The subcommittee on National Security held a hearing today to "better understand the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) Movement".
Curiously, in seeking this understanding, they failed to invite a single Palestinian BDS activist to testify before them. Code Pink crashed the party and held up signs supporting BDS.
Perhaps you're wondering how a movement focused on Israeli companies, organizations and settlements happened to become a national security for the USA? The subcommittee's chair Ron Desantis's (R-FL) clarified in his opening statement:
BDS is better understood as an attempt to single out the world's only Jewish state for negative treatment through economic warfare ... We need to nip BDS in the bud... The goal of the BDS movement go beyond encouraging corporations and academic institutions to boycott and divest from businesses in Judea and Samaria... American policy must be designed to counteract BDS at every turn.
He also expressed concern for Palestinian employees of SodaStream. Curiously, no Palestinian was invited to testify on their views towards Israel, settlements, or indeed employment at SodaStream.
The opening remarks sounded like it was written by Benjamin Netanyahu's staff. Desantis's use of Judea and Samaria is particularly remarkable (and he used these terms repeatedly). That term is not used by any international body or the US government (or any country apart from Israel really). Everyone else refers to the territory Israel wrested from Jordanian control in 1967 as the "West Bank" or the "Occupied Territories".
"Judea and Samaria" is a term promoted by the settler movement within Israel and is an attempt to legitimize Israeli annexation of large swathes of the West Bank. This term is strenuously objected to by Palestinians, and controversial within Israel as well.
Over the past few months, there has been a concerted effort by Israel lobbyists to counter recent successes enjoyed by the BDS movement at American churches and universities. A Sheldon Adelson/Haim Saban summit earlier this year is reported to have raised between 20 and 50 million dollars to counter BDS activism. Israel has created a ministerial unit to combat BDS, and the ADL and AIPAC have joined in. Within Israel, an anti-boycott law permits someone claiming damages from BDS to sue anyone publishing or making a call for BDS.
An organized lobbying effort at the state level to pass laws countering the BDS movement has been gaining traction. Bills have been passed by large legislative majorities in Illinois, South Carolina, Indiana and Tennessee. In Congress, language Language was inserted into the TPP bill to refer to "Israel-controlled territories", another euphemism for the West Bank (which is under Israeli military occupation). The Obama administration announced they would ignore these provisions, a state department spokesperson said:
“By conflating Israel and ‘Israeli-controlled territories,’ a provision of the Trade Promotion Authority legislation runs counter to longstanding US policy towards the occupied territories, including with regard to settlement activity,”
The divide between the views of GOP and Democratic law-makers is becoming more difficult to ignore. Foreign Policy ran an article this week titled
Israel Could Lose America’s Democrats for a Generation. Most of the focus has been on the Iran deal and Benjamin Netanyahu's opposition to it.
But differences also exist in views towards Israel's illegal settlements. Netanyahu's coalition includes the pro-settler parties, and a number of his ministers are part of the settlement movement and publicly seek to annex 60-70% of the West Bank. That would leave the most populous Palestinian areas to form a densely concentrated micro-state with Gaza. In essence, these proposals are similar to the South Africa's apartheid-era attempt to pen its black population into Bantustans and create an illusion of democracy.
Highlighting the GOP/Democrat divide, ranking member Stephen Lynch (D-MA) reminded his colleagues of the State department has a policy on Israeli settlements:
“Every U.S. administration since 1967 – Democrat and Republican alike – has opposed Israeli settlement activity beyond the 1967 lines. This administration is no different. The U.S. government has never defended or supported Israeli settlements and activity associated with them and, by extension, does not pursue policies or activities that would legitimize them.”
and also repeatedly noted that the co-sponsors of the TPP amendment on BDS have said they "never intended their amendment to legislate on settlements". DeSantis, in his questions repeatedly asserted that Congress did indeed intend to conflate Israel and "Judea/Samaria".
The sub-committee heard testimony from:
- Daniel Birnbaum (CEO of Sodastream, which was forced to leave a West Bank factory thanks to BDS)
- Mark Dubowitz (ED, Foundation for Defense of Democracies)
- Eugene Kontorovich (Professor, Northwestern; who is an architect of the South Carolina anti-BDS bill)
- Matthew Duss (President, Foundation for Middle East Peace)
Duss was invited by the Democrats and he got enormous flak from the Steve Russell (R-OK) for his view that BDS is an opportunity to further the peace process and for things that his brother and father said. A lot of it followed a prior attempts to label progressive writers as anti-semitic. Duss reportedly opposes BDS, just not as fervently as the GOP would like.
Duss did have an interesting response to many comments about the alleged "double-standard" in BDS, i.e. the focus on Israel rather than other countries that also abuse human rights:
BDS movement agree or disagree with it, is driven by Palestinian civil society and a call by Palestinian civil society groups from 2005, to focus economic pressure on Israel and in that way it is quite easy to understand why the Palestinians, they are not being occupied by other countries. They are being occupied by Israel.