Divest This

One of the most important lessons I’ve learned from covering and writing about the BDS “movement” over the years is how to deal with setbacks.  And, ironically, this is a lesson that’s been taught to me by the BDSers themselves.

For example, when students in Oxford overwhelmingly voted down BDS by a margin of 7:1 last week, did the BDS Movement’s official web site fly into outrage and despair over this setback for their academic boycott project (in that decidedly non-Zionist environment of British academia no less)?  Did Mondoweiss express deep disappointment at this resounding defeat (never mind use the vote as a moment of reflection on the current state of BDS “momentum”).

No, they simply ignored the fact that the vote ever took place.

But if later this week the University of California at San Diego Student Senate joins a handful of other student governments who have passed toothless and largely ignored divestment measures over the years (remember that big vote at Wayne State in 2003?  I thought not), as sure as night follows day this story will break across the BDS ether with pronouncements that this is just the beginning and that students across the country should join their comrades in San Diego in denouncing “Apartheid Israel.”

More importantly, supporters of Israel are not likely to follow the course the BDSers generally take of simply pretending that any setback never occurred.  Rather, we are likely to condemn the decision, fight to have it reversed, and argue about it for weeks on end (at least in the Jewish mainstream and online press).

But is it incumbent upon us to always rise to the boycotter’s bait?

This is not a simple question since, unlike members of the BDS “movement,” supporters of Israel are not wired to throw their latest wins in the faces of our opponent day after day, week after week, month after month, all the time demanding that they respond to our taunts.

Even in a situation like Oxford (where it was the boycotters -  not us – who demanded a vote on this issue), beyond a few news stories celebrating a rare moment of sanity within British academia, our side’s coverage of this event all but died out within a few days.

And if you look at the real stories that provide insight into how well BDS is faring, stories of Israel’s massive economic expansion, the success of Israeli brands like Ahava and SodaStream in global retail markets, the stampede of colleges and universities to build ties with their Israeli counterparts (all of which took place during the period when the boycotters were working tirelessly to bring the Israeli economy to its knees and isolate its academic institutions globally), you find a similar reticence on our part to portray these as political victories for pro-Israel forces.

This is because few (if any) of the thousands of decisions leading to Israeli economic and academic success have anything to do with politics.  Rather, they represent the benefits that accrue to an inventive, energetic, academically minded people who have managed to overcome adversity and win in some of the toughest competitive arenas in the world: academia and the high-tech marketplace.

And while it would be easy to play the BDSers game and portray each and every investment decision (by companies such as Intel, Apple and Google) in the Jewish state as a slap in the face of the Israel haters, there is an understandable reluctance to drag business partners and colleagues into a political debate against their will.  And thus we find ourselves in a situation where the boycotters can still kvell about  some dopey food co-op in the top left corner of the country no longer selling Israeli ice cream cones while we keep the fact that the world’s most important companies have made Israel their second home out of the political arena.

Now we are faced with that ongoing dilemma of whether to respond to BDS taunts (and thus get caught up in an argument that the boycotters control) or ignore them completely (and thus allow the boycotters to define the story to their advantage).  But this is just another variation on the current Jewish dilemma of whether to strike out against Israel’s defamers (which could give them the publicity they crave) or not mention them at all (and leave them free to do whatever they like at our expense).

Which is why I have chosen, after years of dealing with this issue, to engage directly with the boycotters, but to do it on my terms rather than theirs.

They, after all, want the discussion to begin and end with their accusations (whether based on context-free facts or invention) that they claim prove Israel to be “Apartheid state” (after having assigned themselves the role of prosecutor, judge and jury).  Or they demand we respond to their latest trivial accomplishment, while all the time ignoring any facts making up the counter-narrative described above.

But just because they have assigned the rest of us the role of the accused, does not mean we have to play it.  For there are other subjects that need to be brought into the discussion, such as the BDSers long history of failure, fraud and manipulation, their cageyness with regard to their ultimate goals, and their hypocrisy with regard to assigning themselves the mantle of human rights champion while they ignore the human rights of everyone on the planet that does not serve their immediately political needs.

In fact, as far as I’m concerned these should be the first and only topics that come up in any debate about BDS.  And only when our questions have been answered (rather than shouted down or ignored) should we be ready to listen to whatever they have to say.

I’ll admit to being of mixed mind with regard to how to respond when Omar Barghouti (or any of his clones) comes to town.

On the one hand, if we just shut up about it, then he’s likely to draw a crowd no larger than the two dozen or so people who went to see him at UC Irvine earlier in the week.

And this “crowd” (made up primarily of the like-minded and the few brave souls who hope they can pin him down during Q&A) would quickly discover that he’s not just a bore, but a PowerPoint bore who, if stripped of clichés that have become part of the BDS catechism (“Apartheid, “Worse than Apartheid,” “colonialist imperialism,” “imperial colonialism,” “Gandhi!,” “King!” “99%”) would be rendered speechless.

On the other hand, when the BDSers do something that attempts to make their program, their agenda and their doofus of a speaker look like they represents the opinion of the wider community (vs. just their narrow cult), it seems perfectly reasonable for members of their wider community to say what they think about the subject.

True to form, the BDSers stand ready to nail themselves to the cross the second anyone begins to “suppress” them (even if such suppression consists solely of describing them accurately).

I’ll admit that in the current Brooklyn College controversy, a number of political leaders have gone overboard in calling for the school to face punishment for the irresponsible behavior of one department.  But as we saw during the UPenn BDS event last year, the boycotters are ready to strike a pose of martyrdom, even if “attacks” upon them consist of nothing more than an angry letter written by a single middle-aged prof.

The role of free speech champion and martyr is particularly rich coming from groups like Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP) that policies its own events and shuts down any discussion (especially questions of its speakers) that get too close to the truth, or from Jewish Voice for Peace who have hermetically sealed off every platform they control from contamination by alternative voices (while simultaneously demanding immediate access to everyone else’s venue).

But here we are, with a sell-out crowd planning to listen to Barghouti bellow his tripe for an hour, followed by Judith Butler spewing post-modern gibberish to cover up the fact that neither really has anything to say, certainly not about the real human rights abuses in the region.  (Did you know the number of Syrians killed in the last few years is now greater than the number of Palestinians killed in clashes with Israel since 1948?  Don’t’ expect that topic to make it to the stage in Brooklyn tonight.)

And once the fawning has finished, the challenging questions from the audience shouted down and the book signing completed, Barthouti will cash his check and move onto the next locale in his tour.  Nice work if you can get it (especially if you’ve got a nice safe, warm, comfortable perch at an Israeli university to return to when you’re done shaking down the crowd).

I seem to be struggling to work up a good head of stem about this week’s BDS brouhaha in Brooklyn, partly because it’s just the latest January gathering of the Israel-hating like-minded (does anyone remember anything about last year’s PennBDS weekender?  – I thought not), but mostly because of its headliner: Omar Barghouti.

Why is it so hard to take seriously this uber leader of the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions crusade?  It can’t just be because he looks as though he’d fit in comfortably with the cast of Big Bang Theory, or that he continues to buy his clothes from the same Good Will costume rack I take my kids to every Halloween.

Perhaps it is his stunning level of hypocrisy, one which makes him an asset to both sides of the BDS wars, that makes it difficult to feel threatened by him or the “movement” he claims to lead.  For as much as he and his followers insist we should not talk about the fact that Barghouti leads the cause to have Israeli academics (among others) globally shunned while he himself enjoys his perch in Israeli academia, there is no getting around the fact that he exemplifies the “Do as I say, not as I do” mentality that is the Alpha and Omega of BDS.

I’ve often wondered how Barghouti gets away with continuing his dual role as perpetual Tel Aviv University graduate student and leader of the movement to have people like himself boycotted.

When people on our side point this out, the obvious response from Barghouti and his supporters is to simply ignore what we say (just as they ignore any criticisms or questions they cannot answer – which pretty much includes all topics of substance related to the Middle East).  But given that the Dear Leader of the BDS Internationale swims in the shark-infested waters of anti-Israel politics, it’s been pretty amazing that none of his rivals have managed to land a glove on him over this issue.

If I were to guess as to what might provide him this coating of Teflon (at least among the BDS ranks – like those who will swarm to Brooklyn to swoon over his stock speech on Thursday), I’d probably zero in on the one skill he has ably demonstrated  over the years: the ability to break into outrage at a moment’s notice.

He’s outraged that you would bring up his private life in a political conversation (despite the fact that he’s trying to meddle in the private life of his fellow Israeli student by having them boycotted).  He’s outraged that Israelis would lobby to have him kicked out of TAU for his global campaign against Israeli academia (thus proving how Apartheidy Israel really is).  But he’s even more outraged that the school refused to punish him (thus demonstrating the ends those foul Israelis will go to hide how Apartheidy they really are).

If these and all the other inconsistencies that barnacle Mr. Barghouti bewilder you, keep in mind that his ability to burst into flame at the merest mention of anything he doesn’t want to hear (or have others hear) represents the BDS leader’s one asset and the key to his success.

I’ve talked before about Argumentation from Outrage as a tactic that is the cornerstone not just of BDS but of anti-Israeli rhetoric generally.  For whenever the BDSer is confronted by a fact or argument they cannot ignore, the next (and only other) arrow in their quiver is to work themselves into an hysterical rage in hope of raising the emotional temperature so high that a reasoned argument (which they were sure to lose) cannot continue.

The trouble with outrage politics is that it also becomes the vehicle through which Israel-haters engage in their own internal dialogs.  Which explains why practitioners of this particular tactic seem to rise to the top of most anti-Israel organizations, and why there is so little reflection among anti-Israel activists about why some tactics work and others do not.

BDS is the perfect case in point, given that it’s gobbled up over a decade worth of anti-Israel activist energy, only to deliver embarrassment and failure at every turn.

A normal leader and movement might reflect on these facts and change course (or at least look for alternative strategies that might prove more successful).  But to Omar Barthouti and his worshipers, mention of such things (even from fellow Israel-haters) is an outrage.

You can’t really call the controversy brewing at Brooklyn College this week a BDS fight since no BDS-related institutional discussion (much less a decision) is taking place, meaning no boycott or divestment activity is even being contemplated by the college.

Rather, you’ve got the start of yet another Omar Barghouti book tour (apparently he’s decided to blow off mid-terms at Tel Aviv U once again in order to travel the globe telling others to boycott the comforts he chooses to continue enjoying).  And sharing the stage for this month’s Brooklyn performance is birthday clown turned incomprehensible academic Judith Butler (current holder of the Angst-Ridden-Pampered-Jewish-Academic-Who-Can’t-Abide-the-Embarrassment-Israel-is-Causing-Me-at-Dinner-Parties Chair at Berkeley).

If you look over the list of sponsors for the event, the usual categories emerge including:

• Organizations that exist solely to sling mud at the Jewish state (Adelah, Students for Justice in Palestine)
• War groups named in such a way to make you think they’re big, peace-loving and represent anyone but a tiny group of underemployed, Israel-hating fanatics (Brooklyn for Peace, NYU Students for Justice)
• Has-beens clinging to a brand they still think has caché (Occupy Wall Street Global Justice Working Group) – Hey, who do I need approval from to rename this site “Occupy Wall Street Divest This?”
• Groups willing to reveal their genuine militancy, so long as it gives them a rhyme to chant at the next riot (Existence is Resistance)
• The usual Jew-Washers (Jews for Palestinian Right of Return, Jewish Voice for Peace)
• Anomalies such as the Lesbian, Gay Bisexual and Transgender Association of Brooklyn College who SJP can use as a blast shield when asked why the BDS “movement”  is allied with the most homophobic nations and groups on the face of the earth

In fact, there is nothing much unusual about the speakers, what they will say (I could give their speeches verbatim in exchange for a fifth of scotch, saving SJP the thousands they’re playing to bring Barghouti to town), or the sponsors.

With one exception.

For reasons still unknown (since no one is talking), the Political Science Department at Brooklyn College decided to lend their name to the event, despite the fact that departmental sponsorship of controversial events like this one is far from typical at Brooklyn College (which, like most schools, allows students the latitude to do and say any obnoxious nonsense they like, but avoid doing things that could be construed as lending the imprimatur of the institution to divisive events).

This being academia (and New York academia at that), all of the participants in the controversy are falling into their assigned roles, including:

• The Poli Sci department which, like most academic fiefdoms, cannot bring itself to admit it made a mistake
• The administration, failing miserably to keep everyone off its back while hunkered in their bunker waiting for the controversy to run its course
• Jewish organizations and city and state politicians lining up to take potshots at a school that has not only dropped its pants and put a target on its behind, but invited the whole city to give it a collective kick in the backside
• SJP et al who flew into martyrdom mode and began demanding that others stop suppressing (i.e., criticizing) them, while all the time gaffawing that – once again – it is someone else (Brooklyn College) that has to take the brunt of the backlash the boycotters decisions have caused

As noted above, Barghouti starting his “Do as I Say, Not as I Do” tour in January is about as newsworthy as the silence that befalls the “peace movement” he claims to represent whenever Hamas missiles start flying or the number of Syrians murdered by their government climbs towards six figures.

In fact, the only thing I find interesting about the whole mishagas is the fact that BDS continues to emit such stench that people who agree on almost nothing (i.e., the millions of New York Jews not in the ranks of the Israel haters and Jew washers) have no problem letting the world know that one of the few red lines that still exist is that regardless of who is in the “Big Tent,” BDS is outside it.

So here’s something new and different in BDSland.

By now, some of you may already have heard about the University of Texas Middle East Studies Department that recently canceled a book project that would have included essays from 29 women writing about their experiences living and growing up in the Middle East.

This anthology was meant to honor Elizabeth Fernea, a U of T scholar who had spent decades studying and documenting African and Middle East cultures, who taught at the university until 1999 and passed away in 2008.  All was going well with the project (which would have been published by the University of Texas Press) until one of the authors, Huzama Habayeb, discovered that two of those 29 authors were Israeli.

“Foul!” cried Habayeb who insisted that if Israeli women’s voices would be included in a book of Middle East women’s voices that she wanted no part in the project.  “Fine.” replied the University, which informed her that her request to have her essay pulled would be honored and that the book would go on without her.

But apparently the press honoring her request was not good enough for Habayab who worked tirelessly over the next several weeks to convince other Arab woman contributing to the volume to also pull out.  And the press, which was not about to cave into pressure to censor the Israelis authors, but who could not publish the book with only their contributions, was left with no alternative but to cancel the book entirely.

There was a brief moment when this decision was mistakenly seen as a cave-in by U of T to boycott pressures before calmer voices realized that the university had in fact made the only possible honorable decision (the alternative being to exclude the Israelis at the behest of the boycotting writers).  But, as night follows day, this disgraceful episode was being hailed across the “I Hate Israel” multi-verse as the latest great BDS “victory.”

Why I describe this story as “new and different” is because until now most BDS stories have fallen into a tight set of distinct categories:

* Actual BDS wins (rare, and usually accomplished via backroom deals cut in the dead of night – such as the  Olympia Food Coop);

* BDS failures (much more numerous, often occurring at the very places where BDS activist had previously gotten their way – such as the Presbyterian Church);

* Ambiguous decisions or non-events deliberately portrayed by BDS activists as victories, despite the fact that they are actually BDS hoaxes (such as fraudulent stories of BDS taking place at Hampshire College or at various financial firms)

But the University of Texas story does not fall neatly into any of these categories.  If a boycott is meant to describe an institution (like the university) agreeing or acceding to BDS demands that Israelis be excluded from a project or program, then in this case the school clearly refused such an exclusion.  But a book that would have included both Arab and Israeli voices is not being published due to activist pressures, which means the boycotters did achieve a result that included the silencing of Israelis, but only by forcing all voices (including their own) be silenced as well.

In order to accomplish such a “victory,” Habayeb also had to not just renege on a promise made to the university, but work tirelessly to ensure other authors also broke their word in an astounding organized breach of academic protocol, all in service of the alleged “higher ethics” demanded by the principles of BDS.  All so a book created to honor a woman who spent her life helping the voices of Third World women be heard got sent to the shredder rather than the book store.

Years ago, a UN report on cultural underdevelopment in the Middle East highlighted the fact that the number of foreign books translated and published in the Arab Middle East over the last century totals less than the number of translated books published in Spain in a single year.  While there are a number of measures that can be used to determine the strength or weakness of a society other than book publishing, the ability of members of those societies to celebrate the stilling of unheard voices (including their own) does not bode well for the future.