Naomi Klein in Israel

I turned on Reshet Bet of Kol Israel a few minutes ago, to listen to the morning news show (it's the Israeli Radio news station) and who should they be interviewing but Naomi Klein, who has been visiting Israel and the occupied territories (including Gaza). The interviewer asked her why she visited Israel despite her support of the economic and academic boycott of Israel, and she answered that while she didn't want to support the institutions of the Israeli state, she wanted to engage in dialogue with Israelis. I couldn't quite understand what the interviewer said, but it sounded like she was offered some money for her interview, which she was going to donate to a charity because she didn't want to profit from an Israeli government institution (Israel Radio is part of the Israel Broadcasting Authority, and is run by the state). She's now talking about her thesis on "disaster capitalism" - that terrible disasters like the tsunami in the Indian Ocean in 2006 are then exploited by corporations who use the opportunity of destruction to bring in their own businesses and displace local people.

I find it very surprising, for several reasons, that she's being interviewed by Israel Radio. First of all, in the United States, she would be interviewed by left-wing radio networks or shows like Amy Goodman's Democracy Now. Her chances of being interviewed by CNN, for example, are vanishingly small, as far as I know, because of her left-wing economic views. I guess the fact that Israel Radio is interested in interviewing her is a sign that Israel is still much more open than the U.S. to left-wing views, even with Netanyahu as Prime Minister and Avigdor Lieberman as Foreign Minister. (After all, Hadash, the Israeli communist party, has a few seats in the Knesset).

I was also surprised that Israeli Radio would want to interview someone who is so negative about Israel and who advocates the boycott of Israel! And I'm also equally surprised that Naomi Klein would even come to Israel and agree to be interviewed on the state radio station! (To be fair to her, it sounded like much of her time here was spent in Gaza and the West Bank - she said that one of her goals in coming here was to work against the sense of "normalization" that disturbs her in Israel by talking about what is going on in Gaza).

She talked about one thing that I found very interesting - the Israeli advertising campaign in other countries to "re-brand" Israel as a normal country that's worth visiting (rather than a dangerous country of suicide bombings and wars). I remember hearing about this a couple of years ago when the campaign was just starting. Apparently this campaign was first piloted in Toronto, where she lives. I myself was disturbed by the idea that an advertising campaign was the way to change people's minds about Israel, since of course it doesn't deal with any of the actual problems in Israel. But, on the other hand, what advertising campaign does? It just seems a very superficial way to present the official Israeli government position.

On her website she calls for the boycott of Israel in these terms: "It's time. Long past time. The best strategy to end the increasingly bloody occupation is for Israel to become the target of the kind of global movement that put an end to apartheid in South Africa."

Her reply to the criticism that Israel isn't South Africa is interesting: "2. Israel is not South Africa. Of course it isn't. The relevance of the South African model is that it proves that BDS tactics can be effective when weaker measures (protests, petitions, back-room lobbying) have failed. And there are indeed deeply distressing echoes of South African apartheid in the occupied territories: the color-coded IDs and travel permits, the bulldozed homes and forced displacement, the settler-only roads."

Her website also explains how she managed to get her latest book published in Israel - by a small left-wing Israeli press called Andalus. She won't be receiving any profits from the book; all will go to Andalus - "In other words, I am boycotting the Israeli economy but not Israelis." She explains more about this in an interview with Ha'aretz published yesterday - Oppose the state, not the people.

One of the things she's done while she's here is go to the weekly protests at Bil'in - see this report on Mondoweiss - Naomi Klein in Bil'in. The weekly protests are against the separation wall.

The contortions that she must go through to prove that even though she's visiting Israel and having her books published here she's still boycotting the Israeli economy are quite amazing. It seems to me that she could extract herself from the charge of hypocrisy if her support for the BDS campaign were a little less knee-jerk and more nuanced - if she said that she intends to support certain parts of the Israeli economy - like left-wing presses - and not other parts, like big Israeli corporations or state institutions.

More on the UCU - "Jew-free Congress"

David Hirsh gives his conclusions about the UCU Congress meeting - "Michael Cushman is excited by his victory. He hasn’t noticed the significance of the fact that Congress is now free of Jews. Except for Jews like him, the Jews who speak 'as a Jew' but who are quite unable to recognize antisemitism. Haim Bresheeth. John Rose. Michael Cushman. These are the Jews now, at UCU Congress." (Michael Cushman is one of the leaders of the boycott Israel campaign in the UCU). See here for more on Cushman: "Mike Cushman's 'Protocols' Moment").

For more thoughts on UCU, see Flesh is Grass - UCU Congress Delirium.

Norm has chimed in - UCU steps back into the sewer.

UCU votes again to boycott Israel

David Hirsh, blogging live from the UCU Congress, reports on the course of the discussion and the votes on the proposals to boycott Israel academia. The boycott motion passed, despite the legal advice given to leaders of UCU that "to pass this motion would be unlawful because it is likely to be viewed by a court as a call to boycott Israeli academic institutions." The leading British academic union has once again disgraced itself by singling out Israel from all other nations of the world.

Reading through David's notes on the discussion it is very interesting to discover how obsessed the boycotters are with Israel. Several other motions were passed expressing concern with other war-torn parts of the world (for example, Sri Lanka), but the discussions were much less extensive and revealed a much lower level of personal engagement. Why are the academics of UCU Congress so personally touched by the Palestinian cause above all others in the world? Why do they continue to decide to engage in actions whose main effect is to alienate members of their own union? (It certainly isn't having any effect on Israel).

Why do Jews and (ex-)Israelis like Haim Breesheth bring to the fore their own Jewish identity, as if this gives them greater moral authority than others? David reports these words from Breesheth -

I am speaking as an Israeli and as a Jew.
Very many Israeli academics are supporting their government 96%
Do not rely upon Jewish academics in Israel.
This is not the way we will resolve the situation. Not the way South Africa was resolved.
three quarters of Israelis have education. three quarters of army officers and soldiers in tanks and planes and checkpoints have all been through academia.
out of 20,000 israeli academics less than 200 support bds.
To support Palestinians and Israeli academics who are against the war crimes committed you can make history today. I know Sally and Sasha are not looking forward to calling this null and void.
I urge you to take a moral position. vote for the amendment.

How does Breeshet know that 96% of Israeli academics support the government? Has he taken a poll? In the last election, the right-wing bloc certainly did not win 96% of the votes! And what does he mean by saying that three quarters of Israelis have education, including soldiers? He seems to be implying that they gained their political opinions from their university education. How true is that in Israel? I have my doubts - Israel is a highly politicized society, and the people I know in Israel who have gone to university generally leave with the same political opinions they entered with.

From my own experience of Israeli academics (anecdotal) many of them are opposed to the occupation - I don't know if it's a majority or not. It's not particularly surprising that fewer than 200 of Israeli academics support BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) - why would people support something that could cripple their own work? Yet he sees this as evidence to back his assertion that Israeli academics "support their government." BDS is not the only way to oppose actions of the Israeli government. I oppose many actions of the Israeli government, especially the current right-wing government, but such opposition doesn't require support of BDS! His is a very narrow definition of what it means to oppose the government.

This vote is not making history - except as further evidence for the moral degeneration of some British academics.

It's spring boycott season

The UCU (British University and College Union) is once again bringing a boycott motion to the floor for its Congress happening at the end of this month. The motion is below. I've underlined the sentences which actually call for implementing the boycott. The most bizarre part of this motion, however, is to be found in the italicized paragraphs, which advise that the lawyers consulted by the union have determined that support of it "would be unlawful because it is likely to be viewed by a court as a call to boycott Israeli academic institutions." If the motion is passed as it currently stands, "the President has been advised that she will have to treat it as being void and of no effect."

28 Composite (Yorkshire and Humberside Regional Committee, North West Regional Committee) Gaza

Congress notes:

1. The deaths, injuries and destruction caused by the Israeli government’s assault on Gaza.
2. The sale of over £18.8 million of British arms to Israel in 2008, up from £7.5 million in 2007

Congress condemns:

1. The Israeli attack on Gaza and refusals by the US and UK governments to condemn it
2. The total support for Israel by the US government
3. The siege of Gaza by the Israeli government in breach of international law.

Congress resolves:

1. To congratulate student unions who have occupied and protested over Gaza
2. To call for an immediate lifting of the siege
3. To demand the British government end its complicity in denying Palestinian rights
4. To demand the British government bans arms sales and economic support for Israel
5. To support self-determination for the Palestinian people
6. To call for a ban on imports of all goods from the illegal Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories
7. To demand the British government expels the Israeli ambassador
8. To donate to the special Stop the War fund for Gaza.

Amendment 28A.1: The union received advice from Leading Counsel that to pass this amendment would be unlawful because it is likely to be viewed by a court as a call to boycott Israeli academic institutions. The union has previously followed advice from Leading Counsel that such a call would be outside the powers of the union to make. If the amendment is further amended to remove the affirmation of support for the Palestine call for a boycott, disinvestment and sanctions campaign, Leading Counsel has advised the union may lawfully pass this amendment. If the amendment is passed in its unamended form the President has been advised that she will have to treat it as being void and of no effect.

28A.1 North West Regional Committee

Add at end:

‘Congress affirms support for the Palestinian call for a boycott, disinvestment and sanctions campaign.’

Motion 29: The union received advice from Leading Counsel that to pass this motion would be unlawful because it is likely to be viewed by a court as a call to boycott Israeli academic institutions. The union has previously followed advice from Leading Counsel that such a call would be outside the powers of the union to make. If the motion is amended to remove the affirmation of support for the Palestine call for a boycott, disinvestment and sanctions campaign, Leading Counsel has advised the union may lawfully pass this motion. If the motion is passed in its unamended form the President has been advised that she will have to treat it as being void and of no effect.

29 Composite (University of Brighton Grand Parade, College of North East London, University of East London)

Congress notes:

· targeting by Israel of civilians, homes, hospitals, UN facilities, university and school buildings to overthrow a democratically elected government;
· blockade of medicine, food, fuel, trade and education of Gaza, and continued occupation and settlement of the West Bank;
· complicity of Israeli educational institutions in colonisation and military preparation;
· student occupations globally demanding justice and solidarity.

Congress believes:

· a solution is impossible until Israel dismantles illegal settlements, withdraws to 1967 borders, and negotiates with Hamas;
· international pressure is necessary to force Israel to abide by international law.

Congress affirms support for the Palestinian call for a boycott, disinvestment and sanctions campaign.

Congress resolves to:

· intensify solidarity and renew urgently its call to members to reflect on the moral and political appropriateness of collaboration with Israeli educational institutions;
· Support those Israelis who refuse to collaborate with Israel’s war against Palestinians
· Demand that the British Government condemn Israeli aggression and ban arms sales to Israel
· host an Autumn international, inter-union conference of BDS supporters to investigate implementation of the strategy, including an option of institutional boycotts.

One wonders what is the point of passing a motion which will automatically be of no force - except, of course, for the purpose of making the Jewish members of the UCU feel even more uncomfortable and making anti-semitism masked as anti-Zionism even more respectable among people who call themselves academics.

U.S. campaign for academic boycott of Israel

There is now a U.S. Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel, alongside the British one that the UCU was forced to halt because it broke UK anti-discrimination laws. See this article in Inside Higher Ed for information on the campaign. This is in addition to a group called Teachers Against Occupation, which recently formed, and which publicized an open letter to President Obama written by David Lloyd (USC) and signed by about 900 academics. For the text of the letter and the signatories, see article in the Daily Star (Lebanon), also available here.

It's a very dispiriting letter, placing the entire blame on Israel, accusing it of committing "one of the most massive, ethnocidal atrocities of modern times." The last paragraph says that, "Almost certainly, the only hope of a lasting solution is a single state in Israel/Palestine, committed to the civil and human rights of all peoples within its boundaries, irrespective of religion or ethnicity. That is, after all, the standard to which we hold all other states in the world, Israel alone excepted."

What do they mean by a single state - what would happen to the Jews living in this single state once they are a minority in it? How can the Jews of Israel and Hamas live together in a single state without an even worse state of war than the one that exists right now? I'm not defending what Israel has done in Gaza - I think I've made it clear in this blog that I think that Israel should not have attacked Gaza, that negotiations are the only way to peace, that Israel should be talking to Hamas.

A single state is not the way to peace, it is the way to perpetual war. It is the way to worse atrocities than the ones we have just seen committed.

Even more dispiriting to me personally is that I know some of the people who have signed this letter.

Update: Haaretz today (1/29/09) has a good article on this boycott attempt.

Leaving the UCU - Norman Geras

I've been following the discussions on the Engage list and on Normblog about the responses to the UCU motion 25, which in effect is calling for a boycott of Israeli academics. (See my prior discussions here and here). A number of people have finally made the decision to resign from the union, including Eve Garrard, who made a particularly eloquent statement of why she is doing so. Today Norman Geras wrote about why he would resign from the union, if he were still teaching. There's one paragraph that I particularly like, because it expresses my feelings about the need not to be craven in the face of anti-semitism:

This, for me, is the decisive point. To be a Jew in UCU today is to be, in some sort, a supplicant, pleading with the would-be boycotters and those unmoved to oppose them and deliver them a decisive defeat, pleading for Israeli academics to be accepted as having the same status as other academics world-wide, pleading that Jewish supporters of the rights of academics in the Jewish state should not be made to feel isolated in their own union, like participants willy-nilly in an anti-Semitic campaign. Well, not to put too fine a point on it, shove that. Not today, not tomorrow, and not any time. To be a supplicant Jew is not a choice I would be willing to contemplate. I should come and entreat within the UCU for the same consideration for Jewish academics in Israel and Jewish academics in Britain as are extended to academics of every other nationality? Forget about it.

What he's expressing, it seems to me, is a simple manner of self-respect. (I don't know if he'd think it was simple, but it seems simple to me). I understand why some people are staying in the union, to fight the boycotters - but the choice to leave for the sake of one's self-respect seems paramount to me.

Academic Boycott of Israel

Shalom Lappin, writing in Normblog about the recent vote by the University and College Union in Britain, makes several useful points that I haven't seen elsewhere.

First of all, contrary to the statements put out by Sally Hunt, who is the Secretary General of the UCU, the recent vote has committed the UCU to sponsor the boycott call put out by the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel. It is quite instructive to read the full statement to learn what the UCU has committed itself to (my notes are in italics):

CALL FOR ACADEMIC AND CULTURAL BOYCOTT OF ISRAEL

Whereas Israel’s colonial oppression of the Palestinian people, which is based on Zionist ideology, comprises the following:

· Denial of its responsibility for the Nakba - in particular the waves of ethnic cleansing and dispossession that created the Palestinian refugee problem - and therefore refusal to accept the inalienable rights of the refugees and displaced stipulated in and protected by international law; [Note: this statement avoids any mention of Arab responsibility for the war against Israel in 1948]

· Military occupation and colonization of the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) and Gaza since 1967, in violation of international law and UN resolutions; [Note: again, this statement avoids any mention of how this occupation came to be, as a direct result of the 1967 war]

· The entrenched system of racial discrimination and segregation against the Palestinian citizens of Israel, which resembles the defunct apartheid system in South Africa; [Note: the Palestinian citizens of Israel, unlike the Black and Colored citizens of South Africa, have the right to vote and have elected members to the Israeli Knesset; Arabs have served in several Israeli governments, including the present one, which includes the first Arab Muslim of the government. It is certainly true, in my opinion, that Palestinian citizens of Israel are often discriminated against, and Israel Arab cities and towns have been scandalously underfunded over the history of Israel - but this is by no means apartheid ]

Since Israeli academic institutions (mostly state controlled) and the vast majority of Israeli intellectuals and academics have either contributed directly to maintaining, defending or otherwise justifying the above forms of oppression, or have been complicit in them through their silence, [To me, this is the most astonishing statement of the entire text - Israeli academics have been among the most prominent leaders of Peace Now, Gush Shalom, and other groups seeking to end the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, and many Israeli professors are members of such groups and have demonstrated and otherwise been involved in activism to end the occupation. Not to know this is simply to be out of touch with reality]

Given that all forms of international intervention have until now failed to force Israel to comply with international law or to end its repression of the Palestinians, which has manifested itself in many forms, including siege, indiscriminate killing, wanton destruction and the racist colonial wall,

In view of the fact that people of conscience in the international community of scholars and intellectuals have historically shouldered the moral responsibility to fight injustice, as exemplified in their struggle to abolish apartheid in South Africa through diverse forms of boycott,

Recognizing that the growing international boycott movement against Israel has expressed the need for a Palestinian frame of reference outlining guiding principles,

In the spirit of international solidarity, moral consistency and resistance to injustice and oppression,

We, Palestinian academics and intellectuals, call upon our colleagues in the international community to comprehensively and consistently boycott all Israeli academic and cultural institutions as a contribution to the struggle to end Israel’s occupation, colonization and system of apartheid, by applying the following:

Refrain from participation in any form of academic and cultural cooperation, collaboration or joint projects with Israeli institutions;

Advocate a comprehensive boycott of Israeli institutions at the national and international levels, including suspension of all forms of funding and subsidies to these institutions;

Promote divestment and disinvestment from Israel by international academic institutions;

Work toward the condemnation of Israeli policies by pressing for resolutions to be adopted by academic, professional and cultural associations and organizations;

Support Palestinian academic and cultural institutions directly without requiring them to partner with Israeli counterparts as an explicit or implicit condition for such support.

As Lappin says, this boycott call is essentially an extension of the Arab League boycott of Israel. "It is an integral part of a rejectionist programme to dismantle Israel as a country." The Arab boycott began not in 1948, with the establishment of Israel, but in 1945, "as a boycott of the Jewish businesses, goods, and services of the Yishuv (the Jewish community) in Palestine. That it was instituted several years prior to the creation of Israel and the 1948 war, which generated the Palestinian refugee problem, clearly demonstrates that this boycott was directed at a politically autonomous Jewish collectivity in Palestine, rather than against any particular government policy or action." He goes on to say that

The primary purpose of the boycott campaign is not to change Israeli government policy but to undermine the legitimacy of Israel as a country. It aims to isolate, not its political leaders and policy makers, but its people as a whole. It is, then, a form of branding which seeks to mark a group of people as social outcasts. The main damage that it does is to provide cover for acts of blatant discrimination against Israeli academics, committed by individual researchers acting as journal editors, conference organizers, tenure or appointment consultants, and in similar roles. We have seen several high profile cases of such individual boycott actions within the UK over the past seven years. This trend is likely to gather momentum if the boycott campaign continues unchecked.

Lappin also discusses why it is inappropriate to equate Israel with apartheid South Africa (I have spelled out one argument above). It is worth reading the entire article to learn why the movement to institute an academic boycott of Israel is so dangerous. It is not merely a way of criticizing the actions of the Israeli government, or of calling for the end of the occupation (a goal that I fully support!) - it is a way to delegitimize Israel and declare it a criminal state.