even represent the Palestinians at all.
When the Guardian and Al Jazeera leaked what became known as ‘the Palestine Papers’ in early 2011 it became clear that Palestinian negotiators were quietly well on the road to finalising a deal with Israel. This news was greeted by the BDS faithful not with happiness that the Israeli occupation of the West Bank with the hated checkpoints, settlements and overall Israeli control over Palestinian lives might soon be ending but with horror.
Article after article on the pages of Comment is Free and other media denigrated the PA leadership for having the nerve to make a peace with Israel that might actually see the lives of Palestinians improve. Writing in the Guardian, Clayton Swisher, head of al-Jazeera’s Transparency Unit actually referred to the advanced state of negotiations as “a peace process run amok.”There was a scandal leading to the chief Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat resigning and a resumption of absolutely nothing in the way of progress between the two sides, which suited the BDS narrative perfectly. Why? Because if there is no progress on the negotiating table then calling for a Boycott of Israel sounds like a more rational position than calling for one while negotiations are taking place.
Rather than empowering Palestinians to make a deal with Israel that will see their daily lives improved, the proponents of BDS stress conflict and emphasize a constant victim mentality for Palestinians. When public figures such as Hawking and Waters boycott Israel and join with the BDS movement they are perversely helping to ensure that an eventual peace becomes harder rather than easier to achieve. As far as the heads of the BDS campaign are concerned this isn’t about campaigning for an Israeli withdrawal from the West Bank nor an eventual agreement that results in the state of Palestine coming into existence this a fight to last Palestinian for Israel’s destruction. Hence the term “boycott, divestment and sanctions” rather than the “negotiate peace in Palestine movement.”
As soon as Israel was born Jews everywhere in the world were scrambling to get into it. The populace skyrocketed from 650,000 to over 2 million in a little over 10 years, 20 years after the foundation of the state the populace was up to 3 million. No matter where Jews were they came to Israel en masse. BDS hates this fact and argues that it is blatantly racist to provide Jews with what they believe is preferential treatment. Then, while arguing that Jewish immigration to Israel must be forced to stop they advocate that Palestinians all over the world should be able to do the exact same thing.
Ironically this almost instinctive dismissal of the arguments that Jews make with regards to their own hardships and demands for their own human rights is what has ensured that so many Jews believe in Zionism so strongly to this day. Had Jews been treated like regular people throughout Europe and the Middle East during the 1800s the chances are that Israel never would have come into being in the first place because as Jews wouldn’t have felt like they needed a state of their own or to be in charge of their own destiny.
The exact same mindset can be seen in the BDS movement today, in short screw the Jews, screw the fact that there are 6 million of them living in their own country, screw the fact that they have legitimate needs (not to mention rights), screw the fact that they only exist in a state of Israel because of the way the world savagely attacked them beforehand and screw the fact that they are still being attacked today because it is all their fault and their country should be forced out of existence by the more ‘enlightened’ nations of the world.
Does anyone really think that we are going to oblige?
Sarah adds
This was recently passed at UCU’s Congress:
Congress notes:
- previous overwhelming votes for BDS
- boycott decision by Teachers’ Union of Ireland, US-Asia Studies Association and Stephen Hawkins
- ET harassment case against UCU by member citing criticisms of Israel
- dismissal of charges as baseless in law or fact; ET references to seeking political objectives through litigation and importance of free debate; inappropriate expense to public purse and UCU; rejection of Zionism as ‘protected characteristic’ of Jewishness.
Congress reaffirms:
- that while some antisemites are also anti-Zionist, criticisms of Israel and Zionism are not eo ipso antisemitic
- UCU policy supporting BDS and its lawful implementation
- opposition to all forms of racism, including antisemitism.
Congress resolves to:
- publicise the eventual ET outcome to branches, TUC unions, and sister unions internationally
- renew the invitation to members to consider the appropriateness of Israeli institutional relationships, accompanied by an update on conditions in Gaza and West Bank, and a statement of the BDS objectives.
If I have understood correctly, this was framed as an emergency motion which meant delegates had no opportunity to seek the views of their branch committees or wider membership – and members had no opportunity to express their views to those representing them. When I represented my branch at the HE sector pay conference earlier in the year we had a meeting to discuss the motions in advance – although I was also told to listen to the debates and use my judgement.
Further update
CbinTH in the comments drew attention to this article about an angry exchange at a Palestinian BDS conference.
