BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) is the increasing popular weapon of choice amongst many of us who oppose the actions and positions of the current Israeli government. It is also the Israeli weapon of choice against Gaza, though if pushed they resort to more direct weapons. At the heart of the debate over BDS lies the question of whether it is right to call for a boycott of Israel of when so many other countries do so many worse things. Some BDS opponents claim that call is the demon of anti-Semitism rearing its subtly disguised head. But as Hamlet noted, “Use every man after his dessert, and who should ‘scape whipping?” If I were to boycott every country that committed human rights abuses, I fear I’d have to walk naked for lack of a source of moral clothing. So do I then boycott none? How do I decide?

I start, of course, by looking at what others have to say. The issue has been brought to the front burner not only by the debate at U.C. Berkeley, but by several recent artists who articulately describe the reasons they do – or do not – support a boycott. Margaret Atwood, Canada’s greatest writer, recently won the Dan David prize, given out by University of Tel Aviv. She (and Amitav Ghosh, the co-winner) were under considerable pressure to boycott the prize. Atwood has always participated in human rights issues, whether in her actions or in her writing (The Handmaid’s Tale is as scathing a critique of the treatment of women under patriarchal fundamentalism as fiction has to offer. She co-founded PEN Canada, and has fought on the side of the angels on many issues. Here is an excerpt from her and Ghosh’s joint statement on why they chose not to boycott Israel:

MARGARET: Propaganda deals in absolutes: in Yes and No. But the novel is a creature of nuance: of perhaps, of maybe. It concerns itself, not with gods and demons, but with mortal people, with their flawed characters, their unsatisfactory bodies, their sufferings, their limited and often wrong choices; with the dubiousness of their own actions and the unfairness of their fates.

AMITAV: Writing a novel often requires you to see life through the eyes of those you may not agree with. It is a polyphonic form. It pleads for the complex humanity of all human beings.

BOTH: The letters we have received have ranged from courteous and sad to factual and practical to accusatory, outrageous, and untrue in their claims and statements; some have been frankly libelous, and even threatening. Some have been willing to listen to us, others have not: they want our supposedly valuable “names,” but not our actual voices…. To do as our correspondents demand would be to destroy our part in the work we have been doing with PEN for decades – work that involves thousands of writers around the world- jailed, exiled, censored, and murdered. Writers have no armies. They have no militant wings. The list of persecuted writers is long, ancient, and international. We feel we must defend the diminishing open space in which dialogue, exchange, and relatively free expression are still possible.

On the other side of the barricade are a number of performers who have chosen not to perform in Israel. Most notable are Gil Scott-Heron and Elvis Costello, both of whom are also politically committed and articulate spokespeople. Costello said this month on his blog:

It Is After Considerable Contemplation that I have lately arrived at the decision that I must withdraw from the two performances scheduled in Israel on the 30th of June and the 1st of July.

One lives in hope that music is more than mere noise, filling up idle time, whether intending to elate or lament.
Then there are occasions when merely having your name added to a concert schedule may be interpreted as a political act that resonates more than anything that might be sung and it may be assumed that one has no mind for the suffering of the innocent.

Noam Chomsky emerges in this debate in a unique position. He was not given permission to enter Palestine because he was going to give a lecture at a Palestinian University and not at an Israeli one. Chomsky, who has been attacked for decades for his cogent analysis of Israeli actions, says in a Haaretz interview,

“I was against a boycott of apartheid South Africa as well. If we are going to boycott, why not the United States, whose record is even worse? I’m in favor of boycotting American companies which collaborate with the occupation, but if we are to boycott Tel Aviv University, why not MIT?”

Also in Haaretz is a scathing article by long time peace activist Gideon Levy, who notes the hypocrisy inherent in Israeli reaction against the BDS movement. Levy writes:

Most people here are appalled at the notion that anybody beyond Israel’s borders would think to boycott their country, products or universities. Boycotts, after all, are viewed in Israel as illegitimate. Anyone who calls for such a step is perceived as an anti-Semite and Israel-hater who is undermining the state’s very right to exist. ….It would be possible to identify with these intolerant reactions were it not for the fact that Israel itself is one of the world’s prolific boycotters. Not only does it boycott, it preaches to others, at times even forces others, to follow in tow. Israel has imposed a cultural, academic, political, economic and military boycott on the territories. At the same time, almost no one here utters a dissenting word questioning the legitimacy of these boycotts. Yet the thought of boycotting the boycotter? Now that’s inconceivable.

He goes on to dismiss the argument that Israel is being singled out.

But the argument that as long as there are worse crimes in the world Israel should be left alone is not only specious and disingenuous, it is quite dangerous. Are we then to understand that until crimes grow to the magnitude of Bosnia, Rwanda or even Nazi Germany we should be doing nothing about them? If there is murder committed in a city, does that mean the police should ignore rape cases until the murderers are all caught? The notion is absurd.

This issue is particularly noteworthy this week because of two stories. One is the discovery, by the Guardian newspaper, that in 1975 Israel had been willing to break the world’s two most sacred boycotts, the anti-apartheid boycott against South Africa, and the boycott against spreading nuclear weapons. The Guardian writes:

Secret South African documents reveal that Israel offered to sell nuclear warheads to the apartheid regime, providing the first official documentary evidence of the state’s possession of nuclear weapons.

The “top secret” minutes of meetings between senior officials from the two countries in 1975 show that South Africa’s defence minister, PW Botha, asked for the warheads and Shimon Peres, then Israel’s defence minister and now its president, responded by offering them “in three sizes”. The two men also signed a broad-ranging agreement governing military ties between the two countries that included a clause declaring that “the very existence of this agreement” was to remain secret.

The other critical story is still developing: the arrival in Israeli waters of the European flotilla of humanitarian aid to Gaza. This confrontation puts Israel in a lose-lose situation, as Al Jazeera succinctly sums up:

Ultimately Israel is faced with two questions: does it continue its policy of collective punishment and prevent the flotilla from entering Gaza until Gazans succumb to Israeli demands? Or does it allow the aid to enter and attempt to demonstrate to the world that Israel does in fact respect human rights?

Unfortunately neither of these options bode well for the Israelis, option one for the obvious public outcry that will spill out as a result of 800 people stranded in the water. And although option two would be smarter from a public relations perspective, it would be an indirect admission by Israel that its policy of collective punishment and continued siege is flawed, not to mention illegal.

As Rabbi Brant Rosen comments in a nuanced and thoughtful blog post on BDS:

Beyond the fears articulated by Friedman, Dershowitz and so many others like them, I think there’s an even deeper fear for many of us in the Jewish community: the prospect of facing the honest truth of Israel’s oppression of Palestinians.

And that is the core I come back to as I try to resolve my own ambiguities and uncertainties. I think of McLuhan’s dictum, “There is absolutely no inevitability as long as there is a willingness to contemplate what is happening.” If Israel is not to be boycotted because it is not the worst country in the world (and it is not) then why is Gaza to be boycotted? Or Iran, which has not invaded any country for the past hundred years? Yes, BDS is supported by some who are anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. That alone is not enough of a reason to not participate. My personal view is that of Chomsky, that boycotting facilitators of the occupation is right, but a general boycott is not. But of course, gentle readers, that doesn’t get you off the hook of having to make your own moral decision on this issue … and I look forward to reading what those are.



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