Clip Show 3: On My Honor

Unfortunately, this piece (which was published the week before the Hampshire BDS conference) triggered a pretty familiar right-left debate over attacks on Scouting as an institution over the last couple of decades. Not that this isn't a debate worth having, it's just that the Boy Scouts seems to transcend the issues of the day, which is why it seemed such an apt comparison to the fleetingness of BDS.

Anyway, those with patience are free to read on...

While I was hoping to do daily postings related to the upcoming Hampshire BDS conference, yesterday got tied up with my older kid's first Boy Scout overnight (which included the tail end of a tropical storm).

Which got me thinking... (Note to new readers: This is point where my regulars start fleeing the room, but if you stick with me for a couple of paragraphs, relevance to divestment should start to emerge.)

In documenting the interaction between BDS and civic society over the last five years, most of the organizations I've written about (the Presbyterian and Methodist churches, British trade unions, etc.) are alien enough to my personal experience that they required some research and outreach to understand.

The Boy Scouts, however, is not a stranger. I grew up in the movement and, as last weekend's overnight confirmed, it is just as dynamic as it was in the 1970s when I wore the khaki. More so, in fact, since I was at the tail end of a misguided attempt to reach inner-city kids by diluting the mix of outdoor skills and self reliance that formed the core of Scouting for most of the 20th century, a trend that was reversed once people realized that cutting wood, pitching tents, and building fires were exactly what urban boys (like all Scouts) wanted (and needed) to learn.

In an era when many of the planets problems are the result of (or fueled by) directionless, adolescent males, a movement designed to instill young men with a moral code, as well as a code of chivalry (in the form of the Scout Oath and Law) stands out as one of the most successful civic experiments of this or any other era. It's been a hundred years since Lord Baden Powell wrote Scouting for Boys, but I can draw a straight line between his first recruits at the turn of the last century, and the highly skilled, generous souls who welcomed my ten-year-old into their fold during last weekend's driving rainstorm.

Now I've written on the topic of civil society before, and I should stress that Scouting as an organization is fully inoculated from manipulation by political organizations like those pushing divestment. So in this case, I'm not talking about Boy Scouts as a civic institution at risk, but rather highlighting the difference between a movement dedicated to creation, and one committed to destruction.

This contrast became clear as I began to ask about what our side might want to do in order to tell our side of the story at Hampshire. This was generally met with shaking heads and grim laughter since the rule on the Hampshire campus seems to be: agree with SJP or suffer the consequences. And this bullying attitude seems to extend beyond just Hampshire to the entire Five College region where any speaker looking to share a pro-Israel point of view can expect to be harangued off the stage (all in the name of "disrupting the Zionist narrative," of course). In fact, one of the reasons it was so easy for SJP to broadcast the Hampshire Divestment hoax earlier this year was because of their success in pushing discussion of any "narrative" that did not fit their own point of view beyond the pale.

Now having been a Boy Scout, I know full well the institutions weaknesses, flaws and limitations, just as I am well aware of all of the many things that make Israel a hugely imperfect society. And yet, compare an organization that has taught generations of boys from around the world to link arms rather than swing fists, or a country that has turned Jews from a hundred lands into a nation, with the sour emptiness that underlies the BDS "movement."

Divestment does not welcome, it shuns anyone who refuses to tow the party line. It does not build, it seeks to destroy. It creates no civic space worthy of esteem, but rather attempts to piggyback on the reputation of organizations that actually stand for something.

One of Baden Powell's more well-known maxims says "If a scout were to break his honour by telling a lie . . . he would cease to be a scout--he loses his life." A bit dramatic, in a turn of the 20th century kind of way, but what a contrast with next week's the Hampshire divestment conference which -at the end of the day - is built on the knowing perpetuation of a fraud.

Clip Show 2: Hampshire SJP Planning Transcript

Continuing the Hampshire Divestment "clip show," here's a piece that seems to have gotten up a couple of Happy Valley noses. While I originally knocked this off as a half-hour lark, it apparently comes up as most of the links on the first page of a Google search of "Hampshire BDS" (testament to how little people are really paying attention to Hampshire Students for Justice with Palestine and their fellow travelers).

The original appeared as two postings at Solomonia, but I've combined them into one. Oh, and if any SJPers are reading this, I'd better point out something a number of them didn't quite grasp when it first appeared: this is a parody (look it up).

A friend from Northampton slipped me a transcript of a recent planning meeting for next weekend's divestment conference at Hampshire College. Apparently some of the original audio recording was garbled, so forgive any dead patches.

Freddy (Student for Justice in Palestine leader): OK gang, we've got to start this conference off with a bang. Now we're still hoping Omar Barghouti can give the opening speech addressing the compelling need for a comprehensive boycott of Israeli academia. But in case he's still taking his finals at Tel Aviv University, I thought we could begin with a stemwinder about the outstanding successes BDS has had this year.

Unknown Student (Female): Yeah! We could talk about the Norwegian government's decision to pull out of Elbit!

Unknown Student (Male): Norway! Give me a break. They've already got squishy on us, highlighting the fact that they continue to invest in over 40 Israeli companies. Besides, who gives a sh*t what Norway thinks. Whoever heard of Norway?

Sven: I have. I was born there.

Unknown Student (Male): You know what I mean.

Yakov: As I Jew, I understand where you're coming from. So why don't we skip Norway for now and focus on university divestment. After all, most of the attendees will be college undergrads, and many of them - like me - will be Jewish.

Freddy: Yakov's right. So who's got the list of colleges that have divested from the Zionist Entity? Carlos - you're head of the academic subcommittee of the action committee of the steering committee. What's the number of wins have we had on the college front?

Carlos: [Sound of shuffling papers]. Well, according my latest research and calculations, the number of schools that have heeded our call and divested from Israel stands at [coughs].

Unknown Student [Female]: What was that Carlos? I didn't hear you.

Carlos: [Coughs a few more times.] Well, zero actually.

Freddy: You mean after eight years of BDS committees working tirelessly on every college in the nation, not one school has actually divested a single dollar from the NaZionist Colonial Power?

Carlos: Well it sounds bad when you put it that way.

[Unintelligible arguing. Sounds of papers being thrown in the air and doors slamming.]

Freddy: OK, OK so we know what to say if the subject of academic divestment comes up. Here on the East Coast, we would have won a series of unending triumphs except for the ugly intervention of Lawrence Summers who tried to muzzle us at Harvard by calling us anti-Semites.

Sven: Actually, I am an anti-Semite.

Freddy: Sorry, Sven. I was just making a point. OK, so by invoking knee-jerk accusations of bigotry, that tired old misogynist "Sexism Summers" censored us by having the gall to state his opinion about what Harvard should or shouldn't do, just because he as the college's President at the time. And then his lackey Alan Dershowitz forced our own President here at Hampshire to say he'd never divest from Israel.

Carlos: Actually, the President of Hampshire said he'd never divest a year before Dershowitz showed up.

Freddy: That's beside the point. After all, who gets to decide the school's investment policies, the administration and investment managers, or us? Of course they're going to use the excuse that we're just a bunch of undergraduates who don't speak on behalf of the college. But do any of them even know how to Tweet?

Yakov: I've got to agree with Freddy's interpretation of events. While we may not have won any actual "victories," I think it's fair to say we've already won the war on campus. Oh, and did I mention I'm Jewish?

Freddy: OK, we have our storyline. While we may not have won any actual "victories" in the campus BDS wars, that's just because of the stranglehold on discourse by the You-Know-Whos. And besides, it's just a matter of time before some Left Coast college goes our way. After all, look how successful we've been at San Francisco State where we get to shout our message from the rooftops as well as shout down (I mean disrupt the Zionist narrative) whenever any ZioNazis dare to express their point of view.

Carlos: Actually, the President of S.F. State just condemned BDS as a "campaign to limit other's free speech and reign in the free exchange of ideas [that] runs counter to everything S.F. State stands for."

Unidentified Male Student: Carlos, can you please stop being such a killjoy. As we just discussed, it doesn't matter if no colleges or universities actually divested. If a group of undergraduates like us just pretend they did, shouts loud enough and sends out enough press releases, then we can call it victory.

Yakov: Exactly. In fact, I just wrote a paper for my Physics and Class Conflict in the Middle East course entitled "Objective Reality is Whatever I Say it is" which clarifies this very topic. I brought some copies if anyone wants to read it now [sound of papers being pulled out of a knapsack].

Freddy: We'd better take that offline Comrade Yakov. We've still got a lot of ground to cover. OK, we have our storyline for declaring victory on campus, and - as usual - our friends at Sabeel have been working tirelessly to bring the Mainline Protestant churches in our camp.

Sven: Religion is the opiate of the masses!

Unidentified Female Student: That's true Sven, but we should keep that to ourselves, especially since the Presbyterians and Methodists are just about the only major organizations that have squarely come out in favor of divestment. Carlos - has anyone else been added to this list in the last couple of years? I heard that the United Church of Lasertag has been flirting with a BDS resolution.

Carlos: Can I go to the bathroom?

[Door slams.]

Freddy: OK Carlos, come clean. Before you can take a bio-break, what are you trying to avoid telling us?

Carlos: Well, it's just that...

Sven: Out with it.

Carlos: OK, the Presbyterians rejected their 2004 divestment vote in 2006. And they reiterated that choice in 2008, the same year that the Methodists rejected divestment unanimously. And with all due respect for our comrades at Sabeel, just this summer, the United Church of Canada voted down divestment, even after Sabeel made a passionate plea to stay on the BDS bandwagon. So basically, we've got nothing in the churches either.

[Long silence.]

All: Religion is the opiate of the masses!

Unidentified Female: To hell with those Bible thumping Presbyterian rednecks.

Freddy: OK, calm down everyone. Now we can't start next month's meeting just pretending that we've won on colleges that have rejected us, or shitting on the churches we were celebrating just two years ago. We've got to have some real victory to boast about, or everything will think we're a bunch of ineffectual losers holding celebratory meetings as a substitute for real wins.

Yakov: Well we can't talk about municipalities. Somerville and Seattle are the closest we ever got, and BDS was rejected unanimously in the former, and didn't even get onto the ballot on the latter.

Unidentified Female Student: And US Unions are out, they're the most Zionist institution in the country outside of Evangelicals (unless you want to count the Lawyer's Guild).

Yakov: My Dad told me that the last member of the Lawyer's Guild just resigned.

Freddy: OK, scratch the Lawyer's Guild. But come on guys, we've got to have one victory to talk about, just one. Is that too much to ask for by a movement like ours which has been on the march and in the ascendency for the last eight years?

[More silence.]

Unidentified Female Student: Norway?

[More silence.]

Unidentified Male Student: How's this: Our brave Scandinavian comrades have boldly stood up to the Zionist pressure from the massive, all-powerful Norwegian Jewish lobby, creating a bold vanguard which will soon sweep that brave nation, and then the world!

[Sound of cheers, loud whoops and singing of Abba songs.]

Sven: Guys! Guys. First thing, Abba is Swedish. And second thing, I've got a little more bad news...

End of transcript.

Clip Show - Buycott, Invest, Celebrate!

I decided to take my response to last weekend's Hampshire BDS yak-fest to a friend's blog, which is why there's been less about that event here at Divest This! Just so all of the info I've been gathering or creating on BDS is in one place, I've decided to re-post those messages here over the next few days. (And yes, those of you who realize it's a long holiday weekend will recognize this as the equivalent of one of the holiday clip shows we remember from TV series of our youth.)

So without any further ado, it's time to Buycott! Invest! and Celebrate!

I was going to celebrate Israel's fantastic October, during which the country attracted a phenomenal 1.25 billion in new foreign investment (not bad during an economic downturn).

And given that those pikers peddling their boycott, divestment and sanctions wares were able to convince themselves that TIAA-CREF selling a measly $250,000 in Israeli real-estate stock was a major vindication of their cause (even though CREF let it be known that their sale had nothing to do with politics), by following the BDS rulebook I guess I can claim that support for Israel (as demonstrated by investment levels) has outstripped hostility towards the Jewish state (as demonstrated by divestment "success" - even if only imagined) by a factor of 500,000%.

But why quibble with these statistics when anecdotes can suffice to demonstrate divestment's track record as an L-O-S-E-R of late?

After all, as I describe here and here, the BDS "juggernaut" can't even pull off tricking an LA teacher's union into swallowing their poison. And given that the only institution in America that rivals Evangelical Christians in their deep attachment to the Jewish state is the US Labor movement (which would explain why they keep that giant bronze statue of Golda Meir in the lobby of AFL-CIO headquarters), I'm not quite sure where all the excitement about "divestment ascendant" is coming from.

But I guess my favorite recent tale was about the failure of the usual suspects to get the New York Mets to cancel a fund raiser for the Jewish denizens of Hebron. I mean come on! A fund-raiser for the dreaded Settlers (Bogga! Bogga! Booga!) in the heart the most blue and green city in America, and the BDSniks can't even get the Mets to lend their cause anything beyond a "F*ck y*u very much for your concern" letter?! (Oh, for an interrobang.)

I've heard that aptly named "movement" (i.e., the divestment brigade) will be gathering at the scene of last February's hoax: Hampshire College for a weekend celebration of their wonderfulness. So what better time to highlight the failures of said movement over the next week here at my favoritist of all Web sites, Solomonia.

Stay tuned...

BDS: Taking Down "Giants"

I had the chance to swing by the Five College area last weekend when the Hampshire BDS conference was taking place. In addition to a quick run through the sleepy Hampshire campus (home of not just Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine, but also the Eric Carle Museum), I had the chance to meet with a bunch of students who have been at the forefront of battling not just divestment, but a whole host of anti-Israel activities that take place on a regular basis throughout the Happy Valley.

As has been reported for the last decade or two, campus supporters of Israel have it pretty tough these days. While support for Israel across the country still ranges in the 70-80% range, a large part of that other 20-30% seems to be concentrated on college campuses. And in places like Amherst and Northampton, significant numbers of school anti-Israel organizations are supplemented by a community beyond the campus who share their views, creating a zeitgeist whereby hostility to the Jewish state is “in” and any other attitude is marginalized or shunned.

In certain locations (notably the Five College area and certain Californian and Canadian campuses), the situation has gotten so bad that threats, physical intimidation and even violence accompany social ostracism directed at those who may not share the Free Palestine/Israel Apartheid/BDS agenda. While the cops haven’t been required to save Hampshire kids from threatening mobs yet, there have already been cases of students leaving Hampshire because of the toxic atmosphere created by militant hoaxers like Hampshire Students for Justice in Palestine.

Given a situation more unpleasant than anything I remember from my college days, I was curious as to learn how local Israel supporters were holding up, and was thrilled to find out that they are not only holding their own, but they have only begun to fight.

For example, I was surprised to discover that hostility to Israel has been allowed to pollute nearly every level of academic discourse. After dodging a SJP pat-down next to a cardboard “Apartheid Wall,” one would think the classroom would serve as a refuge, but apparently tales of Israeli brutality (sans facts and context, of course) are regularly dragged into there as well.

But one student, who was clearly appalled at having to deal with ugly “aren’t the Israelis behaving like the Nazi’s” accusations (in a Holocaust history class no less), told how he took it upon himself to correct the record and fight the good fight whenever the Middle East conflict was dragged into yet another inappropriate venue. Asked how he felt about having to deal with such rubbish on a day-to-day basis, he simply proclaimed that he was ready to continue to fight for what’s right until the day he died.

In addition to their courage in the face of hostile and aggressive critics, this group was also impressive in their humility and humanity. There are certainly some people I work with who have legitimate issues with interfaith and inter-community outreach (especially when it’s designed to limit what Jewish groups can do on campus while leaving Israel defamers free to pursue BDS or any other agenda they like). But at the same time, it says something about the hearts of Israel’s Happy Valley supporters that they choose not to grow bitter about what’s been going on at Hampshire and elsewhere, but continue to combine their readiness to fight for the good with a willingness to reach out to others, even those uninterested in outreach (for now).

Do these young men and women have all the answers? Of course not. Do they need help (especially from those of us who are interested in listening to what they have to say, rather than just telling them what they should do)? Certainly.

But we should keep in mind that in addition to knowing who’s who and what’s what on their own campuses, these folks have already demonstrated that proud Jews and Zionists, friends and supporters of Israel cannot and have not been cowed by loud mobs with shriveled souls whose only offer false history, fake victories and hatred for the Jewish state masquerading as humanitarian concern for the Palestinians.

History is replete with tales of small armies defeating much larger ones. In fact, what is Jewish and Israeli history if not a tale of winning out over overwhelming odds? And unlike the opposition, the group of kids I met with isn’t going to waste time celebrating their wonderfulness, and talking about being a generation of giants. Rather, they seem content with rolling along as happy warriors who, like David, are ready to bring giants to heel in the morning while praying for peace before they hit the sack (with, I hope, a fair amount of cold pizza and beer in between).

Muzzlewatch Gets Miffed

Sorry, but I’m going to have to take a day off from exposing the Hampshire divestniks for what they are in order to respond to this hilarious posting from my old friends at Muzzlwatch.

Given that Muzzlewatch, a blog ostensibly created to remove barriers to conversation about the Middle East, no longer tolerates two-way dialog (after shutting down their comments section when the kitchen got too hot), this reply will have to suffice as a rejoinder to Cecilie Surasky’s (the Muzzlewatch/Jewish Voice for Peace point person) hysterical response to a recent decision by the San Francisco Jewish Federation to stop underwriting the demonization of Israel.

The irony-challenged Ms. Surasky has to perform some pretty heavy contortions in order to fit the San Francisco story into a JVP narrative, so allow me to untangle the tale.

As regular readers know, infiltration is a theme I come back to again and again in my anti-divestment writing. Whenever BDS has posted a brief-lived “success” (such as with the Presbyterian Church or the British Teacher’s Union), it’s been because a small group of single-issue partisans have been willing to join an organization and use any means necessary (moral blackmail, parliamentary maneuvering, etc.) to tie an institution’s “brand” to the BDS propaganda message of “Israel = Apartheid,” regardless of the damage it might cause a church or other group in the process.

While many institutions have managed to avoid this type of manipulation, several have not. And the most recent victim was the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival which was hijacked and turned into a propaganda fest where the victimhood of Rachel Corrrie was trumpeted in film and lecture, while supporters of Israel were booed and jeered.

Unsurprisingly, this caused mayhem within the Film Festival organization and opened up enormous rifts within the San Francisco Jewish community. Once Israel’s detractors (including Jewish Voices for Peace) got what they wanted (tying their message to a respected Jewish institution), they were – as usual – not the least bit concerned with the wreckages their reckless activities caused. But once the organized Jewish community (in the form of the local Federation) decided to respond to the matter, there was the same Jewish Voice for Peace using their Muzzlewatch mouthpiece to scream “foul!”

Now consider for a moment the argument being made in Surasky’s piece. JVP is at the forefront of the US boycott, sanctions and divestment movement, which has attached itself at the hip to the goals of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI). In other words, their fondest dream is to see Israeli academics shunned by their international colleagues, their papers refused entry into journals, their invitations to conferences revoked, their students refused entry to US and European graduate programs.

Yet while JVP works tirelessly to see Israeli academics and artists censored, they also run Muzzlewatch which exists to accuse anyone of challenging JVP orthodoxy of censorship. In the case of San Francisco, Surasky’s problem is not that the Federation is dragging anyone into court to get them to shut up (as JVP did in Boston). Nor are they hiding from criticism for their decisions (as Muzzlewatch did when they shut down their comments section). Rather, she is furious that the Federation has decided that defamers of Israel no longer have an automatic right to the community’s money.

Normally, the wannabe censors of Muzzlewatch simply hurl their accusations of censorship at those who have the temerity to use their own free speech rights to criticize the political positions of Jewish Voice for Peace. But in this case, their rage rises to the highest pitch I’ve ever seen because another organization that does not share JVP’s opinions refuses to write them checks, and refuses to tolerate a local Jewish film festival being subverted in order to accuse the Jewish state of murder.

At first I thought Surasky’s piece could never sustain the hilarity it achieved when the author was comparing its heroes (Judith Butler the “true academic rock star,” Ronnie Gilbert the former Weaver, and Aurora Levins Morales – both Latina and Jewish!) with the top-hat wearing, moustache-twirling, evil-doers of the Federation. But then she got to the threat (once again: Bogga! Bogga! Bogga!).

For you see it is we (meaning the SF Federation and other supporters of Israel) that are driving good and decent people into the arms of the boycott movement (not the tireless efforts of Jewish Voice for Peace who have been pushing BDS for close to a decade). And if we don’t reconsider and start those checks coming again, we will only have ourselves to blame when JVP keeps doing what it was planning to do anyway.

It’s been a couple of weeks since Halloween, but I can’t help but conjure up the image of one of those ten year olds who decided to costume up by wearing their parents or grandparents clothes. (In this case, I’ve got an image stuck in my head of Surasky and her JVP colleagues dressed in oversize trenchcoats and fedoras, with beards drawn on their face in marker, pretending to be scary gangsters.) “You mind your place Mister Federation Fatcat,” comes the real voice of Jewish Voice for Peace “or you’ll be wearing concrete golashes!”

Fortunately this site still accepts comments, so any Muzzlewatchers are more than free to let me know if I missed anything.

Punishing Your Friends

I had planned to write on an incident that happened earlier this year when a Palestinian cultural event taking place in Jerusalem chose to un-invite invited Israel guests when the BDS campaign set up a “No Israelis Allowed” separation barrier around the program.

Apparently, the program featured over 100 events around the city featuring artists dedicated to Al Quds (i.e., Jerusalem) as an Arab cultural “scene.” While Israel complained that the program was in violation of the Oslo Accords with regard to making final-status claims on the city, apparently any “ban” they proposed didn’t prevent the program from going on and people attending.

Unless they were Israelis, that is, who were banned on the basis of their national origin. And this blanket ban turned out to impact those Israelis who were supportive of the project, i.e., the very Israelis who would normally be considered supports of Palestinian political positions.

Putting aside the political issues raised by the Al-Quds Underground event itself, it’s telling that in this case the boycott managed to finally hit a target: Israeli supporters of the Palestinian cause. It reminds me of a statement someone once made about Noam Chomsky who reserves his worst bile for those who only agree with him on 99% of what he says.

In an era when BDS has been so spectacularly unsuccessful in hurting its enemies, it’s interesting to note that they have now moved their guns into a different position: targeting their friends. I suspect we’ll be seeing a lot more of this as divestment fails for yet another year, despite the best efforts by the BDS brigade. After all, if your enemies are already wise to you and the “neutrals” you are trying to seduce have seen how BDS contaminates a community, who is left to punish other than those who are already inside your tent?

Hampshire BDS Conference Transcript

I've been having a little fun over at my friend Sol's blog (www.solomonia.com) regard next weekend's divestment conference at Hampshire. I'll try to post thoughts on that event here, but in the meantime you can find stuff on a blog which, unlike this one, has the advantage of actually being read by thousands...

http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2009/11/hampshire-bds-planning-meeting---exclusi/index.shtml

http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2009/11/hampshire-sjp-planning-meeting---continu/index.shtml

http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2009/11/buy-cott-invest-celebrate/index.shtml

UTLA - Take 2

Before analyzing the significance of the UTLA’s success in avoiding the BDS infection, I hope you’ll indulge a quick personal observation.

Like most bloggers, I blog about an issue I’m passionate about: the fight against divest-from-Israel campaigns. And that passion is no less (possibly greater – ask my wife) than that of BDS advocates. Yet in my wildest dreams I would never, ever ask an organization in which I am a member (from my city or town, to the schools I’ve attended, to the synagogue I’ve recently joined, to the various organizations I and my family are members of) to take some official stand so that I could use their name and reputation to bludgeon my political enemies.

Every time divestment comes up, I’m always asked why our side doesn’t simply turn the tables and get the city of Somerville or the Presbyterian Church or some other civic organization to condemn the Palestinians for suicide bombing, or the Saudis for enslaving women or murdering gays. And each time I give the same answer: these institutions are not our playthings. They are living, sometimes fragile, critical parts of our civil society, not tools to be used (or mis-used) so that I or anyone else can leverage their name and reputation to punch above our actual political weight.

Having seen the misery and divisiveness that accompanies BDS when it is brought into an organization (almost always via the back door), civic institutions need a way to honestly evaluate and accept or reject whether they want to take part in divestment activity against Israel or anyone else. But it’s only in the case of Israel-related BDS that people (whether they are citizens of Somerville, members of the Methodist Church or British trade union) wake up one morning to learn that divestment (something they’ve never heard of before) is suddenly being advocated in their name. In the case of Hampshire College students and alums, or TIAA-CREF academic retirees, these communities get to discover their alleged organizational support for divestment is actually fraudulent.

So with regard to using the BDSers own tactics against them: no thank you. From my perspective, the civility and cohesiveness of my son’s tiny 4H group is a million times more important than the BDSers trying to exploit the name and reputation of much larger organizations. As I’ve said before, let BDS create its own civic space worthy of respect, not just latch parasite-like onto the reputation of someone else, by hook or by crook.

With that in mind, the UTLA story is quite simple, yet at the same time quite profound. There a couple dozen BDSers tries their usual trick of infiltrating an organization with a demonstrated concern for human rights, hoping to turn that concern into a weapon in their ongoing propaganda war against Israel. As usual, they thought they could sneak their message into the bloodstream of the organization without consulting anyone but themselves. And, again as usual, they never stopped to consider the damage they might cause by selfishly putting their personal political priorities ahead of the other 47,000+ members of the organization.

Fortunately, the leadership of this particular institution understood that the union exists to serve its member-teachers, and ultimately the students those teachers educate. Like most people familiar with BDS, these leaders understood what happens when you drag the Middle East conflict into an organization. And like most US unions (as opposed to European ones), they are not willing to sacrifice their members or their mission just to allow an insignificant minority to aggrandize their political agenda by exploiting the good name (and good will) of the organization.

So the UTLA said NO to BDS, and as a result have earned some sharp words from divestment partisans (to which I will add two words: “who cares”). For they have also earned (rightfully and righteously) the respect of those who understand that a commitment to human rights does not require an organization to dance to the divestor’s tune, simply because that tune hypocritically uses the language of human rights for its lyrics.

LA Teachers FIght Off BDS Infection

If any single incident can be used to capture the essence of BDS, the recent flare up at the United Teachers, Los Angeles (UTLA) union is the best case study I’ve yet encountered.

As backdrop, this 48,000 person teacher’s union is responsible for educating more students than do many countries, and the range of communities they serve (from wealthy suburbs to the toughest inner-city neighborhoods) only begins to illustrate the challenges they face. Add to that the problems of pay and benefits in a state facing the worst of the recent financial meltdown and I’d guess the first thought that pops into your mind is not: “Hey, let’s import the Middle East conflict into the organization!”

But that is precisely what was tried. Not by the union itself, or even by a significant number of members. No, in this case a debate over BDS within the union was launched by 25 people (a percentage of membership so small my hand-calculator registers it at 0.0).

UTLA (like many unions, churches and other civic institutions) has various committees dedicated to issues beyond those core to the union, including a Human Rights Committee which, over the last 20-30 years has taken positions on a number of issues (some of which focus on helping unionized workers in other nations, some focusing on other issues such as the environment). To be on the committee, you simply need to show up at 1-2 meetings, meaning the organization is open and welcome to all, but also has no safeguards if a dozen people decide it’s the perfect vehicle for exploiting the larger union.

On October 14, the committee had planned to use UTLA facilities to host a meeting on economic sanctions against Israel. The event was sponsored by an organization called Movement for a Democratic Society (MDS), a group which (whatever you think of their stances on the Middle East or other issues) was not using UTLA facilities to talk about issues related to either teaching, Los Angeles or a political position (boycott) that the union’s other 47,975 members had been made aware was going to be put onto UTLA’s agenda. Rather, MDS hoped their connection to the UTLA’s Human Rights Committee (the two groups seemingly containing overlapping memberships) could somehow link their agenda to the larger union.

In short, a relatively unknown organization (Movement for a Democratic Society) that was free to put divestment on its own agenda and platform, instead tried to tie the name and reputation of a large respected organization (UTLA) to their cause before members of the organization could discover what was being attempted in their name.

Eventually, UTLA’s President Duffy, noting the pain, divisiveness and misery that always accompanies BDS when it is injected into an organization, cancelled the event. And for acting in his role to protect the members of the union (something of no interest to the Human Rights Council/MDS partisans) he was accused of – you guessed it – censorship and caving into Jewish pressure after several Jewish organizations and members of the union –gasp! – chose to use their free speech rights to complain about this attempted hijacking of the union.

Fortunately, grownups were able to intervene and help UTLA avoid the fate that befell the Mainline Protestant churches (and is likely to roil the British TUC over the next several years). I’ve got further thoughts regarding what this incident means, but for now we can savor the fact that here in the US there are some organizations that have developed the anti-bodies needed to resist the tainted goods being peddled by BDS snake-oil salesmen.

Palestinians say NO to BDS!

While the British union movement contorts itself over the issue of BDS, an interesting item just came by my desk written by the organization TULIP (Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine) which indicates that Palestinian workers and unions do not support the boycott campaign.

Now admittedly, this revelation came from a brief fact-finding mission by an organization dedicated to cooperation vs. confrontation. At the same time, as I’ve stated before the Palestinian union movement has never indicated support for economic sanctions against Israeli companies or industry.

The dynamics surrounding the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel suffer from a number of issues (notably the likelihood of coercion), but as the name of the coalition itself implies, the organization has never announced support of the kind of economic boycotts and divestment projects that are most popular within some European unions.

Given that whenever boycotters are asked why they are demanding economic punishment of Israel vs. other far worse human rights abusers, they point to the alleged support for their policies by Palestinian unions (or civil society as a whole) they are actually talking about PACBI, it’s interesting to note that this institution has NOT thrown its support against a boycott of Israeli products (for example), especially since they well understand that their members are the ones who would suffer from such a policy.

Given this context, the TULIP report certainly passes the intuition test. Like unions anywhere, Palestinian unions must balance their desire to take political stands against the need to focus on policies that help their members. And unlike the Fireman’s Union in the UK (the force behind the recent TUC boycott vote), members of Palestinian unions will face actual hardships related to boycotts that represent little more than political poses to the radical cells committed to turning European unions (or other civic organizations) into their mouthpieces, regardless of the cost to their own unions, and regardless of the cost to Palestinian workers.

Google will never divest...

Jeff Goldberg has been on a roll this week, following up the interview I mentioned last posting with this one in which he talks with authors Dan Senor and Saul Singer and their new book Start Up Nation which documents the phenomenal economic success of the entrepreneurial Israeli economy.

While I could quibble about some political assumptions made by the interviewer, the key points he makes is that major corporations and major investors would pull out of India or Ireland long before they would ever consider pulling out of Israel. This is because while the former “I” countries provide manpower and brainpower, the latter combines these with proven entrepreneurial creativity which has provided companies like Google and Intel with the most important innovations critical for their success.

I’ve been thinking recently about why we allow the divestment crew to claim as a “success” some retirement fund selling off a quarter-million dollars worth of crashing Israeli real-estate stock (putting aside that the sale had nothing to do with BDS), yet fail to count those same investors socking hundreds of millions of dollars into the Israeli economy as a measure of our success. After all, if the BDSers want to set the rules whereby any negative economic measure, not matter how small, taken by a North American or European firm represents a loss of support for Israel among the nations and a vindication of their political message, why can’t we apply those same rules with regard to the billions these same firms confidently invest in the Jewish state?

In many ways, the divest-niks look to Europe as their model, hoping their calls for boycott, divestment and sanction will eventually get the same hearing in the US as they allegedly get on the continent. With that in mind, it was interesting to discover reading Goldberg’s piece that European venture capitalists invest more into Israel than they do into any individual European country.

Stuff that into your pipe and smoke it, Naomi Klein!

BDS and One State Fantasies

I’ve talked in the past (here and here) about the role fantasy plays in a number of BDS strategies and alleged “victories.”

In a recent Atlantic blog entry, Jeffrey Goldberg features and interesting interview with Hussein Ibish, author of the book What’s Wrong with the One-State Agenda which talks about fantasy elements as they relate to both proposals for a one-State solution to the Middle East conflict (one built on the elimination of Israel as a Jewish state) and the role boycott, divestment and sanctions in that strategy.

Worth a read.

Jon

Product Boycotts

I’ve not talked a lot about consumer product boycotts directed against Israel, perhaps because those have not been a major component of BDS in the US.

Up in Canada, however, consumer boycotts seem to be more popular. I suspect that some of reason behind the phenomena is geographical. The concentration of population and media in certain Canadian cities means boycott activities are more likely to gain volunteers and get the attention of the national press in places like Toronto or Montreal.

The culture of anti-Israel organizations may also play a role since these groups tend to be fragmented, with each “doing their own thing” with regard to B, D or S. A lack of institutions with global name recognition (a la Harvard or the Presbyterian Church) to be subverted may also make boycott a more appealing strategy than divestment in the Great White North.

Whatever the reason, consumer boycotts have some serious limitations. First off, contemporary consumer culture (with its constant bombardment of marketing messages) makes it very difficult for someone “selling” the notion of not buying this or that (for whatever reason) to rise above the din. And even when someone does manage to pull off a boycott-related protest, they face the challenge that a counter-boycott does not require their opponents to do anything other than go shopping (often for products they would have bought anyway).

The inherent risk of a boycott strategy is laid bare in this video which shows what happened when a bunch of Canadian BDS-niks decided it would be a great idea to protest in front of a store selling Israeli wines.

Toronto Wine Boycott Flops - Part 1
Toronto Wine Boycott Flops - Part 2
Toronto Wine Boycott Flops - Part 3
Toronto Wine Boycott Flops - Part 4

As that story unfolded (and you should really watch all parts), the dozen or so protestors were met by hundreds of Israel supporters who bought out the store’s Israeli wine supply and proceeded to party in the streets while the boycotters slunk off in humiliation.

That was obviously a sweet moment, but not unique. If you recall last year’s Trader Joe’s “deshelving” floperoo, the Israel-dislikers, after declaring that Trader Joes across the country would face their wrath for not ending their distribution of Israeli couscous, barely managed to make a nuisance of themselves in a single store. And the only thing their efforts resulted in was a sellout of Israeli food products (which continues to this day), acclamations for Trader Joes for standing up to the BDS bullies, and an example created for the entire retail world regarding the benefits that accrue to companies that tell boycotters to take a long walk on a short pier.

Most recently, an attempt to boycott the Israeli cosmetics firm Ahava (again in Canada) led to a wild sell off of Ahava goods across the Commonwealth (helped along by the marvelous new anti-boycott site Buycott Israel). Add to that the sell-out performances of Israeli films targeted at this summer’s Toronto Film Fest and you’re left with a situation where marketing directors for Israeli companies are likely salivating at the prospect of being boycotted by cretins like those who keep coming back to the boycott well for another dunking.