Boycott Israel?- Neve Gordon in the LA Times

PS: The Magnes Zionist (22nd August) has an amusingly sardonic take on the response of some Los Angeles Jews to the Neve Gordon’s article below. See it here.

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In a Los Angeles Times op-ed Neve Gordon, an American-born Jew who has lived in Israel for nearly 30 years and teaches political science at Ben-Gurion University of the Negev in Beersheba, reluctantly comes to the conclusion that boycotting Israel may be the only way to save the country from itself.  The author of the recent book, Israel’s Occupation, Gordon argues that “‘on the ground,’ the one-state solution (in an apartheid manifestation) is a reality.” Arguing that the two-state solution is the only way to reverse apartheid, he has decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005. – Joel Beinin

Lincoln Shlensky adds:

Neve Gordon cites the Bilbao Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Initiative as an appropriate model for creating international pressure on Israel to end the occupation. In Gordon’s reading of it, the Bilbao Initiative proposes a process of imposing sanctions that begins by punishing companies doing business in the Occupied Territories and those that reinforce the occupation in other structural ways, and gradually extends such sanctions.

While one may disagree with Gordon’s resolutely gradualist interpretation of the Bilbao Initiative, it would be hard to disagree that there is a need for the kinds of initial sanctions he mentions. Indeed, many of those individuals and organizations which do not claim to be advocates of a formal BDS campaign have long argued that punishing the direct beneficiaries of occupation and acting to end Israel’s continuing confiscation of Palestinian land are urgent.

Other elements of the Bilbao Initiative that Gordon does not mention, however, are more controversial. For example, Point 5 of the Initiative proposes to “build pressure on the United Nations, governments, local authorities, multilateral bodies, such as the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), and the private sector to suspend cooperation with Israel.” Such proposals are controversial for two reasons: some believe that they unfairly single out Israel among many rights-violating nations, and should be opposed for this reason alone. Others believe that, tactically, the appearance of singling out Israel for special sanctions may create a backlash against broad-based international efforts to end Israel’s occupation at a time when the American administration seems more serious than ever about achieving a resolution.

Such concerns have merit. They need to be addressed directly by supporters of the BDS movement if proposals like the Bilbao Initiative are to gain wider support.

Boycott Israel An Israeli comes to the painful conclusion that it’s the only way to save his country.

By Neve Gordon August 20, 2009

Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv, and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokesperson, a British actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is gaining many followers around the world.

Not surprisingly, many Israelis – even peaceniks – aren’t signing on. A global boycott can’t help but contain echoes of anti-Semitism. It also brings up questions of a double standard (why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights?) and the seemingly contradictory position of approving a boycott of one’s own nation.

It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.
I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country’s future.

The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean Sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews – whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel – are citizens of the state of Israel.

The question that keeps me up at night, both as a parent and as a citizen, is how to ensure that my two children as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbors do not grow up in an apartheid regime.

There are only two moral ways of achieving this goal.

The first is the one-state solution: offering citizenship to all Palestinians and thus establishing a bi-national democracy within the entire area controlled by Israel. Given the demographics, this would amount to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state; for most Israeli Jews, it is anathema.

The second means of ending our apartheid is through the two-state solution, which entails Israel’s withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders (with possible one-for-one land swaps), the division of Jerusalem, and a recognition of the Palestinian right of return with the stipulation that only a limited number of the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, while the rest can return to the new Palestinian state.

Geographically, the one-state solution appears much more feasible because Jews and Palestinians are already totally enmeshed; indeed, “on the ground,” the one-state solution (in an apartheid manifestation) is a reality.

Ideologically, the two-state solution is more realistic because fewer than 1% of Jews and only a minority of Palestinians support binationalism.

For now, despite the concrete difficulties, it makes more sense to alter the geographic realities than the ideological ones. If at some future date the two peoples decide to share a state, they can do so, but currently this is not something they want.

So if the two-state solution is the way to stop the apartheid state, then how does one achieve this goal?

I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren’t citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right.

It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.

I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.

In Bilbao, Spain, in 2008, a coalition of organizations from all over the world formulated the 10-point Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign meant to pressure Israel in a “gradual, sustainable manner that is sensitive to context and capacity.” For example, the effort begins with sanctions on and divestment from Israeli firms operating in the occupied territories, followed by actions against those that help sustain and reinforce the occupation in a visible manner. Along similar lines, artists who come to Israel in order to draw attention to the occupation are welcome, while those who just want to perform are not.

Nothing else has worked. Putting massive international pressure on Israel is the only way to guarantee that the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians – my two boys included – does not grow up in an apartheid regime.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

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