Monday, November 11, 2019

"Playin' Sun City?" Palestine, Israel, South Africa, and Historical Memory


Image result for separation wall palestine

            Nelson Mandela and the South African freedom story were getting a lot of mileage in the 1990s.  They still do today.  By the time I was in high school, Mandela had reached living, secular sainthood.  His face, along with Gandhi’s, Martin Luther King’s, and Mother Teresa’s and then some more generic motivational posters, hung near our principal’s office and presumably near other principals’ offices in other schools.  Sophomore year, on a retreat, we watched and discussed part of The Power of One, a 1992 film directed by John Avildsen, based on the 1989 Bryce Courtenay novel.  The movie inspired in me, as a student, a naive but genuine desire to do something to challenge “the system,” like “PK” did—PK, the white, English-speaking South African boy protagonist.  I reflected that, in the future, I might even have to go “over there” to that continent to help “those people.”

            When I was in college, I had to read from Bishop Desmond Tutu, who was by then also among the (living, Protestant) saints.  Weaving together deep history and nonviolent spirituality, his writings informed and invigorated me amidst some other drearier texts in political science. 

Unrelated but also during college, in amongst other rock videos, I memorized Bono’s rant midway through "Silver and Gold" off Rattle and Hum: “...while they fail to support a man like Bishop Tutu and his request for economic sanctions against South Africa.  Am I buggin' you?  I don’t mean to bug ya.  Ok, Edge play the blues.”  It seemed like the true liberal arts synchronicity moment: my studies and my music tastes and my larger future visions, however not well articulated, were nevertheless overlapping. 

            Peter Gabriel’s "Biko" was a good addition in my navy, mid-twenties days.  Furthermore, Bono had put me on to “Sun City” and Artists United against Apartheid, begun by Steve Van Zandt, aka Little Steven, aka “Silvio Dante.”  "Sun City" is wonderfully ‘80s, i.e. wonderfully cheesy, and I was pleased to learn that Bruce Springsteen’s lead guitarist was against apartheid, too. 

            And so, this is how the story went in my head: once upon a time, there were some good black people who were oppressed by some bad white people.  But, we good white people over here rooted for and helped free those black people through our music, our political culture of equal rights, and, of course, through their singular hero of Nelson Mandela (maybe with a little Desmond Tutu on the side). 

            We had done it: truth, reconciliation, and the long walk to freedom!  It’s a story of triumph, of our agency over here, and the agency of singular heroes over there.  I was not politically aware in the 1980s and early 1990s, but retroactively, I felt like I did it, too.  That I was part of the global movement after the fact.  My listening to “Biko” and “Silver and Gold” was reaffirming the freedom struggle (in the way that I helped reaffirm the end of famine in Ethiopia, too, twenty years after the fact, by buying the Live Aid DVD set).

            Some years later, in 2009, Invictus (directed by Clint Eastwood) provided the icing on the cake.  Matt Damon, as the rugby star Francois Pienear, and the rest of the Springboks soothed the wounds of immediately post-apartheid South Africa, and all they had to do was play a rugby match.  And, my watching it stamped the freedom struggle even more, after the fact, and all through watching a movie.  (Morgan Freeman is, by the way, our black stand-in, for both Geel Piet in The Power of One and Mandela himself in Invictus).

            In the end, it is a feel-good story for us.  We were on the right side—we made the difference—and everyone lived happily ever after.  Of course, that’s not how it happened.

            Don’t get me wrong.  I love “Biko,” The Power of One, and “Silver and Gold.”  I indulge in rock-star activism—who can help it?—even though for the most part, it doesn’t cost too much skin in the game.  Or, I indulge in it precisely because it doesn’t require much.  Maybe that’s why I pay $85 for the Springsteen nosebleed ticket and then throw a couple bucks into the Philabundance food bank bins on the way out of the stadium and still feel good about myself.  I love Invictus less—I just think it’s not that good of a film—but it is based on a true story.  That rugby match did matter in symbolically bringing the country together, and if you focus on Mandela’s strategy and difficult choices rather than Matt Damon and the white rugby players, there are some valuable lessons.  I still love a feel-good story, especially if I get to be one of the good guys, or at the very least, I get to be neutral and not one of the bad guys.  Celebrating triumphs is a good thing—we need more triumphal stories.  But, humble reckonings are the prerequisite.  First, truth.  Then, reconciliation.

            The South Africa freedom struggle was, and is, much more complicated.

*

            We celebrate the South Africa story like we were always on the right side, on the side of justice.  We do this with the Civil Rights Movement, too, in the United States—only after we have de-fanged Martin Luther King, watered down his prophetic rage, made invisible the mass movement behind him, and erased the mainstream opposition towards him.  (For instance, public opinion polls on the eve of the March on Washington show that most Americans did not approve of the event.  Or after he turned his attention toward Vietnam, the “paper of record” The New York Times lambasted his speech as “facile,” “slander,” “wasteful,” and “self-defeating” and many white liberals and even black civil rights leaders turned against him.  The last year of his life was arguably when he was the most hated.  

            Some time after his assassination, we made King a saint.  We made Rosa Parks a saint.  And internationally, we made Nelson Mandela a saint.  This popular canonization, though, can have the effect of papering over a person’s—or a movement’s—natural contradictions, limitations, doubts, and in-fighting.  More detrimentally, this canonization has allowed us to hide the struggle against the struggle—meaning, that at every turn, the powerful sought to undermine these respective freedom struggles.  “Don’t call me a ‘saint,’” Dorothy Day is purported to have said.  “I don’t want to be dismissed that easily.”  

*

            A thumbnail sketch of modern South African history might be useful. 

The Dutch first arrived in South Africa in 1652 and set up a trading post for their East India Company at Cape Colony.  Farmers, mostly of the Dutch Reformed Church, soon followed.  These settlers would eventually become the Boers or Afrikaners.  Thus followed centuries of settler colonialism, importation of slaves from Dutch Asian colonies, and war with various indigenous African tribes and factions.  The Boers would also later fight the British, who were then the new colonizers, and who themselves brought in Indian laborers from their empire.  Competition between the Dutch and British colonists was fierce, but diamond extraction and other mining and land expropriation continued unabatedly, no matter the European flavor of the year.  Under the Union of South Africa (combining Dutch and British colonies), founded in 1910, strict racial laws discriminated against indigenous Africans and other “coloureds.”  In 1948, apartheid was enshrined into law. 

Meanwhile, the African National Congress had been founded in 1912 as a political party to protect black South African rights.  Initially, the ANC organized mostly nonviolent resistance to apartheid, but after years of no in-roads and then after the Sharpeville massacre, the ANC established an armed wing. 

Through a combination of internal resistance led by the ANC and international pressure—from both other newly independent states and global civil society—the apartheid government released Mandela from prison in 1990.  Apartheid ended soon afterward.  Mandela was elected and became president in 1994.  That famous Rugby World Cup, with Matt Damon, took place in 1995.  South Africa certainly has its struggles today, and many of them stem from grave economic inequalities rooted in years of colonialism and apartheid.  Political apartheid has ended, but economic justice remains elusive.  (Particular white reactionaries who think that history started yesterday point to South Africa’s, or Zimbabwe’s for instance, problems as evidence that black people cannot govern themselves.  The Union of South Africa flag and the Rhodesian flag are symbols of this racist, colonial mindset, which Dylan Roof, the Charleston church shooter, wore on his jacket in an infamous photo that was circulated). 

            That aforementioned international pressure played a large role.  When moral and legal arguments against apartheid did not persuade the South African government to reform and did not persuade the United States, United Kingdom, and the “first world” countries that could have intervened, the ANC and other civil society groups called for a global boycott campaign against South Africa.  When all else fails, “Hit where it hurts: silver and gold” (to borrow from Bono). 

            The rough theory of change went: the apartheid regime would not budge when moral and legal arguments were made; the US and UK (and other western nations with the leverage to do so) would not force it to budge; business interests greatly influenced political decision-making in those countries; there were many business ties with South Africa; when international civil society couldn’t move any of the governments, it targeted businesses; when the boycott made it costly to do business in and with South Africa, those businesses stopped doing so; so go corporate interests, so go the governments; when enough businesses left or stopped doing business in South Africa, other western governments would have to consider not doing politics and business in South Africa and South Africa itself would have to consider changing course; once the apartheid regime was isolated economically and politically, it would have to change.

The boycott was initially called in the 1950s.  In 1962, the United Nations General Assembly passed resolution 1761, a non-binding measure calling for economic sanctions on South Africa (twenty-five years before Bono's Rattle and Hum diatribe, just to give chronological perspective).  In 1963, the Security Council passed (binding) resolution 181 calling upon countries to stop the sale and shipment of weapons to South Africa, and the General Assembly urged an oil embargo.  All these UN resolutions mirrored and sprouted from the ANC and activist and civil society partners building the movement.  In 1968, the General Assembly requested all states and organizations "suspend cultural, educational, sporting and other exchanges with the racist regime and with organisations or institutions in South Africa which practice apartheid.”

Tutu summarized the movement’s sentiments:

We are not asking that you make a political decision. We’re not asking you to make an economic decision. We’re asking you to make a moral decision. Those who invest in South Africa are upholding and buttressing one of the most vicious systems the world has ever known.

The United States did ban the sale of arms to South Africa in 1964, after international pressure (they had made a military deal in 1952 and had agreed to help build nukes for South Africa in 1957) and in multiple forums did condemn the racist policies of South Africa.  But in between, it was mostly business as usual.  Especially economically, the U.S. was a “partner in apartheid.”  The U.S. refused to put economic teeth behind any pronouncement.  This was made possible through mostly bipartisan Democratic and Republican support and/or non-concern and/or inertia.  Countries in the global north only started listening to that call for boycott in the 1960s and 1970s, twenty years after it was made.  Still, the UK, US, France, Spain, and Portugal all defied the oil embargo.  In 1964, US companies, generally, reaped $72 million in profit, two times the average 11.8% profit reported in most other countries (possible partly because of apartheid-enforced low wages, not dissimilar to antebellum US northern investors getting rich off southern cotton, picked by unpaid slave labor).  GM, Ford, Chrysler, Firestone, and Goodyear all continued to invest heavily after the boycott call, as did Chase Manhattan, First National City, and other U.S. banks (and the IMF and World Bank) and American mining companies and American investors in foreign and South African mining companies.  In one dramatic victory for the boycott movement, however, the Polaroid Workers Revolutionary Movement formed in Cambridge, Massachusetts and successfully pressured Polaroid—after no less than a seven-year fight, though—to stop the company from providing technology to the apartheid regime, particularly for its notorious pass books.  

But on the whole, the US government and US businesses, hand-in-hand, continued to ignore or actively subvert the boycott movement.  There was money to be made.  As for most US citizens and consumers, we were too distant, too inert, or too distracted to know or to care.      

Even when the United States finally passed the 1986 Comprehensive Anti-Apartheid Act, which placed sanctions on South Africa, it was the result of no less than fifteen years of rigorous advocacy by the likes of Congressman Ron Dellums and nongovernmental allies.  It was an uphill battle the whole time: even when it finally reached a vote and Congress passed it, President Reagan vetoed it.  Congress had to override Reagan’s veto.  The president ostensibly preferred “constructive engagement” with South Africa, but this had been cover for business as usual, with an emphasis on business.  When Desmond Tutu visited Congress, Reagan had the gall to complain, without any sense of irony (see US Cold War policy at the time or foreign policy more generally), “It is counterproductive for one country to splash itself all over the headlines demanding that another government do something.” 

The UK was the largest foreign investor in South Africa during the apartheid years and therefore the last other county to come around.  After the US placed its sanctions, Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher saw the writing on the wall, and then South African President de Klerk saw the writing on the wall.

In short, the anti-apartheid struggle was not as rosy or as squeaky clean as we now present it in our sanitized textbooks and mass media and rock concerts. It can’t be “dismissed that easily.” 

As you might have heard, there is a relatively new movement for boycott, divestment, and sanctions—this time against the state of Israel.  The call was originally put out in 2005 by Palestinian civil society. 
*

In college, even as I was sympathetic to the Palestinian cause and taking courses on the “conflict,” I used to think that it was like the Notre Dame-USC, Red Sox-Yankees, or Michigan-Ohio State rivalries.  I read every New York Times article about it.  In my circle of friends, I fashioned myself the (relative) expert—to the degree that we talked about it or anything political—and I can still hear myself (and I cringe now) using the tepid, milquetoast language of “just got to bring both sides to the table.”  Maybe even I, baby-faced student of the conflict, would be the one in the future to “bring both sides to the table.”  (Instead, apparently it would be Jared, or now Avi Berkowitz, both just as inexperienced and baby-faced).  I had even accepted the “facts on the ground,” that is, the State Department language for the illegal Israeli settlements in East Jerusalem, the West Bank (and at the time the Gaza Strip, too).  One of the deacons at our church, who was intrigued by my studying Arabic and the Middle East, said he was counting on me to bring those angry Arab peoples in line, be it in Palestine, Iraq, or elsewhere (and then we celebrated mass).  Even though most of me bristled at his ignorant, Orientalist trope, part of me thought that we did just need to bring “those unreasonable people” into line. 

When Jimmy Carter, in his post-presidency days, wrote Palestine: Peace not Apartheid, I hadn’t read it, but I flipped out like the rest of the national media: “Woahhh!  Easy with the a-word!  That’s not very ‘helpful’ to the discussion, Mr. President.  We can’t even get people to say the o-word (occupation).”

With further study and ultimately a visit to both Israel and the occupied territories though, I came to see the starker truth.  As Peter Beinart, formerly of The New Republic and now of The Atlantic—still a liberal Zionist but now a less unconditional defender of Israel—recently said, visiting the region and seeing the conflict from the Palestinian side is “a shattering experience.”  The truth is that in varying degrees, in Israel proper, in East Jerusalem, in the West Bank, and in the Gaza Strip, Israel is an apartheid state. 

Some people bristle at the use of the term apartheid.  Some people bristle at the comparison of Israel-Palestine to South Africa.  But, it first must be noted that “apartheid is not an analogy...it is a definition."  And so, yes, apartheid is first a definition, but the analogy to South Africa is nevertheless useful, if not perfect.  It is especially useful when considering our complicity with and non-reactions to both examples.  Furthermore, that bristling and cringing to the a-word stems, in part, from the fairytale, romanticized versions of history—of Mandela, for instance—we tell ourselves. 

 European settlers—both the earlier Dutch and later English—had different reasons for migrating to South Africa than Zionist settlers had for migrating to Palestine.  Much of the latter group migrated to Palestine to flee discrimination in Europe, where anti-Semitism had a long history.  In the modern era, Jews had to flee the pogroms of Eastern Europe and then, of course, the Nazification and “final solutions” of Western Europe.  It must be noted though that, one, not all Zionist settlement has been in response to oppression (especially in recent years), and two, when that oppression did reach full throttle in the 1930s and 1940s, the UK and the US refused to accept many of those Jewish refugees.  Nevertheless, Jewish settlers in Palestine—and the Jewish diaspora more broadly—carry a unique historical trauma that is not shared by white South Africans in their story.

That important nuance and background, however, does not a priori negate the fact that Israel is an apartheid state and that it shares much in common with South Africa’s system.  To use the definition and then to make the comparison is not to ignore the aforesaid historical trauma of Jewish people broadly.  But, it is to describe the present situation and the policies of a particular nation-state.

The 2012 documentary Roadmap to Apartheid, directed by Ana Nogueira and Eron Davidson and narrated by Alice Walker, shows the Israeli systems of occupation, creeping annexation by building barriers, house demolitions, settlement, checkpoints, water theft, separate roads, soldier harassment, house raids, killing, and youth incarceration, and juxtaposes each example next to its counterpart in South Africa.  And, just as black South Africans were supposed to be content with their Bantustans—sham states lacking arable land, other resources, and sovereignty—Palestinians are berated for rejecting the “generous offers” from Israel and the powerful states like the US and UK, who pose as honest brokers: “The Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity or Had the Palestinians only accepted the UN partition plan in 1947, they too could have been celebrating their independence alongside Israel.”  The latter statement, of course, ignores that the partition plan proposed to give more than half the land (and most of the arable land) to the minority Zionist settlers for the future Israeli state.    

(Echoes in our own US settler colonialism might sound like: If only the Lakota or the Nez Perce moved to Oklahoma or Carlisle when they had the chance.  They missed their opportunities.)

It was therefore no surprise that Mandela and the ANC endorsed Arafat and the Palestinian Liberation Organization’s resistance for a national state of their own.  This bewildered many Americans, even liberal fans of Mandela, with their own settler-colonial blind spots, with their recovering Cold War lenses (Mandela had also allied with Fidel Castro, for instance), and with their limited story-book versions of history and change.  We could not wrap our heads around anti-colonial struggles allying and aligning, despite their differing ideologies, ethnicities, and cultures.  Conversely, it was also no surprise that Israel was one of the last states to stand by apartheid South Africa’s side. 

Linguist and famed political dissident (and one-time kibbutzim resident of Israel) Noam Chomsky does point to one shortcoming of the South Africa-Israel/Palestine comparison. In many ways, the Israeli system is worse, he says, because, for one, white South Africans needed the black labor for the mines and other hard (underpaid) labor.  Israelis do not need Palestinian labor anymore.  The most reactionary forces in Israel, in fact, want the Palestinians gone: to Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt, or anywhere else than their home.

And so, the boycott, divestment, and sanctions theory of change goes as such: Palestinian leadership has few cards to push the needle in favor of Palestine.  Its people therefore cannot advocate through the “normal” political process.  Israel has the upper hand and is not budging.  Under Netanyahu, the state has become more brazen, aligning with avowed racists and moving towards complete annexation.  The opposition Blue and White candidate in the latest election, the former general Benny Gantz,  had bragged about bombing Gaza back to the Stone Age, and so both Netanyahu and Gantz spell continued disaster for the Palestinians.  Netanyahu has barely held onto power since the election but has struggled to form a government.  Meanwhile, there are no viable, competitive left parties in Israel right now, but even if there were, it is unlikely that they would hold the state accountable either (apartheid and annexation have occurred under Labor and Likud parties alike).  The United States, Israel’s most important ally (to the tune of $3-4 billion each year in military aid) will not hold Israel accountable.  Trump has jumped headlong into Bibi’s arms.  His administration has cut UNRWA funding.  He quit UNESCO because it recognizes Palestine.  He has unilaterally recognized Jerusalem as Israel’s capital (in contradiction of long-standing, “two-state” “final status” negotiating parameters).  He has given approval to Israel’s annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights (Netanyahu grossly repaid him by doing the very thing Trump loves most: putting the Trump name on a new settlement).  Netanyahu made campaign promises to annex a third of the occupied West Bank.  Democratic presidents for the most part have not held Israel accountable either (it was actually Republican George H.W. Bush who last attempted to actually hold Israel accountable).   Many candidates in the 2020 Democratic field have rightly criticized the Netanyahu government, but Netanyahu’s despicability also provides an out: he is low-hanging fruit; you can criticize him and appear to be woke-ish without having to weigh in too much further on the issue (Sanders is easily the biggest critic in the field, but even his critique is not all that progressive).  The topic is one of the rare gems that brings both parties together.  Congressional Republicans and Democrats, with a few notable exceptions, fawn over each other to not hold Israel accountable.  The United Nations Security Council can hardly hold Israel accountable, with an all but assured US veto.  In January 2017, the most the Obama administration did to hold Israel accountable was to abstain on a Security Council measure condemning the settlements.  It was the bare minimum—upholding the US’ own long-standing (and still very pro-Israel) policy and international law that prohibits settlements—and even that sent the hawks of both parties and of major networks stark-raving mad.  Following the non-vote, John Kerry gave a speech that was relatively strong in its criticism of Israel, especially for a sitting Secretary of State, but it was too little, too late.  Sure, Obama and Netanyahu did not get along, but that personal-relationship, palace-intrigue journalism obscured the larger, ongoing, US-abetted injustices.   

 In lieu of any of these entities holding Israel accountable, Palestinian civil society has called on international civil society to nonviolently boycott, divest from, and sanction Israel. 

*

BDS falls into two main categories: one, against products made in the occupied territories, taken from the occupied territories, or supporting the occupation; and two, the broader cultural boycott against many things Israel.  For example, some activists choose to boycott Sabra hummus because of its alleged business ties to and support of an elite Israeli Defense Force (IDF) unit.  And furthermore, people choose to conduct strategic secondary boycotts of sellers of Sabra.  Or, SodaStream.  SodaStream had a factory in an Israeli settlement in the West Bank, and this caused a rift between Oxfam and one of its celebrity “ambassadors” Scarlett Johansson.  That is, for the 2014 Super Bowl, SodaStream planned to run an ad which featured Johansson, and so Oxfam (under pressure itself) asked her to reconsider, but she chose the ad instead.  In the end, the commercial was not aired, but not because of any sympathy for Palestinians but because Fox Sports did not want to tick off Pepsi or Coke.  The Israeli military employs Hewlett-Packard technology in its occupation, and so consumers choose to boycott HP.  BDS activists have targeted Airbnb, which had listed homes in the settlements.  Under pressure, Airbnb changed its policy, but it was a temporary victory.  Due to an unreasonable, vicious reaction, the company reversed policy back: it has listings in the settlements.  But, it now says it “will take no profits from this activity in the region...Any profits generated for Airbnb...will be donated to non-profit organizations dedicated to humanitarian aid that serve people in different parts of the world.”  Thus, charity and philanthropy win out over justice and courage, and now we can all stay on occupied Palestinian land, once again. 

Ireland’s lower house voted to ban settlement goods.  The Presbyterian Church moved to divest from three companies who do business with the occupation: HP, Motorola, and Caterpillar.  A Canadian court ruled that wines from the West Bank cannot be labeled as “Made in Israel."  This last example is not a boycott per se, but the labeling informs consumers who wish to buy responsibly.  These are some of BDS' small victories. 

Then, there is the larger BDS campaign that targets Israel more broadly.  Musicians such as Lorde, Elvis Costello, Annie Lennox, Roger Waters, Chuck D, and Brian Eno have elected not to perform in Israel as part of the cultural boycott.  In fact, after Lorde decided to cancel her concert, the two teenagers who urged her to boycott were fined by Israel for their political activity.  JLo and Madonna, on the other hand, continue to perform there, and BDS attempts to persuade them, or the Eurovision festival, to change course.  Academics, such as those in the American Studies Association, are part of the larger boycott. 

There has been healthy, vigorous, and tactical debate between these two camps.  For example, Noam Chomsky remains opposed to an all-out boycott, of which he questions the efficacy of.  And, he broaches the possibility of it backfiring.  Nevertheless, he states:  

I am opposed to any appearance in Israel that is used for nationalistic or other propaganda purposes to cover up its occupation and denial of Palestinian human rights. I’ve been involved in activities to hold Israel accountable for its international law violations since before the BDS movement took shape. While I have some tactical differences with the BDS movement, I strongly support the actions and continue to participate in them.

And, here, Mehdi Hasan challenges him on the question.  Chomsky, in response, raises the $3 billion elephant in the room: if you’re boycotting Israel, shouldn’t you also boycott the enabler, the United States? 

His question raises a fair point, as I personally go back and forth about the efficacy of the larger cultural boycott but while I wholeheartedly support the settlements/occupied territories boycott. (Noura Erakat challenges the occupied territories-only boycott, in great detail and at great length, because for Palestinians, it’s not just about the occupied ‘67 borders, but it is the larger settler colonial ‘48 borders, i.e. all of Israel.)

*

“Hold Israel accountable?”  "Why only hold Israel accountable?" the question is often asked.  Marco Rubio, when not clamoring for war with Venezuela earlier this year, led efforts against BDS with Senate Bill 1—the very first piece of legislation that apparently needed to be taken up after the government shutdown.  On the other side of the aisle, Senator Cory Booker and minority leader Chuck Schumer, likewise, have pledged to defeat BDS because, they say, “It focuses unfairly, singularly on Israel.” 

Does the BDS campaign focus only on Israel?  Well, yes, this BDS campaign does focus only on Israel.  That’s kind of the point.  The South Africa boycott campaign focused only on South Africa.  That was the point.  The Montgomery bus boycott focused on Montgomery, not Birmingham or Mobile.

“Why not boycott other countries?” people ask.  “There are other countries who abuse human rights.  Why focus only on Israel?”  Depending on the source, that can be a fair question.  Chomsky, as mentioned above, has asked the “What about the US?” question.  Scholar and long-time Palestine-advocate Stephen Zunes has argued that another BDS-type movement should target Morocco, which is occupying Western Sahara.  Morocco, like Israel, is a US ally, and it will receive $16 million in US aid this year.  Western Sahara, like Palestine, is an internationally recognized “non-self-governing country under foreign belligerent occupation."  But the lesser-known Moroccan lobby apparently has considerable sway in Washington, DC, like the Israeli lobby does.

“What about boycotting Egypt or Saudi Arabia?” some detractors of BDS ask.  These could be fair questions, too, but often, they operate as disingenuous straw-men arguments—classic “what-about-ism.”  Jake Tapper of CNN tried to corner Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib on that very type of question.  Tlaib, Palestinian-American, is an advocate of the BDS movement.  She replied that, yes, she would be for those boycotts, too, if civil society in those places called for respective BDS.  While Egypt and Saudi Arabia are not occupying other lands in violation of international law, their governments regularly and grossly commit human rights abuses.  (I, like Tlaib, might personally might participate in such a boycott.)  Or now, what about India, as it appears to be moving towards annexation of Kashmir?  India-Kashmir might be a more fitting analogy alongside Israel and Morocco.  These could all be fair questions.  But, the Jake Tappers and corporate “blob cable pundits and the national security hawks in Congress and think tanks and PR firms, I would wager, would be just as unwilling to go along with those theoretical boycotts as they are with the Israeli boycott because the very same corporate, military-industrial-tech-complex, media, phosphate, extractive industry interests would stand to lose money in boycotts of those places, too.  Especially as the leaders of Israel, Saudi Arabia, the UAE, Egypt, and other states have formed a curious, post-ethnic, post-religious, post-ideological, strong-man-centered, almighty-dollar-driven power bond in the region, I do not envision much enthusiasm for any of those boycotts there.  But, I would gladly stand corrected if Tapper et al. were to lead that (authentic) charge.   

What about China?  Especially in regards to the treatment of its Uighur population or in regards to Tibet or potentially in regards to Hong Kong?  Also fair.  But, I would argue that we in the US at least have a more direct responsibility and thus more agency to pressure our allies who receive US aid than we do to China and our non-allies.  Furthermore, could you see the business interests in the US (and the media and congressional channels they pepper) going along with a China boycott?  Just look at the NBA trying to navigate the Chinese political waters.  But ok. 

Or, Iran—our and Israel’s and Saudi Arabia’s arch enemy (since 1979) and definitely a human rights offender?  Ok, definitely fair too.  But, one, we are already sanctioning Iran (although not necessarily for the right reasons); two, we do not give billions of dollars to Iran in aid; and three, when Iran was our ally—with “our sonofabitch” the Shah in charge and not the ayatollah “sonsofbitches” currently in charge—we were happy to look the other way in regards to human rights abuses and keep the dollars and weapons flowing. 

*

BDS has been in the news in recent months, even casual observers might have noticed.  Over the summer, the Israeli government, at Trump’s tweeted behest, denied entry to Tlaib and fellow Congresswoman Ilhan Omar because they are both supporters of BDS.  (Israel later relented on Tlaib, to let her see her grandmother in the West Bank on “humanitarian” grounds and on condition she not speak out; Tlaib didn’t agree to the conditions and did not go.)

There have been a number of legal and political attempts to shut down BDS efforts.  BDS proponents, conversely, argue that these attempts are in response to the movement catching steam.  Twenty-seven states (including New Jersey) have adopted anti-boycott laws, including five executive orders passed by governors.  Against civil liberties groups’ advice, Andrew Cuomo signed such an order in New York when he couldn’t get it passed through the legislature.  In Texas, aPalestinian-American speech pathologist was fired for refusing to sign apro-Israel, anti-BDS oath.  But then a federal judge temporarily blocked the law.  Tangentially, other not specifically anti-boycott bills/laws that are ostensibly bills/laws to fight anti-Semitism are being used to shut down criticism of Israel.  One such bill being considered in New Jersey is S4001/A5755, which could allow school districts and other jurisdictions to equate criticism of the state of Israel with anti-Semitism (I wrote to our union, the New Jersey Education Association, to ask it to speak out like CAIR-NJ and other civil liberties/rights groups have done, as it concerns potential free speech and academic freedom conflicts, but I did not receive a reply.)

On the federal level, there was Rubio’s previously mentioned Senate Bill 1.  Senators Dianne Feinstein and Bernie Sanders, however, released a joint letter calling for an end to such anti-boycott legislation.  Feinstein and Sanders don’t support BDS, but they support people’s right to BDS.  Similarly, organizations like the ACLU do not take positions on the boycott per se or even on Palestine, but for first amendment reasons, they support people’s right to boycott and to not be criminalized or penalized for it.  And then, ahead of an anti-boycott bill in the House, Omar, Tlaib, and Congressman John Lewis co-sponsored a resolution affirming the right to boycott.  Lewis, like most Democrats, has been a staunch Israel-defender over the years and is not a proponent of BDS, but he knows a thing or two about the importance of boycott and nonviolent protest. 

*

The classic retort—or “pre-tort” rather, often before looking at any of the evidence or arguments—is that BDS is anti-Semitic.

Is anti-Semitism a threat?  Yes, certainly (and, it is one that I will never have to face).  Incidents of anti-Semitic harassment and killings have risen in recent years.  There is certainly some anti-Semitism on the left, where Israel is sometimes conflated with “Jews worldwide,” and then both are blamed for wide-reaching conspiracies, but the evidence shows that most attacks and harassment committed in the US these days originate from right-wing extremists, such as the Charlottesville marchers, Cesar Soyoc and his bombs, the Pittsburgh Tree of Life synagogue shooter, and the Chabad of Poway (California) shooter.  I don’t want to conflate anti-Semitism and Islamophobia, but in today’s America, Jews and Muslims share a lot of the same predators. 

These outright killings and blatant harassment aside, does anti-Semitism exist in the BDS movement?  Probably, in some corners, as it exists in some corners of the broader Palestinian struggle, from the Arab/Muslim world to the Western world.  Several years ago, when I was teaching a global studies course at a small Catholic college, I was about to start a two-day lesson on the conflict when a colleague warned me, “Be careful with Peter.  He’ll probably be with you [i.e. sympathetic to the Palestinian cause] but for the wrong reasons.”  And “sympathize” he did!  It required some shutting down and correcting the record.  For Peter, “The Israeli government” became “the Jews.”  There is a bias towards the Israelis and against the Palestinians in U.S. mainstream media” became “the Jews control the media.”  (This Peter, by the way, had developed a strong anti-Semitism over his college years, instilled in him by an Opus Dei professor with a bizarre theology-world view, who was eventually asked to move on.  Peter actually liked Muslims—I had expected him not to—because they were, in his view, generally more devout and practicing whereas Jews were generally more secular.  And, it was secularism, apparently, that had brought down our civilization.  In an essay later in the semester, he argued, “It is well known that abortion came from the Jews.”  The Catholic Church, in its Opus Dei and non-Opus Dei forms, has much to answer for its centuries of incubating anti-Semitism.)  A friend’s grandmother watched news of the 2011 Gaza freedom flotilla with great interest.  To my friend’s surprise, she expressed sympathy with the people of Gaza.  A couple minutes later, she ruined it: “I never liked those Jews anyway.”

Anti-Semitism has deep and layered roots.  Large and small slights abound, and they must be condemned.  Most importantly, they are factually wrong, and they put people in danger.  Secondly, for those trying to make the evidence-based argument for Palestine, they are distractions. 

Yet, when criticism of Israel is by definition equated with anti-Semitism, the term loses its historical and current meaning.  Anti-Semitism has been weaponized in many cases to shut down criticism of Israel.  In fact, according to the US right, you can be actually anti-Semitic, i.e. anti-Jewish, as long as you support Israel, and the Israeli right seems ok with this.  Omar is accused of peddling the Jewish dual-loyalty trope and is dragged through the coals, but when Trump and other Republican leaders (and some Democrats) do the same, it can be overlooked due to their support for Israel.  And in an Orwellian twist, many Jewish activists and academics who advocate for Palestine, from Holocaust survivor Hedy Epstein to Peter Beinart to Norman Finkelstein to Rebecca Vilkomerson to Noam Chomsky are labeled as “self-hating Jews” (in lieu of being called anti-Semitic), while Christians United for Israel (CUFI)—the largest coalition of Christian Zionists—can actually articulate an eschatological future where Jews are “left behind” but are not equally condemned because they support the state of Israel.  CUFI is the source of support and “reasoning” behind many conservative, Christian members of Congress and their strong support for Israel. 

Meanwhile, special, vitriolic charges of anti-Semitism have been saved for African Americans who speak out in support of Palestine, from Angela Davis to Marc Lamont Hill to Michelle Alexander to Cornel West to William Barber to Alice Walker.  But, for some of these African-American icons, they see the parallels between the treatment of their people and the treatment of the Palestinians, and that is why they speak out and “break the silence.” 
*

To call for BDS is not to ignore the mistakes and crimes of particular Palestinian actors over the years, whether they were committed in the name of nationalism, Marxism, or Islamism.  It is not to condone or ignore violent actions of the PLO, the PFLP, Hamas, Hezbollah, or Islamic Jihad.  It is not to ignore the often bad faith of the neighboring Arab states.  It is not to question Israel’s “right to exist.”  (Although, I would argue along with Youseff Mounayyir that the question “Does Israel have the right to exist?” is often asked to obfuscate the important questions:

The truth is that no state has a “right to exist” — not Israel, not Palestine, not the United States. Neither do Zimbabwe, Chile, North Korea, Saudi Arabia or Luxembourg have a “right to exist.”  States do exist; there are about 200 in our world today, even though there are thousands of ethno-religious or ethno-linguistic groups.  And these states don’t exist because they have a “right” to. They exist because certain groups of people amassed enough political and material power to make territorial claims and establish governments, sometimes with the consent of those already living there and, oftentimes, at their expense….it is humans, not states, that have a right to exist. This includes all people: those who identify as Israelis and Palestinians alike, along with seven billion others.  People also have a whole set of other rights — human rights, which states cannot deny. These include the right to free movement, the right to consent to being governed, the right to enter and exit their country, the right not to be tortured or collectively punished, and so on.  It is by guaranteeing these rights and only by guaranteeing them that states derive their moral legitimacy; it is not from some mythical “right to exist” or even the historical need of their people, but rather from the extent to which their policies respect the rights of people.)

In my immediate post-navy days, when I was getting into A People’s History of the United States and critical histories and politics, I used to think that I had to, in a sense, find fault with every US action ever and defend every US victim or “enemy."  By extension then, I thought I had to defend or rationalize everything Palestinian, for instance.  Afraid of nuance and gray matter, I rushed headlong into a different ideology, which was the opposite of what I grew up with but just as blinding.  There are ideologues and nationalists in the struggle to be sure, but BDS itself is a non-nationalist, human rights-approach, which in the end includes Israeli human rights. 

To call out Israeli human rights abuse is not to ignore human rights abuses done by the Palestinian Authority or any other Mideast neighbor to its people.  It is not to ignore gross examples of patriarchy and abuse committed by some individuals in Palestinian society, such as the recent “honor killing” of a young woman, Israa Ghrayeb, after she posted a video of herself and her fiancé.  You can hold two truths at the same time.  You can condemn both the Israeli occupation and Palestinian crimes of patriarchy—be they state- or non-state-led, be they often or seldom—at the same time.  Criticism of power and powers is not zero-sum.

Tangentially, BDS and criticism of Israel is not to argue that I, as a white liberal, would rather live in Syria or Iran, for instance.  Benjamin Netanyahu regularly employs this convenient, circular logic to shut down criticism of Israel by arguing that Israel is the “lone democracy” in the Mideast (Lebanon sort of is a democracy, by the way, and Iraq post-2003 US invasion and Tunisia post-Arab Spring are trying.)  “Would you rather live in Syria?” he apparently asked (Arab Israeli) Member of Knesset Aida Touma-Suleiman when she criticized him in the parking garage after the nation-state law was passed and he was giving triumphal press interviews (she shared this anecdote on the North Jersey stop of her Jewish Voice for Peace-sponsored speaking tour last summer).  Would I rather live in Syria?  That’s not the question, Bibi.  But from passing such laws and shutting down criticism of such laws, his state becomes less and less democratic.  Likewise, “pinkwashing” often obscures the occupation.  During an appearance on The View, Pete Buttigieg took the bait of a question from Megan McCain, who has oddly and dramatically tried to co-opt anti-Semitism.  Buttigieg’s appearance was shortly after Ilhan Omar very soberly, very reasonably argued that we should call out Israel (and Saudi Arabia) for its human rights abuses like we do with Iran.  Buttigieg pandered to her question, which was about Omar's remarks: “People like me [i.e. openly gay] get strung up in Iran, so the idea that what’s going on is equivalent is just wrong."  True, if I were a gay (non-Arab, non-Persian) man, I’d probably prefer to live in Israel too, if I only had two choices.  It’s a worthy side discussion, but it’s not the point.  You can condemn the Israeli occupation and condemn the homophobia of other state and non-state neighbors of Israel at the same time.  (Tlaib and Omar have rightly condemned the treatment of the LGBTQ community in Palestine, for instance.) 

To call for BDS is not even to propose a solution.  There is the oft-mentioned two-state solution touted by the likes of Netanyahu (depending on the day and whom he is speaking to) and mainstream Israelis (at least between the Oslo accords and this current rightist surge), Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and even occasionally Trump.  “Two state solution”: it is the pro forma response of most of the foreign policy establishment when asked for its thoughts on the region.  The late Israeli novelist Amos Oz argued for a two-state solution in the way a novelist would:

To me, reconciliation means a political settlement. If I had to entitle my vision vis a vis the Arabs in general and the Palestinians in particular, I would say make peace not love. The name of the game for Israelis and for Palestinians, as I see it, is a fair and decent and painful divorce rather than a honeymoon bed together. I think Israelis and Palestinians should separate land and assets, divide the land between the two nations and live in peace like two ex people rather than try to reconcile in the way of living together. The conflict between the Israelis and Palestinians is not a family dispute. It's a dispute between two families.
Polls show that a majority of Palestinians still actually support a two-state solution, even as that means conceding most of historic Palestine (and most of its arable land and water sources) to Israel.  But with ever increasing and entrenched Israeli settlement in East Jerusalem and the West Bank, a viable two-state solution is becoming less likely.  What kind of Palestinian state would there be, as home demolitions and land confiscation continue?  Therefore, more and more Palestinians and some progressive Israelis and international actors are calling for a one-state solution, with equal rights for Israeli Jews and Arab Palestinians, like how there are equal political rights for both white and black South Africans.  But, most Israelis do not want this, as you might imagine, because that means Israel would no longer be a “homeland for the Jewish people” or as the Netanyahu right would prefer to say and see, Israel would no longer be “a Jewish state.”  BDS doesn’t call for one solution over another.  Once the vast power imbalance is adjusted, the solution will have to be worked out. 

Currently there is one-state.  It is one-state apartheid.  What the BDS movement attempts to do is leverage economic and social power to right the imbalance. 
*

When I was in college, in the middle of the second intifada, which was very violent and bloody (and also, counterproductive), I used to think and say quite patronizingly, “If only the Palestinians had a Martin Luther King,” or, “If only they had a Nelson Mandela.”  This seemed like the right thing to say against that backdrop of violence.

However, these sentimental musings of mine were both simple and insulting.  “If only they had an MLK” does an injustice to both the African-American struggle and the Palestinian struggle.  Regarding the African-American struggle, it ignores the centuries of resistance to slavery and then decades of resistance to Jim Crow well before King came on the scene.  It ignores the thousands lynched and the thousands involved in the mass movements against American apartheid.  It also blatantly papers over that MLK was ignored, resisted, and hated in many white circles—and not just in the South. 

“If only they had a Mandela” ignores the mass movement of people behind him and the martyrs and the ones who didn’t make it out of Robben Island.  It also sugarcoats our ugly history, when in fact we were “partners in apartheid” and resisted the anti-apartheid struggle until the very end.  And, rightly or wrongly, effectively or ineffectively, Mandela and the ANC did call for violent resistance at points when nonviolence was not working.  His face was in my high school hallway in the ‘90s, but he remained on the US terrorist list until 2008.

And finally, “If only they had an MLK (or Mandela)” does injustice to the Palestinian cause.  On mainstream media outlets, we only hear about Palestinian resistance when it comes in the form of Hamas rockets and suicide bombers.  Every day, however, since the nakba, Palestinians have been resisting nonviolently.  Once in a while, these nonviolent efforts reach mainstream attention.  Famously, Palestinian women led the nonviolent resistance of the first intifada.  Famously, the 2010 Freedom Flotilla attempted to nonviolently bring aid and attention to blockaded Gaza.  Israeli commandos violently boarded the Turkish vessel Mavi Marmara and killed nine people.  The flotilla then was downplayed and mocked by much of the international media.  Subsequent freedom flotilla attempts to Gaza have run into similar roadblocks.  Famously, the Friday March of Return protests began last spring and continue today.  Hundreds of protesters (and some journalists and medics) have been killed by Israeli forces.  In between, less famously, everyday Palestinians find ways to resist, from Ahed Tamimi and her 13-year-old journalist cousin to Emad Burnat of the Oscar-nominated Five Broken Cameras to dabke dancers on campuses and in the line of snipers. While we await “their MLK” or “their Mandela,” we are not listening and not seeing.  Even when Palestinians have dedicated their lives to learning and teaching and nonviolently continuing the struggle, news reporters obtusely ask them “What about Hamas?“ or, “Doesn’t Israel have a right to exist?” or, “Why do you teach your children to hate?”  To which, Rafeef Ziadah and the poets respond, “We teach life, sir!

And famously, Palestinians and their sympathizers are now participating in a nonviolent boycott, divestment, and sanctions campaign against Israel.  Yet, people are losing their shit over it.

Well, here is your “MLK” or your “Mandela.”

*

Trump and his crew are beyond the pale.  He is nihilistically cruel toward and ignorant of the Palestinians (and so many other groups).  He operates in his own version of reality (TV), where he is the “King of Israel."  He is either being played or playing us.  The Republican Party has made the grand Faustian bargain to stand with him, and for the most part, it no longer seems to be motivated by facts or compassion.  We must continue to condemn Trump’s ignorant rhetoric and racist policies and to challenge his GOP sycophants and attempt to unseat them from power.  But here, I invite the white moderate, the white liberal (liberals of color tend to get it more easily), and the “progressive except Palestine” (PEP), or even the political neophyte, to consider this case for BDS.  (While MLK certainly condemned overt white racism, he found the white moderates in a way more frustrating than the overt racists:

First, I must confess that over the past few years I have been gravely disappointed with the white moderate. I have almost reached the regrettable conclusion that the Negro's great stumbling block in his stride toward freedom is not the White Citizen's Counciler or the Ku Klux Klanner, but the white moderate, who is more devoted to "order" than to justice; who prefers a negative peace which is the absence of tension to a positive peace which is the presence of justice; who constantly says: "I agree with you in the goal you seek, but I cannot agree with your methods of direct action"; who paternalistically believes he can set the timetable for another man's freedom; who lives by a mythical concept of time and who constantly advises the Negro to wait for a "more convenient season." Shallow understanding from people of good will is more frustrating than absolute misunderstanding from people of ill will. Lukewarm acceptance is much more bewildering than outright rejection.)  


In the week that Tlaib and Omar were denied permission to travel to Palestine, Bill Maher blasted the BDS movement on his show Real Time with Bill Maher as a 

bullshit purity test by people who want to appear woke but actually slept through history class….  It’s predicated on this notion, I think—it’s very shallow thinking—that the Jews in Israel, mostly white, and the Palestinians are browner, so they must be innocent and correct, and the Jews must be wrong.  As if the occupation came right out of the blue, that this complete peaceful people found themselves occupied. 


I often appreciate Maher’s biting criticism and crass humor on other topics.  However, his critique of Islamist militancy and Islamist patriarchy—sometimes rightly placed—has spilled over and conflated with all things Islam, and by extension, all things Arab and thus Palestinian.  He sees Israel as the secular, liberal democracy in a sea of religious zealots.  But, each day, Israel becomes less liberal, less democratic, and less secular, as mentioned above.  This is not about Maher, of course, but if Mandela is our stand-in for black South Africans (preferably played by Morgan Freeman), then Maher is my stand-in for the white liberal.  And I take issue with everything he said regarding BDS.  As a history teacher, I would argue the exact opposite.  If we stayed awake in class and actually knew our history, Bill, we would see the injustice.  No one is arguing that the Palestinians are perfect or “pure” victims.  History is messy.  Moreover, in said history class, we would see that change happens outside of television talk shows and LA and DC and New York (and outside of rock concerts, too, for that matter).  And, as for a way out of this mess, BDS isn’t about “purity.”  It’s about action.  It’s about not waiting any longer.  It requires making choices, maybe losing money, convenience, perhaps even friends.  The BDS milieu, like any materialist politics, is thick and messy.  There is vigorous debate between the settlement-only-boycott and the larger cultural boycott.  There is nothing pure or saintly about it.  It is a dimly lit path forward out of a terrible, untenable present.  Next steps—if we can get there—will be hotly debated.  

Otherwise, Bill, what would you have the Palestinians do?  What are you—we—going to do about it?  Condemning Trump and Netanyahu should be the bare minimum.  Meanwhile, every day, more Israeli settlements are built, more Palestinian homes are demolished, more Palestinian land is confiscated, more Palestinians are killed, harassed, and imprisoned.  This Palestinian insecurity, in turn, builds up more resentment and leads to Israeli insecurity.  What would you have the Palestinians do?  And their Israeli allies?  And the international community?  As we wait for “their MLK”?  Or as we wait for some tepid peace summit or some laughable real-estate fire-sale masquerading as peace summit?

Maybe you’ve decided that you’ll focus your boycott only on the settlements.  Maybe you’ve decided to support Palestine another way, aside from BDS.  Or maybe you’re actually going to build up the Morocco, or Egypt, or Saudi Arabia, or India, or China—or US?—BDS movement.  Or maybe you honestly think that “constructive engagement” is better and you are not just saying so to keep business as usual.  Or maybe there’s some other cause you’re interested in and need to devote your time to.  Or you need to learn and reflect more.  Ok.  But, don’t dismiss this movement so easily.  Talk is cheap.  There is a cost to doing the right thing.  Doing right costs us, among other things, our purity. 

In response to the Maher rant, Rashida Tlaib suggested on Twitter boycotting Maher’s show.  I don’t believe that’s the answer.  Maher then responded, “Some people have one move only: boycott. Cancel. Make-go-away. But here’s the thing, the house voted 318 to 17 to condemn the #BDS movement, including 93% of Dems. Does Tlaib want to boycott 93% of her own party?”

No, Bill, but her party does need to catch up.  If not support BDS, then support people’s right to BDS, like Feinstein and Sanders do.  But, Maher, by accident, did get one thing right. Some people do only have one move: boycott.  That is, at this current moment, Palestinians do only have one move: boycott, divestment, and sanctions.  The failures of the normal political processes have left them no other choice. 

*

I don’t believe Yasser Arafat will or should be in the hallways of US schools in the future—maybe Naila Ayesh or Ahed Tamimi instead—but should we ever get to some truth and reconciliation, to a post-apartheid future, what stories will we tell ourselves?  What did we do before it was cool and easy to be on the right side?  What did we do with our “power of one”?  Did we “support a man like Bishop Tutu and his request for economic sanctions against South Africa (or Palestine)”?  Did we “play Sun City”?

Am I buggin you?  I don’t mean to bug ya. 

No comments:

Post a Comment