Hat tip to David Harris Gershon's recommended list diary today about his struggle against censorship by an institution of the American Jewish community. Before I read that diary, I didn't know about the organized Boycott, Divestiture and Sanctions (BDS) Movement or its recent successes and controversies. The BDS Movement is a nonviolent international campaign to curtail international relations with people/institutions supporting illegal Israeli settlements on pre-1967 Palestinian territory. What happened to Mr. Gershon appears to be back-lash from people unhappy about the BDS Movement.
I dug around on the web and got better informed about the BDS Movement. Follow me out into the tall grass to talk about it.
Last month, according to the New York Times:
An American organization of professors on Monday announced a boycott of Israeli academic institutions to protest Israel’s treatment of Palestinians, signaling that a movement to isolate and pressure Israel that is gaining ground in Europe has begun to make strides in the United States.
Members of the American Studies Association voted by a ratio of more than two to one to endorse the boycott in online balloting that concluded Sunday night, the group said.
This news comes along with
a report that a security company doing business with Israel in the settlements is losing other business because of it.
In another story, a Dutch pension fund announces a divestiture of "tens of milliions" of Euros from a group of Israeli banks.
In Australia, Dr. Jake Lynch, head of Sydney University’s Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies (CPACS), refused to sponsor a fellowship for a scholar from
Hebrew University – a key intellectual hub which is targeted by boycotters for allegedly being complicit in the establishment of illegal settlements – Lynch declined to be named as a reference.
That got Dr. Lynch sued by "Shurat HaDin - Israel Law Center . . . an Israel-based organisation that claims to be a civil group 'fighting for rights of hundreds of terror victims'". But, from the same article, here's more about Shurat HaDin:
Shurat HaDin. The organisation, according to Wikileaks documents, has strong links to Israeli intelligence and Mossad, just one of the many groups that now prosecutes Israel’s argument for the Jewish state.
The Boycotts, Divestiture and Sanctions movement is beginning to pick up head of international steam, for good or ill. The Movement capitalized on recent international events by embracing the similarities between the struggle of the BDS and that of the anti-apartheid boycotts that helped regularize political rights in South Africa.
Consider this part of a public statement:
5. The Palestine Liberation Organisation and the State of Palestine is not opposed to the Palestinian civil society-led Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel. Palestinian officials and leaders respect and uphold the right of Palestinian civil society to initiate and lead local and global BDS campaigns against Israel as a means to achieve the inalienable rights of the Palestinian people, paramount among which the right to self determination. Furthermore, the Palestinian leadership has always deeply appreciated the efforts of international solidarity groups and activists in South Africa and elsewhere, including those involved in the global BDS movement, to uphold international law and universal principles of human rights in supporting the Palestinian struggle for freedom, justice and self determination. We are keenly cognisant that international solidarity , particularly boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) was one of the four pillars of the struggle against apartheid here in South Africa. - See more at: http://www.bdsmovement.net/...
I think I stand with David Harris Gershon's
testiment that:
I believe that economic sanctions, such as boycotts, are legitimate forms of nonviolent protest, in contrast to, say, violence or vandalism. I do not, however, subscribe to the BDS movement's implicit vision of a single, bi-national state as a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
I cannot resolve any I/P issues in any diary on Daily Kos and I hope not to set off too many pie fights among those who think that they can do so in a comment thread. I neither endorse nor reject any comparisons of the BDS Movement with the South African anti-apartheid movement.
I have at various times consciously boycotted grapes, lettuce, veal, tuna and Rush Linbaugh. I can't think of anything in my life that I could change to have a boycott effect on Israeli actions in the settlements, even if I did want to support the BDS Movement. There are sometimes imports I could avoid in the produce or grocery aisles, I suppose. I doubt that I will remember.
Just from a bystander's point of view, it appears that the BDS Movement may be scoring some points, given the force and organization of the push-back like that against Mr. DHG and Dr. Lynch in Australia. The boycott movement could continue to find support and grow. Is it even imaginable that there might ever, for example, be something like an IBDS caucus in the U.S. Congress, or shall even discussion of such nonviolent practices against international injustice in Israeli settlement policy remain vulnerable to suppression?
H/T to Flyswatterbanjo for past BDS reporting on Daily Kos here and here.