More interesting opinions about the Israeli anti-boycott law

False Dichotomies has an interesting post about the anti-boycott law:

An unholy alliance of the Zionist far-right and the anti-Zionist far-left is trying to bring Israel down. Like previous unholy alliances, the two partners despise one another, but realize that they are locked in a symbiotic relationship: without one another they will die. The far-right needs the hysteria of the far-left as a pretext for the legislation that fulfills the far-left’s fantasies.

The whole thing is worth reading.

Michael Weiss of the Telegraph (UK) also has an interesting column:

One of the more elegant ways pro-Israel activists used to be able to confront the absurdities of anti-Israeli activists was by referring to the tolerance and patience that Israel has for its many critics and enemies. An Islamist cleric whose answer to the Jewish Question is straight out of Torquemada? We’ll let him become mayor of an Arab village. A sinister campaign for the economic and cultural boycott of Israel? We’ll let the head campaigner work toward his doctorate at Tel Aviv University, where his oral defence will no doubt be an attack on his own academic viability. Even an Israeli Arab parliamentarian is allowed to sail on a blockade-busting “freedom flotilla” to denounce the very government to which she belongs.

Israeli democracy, in other words, has long been patient with its gadflies, cranks and nudniks who sometimes confuse that democracy with a banana republic. (Ben-Gurion was hinting at national self-definition when he joked about two Jews with three opinions.) Now, however, those doing the confusing are purportedly acting in Israel’s defence, which is deeply problematic for its democracy.

On Monday, the Knesset voted in favour of a bill that would allow citizens to sue anyone recommending a boycott of not only Israel but of West Bank settlements. This is a distinction with a difference. Salam Fayyad, the prime minister of Palestine, has long favoured a boycott of settlement goods, but not Israeli ones, as a way of forcing Israel to distinguish its GDP from its occupation economy. Diplomatically ill-considered though such a policy may be, and however skirted by the Palestinians themselves in practice, Fayyad’s policy was by no means “anti-Semitic” or belligerent in its logic.

On a related topic, Shiraz Socialist has published a very interesting critique of the BDS campaign written by Cathy N of Workers Liberty (a small left-wing group in the UK).

BDS may seem in the ascendant for now. It may make progress in places, on the back of the Israeli state’s next atrocity. BDS needs to be fought politically, because it stands in the path of two states, the only consistently democratic solution to the Israel-Palestine conflict. But BDS is ultimately a pessimistic approach. It put the agency for change outside of the region. It wants civil society, which includes not only NGOs and unions but bourgeois governments and business internationally to make things right for the Palestinians. There is another road. The Palestinian workers in alliance with Israeli workers fighting for a two state democratic solution to the national question, is the force that could deliver peace and much more besides.

Other interesting articles: Jeff Goldberg - A self-defeating anti-boycott bill, and in Tablet - American Jews unite against Knesset bill: "Apparently the best way to unite American Jews is for the Knesset to do something particularly stupid, like pass a law that criminalizes calling for boycotts."

The quiet sound of going fascist

Read Bradley Burston's column in Haaretz today: Israel's boycott law: the quiet sound of going fascist.

This is the one. Don't let what we like to call the relative calm here, fool you. When the Knesset passed the boycott law Monday night, it changed the history of the state of Israel.

In real time, a tipping point of great magnitude can sound a lot like nothing at all. But if the Boycott Law makes it past challenges filed by human rights and pro-peace organizations in Israel's High Court of Justice, then anything goes, beginning with democracy itself.

Benjamin Netanyahu and Ehud Barak and 10 other cabinet ministers already know this. That's why they failed to show up for the vote.

They stayed away because they know that this is the stain that may prove indelible. The Boycott Law is the litmus test for Israeli democracy, the threshold test for Israeli fascism. It's a test of moderates everywhere who care about the future of this place.

Why is the law so bad? Among other reasons:

The effect of the law could be crippling to the efforts of all organizations and many individuals working for Israeli-Palestinian peace and enhanced freedoms and human rights within Israel and the territories. The rabid anti-NGO campaigns of Im Tirtzu and other groups could escalate into a full-bore "lawfare" offensive, hauling them repeatedly into court and costing them prohibitive legal fees.

And this law is not the last attempt to stifle dissent.

A list of new bills, beginning next week, each designed to choke debate, gag protest, punish criticism, and/or cement the rule of the right. First up: The return of a bill to create McCarthyesque committees to investigate organizations the panels deem leftist. The bill was originally withdrawn for lack of votes in Knesset, but, buoyed by the success of the Boycott Law, the McCarthy Bill's sponsors now believe they can win passage.

Boycott Bill rollcall

Noam Sheizaf, at +972, provides a useful list of who voted for (47) and against (38) the new boycott law, as well as who was not present for the vote or abstained from voting.

Those not present included the leading ministers in the government:

Foreign Minister Lieberman (Yisrael Beitenu)
Defense Minister Barak (Atzmaut - split off from Labor)
Prime Minister Netanyahu (Likud)
Education Minister Gideon Sa'ar (Likud)
Internal Security Minister Yitzhak Aharonovitch (Yisrael Beitenu)

It's quite remarkable that they weren't even present for the vote. Sheizaf's comment: "Many of the votes were those of backbenchers, and it seems that the leading ministers preferred not to be present at the vote, once it was clear that the law was going to pass. The three most important ministers in the government–Prime Minister Netanyahu, Defense Minister Ehud Barak and Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman—chose not to attend the vote. Some leadership Israel has."

Coalition - 66 MKs: 21 not present, 2 didn't vote, the rest voted yes

In Likud, out of 27 MKs, eight were not present for the vote. The Knesset Speaker, Reuven Rivlin, didn't vote. The rest voted yes.

In Yisrael Beitenu, out of 15 MKs, five were not present. The rest voted yes.

In Shas, out of 11 MKs, three were not present. (Interior Minister Eli Yishai voted yes, along with the rest of the party).

In Atzmaut, which is part of the coalition, 4 out of 5 were not present, and the fifth didn't vote. Since they're part of the coalition, they're supposed to vote for laws proposed by the coalition - but they rebelled.

United Torah Judaism - out of five MKs, one was not present and the rest voted yes.

HaBayit HaYehudi - out of three MKs, all voted yes.

Opposition - 12 not present out of 54 MKs
Kadima - out of 28 MKs, 7 were not present. All the rest voted no, including Tzipi Livni, head of the opposition.

Labor - out of 8 MKs, 2 were not present. All the rest voted no.

Hadash (Communists) - all 4 MKs voted no

Ra'am-Ta'al - three out of 4 MKs voted no, the other was not present.

Balad - one was not present, the other three voted no.

Meretz - all three MKs voted no.

Ichud Leumi (extreme right wing party, but not part of the coalition) - out of 4 MKs, one was not present, the other three voted yes.

Reactions to the Boycott Law

Some interesting reactions to the boycott ban:

Liel Leibovitz of Tablet Magazine:

I am a citizen of Israel. I also wholeheartedly support a ban on the settlements, which I believe to be illegal, morally reprehensible, theologically misguided, and politically ruinous. So sue me.
No, really: Now you can.

Marc Tracy, also of Tablet, writes:

In striking against the international BDS movement and its undeniable, and undeniably unfair, campaign of delegitimization with such an absurd, draconian gesture, isn’t the Israeli government compelling all honest observers to pay more attention to the motives and arguments of the BDS movement? It seems to me that MK Zeev Elkin, of Likud, the bill’s main sponsor, is the BDS movement’s most useful of idiots. He ought to get a cut of the donations that are about to pour in.

David Schraub picks up on the theme of useful idiots:

But the true stunner is that it looks like this law is even too much for ZOA's Mort Klein, who said "Nobody was more appalled by the boycott of Ariel theater than me, but to make it illegal? I don't think so."

I mean, seriously? How badly do you have to fuck up for Mort Klein to attack you from the left? Mort Klein criticizing Israel for being too harsh on its critics is like hearing Pat Robertson condemn a "family values" org for being too homophobic. It's a sign that you didn't just go off the deep end, but cracked your head open on the side of the pool mid-leap.

Gush Shalom, which already in the 1990s began a campaign to boycott goods produced at the settlements (I remember reading their list of things produced at the settlements at that time), has filed a petition to overturn the boycott law:

The appeal states that the new law violates basic democratic principles: “The parliamentary majority seeks, through the Boycott Law as by other pieces of legislation, to silence any criticism of government policy in general and of government policy in the Occupied Territories in particular, and to prevent an open and productive political dialogue, which constitutes the basis for a functioning democratic regime” (art. 7).

"Boycott Law" just passed by Israeli Knesset

The Knesset just passed (on its second and third readings) the "Boycott Law," which penalizes people and organizations that call for a boycott against Israel or against the settlements. Tomorrow a petition will be submitted to the Supreme Court against the law by the organizations Coalition of Women for Peace, Physicians for Human Rights, the Public Committee Against Torture, and Adalah. This is after the opinion of the Legal Adviser to the Knesset, who ruled today that the law suffered from a "real constitutional defect" and is a "violation of core political speech in Israel."

To protest against the law, Peace Now has just started a Facebook page calling for boycotting products from the settlements. The head of Peace Now, Yariv Oppenheimer, said tonight that "Someone who buys products from the territories himself funds building in the settlements and the outposts, damages Israeli exports, and deepens the occupation. As Israelis we will not surrender the right to protest and the freedom to say this."

As should be clear to anyone who reads my blog, I am opposed to the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions campaign, because I believe that it is fundamentally antisemitic and will never lead to peace between Israel and the Palestinians. On the other hand, I myself have grave doubts about buying products made in the settlements. As the Peace Now leader said, doing so directly supports the settlements financially and enables them to continue to exist.

I oppose the occupation and think that Israel should withdraw from most of the West Bank to enable the establishment of a Palestinian state. The continued building of settlements and the establishment of settlement outposts has continually diminished the amount of land that could be used for the Palestinian state. In addition, many settlers engage in illegal and violent acts against their Palestinian neighbors, up to and including setting fire to mosques in retaliation for Israeli government actions (usually quite mild) against the settlements (for example, tearing down an outpost consisting of a few caravans). I don't want to reward people for these actions.

The Peace Now Facebook page says (my translation): "Prosecute me, I boycott products of the settlements. This is an historic day in which the Israeli Knesset transformed itself from a representative of the people to the national thought police. It appears that the extreme right prefers to end the many years long debate about the settlements by means of an anti-democratic law. In the wake of the law, we will call (for the first time), tomorrow morning, together with thousands of supporters, to boycott the products of the settlements, and we will explain to the public that one who buys products from the settlements damages the state of Israel."

The point of this law is not to attack the BDS movement outside Israel, which will not be injured by it. It is to attack the Israeli left and its activism against the settlements. There are a few extreme Israeli leftists who support the BDS movement, but groups like Peace Now are certainly not among them. This law is part and parcel of the campaign by the Israeli extreme right to demonize and delegitimize the Israeli left, including such human rights organizations as B'Tselem. Israelis and Jews in the other countries may not like what Peace Now, B'Tselem, the Public Committee Against Torture, and other organizations say in criticism of Israeli governmental actions, but to deny them the right to free speech, on penalty of extensive fines, is a blow to Israeli democracy.