Tuesday, January 14, 2014

You Don't Boycott Israel Because It's Syria


You boycott Israel because it's supposed to be one of us, a modern liberal democracy with respect for human and political rights.  We expect certain conduct from our friends that we know we can't expect from other countries - places like Syria or Uzbekistan or Yemen.

In today's Washington Post, pundit Richard Cohen focuses on what he presents as the hypocrisy of boycotting Israel and giving other nations a pass.

...the boycott movement is absurd and makes the various academics seem detached from the real world. At the same time, they are paying Israel a backhanded compliment. They know that China, for example, would ignore a boycott launched by the American Studies Association. China is a country, after all, that locks up its dissident academics and brings out tanks to deal with protesting students.

Israel is a different matter. Exactly because it is a liberal, Western state, ruled by law and not by whim, it can be pressured. It wants to belong to the worldwide academic community, and, of course, it should.

What matters most about the boycotts is what they represent — widespread and growing antipathy toward the Jewish state. It’s facile to attribute this entirely to anti-Semitism, although it surely lurks here and there. But in the United States at least, anti-Semitism is a spent force...

Nonetheless, there is a special, worrisome fury directed at Israel. I hear it from people who are not in any way anti-Semitic. (I would hear more of it if many people were not afraid of being labeled anti-Semitic.)

Whatever the cause, the fact remains that Israel’s occasionally harsh occupation of the West Bank has put the country on the defensive. One only had to see the extraordinary documentary “The Gatekeepers,” in which six former heads of the internal security service, Shin Bet, discuss — and rue — the methods they used to maintain control of the West Bank, to see what I mean. This is a film — academics, take note — that could have been made only in Israel. That’s good. But what it says . . . that’s bad.

...The boycott resolutions are coldly barren of historical understanding or empathy, and they are painful to read. But what they say is not as important as the sound they make. The Israel I love is increasingly hated.

Of course if you're disposed to perceiving an occupation that has lasted two generations as "occasionally harsh" it's no great intellectual leap to see the boycotts as hypocritical and undeserved.  The anti-Semite card, no matter how deftly played, is telling.   Perhaps Cohen finds it convenient to forget how we boycotted South Africa in times past for doing pretty much what Israel is doing to the Palestinians today.



6 comments:

LeDaro said...

I understand Mossad and CIA are playing a major role in Syria. As long Syria is unstable it is no threat to Israel.

Your comparison with apartheid in South Africa is very appropriate. Rev. Tutu thinks that apartheid against Palestinians is worse than it was in South Africa.

Purple library guy said...

I like his description of the occupation: "occasionally harsh". I invite him to swim the Pacific; I assure him, it's only occasionally damp.

Anonymous said...

So we'll punish harder those who are trying to be liberal democracies? I have grave problems with some of the things Israel is doing. But it pales in comparison to some of the Arab atrocities. I believe the unbalanced approach on these issues that many advocate is largely driven by antisemitism and undermines what they are advocating.

The Mound of Sound said...

Israel has retreated so far from the era when it could claim to be a liberal democracy that your suggestion is sophistry. And I have had it up to the tits with this bullshit fallback of anti-Semitism. You can put that straight back up your ass where you found it.

LeDaro said...

Anon, you may like to read this story:UK Jewish lawmaker: Israeli forces acting like Nazis.

Also a video is available of his statement here.

This information may give you some idea of the anti-Semitism bullshit. According to you anyone who criticises Israel is anti-Semitic.

Anonymous said...

If 'Israel acting like Nazis' is part of your suggested reading then it's no wonder you're not being taken seriously.