Debating BDS against Israel, in Brooklyn

A J Street colleague of mine is debating against the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign on the evening of Thurs., Nov. 11 (details to follow later in this post). I've indicated to him that if I were debating, there are at least two things that I'd be sure to mention:
1. That most (if not all) of the BDS leadership favors one state, meaning an end to Israel and opposition to the principle of self-determination for the Jewish people.
2. That both sides have committed wrongs in this conflict and that punishing Israel (i.e., Israelis as a people) assumes that only Israel is in the wrong.

Some who received my message responded that #2 was not appropriate to argue before an audience that's likely to be very critical of Israel. Nevertheless, my feeling is that the belief that Israel was born in sin, and that only Israel was and is guilty, is poisonous and needs to be refuted.

It's clear from history that if the Arab side had accepted the UN partition plan in Nov. 1947, and not attacked--first the Yishuv, beginning at the end of '47, and then sovereign Israel in May '48--there would have been no ongoing conflict and no refugee problem. We know this both from the early pioneering work of New Historian Benny Morris and others. Even Plan D or Dalet, cited by anti-Zionists as a smoking gun for expelling Palestinians, was formulated after the conflict began, and meant as a strategy to confront the onslaught which the Jews knew would come from outside Arab armies, at a time that they were still fighting a very hard battle against Palestinian irregulars (e.g., all of Jerusalem was besieged for months, mostly by Palestinian forces). And it was an attack on Jerusalem by Jordan that caused the West Bank to be conquered in the first place in 1967.

It is also true that both sides, but especially the Palestinians, can be admonished for misdeeds in recent times: launching the intifada instead of coming to an agreement in 2000 or 2001, and not capitalizing on Israel's withdrawal from Gaza in 2005. There could have been progress or even an agreement in the wake of Sharon, Olmert and Livni splitting Likud and creating Kadima, a more moderate and peace-oriented party in the center. Instead, Hamas came to power--first legally with elections in Jan. 2006 and then in a coup in June 2007.

If not for the intifada, there would be no wall/barrier/fence in the West Bank. And Israel would have never attacked Gaza in 2008-09 if not for Hamas and attacks from that quarter on sovereign Israeli territory. So I'd argue that there's plenty of blame to go around.

These are the details on this week's debate in Brooklyn (by the way, the moderator is far from neutral; a co-editor of the resolutely anti-Zionist Mondoweiss website, he is likely to also be pro-BDS):

JEWISH PERSPECTIVES ON THE BOYCOTT/DIVESTMENT/SANCTIONS (BDS) MOVEMENT
Thursday, November 11, 2010 at 7:30 PM
1012 Eighth Avenue (between 10th St. & 11th St.), Park Slope,
Church of Gethsemane (F or G train to 7th Avenue)


The announcement continues as follows:
Many Jews wish to see Israel end the occupation; abide by international humanitarian law, human rights laws and precepts; and meet its obligation to recognize the Palestinian people's right to self-determination.

Some believe that an effective way to do so is to adopt and to maintain nonviolent and punitive measures through participating in a campaign to boycott, divest from, and sanction (BDS) Israel. The movement has grown rapidly since 2005, when a broad coalition of Palestinian civil society groups called on people around the world to join a movement that involves academic, cultural, consumer, and sports boycotts; encouragement of and pressure on individuals, financial institutions and companies to shed their investments in Israel; and sanctions—ending preferential trade, joint research, and other agreements, local and regional governments ties between municipalities or regional councils and Israel, and military links and support to Israel.

Others, whose goal is a two-state solution--where Israel and Palestine live side by side in peace and security—believe that this goal is ill- or ineffectively served by the global BDS movement and many of its allies, because they deploy BDS tools in ways that are more blunt than smart, the movement diverts resources from more effective advocacy and action, and BDS tends to alienate stakeholders from each other rather than encouraging their engagement and collaboration to achieve the goal.

We invite you to a respectful dialogue on BDS—whether you already have a position on it or you want to clarify for yourself the complex issues it raises. This event will provide an opportunity to hear from people who disagree about whether BDS is an appropriate and effective strategy. We are fortunate to have speakers who have thought deeply about--and been involved--in issues of peace and justice, who have spent a lot of time in Israel/Palestine, and who disagree with each other about BDS. We also have a moderator/respondent who will encourage the speakers and audience to probe more deeply into these issues. We hope you will join us.

Panelists:
Gil Kulick—co-chair of the J Street-NYC Communications/Media Committee; a founder of Brit Tzedek v'Shalom; former Communications Director of the New Israel Fund and deputy political counselor at the U.S. Embassy in Israel and—will speak in opposition to the Global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement.

Hannah Mermelstein—active member, Adalah-NY: The New York Campaign for the Boycott of Israel; co-founder, Birthright Unplugged; co-founder, Students Boycott Apartheid—will speak in support of the Global BDS movement.

Kathleen Peratis—board member of J Street, The Forward, Human Rights Watch; former vice president New Israel Fund; former president NYCLU; occasional columnist for The Forward; partner New York law firm Outten & Golden LLP—will speak in opposition to the Global BDS movement.

Rebecca Vilkomerson—National Director of Jewish Voice for Peace; lived in Israel, 2006-2009; worked for a Palestinian-Israeli public policy center and a Bedouin-Jewish environmental rights organization—will speak in support of the Global BDS movement.

Moderator and respondent: Adam Horowitz— writer and co-editor of Mondoweiss, a news website devoted to covering American foreign policy in the Middle East, chiefly from a progressive Jewish perspective; co-editor of the upcoming book The Goldstone Report: The Legacy of the Landmark Investigation of the Gaza Conflict (Nation Books).

This event is co-sponsored by members of the Jewish community with different views on this issue: Naomi Allen, Anita Altman, Renate Bridenthal, Carol Horwitz, Melanie Kaye/Kantrowitz, Marilyn Neimark, Letty Cottin Pogrebin, Alisa Solomon, Meredith Tax, Ray Wofsy.