Prof. Neve Gordon, a non-Zionist Israeli political scientist at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheva, has reluctantly endorsed boycotts and other international sanctions to pressure Israel to end the occupation of Palestinian territories (i.e., to "save Israel from itself").
I first met Gordon when I participated in the Meretz USA Israel Symposium in 2003. He spoke to our group at that time. I remember vividly how, when asked about the possibility of a one-state solution, he spread his arms wide and said "We are living in a one-state solution." He knew, as most of us agreed, that two warring ethnic groups being forced to share one state would lead only to continued conflict and the domination of one people by the other.
I'm glad that he hasn't changed this particular perspective, but I see his viewpoint as expressed at CommonDreams.org problematic in assuming that the conflict is only the fault of Israel. My feeling is that responsibility for the ongoing nature of the conflict is shared. Although Israel's behavior in Gaza and elsewhere has been deplorable at times, the Intifada launched in 2000 was basically a self-defeating tact by the Palestinians-- as was the idiotic spate of rocket and mortar attacks on Israel from Gaza, after Israel had completely withdrawn from there.
I think that a boycott demonizes Israel and Jews in ways that I'd hate to see. I also don't know that it would work. What it may do is further influence educated and talented Israelis to leave Israel so that the country becomes poorer, more right-wing and extreme. (Israel's political makeup is a total refutation of Marxist class theory: the more working class or poor you are in Israel, the more right-wing and "patriotic" you are likely to be.)
Besides, Gordon is not entirely correct that Israel is increasingly right-wing today, although I could see why he'd think so. Israel is more splintered today and more at sea as to what direction to go. After all, most of a decade of a peace process cost hundreds of civilian lives in several waves of terrorism and ended in dismal failure; and a unilateral withdrawal also ended in more attacks on Israeli towns.
Its two largest political parties at the moment (Kadima and Likud) together received less than 50% of the vote! Its centrist opposition party (Kadima) actually won more votes and seats than the governing Likud did. Gordon is correct that the left and center-left are shattered.
If boycotts worked to bring peace and a two-state solution, I'd feel differently. But aside from being unfair to most Israelis, I don't think they'd work. And if Israel were forced to retreat in weakness, I think that there's a good likelihood that the Palestinians and other Arabs (plus Iran) may see Israel as rife for the kill. The Palestinians deserve to live free of occupation, but-- thanks to the Intifada and electing Hamas-- they have not proven to most Israelis that they can co-exist in peace.
My hope is with Obama, international diplomacy, good sense and good luck. In other words, my hopes are not great, but I don't see things as hopeless. Gordon's support for boycotts is an act of desperation.
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9 comments:
I was surprised that I was actually reading a Meretz blog when I read Ralph's posting. Some of his points require a strong "I beg to differ."
The first is repeating, without irony, Neve Gordon's remark, "we are living in a one-state solution." I don't believe Ralph really thinks that the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is typical of a real state or confers typical rights of citizens on Palestinians.
The second is taking issue with Gordon that Israel is not more rightwing than in the past. I think the decline of the Left (which includes the Israeli Meretz) and the acceptance of people like Lieberman -- who would have been seen as part of the lunatic fringe in years past -- undercuts his argument.
Ralph's point that "a unilateral withdrawal [from Gaza] also ended in more attacks on Israeli towns" is false. Rather, the ongoing ghettoization of Gaza and the excessive Israeli control which has separated Gazans from the West Bank has been largely responsible for radicalization and militancy.
The last point I want to dispute is Ralph's claim that, by making concessions, Palestinians will "see Israel as rife for the kill." This, of course, is basically a warmed-up version of "the only language Arabs understand is the language of force" and should be politely ignored.
The one point on which I find myself agreeing at least somewhat with Ralph is on boycotts -- cultural boycotts. I do not feel it is necessary to punish a 17-year-old Israeli tennis player for the crimes of her nation. On the other hand, I will not buy products like Ahava cosmetics which are produced on stolen land and, at least in the US, would be seen as the fruits of criminal enterprise.
Interestingly, Israel, by creating a new class of visas for Americans (which violates the Oslo agreement, by the way), will now be the party to restrict American access to Israel. If it persists in its errors, it may be time to return the favor. I'm increasingly seeing the BDS campaign as a necessity.
Dear David,
As I wrote, I can easily see why Gordon would characterize Israel as more right-wing and I probably should not have disputed that notion. But a more apt characterization is that Israel is "at sea" politically. And this is at least partially due to the return to violence by Palestinian groups in 2000 and again in Gaza following Israel's withdrawal.
We've always lamented the unilateral nature of the Gaza withdrawal, but David should not ignore the damage done politically by Palestinian acts of violence.
BTW, David's done impressive work in his blogs. The woes and injustices he describes make me wince. But the occupation was on the wane until the peace process broke down in 2000. Still, while I don't agree with all of his pronouncements, I salute the fact that David continues to support a two-state solution.
P.S. I am surprised that David didn't see the irony inherent in my quoting Neve Gordon that "we are living in a one-state solution." David should be sharp enough to appreciate that.
David,
I agree with Ralph that Israel isn't necessarily more right-wing today that it was in the 1980s if we look at the positions of the parties on a solution. I would argue that Israel is like S. Africa in the late 1980s when it appeared to have shifted right as more voters embraced a National Party that had actually shifted towards the center. Likewise, the Likud has been shifting since 2004 when Sharon supported the withdrawal from Gaza. Kadima has definitely shifted dramatically to the center from the right under Sharon. And Labor under Barak has shifted somewhat to the center as well. So that Lieberman is now filling the space that the Likud used to fill. Whether a Likud-Kadima coalition or a Labor-Kadima coalition can do a deal in the future depends also on which way the Palestinians are shifting.
Ralph, I would like to be at the top of my game all the time, but I did miss your irony. That's what insufficient caffeine will do to you.
Yes, I continue to support a Two-State solution because I have no idea of how these two people can live "as one" in the foreseeable future. But I am finding Zionism, even the "kinder-gentler" version, to be increasingly corrosive. I wouldn't want to live in an Evangelical Christian state here in the U.S., wouldn't want to live in Iran's Islamic paradise if I were a Muslim, and am increasingly of the opinion that Jews haven't done any better in Israel.
What's wrong with totally secular democracy?
David,
I'm all in favor of "totally secular democracy"; in fact, the Meretz Zionist tradition (to coin a term) favors a total separation of religion and state.
You seem to suffer from the same confusion many people have on what it means to be Jewish. We believe in the Jewish people, who have existed since before the Roman conquest and dispersion. We do not see Jewish peoplehood as primarily (or even necessarily) defined by religion. Speaking personally, my father was not in the least bit religious, but he was very Jewish.
We want Israel to evolve into a society that not only separates state and religion, but also a country in which all its citizens (including Arabs and other non-Jews) will feel at home and secure. This would be the highest attainment of the kind of Zionism we believe in.
First, my thanks to the Meretz USA weblog for its civil, thoughtful, and constructive discourse. As one who follows Israel/Palestine web discourse, I find tuning in here like coming home after a long day at the screaming factory.
I'd like to ask Ralph how the Jewishness of a Jewish state would be embodied and expressed in a totally secular and eventually Jewish-minority state. Like him, I would hate to live in the Christian state we hear about from some Evangelicals, but I think the US avoids this only by its constitutional ban on all official religious identifications.
Heidi Wilson
Orford, NH
Dear Heidi Wilson,
Thanks for the compliment! If Israel divests itself of the occupied territories, there is no likely prospect of an Israel that does not have an ethnically Jewish majority.
The fundamental Jewish concern regarding Israel is that under the circumstance of peaceful co-existence,a secular Jewish state remains as a safe haven for Jews anywhere in the world who are subject to persecution or discrimination. This is only right and just for a small people who have suffered through 2,000 years of atrocities and injustices at the hands of hateful majorities.
Jews have a history as a people and a nation beyond the confines of Rabbinic Judaism, and there is much in the nature of being Jewish that is cultural and not religious. For example, although there are dietary religious laws for the minority of Jews who observe them, Jewish cuisine is more about cooking than religion. There are also Jewish languages, with Hebrew first among them. And there is secular Jewish literature, whether written in Hebrew, Yiddish, Ladino or English (e.g., Saul Bellow, Philip Roth, I. B. Singer).
But primarily there are the people who are Jews and who define themselves as such, whether they are religious or not. It's up to them to imbue their Jewishness with meaning, or not. BTW, there is a cultural current within Israel, which is gaining popularity among non-religious Israelis, to study Jewish religious texts in order to know their heritage and to grapple with it from the point of view of contemporary and mostly secular understandings.
Two: small but important responses to David Ehrens who "was surprised that I was actually reading a Meretz blog when I read Ralph's posting. Some of his points require a strong `I beg to differ.' "
1 - This is a weblog of Meretz USA the U.S. Zionist organziationl not the Israeli political party.
2 - Ralph is writing as an individual - his views represent only him.
>> Arieh Lebowitz
>> Secretary, Meretz USA
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