I’ve been asked about my position on the BDS campaign. In lieu of writing a fresh post on it, I am going to cut-and-paste my contributions to an extensive Facebook exchange I had on the question in August 2009, with the managing editor of a well-known New York-based progressive weekly, whom I will call Ron (not his real name; we know one another and are friendly, BTW; we met for the first time in Jerusalem in April 2009). There were exchanges on two separate threads, the first one provoked by a link Ron posted on the political science professor Neve Gordon (whom I also met in Jerusalem, with Ron), who was being threatened with dismissal from his post at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev for his support of BDS. So here’s me replying to Ron:
On the reaction against Neve, I think it mainly has to do with nationalist hysteria in Israel—akin to the US in the post 9/11 period—plus the fact that Israelis like to yell at and insult one another. I doubt there’s much fear of BDS, which is ill-conceived and has no chance of gaining traction. BDS supporters are dreaming if they think their campaign will achieve South African proportions.
[Ron]: You may be right, Arun, but it’s early days yet, early days. Re South Africa, it took a LONG time.
The South Africa analogy is tempting but just won’t fly. First, the South Africa boycott campaign had a simple, explicitly clear objective: majority rule and the end of apartheid, which the white regime was called upon to do more or less unilaterally (sure, this was coordinated with Mandela and the ANC but the end point was clear). It was all so simple. The Israel BDS objective is the end of the occupation. But apart from the fact that even most Israelis are for this, at least in principle, this is something that can only come about through negotiations with the constituted Palestinian leadership (presently the PA). But once one gets into the details of this it becomes very complex, as other issues apart from the occupation start looming large—Jerusalem, Haram al-Sharif/Temple Mount, refugees and “right of return,” sovereignty, borders, settlement blocs, narratives of 1948, Hamas, etc, etc—and which could scuttle the whole process even if Israel were willing the quit the near entirety of the West Bank. For the Palestinians, ending the occupation of the West Bank is NOT the only issue on the table. And, it needs to be said, not everyone who hates the occupation of the West Bank is entirely with the Palestinians on these other issues.
Secondly, there was a global consensus in regard to South Africa and apartheid, and much of the world was already boycotting that country by the time the campaign took off in the US in the mid-80s (and which even swept up the GOP-majority Congress of the time). There is not the slightest chance this will obtain with Israel. The only part of the world that boycotts Israel is the OIC, but even here there are significant exceptions (N.B Israel has diplomatic and economic relations with close to 40% of OIC member states). Israel has robust relations (economic, military, etc) with India, China, Japan, Russia and the other USSR successor states, Latin America, and much of Africa. And then there’s Europe, not to mention the US. Anyone who thinks that any government in the West, or any significant sector of the economy or civil society will jump on the boycott wagon is living in a fantasy world. In France, which has the largest Muslim population in the western world, both in absolute numbers and percentage, BDS supporters pushed their campaign four or five years ago but the pushback was swift and decisive. French Jews hit back hard and not even the mainstream left (Socialist party, intellectuals, academics) would hear of it. Since then there has been practically nothing. It is likewise across the continent. The BDS campaign is a waste of time. That’s my view, in any case.
The second thread began with a link to an August 2009 column by Uri Avnery in Gush Shalom (also on the Ma’an News Agency website) that critiqued BDS:
I’ve been a fan of Uri Avnery for close to four decades now and his commentary in Gush Shalom is right on target. A couple more comments about the BDS campaign, and specifically the South Africa parallel. First, the South Africa boycott was primarily a matter of states, international organizations (UN mandated embargos, etc), and—as Avnery alludes to—governing bodies of international sports (IOC, FIFA et al). Civil society action was secondary and mainly symbolic. Consumer boycotts were mostly irrelevant (as there were few visible South African goods on the US and European markets), there was little talk about boycotting academics, and the divestment campaign didn’t have much impact (and was partly checked by the Sullivan Principles). The Israel BDS people seem not to be adopting a South Africa model here (and would have no chance of success if they did). Secondly, South Africa had no organized constituency in the US or anywhere in Europe. American right-wing publications and commentators (National Review, Pat Buchanan…) did support the apartheid regime—for both Cold War and ideological reasons—but this did not translate into anything on the level of public opinion. When the shit hit the fan in South Africa from the mid-80s onward, hardly anyone in the US, UK etc was willing to go to bat for PW Botha & Co. It hardly needs to be said that this is not at all the case with Israel, which has strong constituencies in the US and major European states, and wide support in public opinions. And even if the latter is becoming more critical of Israeli policy, there will never be broad based support for isolating the country as was apartheid South Africa. Avnery is right here and on all counts. The BDS folks are wasting their time. They need a new and much more modest strategy.
(…)
[Ron], your position seems to be never say never and all sorts of great things may happen if one is shrewd and strategic. Sure. But let’s be serious now. There is not the *slightest* possibility of global sanctions against Israel such as were implemented against South Africa and backed by the UNSC (where the US has a veto, lest one forget…). The Arab League secondary and tertiary boycott had some effect—e.g., Israelis were deprived of Cola-Cola for decades (horrors!)—but changed nothing on the ground and was entirely abandoned with Oslo. And for all sorts of rather obvious reasons, these Arab League boycotts will not/cannot be revived. The EU, which is Israel’s most important trading partner, may freeze progress toward deeper economic integration but won’t cancel it, let alone impose sanctions. These is no chance whatever of this. As I said before, the BDS campaign in France is practically non-existent (outside marginalized sectors of the far left). And can one see Germany taking part in this? Or states like China, India, Japan, South Korea, Brazil, Russia…, whose foreign policies are determined exclusively by realpolitik? In international sports, does one imagine for a second that Israel will be suspended from UEFA or the IOC? I don’t even think the BDS folks have put this on the agenda. As for the last Gaza war and Lebanon 2006, there was certainly a lot of anger at Israel and across the board—including from Jews normally supportive of Israel—but who’s talking about Gaza today? It’s sad and tragic for the Gazans but world opinion—where the attention span has become ever shorter—has moved on to other crises and preoccupations. Gazans feel forgotten and, terrible as it may be, they pretty much have been. Or, to put it another way, it is up to the political leadership there—making use of the agency that it possesses—to find a way to extricate themselves from their predicament. And given the ideological character of the charming crowd that runs the show in Gaza, they’re not going to get a lot of help on this from the outside. In his blog post, Uri Avnery made an important point about the eventual effect of a successful BDS campaign on Israel: the country would recoil into an even greater nationalist hysteria and with the extreme right reinforced. So instead of softies like Bibi the country would end up being ruled by the likes of Avigdor Lieberman, Moshe Feiglin, and Effi Eytam. Now it is possible that BDSers and militant pro-Palestinians may actually welcome this, so as to accentuate the contradictions and pave the way to, well, what? Israel withdrawing unilaterally from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, evacuating hundreds of thousands of settlers, and ceding on the right of return? Does anyone imagine that any Israeli government can be constrained through international pressure to do all this, and under a right-wing government no less?…
(…)
[Ron], the substance of my argument here is that, yes, the BDS campaign is indeed doomed to failure and for the reasons I have explicated. My well-considered assessment is that it has no chance of succeeding in either of its objectives, to wit, snowballing to the point where Israel eventually finds itself globally boycotted and sanctioned economically, culturally, academically, sportingly, etc; and prompting Israel to capitulate to BDSer demands. As you may have noted, I have not debated the politics or principles of the campaign, which is another matter altogether. My argument has been driven by Naomi Klein’s in The Nation last January, where she stated that the boycott is a tactic, not dogma, and should be tried against Israel for practical reasons, i.e., because it might work. I say no. Okay, time will tell.
Two final points. First, I have participated in a number of boycotts over the decades, including on the organizational level (leafleting, picketing…), mainly union-led consumer ones in the ‘70s (iceberg lettuce, grapes, Gallo wine, Farah trousers, Gulf Oil…). A number of these were ultimately successful, as they were narrowly targeted, easy to explain and understand, had explicit objectives, and did not demand undue effort by consumers or have indefinite time frames (i.e., there was the expectation that the target of the boycott—corporate management—, feeling the pain, would negotiate within a reasonable amount of time and cede to the demands, which mainly involved recognition of a union). I think I know what it takes to organize a successful boycott. If I were called in to advise the BDS campaign as a neutral outsider (which I am not), I would tell them that they have it all wrong: the boycott is way too broad and scattershot, too onerous and complicated for consumers (asking people to verify the origins of what they put in their shopping carts, decipher bar codes…)—when not unreasonable (e.g., if anyone asks me to boycott Israeli cinema, I will impolitely tell him/her to go f*** off)—, an impossibly large population to be organized (the whole planet), and with no realistic time frame (open ended consumer boycotts are destined to fizzle). And the ultimate objectives are murky. Which is why BDS-type campaigns against states must ultimately be led by states, not civil societies.
Secondly, and in this vein, the world has had extensive experience in recent times with comprehensive sanctions against states (South Africa, Rhodesia, Iraq, Serbia, Burma, Israel during the Arab League boycott…). The general consensus is that they simply don’t work, and have numerous perverse effects to boot. Regimes dig in their heels, ordinary people suffer while regime-linked profiteers profit, there are countless ways to circumvent them, nationalism is whipped up… In the case of South Africa—and with all due respect to Desmond Tutu—, sanctions did not play a role in bringing the apartheid regime to its knees. It was the (unarmed) struggle of the black majority—which was blessed with the enlightened leadership of Nelson Mandela and the ANC—and realization by the Afrikaner elite that the game was up, that apartheid was untenable and unsustainable. I’ll leave it up to others to see similarities and differences here with Israel-Palestine. That’s it. You get the last word.
UPDATE: I had another Facebook exchange in 2009 with “Ron,” on the issue of Palestinian refugees, the “right of return” (ROR), and UN General Assembly Resolution 194. As the ROR is a BDS demand and with such based on a reading of UNGAR 194, what I had to say is relevant here:
The problem with the refugee problem is that it is, in fact, not a problem anymore, because most of the ’48 refugees are now dead and those who are still around were children back then and have few if any memories of the period. The people who continue to live in “refugee camps”—which are now for the most part fully integrated quarters of urban areas (we’ve all visited one or several)—are the *descendants* of the ’48 refugees—now into the fourth, even fifth, generation—, not refugees themselves. As such, they have a claim to compensation for the lost property of their ancestors but to nothing else. The only solution to their current status is to be granted citizenship in the countries where they were born and have resided all their lives (a future West Bank-Gaza Palestinian state, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt; those in Jordan already have citizenship there). If they and/or the states in question reject this and continue to insist on a phantasmic “right of return”— however symbolic—, that will really be too bad, as the refugee descendants will continue to bang their heads against the wall for the indefinite future.
What I’m saying here is so obvious and I am amazed that it is not to others (not even in Israel, BTW).
(…)
What I propose may resemble a discourse one hears from Israelis, as you say, but that does not a priori invalidate it (and that’s not where I get it from). On Resolution 194, a few comments: (a) As it is a General Assembly resolution, it is not binding; (b) For the record, the Arab League vehemently opposed 194 when it was debated and enacted, and the PLO rejected it—along with all other relevant UN resolutions—until 1988, when it changed its position; (c) As a non-binding resolution enacted over sixty years ago, 194 is now irrelevant; it has been superseded by events; there’s been a lot of water under the bridge since then; (d) Most importantly, the formulation “right of return” appears nowhere in 194; the resolution’s critical article 11 thus reads: “…refugees wishing to return to their homes and live at peace with their neighbours should be permitted to do so at the earliest practicable date…”; parsing this backward: (i) The “earliest practicable date” presumably means when an end-of-conflict peace settlement is finally signed; by the time this happens—the way things look nowadays—every last 1948 refugee will be dead; (ii) “should be permitted” is the conditional tense, not the imperative; it expresses a desire, not a mandate; (iii) “return to their homes”: but their homes are long gone, having been razed, demolished, or occupied by others; there are no homes to go back to; (iv) “refugees”: the ’48 refugees are almost all dead (see point (i)). Conclusion: 194 is caduc (borrowing from Yasser Arafat, who thus pronounced the Palestinian National Charter in 1989).
On the matter of compensation, I entirely agree. The Palestinians suffered a massive spoliation of property and assets in 1948, and the presumptive heirs have a right to just compensation. But the Arab League enacted a resolution in 1965 forbidding individual Palestinians from accepting compensation from Israel and this has been longstanding PLO doctrine. This is a highly sensitive issue among Palestinians even today, with many rejecting compensation if it involves surrendering the “right of return.” But the Palestinians cannot have their cake and eat it too on this, or they’ll end up losing out on all counts (and not for the first time…). The Israelis, for their part, were long willing to settle compensation claims, formally at least, though at this point will no doubt want to send the bill to the US Congress and “international community,” which would not sit well with me. They should cough up the money themselves, or most of it, but we’re not at this stage yet, far from it…
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