In this article I’m going to outline why it is wrong for the British government to pursue such dangerous policy and why supporting the BDS is important for peace and democracy for Palestinians and westerns alike.

The BDS movement is a Palestinian-led global campaign for freedom, justice and equality. It upholds the simple principle that Palestinians are entitled to the same rights as the rest of humanity. It was established in 2005 in response to the failure of the international community to hold Israel to account especially after the advisory opinion of the International Court of Justice which declared the wall being built around the West Bank by Israel as violation of the International Law. The BDS movement includes unions, academic associations, churches and grassroots movements across the world. It uses non-violent pressure on Israel to end its occupation of all Arabs land and dismantle the wall, to recognize the rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel and to respect the rights of the Palestinian refugees to return to their homes according to UN resolution 194.

Novara Media: ” MPs Vote To Protect Israel; We Speak To The Founder Of BDS | #NovaraLIVE ”

Some of the notable supporters of the BDS movement include Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Pink floyd musician Roger Watters and the renowned physicist the late professor Stephen Hawking who joined the academic boycott of Israel when in 2013 he famously puled out of a conference hosted by former president of Israel the late Shimon Peres in protest against Israel treatment of the Palestinian.

I find the British government move to prevent public bodies from engaging with the BDS disgraceful for several reasons. To start with, by its peaceful nature, the BDS movement allows larger public participation in politics and humanitarian issues where ordinary people and institutions can express their objection to Israeli policies, especially the ongoing genocide in Gaza. Putting increasing pressure on Israel peacefully including through cultural, economic and academic boycotts, is more likely to make Israeli politicians reconsider their inhumane treatment of the Palestinians. This has the potentials to prevent or at the least reduce bloodshed and save lives.

For any government to outlaw such harmless methods of protest and resistance means to push them in the opposite direction and to encourage more violence and bloodshed. This stance is astonishing, especially for the British government, considering Britain’s moral and historic responsibility in creating the suffering of the Palestinians. London accomplished this through the infamous 1917 Balfour Declaration in which it gave Palestine to the Zionist movement and allowed it to ethnically cleanse most of the Palestinians and turn them into refugees in order create Israel in 1948 based on ideas of supremacy, racism and bloodshed.

Inasmuch as it outlaws civil protest, the British government’s bill gives a green light to extremist Israeli politicians such as the Israeli Heritage Minister Amichai Elyahu, who said that “one of Israel’s options in the war in Gaza is to drop the nuclear bomb.”

The legislation is also a threat to British democracy as it seems to be the case that supporting Israel oppression of the Palestinians by western governments is increasingly becoming a threat to free speech and therefore to democracy. Denying public sector organizations the right to decide their own policies in relation to ethical procurement of services and goods is an attack on their basic right to make their own decisions to reject dealings with governments and businesses involved in human rights violations.

For us as Palestinians, boycotting Israeli goods has been a method of non-violent resistance for many decades, wielded against illegal occupation, colonization, ethnic cleansing, land theft, killing, persecution and apartheid. Now, defending the right to boycott Israel and to stand for justice for the Palestinians is becoming a new battle ground in defending democracy and free speech in the west.

The Oslo city council announced, “foodstuffs coming from Israeli-occupied areas must be labelled with the area from which the product comes and must indicate that it is from an Israeli settlement, if that is its source.”

The Norwegian government had already made a rule in 2022 that goods from the Occupied Territories could not be marked “Made in Israel,” only those produced inside Israel within its 1949 borders.

It may not be an accident that Oslo made this decision now. Daniel Boguslaw at The Intercept raised the question of whether the far, far right government of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, which is filled with open racists, fascists and Jewish supremacists, might be the best ally the movement for the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) of Israel has ever had. Global headlines have been full of the hate filled comments of cabinet ministers such as Bezalel Smotrich and Itamar Ben-Gvir. Smotrich urged the ethnic cleansing of a Palestinian hamlet.

The Geneva Convention on occupied territories of 1949 and the Rome Statute that created the International Criminal Court in 2002 both strictly forbid countries that occupy the territory of neighbors in wartime from settling their own citizens in this territory. The stricture came in response to atrocities committed by the Axis powers in World War II, as when Germany occupied Poland in 1939 and settled it with German citizens even as the Nazis killed and displaced Poles– in a bid to make Poland German and “Aryan” and to wipe out Slavs.

Israeli authorities have since the 1970s assiduously ignored international law and have subsidized the settling of hundreds of thousands of squatters on privately owned Palestinian farms, orchards and town property. At the same time, the Israeli state permanently locked some 300,000 Palestinians out of the West Bank and Gaza and has exerted various forms of pressure on them to emigrate abroad. They have also illegally annexed Palestinian East Jerusalem and part of the Palestinian West Bank near it, into which they are also putting squatters. Israeli squatter settlements are Jews-only and discriminate against Palestinian residents in Palestine itself.

Oslo’s principled stand is the form of BDS that I favor.

Via Pixabay: Oslo, file.

That is, I don’t think it is fair to boycott ordinary Israelis, many of whom do not like the squatters or their goals. Israel sits in the United Nations as a recognized state, and Oslo is not interested in boycotting companies or products produced in the state as it came into the UN, under the borders of the 1949 armistice. However, virtually everything Israeli authorities have done in the West Bank and Gaza since they were seized in 1967 has been grossly illegal. Worse, Israeli authorities have deprived the occupied Palestinians of the basic right to citizenship in the state, keeping them without even the right to have rights.

Much post-war international law was passed in an attempt to implement a “Never Again” policy — no more aggressive wars, no more annexations of neighbors’ territory, no more genocides against minorities such as Jews, Romani, gays and Poles. In flouting international law, Israeli authorities undermine their own alleged commitment to the principle of “Never again.” They have launched aggressive wars, displaced hundreds of thousands of people (who now have 11 million descendants), illegally annexed territory, and have squatted on occupied territory. The Holocaust can be viewed through the lens of Jewish nationalism or Zionism, such that it becomes a justification for Jews to refuse to be bound by international law or yield to outside pressure. Or it can be viewed through the lens of a humanist universalism, such that it is one of many horrific genocides in the twentieth century — the Armenian, the Polish, the Cambodian, and so forth — and the lesson we take away from it is not a Likud or Religious Zionism ‘get out of jail free’ card allowing the flouting of all laws and norms but the urgent necessity of upholding the UN Charter, the Geneva Conventions, and the Rome Statute with a determination that the lawlessness of the Nazis, of Mussolini’s black shirts, and of the Japanese imperial armed forces should never be repeated.

Oslo’s boycott is in furtherance of a rules-based international order, and is therefore highly praiseworthy.

( Al-Shabakah) – The Israeli regime’s defenders across the US are ramping up efforts to criminalize the constitutionally protected right to boycott. Beyond violating the rights of Palestine solidarity activists, this threatens to undermine the tenets of a healthy democracy. Al-Shabaka’s US Policy Fellow, Tariq Kenney-Shawa, examines this development and suggests what lawmakers, civil society organizations, and concerned citizens should do to challenge it. 

Across the US, lawmakers and interest groups are stepping up efforts to shield Israel from accountability for war crimes, occupation, and apartheid. They are doing so by restricting Palestine solidarity advocates’ First Amendment rights to free speech and political boycotts. In June 2022, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled to uphold an Arkansas law punishing state contractors who boycott Israel. Since 2014, dozens of states have adopted similar laws designed to punish individuals and companies that refuse to do business with those who profit from the Israeli regime’s occupation. They are also actively silencing calls for boycott, divestment, and sanctions that pressure Israel to comply with international law.  

The message to US citizens is clear: Take action to hold Israel accountable for its crimes and you will pay. The implications are far-reaching: Not only are anti-boycott laws limiting spaces for Palestine solidarity, they represent the first step in a wider assault on the constitutional protections designed to safeguard US citizens’ rights to advocate for justice. Following the Eighth Circuit decision in Arkansas, the issue is now expected to move to the Supreme Court, setting the stage for a ruling that will have significant long-term implications for the rights of all US citizens to engage in any kind of politically motivated boycott and advocate for change.

It also explains how, by targeting the right to boycott, reactionary forces are eroding US citizens’ ability to leverage their long-standing, constitutionally protected rights to demand justice and political change both at home and abroad. With their right to boycott being threatened by an increasingly conservative and partisan judicial system, US citizens must take matters into their own hands to defend their constitutional rights. This policy brief recommends several steps that should be taken in order to do so. 

Anti-Boycott Legislation: The US National Context 

As of October 2022, bills and executive orders designed to penalize those participating in boycotts of Israel have been introduced in 34 states and apply to over 250 million US citizens. The laws are as absurd as they are troubling. In 2017, officials in Texas blocked access to hurricane disaster relief funds from those who refused to renounce their right to engage in BDS, only conceding the rule as a misapplication of the law after facing public pressure. In 2018, Bahia Amawi, a child speech pathologist in Texas, sued the state after losing her job for refusing to pledge that she “will not boycott Israel” or illegal Israeli settlements. 

That same year, The Arkansas Times, a local newspaper based in Little Rock, sued the state of Arkansas after an advertising contract with a public university was withdrawn as punishment for refusing to relinquish their right to boycott Israel. In July 2022, the Eighth Circuit Court became the highest-level court to consider the issue when it ruled against the newspaper, stripping it of its right to boycott. This ruling, which is binding to Arkansas, Iowa, Minnesota, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, and South Dakota, is a sign of what may be to come.

Whether by prohibiting state contracts who support BDS or threatening to cut ties with investment agencies, the Israeli regime’s defenders are forcing US citizens to choose between their First Amendment rights and their livelihoods Click To Tweet

Federal district courts in Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, and Texas have blocked the enforcement of their states’ anti-boycott laws, considering them unconstitutional compelled speech and violations of the First Amendment. However, instead of discarding them on the grounds that the government cannot force an individual or group to support certain political expressions, these laws are being amended and reintroduced. Several states have amended their anti-boycott laws to exclude individuals and sole proprietors; however, larger companies that conduct more than $100,000 worth of business with the state continue to face anti-boycott certification requirements. 

State legislators have also placed financial burdens on companies accused of boycotting Israel through blacklists and pension fund divestments. Efforts to shield Israel from the human rights standards applied across the globe are likewise extending into sustainable investing and corporate governance. In September 2022, South Carolina’s treasurer joined a growing list of officials threatening to cut ties with the multibillion-dollar investment firm Morningstar over claims that their Sustainalytics program’s environmental, social, and governance (ESG) rating is biased against Israel. ESG ratings, which assess ethical corporate practices ranging from environmental standards to labor practices, have proven integral in holding companies accountable regardless of where they operate. Indeed, Sustainalytics drew attention to Israel’s documented human rights violations in the assessments it provided to investors. 

In the face of mounting pressure, Morningstar hired an independent review commission to carry out an exhaustive investigation into any potential bias. The investigation found “neither pervasive nor systemic bias against Israel in Sustainalytics products and services;” however, this has failed to bring an end to the smears against the rating system. Missouri Attorney General Eric Schmitt decried Morningstar practices as “woke ESG investing,” and Arizona Treasurer Kimberly Yee suggested that the very idea of reviewing Israeli companies for the same standards to which all other companies are held was anti-Semitic. This, despite the fact that Morningstar’s chief executive officer, Kunal Kapoor, repeatedly insisted that his company does not support the BDS movement and that the Sustainalytics assessment merely provided a warning for investors, rather than a call to boycott. 

Since then, Morningstar has caved to pressure from the pro-Israel lobby, adopting a host of anti-Palestinian measures that include refraining from both references to the West Bank as “occupied” as well as reliance on reports issued by the UN Human Rights Council. Clearly, to the pro-Israel lobby, Israeli companies should not be held to the same human rights, labor, and environmental standards as other companies. As a result, whether by prohibiting state contracts who support BDS or threatening to cut ties with investment agencies, the Israeli regime’s defenders are forcing US citizens to choose between their First Amendment rights and their livelihoods.

Who is Behind These Bills? 

The ongoing proliferation of anti-boycott bills, recently described by Human Rights Watch as “part of an increasingly global campaign” against Palestine rights advocates, has been spearheaded by the Israeli regime itself. Over recent years, Israel has successfully bypassed US foreign interference laws by establishing non-governmental organizations through which it funnels millions of dollars to US groups who then advocate for anti-BDS legislation. But the Israeli regime is not alone. The war on boycotts of Israel is being led by the same reactionary lawmakers and interest groups actively engaged in undermining the tenets of a healthy democracy. 

Some of the most vociferous proponents of anti-BDS efforts in the US are conservative interest groups and evangelical Christian organizations that are engaged in a nationwide campaign to roll back hard-fought liberties. For example, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), an ultra-conservative venture backed by the Koch brothers, drafts legislation for state and federal governments on behalf of corporate interests. In addition to unconditionally shielding Israel from accountability and drafting anti-BDS bills for conservative lawmakers, groups like ALEC have also targeted public education, climate activism, and LGBTQ+ rights, while defending the “Stand Your Ground” laws, bans on Critical Race Theory and the Supreme Court’s June 2022 reversal of Roe v. Wade. Meanwhile, groups like Christians United for Israel (CUFI) smear BDS activists through advocacy campaigns on university campuses, as well as in churches and across social media. These alliances prove that being pro-Israel in America also means being complicit in conservative efforts to sustain white supremacy, roll back reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, and weaken democracy. 

Being pro-Israel in America also means being complicit in conservative efforts to sustain white supremacy, roll back reproductive and LGBTQ+ rights, and weaken democracy Click To Tweet

What is more, efforts to roll back the right to boycott have also represented a bipartisan affair. In 2016, New York’s former governor, Andrew Cuomo, signed an executive order blacklisting businesses that refused to do business with Israel. He put it bluntly: “if you boycott against Israel, New York will boycott you.” Three years later, Senator Joe Manchin (D – WV) co-authored the Combating BDS Act alongside Senator Marco Rubio (R – FL), which aimed to give legal cover to various state anti-BDS laws before it was blocked on the Senate floor. In August 2022, New York State Assemblyman Dan Rosenthal joined 18 Republicans in their campaign against Morningstar for warning investors of Israel’s human rights record. While the bipartisan tradition of providing unconditional support to Israel is waning, democratic establishment holdouts continue to side with conservatives against progressive voices, both in the electorate and in the halls of Congress.  

Constitutionally Protected Rights Under Threat  

US citizens have long leveraged their right to boycott as a means of making their voices heard. From the pre-Civil War boycott of goods produced with slave labor, to the 1955 Montgomery bus boycott that called for an end to racial segregation, boycotts have proven a vital tactic in challenging human rights abuses and fighting for political change in the US. The tactic has also been wielded against injustice abroad; indeed, economic, cultural, and even academic boycotts proved instrumental in bringing an end to the apartheid regime in South Africa. However, many exhibit a disturbing selective intolerance for the right to boycott when it comes to holding Israel accountable. 

Political boycotts are widely viewed as a cornerstone of the First Amendment, both by the US public and as a matter of legal precedent. In NAACP v. Claiborne Hardware Co. (1982), the most regularly cited precedent on the issue, the Supreme Court ruled that a state’s right to regulate economic activity “could not justify a complete prohibition against a nonviolent, politically motivated boycott.” That case began in 1966, when the local NAACP chapter in Claiborne County, Mississippi, coordinated a boycott of white-owned businesses, calling for local government and business leaders to meet their demands for racial justice. White business owners affected by the boycott sued the NAACP and the action organizers for economic damages. 

After the case made its way through the lower courts, the Supreme Court ruled that the NAACP’s boycott was protected by the constitution because it was composed of elements protected by the First Amendment — namely, speech, assembly, and petition. Justice John Stevens emphasized the boycott’s end goal in the ruling, noting: “the purpose of petitioners’ campaign was not to destroy legitimate competition,” but rather, to “vindicate rights of equality and of freedom.” In part, the court found it persuasive that the boycott was wielded for an expressive purpose: a list of racial justice demands. 

In the NAACP v. Claiborne case, the Supreme Court found that through constitutionally protected acts of speech, assembly, and petition, “petitioners sought to change a social order that had consistently treated them as second-class citizens.” By this logic, the right to boycott Israeli goods produced in the West Bank — an act that inherently involves the aforementioned constitutionally protected activity — falls squarely within US citizens’ constitutionally protected rights. While courts in Arizona, Georgia, Kansas, and Texas confirmed this logic, the Eighth Circuit Court ruling in Arkansas serves as a reminder of how easily precedent can be overturned. 

Understanding the Eighth Circuit Court Ruling 

In 2018, The Arkansas Times sued the state after being asked to sign a pledge not to boycott Israel in order to maintain an advertising contract with the University of Arkansas. After the suit was initially dismissed, the newspaper appealed, and a three-judge panel from the Eighth Circuit overturned the ruling, finding that the statute “imposes a condition on government contractors that implicates their First Amendment rights.” The state then requested that the full Eight Circuit – known to be one of the most conservative circuit courts in the country – rehear the case, resulting in the June 2022 ruling against The Arkansas Times. 

While affirming that requiring someone to “give up a constitutional right” in order to receive a government contract does “impose an unconstitutional condition,” the Eighth Circuit Court went on to reinterpret precedent – namely, the protections set in NAACP v. Claiborne. The ruling argued that constitutional First Amendment protections apply only to the expressive actions that accompany a boycott. In other words, the speeches, petitions, and marches that promote a boycott are protected by the First Amendment, while the actual act of economically boycotting an entity is not. Along this line of reasoning, the Eighth Circuit decided that the act of economic boycott itself was considered an example of “non-expressive” conduct.

The Eighth Circuit’s decision has attracted widespread criticism from those who claim that the judges misrepresented the precedent entirely. NAACP v. Claiborne clearly establishes that the right to boycott is protected by the First Amendment, and when Supreme Court judges analyzed each of the associated elements of the boycott in that case, they did not differentiate between accompanying speech and the act of boycott itself. Justice Jane Kelly, who authored the Eighth Circuit’s dissenting opinion, took this logic further. According to Kelly, by instructing the State to consider a company or individual’s prior speech and actions to determine whether they are participating in a boycott of Israel, the Arkansas statute might deter entities from engaging in constitutionally protected acts of speech and protest unrelated to boycotts. In other words, companies and individuals might feel pressured to avoid protests and petitions that criticize Israeli policy out of concern that they may fall under the state’s definition of a boycott of Israel, “thereby limiting what a company may say or do.”  

Wider Implications 

While the judiciary can prove instrumental in countering attempts to curb constitutionally protected rights, such as the right to participate in the BDS movement, US citizens should not depend upon it alone to safeguard civil liberties. That is, while only 59 of the 261 anti-boycott bills introduced have so far been passed at the state and local levels, the pro-Israel lobby continues to adapt. As long as BDS remains under assault, so too is the right to use boycotts as a tool for advocacy on a range of issues. In other words, the ongoing crackdown on freedom to boycott has wider implications, even for US citizens who do not support the BDS movement.

The willingness to trample upon the rights of Palestinians and their allies is opening the door to a larger assault on civil society and the core tenets of a healthy democracy Click To Tweet

In fact, several states have already used anti-BDS legislation as a template for “copycat laws” that would criminalize other boycotts and forms of protest, such as preventing businesses from boycotting fossil fuels and firearms industries. For example, Kentucky’s SB 205 prohibits the state from entering into contracts with companies unless they submit written certification that they will not engage in a boycott of energy companies. Similarly, Indiana’s HB 1409, if passed, will prevent the state from entering into a contract with companies without written certification that they will not discriminate against a firearm entity or firearm trade association in their business dealings.

Efforts to curtail the right to boycott represent one tactic amid an overall strategy by reactionary elements on both sides of the partisan divide to undermine democratic values in the US. If they are successful, these forces will undoubtedly direct their efforts at other forms of protest and free speech that are being leveraged in calls for justice. Since 2017, 38 states have enacted anti-protest bills, mostly in reaction to the Black Lives Matter (BLM) movement and environmental protesters. Heightened voting restrictions in key swing states are making it increasingly difficult for US citizens to carry out their civic duty. As a result, black activists and other disadvantaged communities are disproportionately targeted. The willingness to trample upon the rights of Palestinians and their allies is opening the door to a larger assault on civil society and the core tenets of a healthy democracy. 

Taking Action 

The Eighth Circuit decision in Arkansas, which came two days before the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade’s guarantee of the right to abortion on June 24, 2022, serves as another reminder that US citizens should not count on the judiciary alone to defend their civil liberties. With this in mind, it is critical to raise awareness, mobilize grassroots activism aimed at pressuring lawmakers, and develop stronger checks to a flawed system. More specifically: 

• Members of Congress should fulfill their constitutional duty to defend the rights of US citizens, including the First Amendment right to participate in political boycotts. This  means voting against pending federal anti-boycott legislation like the ones introduced by Congressman Lee Zeldin (R) in March 2022 and Senator Tom Cotton (R) in July 2022, both of which are aimed at elevating state anti-boycott legislation to the national level. 
• Activists, civil rights defenders, and concerned citizens should contact their representatives to express opposition to laws that restrict their right to boycott. They should highlight the intersectional nature of this assault on social and political expression, and organize alongside other groups being affected by copycat legislation. More information about how to get involved can be found at Palestine Legal, the US Campaign for Palestinian Rights (USCPR), and the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU). 
• As workers across the country unionize at the highest rates in decades, civil society organizations should prepare union leaders and members to collectively mobilize against attempts by employers to revoke constitutionally protected rights. Trainings and briefings should prepare union leaders to explicitly incorporate the right to boycott into their labor demands and provide support to Palestinian or pro-Palestine workers who are targeted for their engagement in boycotts or other forms of political protest. 
• Activists, academics, and NGOs should coordinate efforts to produce informational material for public campaigns aimed at raising general awareness and providing US citizens with tools to advocate for their constitutionally-protected rights. The recent documentary film Boycott (2021) serves as an example of how to mobilize free speech activists, as well as the general public, who may still be unaware of the wider consequences of these coordinated anti-BDS campaigns when it comes to the assault on constitutionally protected rights. 



Tariq Kenney-Shawa

 

Tariq Kenney-Shawa is Al-Shabaka’s US Policy Fellow. He holds a Masters degree in International Affairs from Columbia University and a Bachelors degree in Political Science and Middle East Studies from Rutgers University. Tariq’s research has focused on a range of topics, from the role of narrative in both perpetuating and resisting occupation to analysis of Palestinian liberation strategies. His work has appeared in +972 Magazine, Newlines Magazine, the Carnegie Council, and the New Politics Journal, among others. Follow Tariq on Twitter @tksshawa and visit his website at https://www.tkshawa.com/ for more of his writing and photography. 

Palestinian organizations also denounced the The Jerusalem U.S.-Israel Strategic Partnership Joint Declaration signed on Thursday between Biden and Israeli Prime Minister Yair Lapid, which they said constituted an act of enmity against the Palestinian people and its rights. They called for Biden’s visit to Bethlehem to be canceled, given the American marginalization of the Palestinian cause.

The Strategic Partnership Declaration showers billions of dollars on Israel for security cooperation with the US and attacks the nonviolent movement to Boycott, Divest from, and Sanction (BDS) Israel for its Apartheid measures in the Palestinian territories.

The declaration pledges the US to castigate Hamas, which runs the government of the Palestinian Gaza Strip, as nothing but a terrorist organization. It continues, “The countries condemn the deplorable series of terrorist attacks against Israeli citizens in recent months and affirm the need to confront radical forces, such as Hamas, seeking to inflame tension and instigate violence and terrorism. President Biden reaffirms his longstanding and consistent support of a two-state solution and for advancing toward a reality in which Israelis and Palestinians alike can enjoy equal measures of security, freedom and prosperity. The United States stands ready to work with Israel, the Palestinian Authority, and regional stakeholders toward that goal. The leaders also affirm their shared commitment to initiatives that strengthen the Palestinian economy and improve the quality of life of Palestinians.”

In other words, Biden is a hapless bystander to Israeli policies toward Occupied Palestinians and offers only lip service “support” for a two-state solution. In the meantime, Washington is willing to kick in a little money to bribe the Palestinians into accepting their status as a people without rights, living under an alien military government, who are seeing their best land systematically stolen from them by the Israelis.

Arab 48 continues that one rally in Ramallah turned into a march through the city, as the demonstrators rejected Biden’s visit to the Palestinian territories, raising placards rebuking the notion of accepting “economic peace” in exchange for their political rights. They carried slogans like, “No to economic “peace,” yes to the right of return and independence.” A similar protest was staged in Nablus, demanding a boycott of Biden and calling on the Palestinian leadership to refuse to meet with him.

In contrast to the joint US-Israeli Jerusalem declaration, the Biden administration and the Palestine Authority were not able to agree on joint language. President Mahmoud Abbas and President Biden will each issue their own statements. The Palestine Authority is said to be annoyed with Biden’s focus solely on economic issues when it comes to Palestinians, and his administration’s attempts to integrate Israel into the Middle East without any political benefit for the Palestinians.

Letter to the provost of McGill University

Provost Christopher Manfredi
Office of the Provost and Vice Principal (Academic)
McGill University
845 Sherbrooke Street West, Suite 504
Montreal, Quebec H3A OG4
via fax: 514-398-4768

Dear Provost Manfredi:

We write on behalf of the Middle East Studies Association of North America (MESA) and its Committee on Academic Freedom to express our concern about a recent statement by McGill University’s Deputy Vice Provost indicating that the university is considering terminating its Memorandum of Agreement with the Students’ Society of McGill University (SSMU) as a result of the latter’s adoption of a “Palestine Solidarity Policy.” Such a step by the university would constitute a serious violation of the right of McGill University’s students and student organizations to freedom of speech and association.

MESA was founded in 1966 to promote scholarship and teaching on the Middle East and North Africa. The preeminent organization in the field, the Association publishes the International Journal of Middle East Studies and has nearly 2800 members worldwide. MESA is committed to ensuring academic freedom and freedom of expression, both within the region and in connection with the study of the region in North America and elsewhere.

On 21 March 2022, the SSMU conducted a referendum of its members on the Palestine Solidarity Policy, which among other provisions called for the boycott of, and divestment from, corporations and institutions with investments in Israel; 71 percent of those voting favored adopting the policy. On 24 March 2022, McGill University’s Deputy Vice Provost, Fabrice Lebeau, disseminated an email message demanding that the SSMU reverse its adoption of the Palestine Solidarity Policy on the ground that it “echoes key tenets of the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement” and thereby violates the SSMU’s constitution, despite the fact that the Judicial Board of SSMU had issued three separate rulings (here, here and here) in 2021, all of which affirmed the constitutionality of political campaigns directed at corporate or state entities, including BDS-related campaigns. Mr. Lebeau further threatened to terminate the University’s Memorandum of Agreement with SSMU.

The right of McGill University students and faculty, as well as student organizations, to voice their opinions on policies toward any state, or to advocate political activities including boycott, sanctions, and divestment, is protected by the right of free speech and the principles of academic freedom. Mr. Lebeau’s threat to revoke the university’s Memorandum of Agreement with the SSMU because of a vote fairly and freely conducted in keeping with the student organization’s established procedures therefore constitutes an attempt to silence protected political speech. The fact that the university has yet to implement this sanction against the SSMU does not alleviate our concern since the administration has served the student union with a notice of default, requesting that the union repeal the motion or have its agreement with the university terminated.

We believe that institutions of higher learning must resolutely uphold and defend the principles of academic freedom, and they must also be sanctuaries for the free expression of ideas and opinions. We therefore ask you that you immediately withdraw the notice of default served to the SSMU and issue a clear and forceful public statement assuring students and faculty that McGill University will not countenance threats or attempts to limit their right to free speech and academic freedom, including the advocacy of ideas and policies that some may deem controversial.

We look forward to your response.

Sincerely,

Eve Troutt Powell
MESA President
Professor, University of Pennsylvania

Laurie Brand
Chair, Committee on Academic Freedom
Professor Emerita, University of Southern California

Expectedly, the accusations centered on the standard smearing used by Israel and its supporters against anyone who dares criticise Israel and exhibits solidarity with the oppressed Palestinian people.

Rooney’s laudable action was not in the least ‘racist’ or ‘anti-Semitic’. On the contrary, it was taken as a show of support for the Palestine Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), whose advocacy is situated within anti-colonial and anti-racist political discourses.

Rooney, herself, has made it clear that her decision not to publish with Modan Publishing House, which works closely with the Israeli government, is motivated by ethical values.

“I simply do not feel it would be right for me, under the present circumstances, to accept a new contract with an Israeli company that does not publicly distance itself from apartheid and support the U.N-stipulated rights of the Palestinian people,” she said in a statement on 12 October.

In fact, Rooney’s contention is not with the language itself, as she stated that “the Hebrew-language translation rights to my new novel are still available, and if I can find a way to sell these rights that is compliant with the BDS movement’s institutional boycott guidelines, I will be very pleased and proud to do so.”

READ: Empty gestures or substantive change? On the Nobel Prize in Literature and its discontents

Rooney is not the first intellectual to take an ethical position against any form of cultural normalisation with Israeli institutions, especially those that directly support and benefit from the Israeli military occupation of Palestine. Her position is consistent with similar stances taken by other intellectuals, musicians, artists, authors and scientists. The ever-expanding list includes Roger Waters, Alice Walker and the late Stephen Hawking.

The BDS movement has made it abundantly clear that, in the words of the movement’s co-founder, Omar Barghouti, “the Palestinian boycott targets institutions only, due to their entrenched complicity in planning, justifying, whitewashing or otherwise perpetuating Israel’s violations of international law and Palestinian rights.”

Of course, some are still not convinced. Those critics of the BDS movement intentionally conflate between anti-Semitism and a legitimate form of political expression, which aims at weakening and isolating the very economic, political and cultural infrastructures of racism and apartheid. The fact that numerous anti-Zionist Jews are supporters and advocates of the movement is not enough to make them reconsider their fallacious logic.

One of the ‘politest’ denunciations of Rooney, appearing in the Jewish Forward magazine, was penned by Gitit Levy-Paz. The author’s logic is puzzling, to say the least. Levy-Paz accused Rooney that, by refusing to allow her novel to be translated into Hebrew, she has excluded “a group of readers because of their national identity.”

Palestinians in Gaza protest against German Parliament decision on BDS, in Gaza on 23 May 2019 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

” data-medium-file=”https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/651A9980.jpg?fit=500%2C333&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1″ data-large-file=”https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/651A9980.jpg?fit=933%2C622&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1″ src=”https://i2.wp.com/www.middleeastmonitor.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/05/651A9980.jpg?resize=933.5%2C622&quality=85&strip=all&zoom=1&ssl=1″ alt=”Palestinians in Gaza protest against German Parliament decision on BDS, in Gaza on 23 May 2019 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]” data-recalc-dims=”1″ data-lazy-loaded=”1″ >

Palestinians in Gaza protest against German Parliament decision on BDS, in Gaza on 23 May 2019 [Mohammed Asad/Middle East Monitor]

While the Forward writer is guilty of confusing political ethics and nationality, she is not the only one. Israeli Zionists do this as a matter of course, where the Zionist ideology and the Jewish religion – and, in this case, language – are quite often interchangeable. As a result, the definition of ‘anti-Semitism’ has been stretched to include anti-Zionism – though Zionism is a modern ideological construct. Since Israel defines itself as a Jewish and Zionist state, it follows that any form of criticism of Israeli policies are often depicted as if a form of anti-Semitism.

One of the most interesting aspects of this conversation on language is that the Hebrew language has been used by the State of Israel since its establishment in 1948 as the language of oppression. In the minds of Palestinians, anywhere in Palestine, Hebrew is rarely the language used to communicate culture, literature, social coexistence and such. Instead, every military ordinance issued by the Israeli army, including closures and home demolitions, let alone the proceedings of military court hearings, and even the racist anti-Palestinian chants in football stadiums, are communicated in Hebrew. Palestinians are then excused if they do not view the modern Hebrew language as a language of inclusion, or even innocuous, everyday communication.

These realisations are not the outcome of daily experiences only. Successive Israeli governments have passed numerous legislations over the years to elevate Hebrew at the expense of Arabic. For over seven decades, the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinian people has been coupled with the erasure of their culture and their language, from the Hebraicisation of historic Arabic names of towns, villages and streets, to the demolition of ancient Palestinian graveyards, olive groves, mosques and churches, the Israeli ethnocide is a top item on the Israeli political agenda.

The Israeli Nation State Law of 2018, which elevated Hebrew as Israel’s official language and downgraded Arabic to a “special status”, was the culmination of many years of a relentless, centralised Israeli campaign, whose sole purpose is to dominate the Palestinians, not only politically but culturally as well.

All that in mind, the hypocrisy of Israel’s mouthpieces is unmistakable. They welcome, or at least remain silent, when Israel tries to demolish and bury Palestinian culture and language, but cry foul when a respected author or a well-regarded artist tries, though symbolically, to show solidarity with the oppressed and occupied Palestinian people.

The Palestinian boycott movement is conscious of its morally-driven mission, thus can never duplicate the tactics of the Israeli government and official institutions. BDS aims at pressuring Israel by reminding peoples all over the world of their moral responsibility towards the Palestinians.

BDS does not target Israelis as individuals and, under no circumstances, does it target Jewish individuals because they are Jews, or the Hebrew language, as such. Israel, on the other hand, continues to target Palestinians as a people, downgrades their language, dismantles their institutions and systematically destroys their culture. This is rightly referred to as cultural genocide, and it is our moral responsibility to stop it.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

Via Middle East Monitor

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

TRT World: “Irish author Sally Rooney boycotts Israeli publisher in support of BDS”

A cosmic airburst is caused by a meteor exploding in the air before it strikes the earth. The most famous such event occurred in 1908 over Tunguska in eastern Siberia, burning trees in a five-mile radius and knocking down those beyond it.

The archeologists found that the sediment and the artifacts within it had been burned at temperatures as high as 4,500 degrees F., destroying buildings including a palace, and discovered human skeletons that appear to have been blasted apart.

The airburst occurred in the saline Dead Sea region, where the water is so salty you can’t sink. I’ve been swimming in the Dead Sea, and people cover themselves with mud so that they don’t get horribly sunburned from floating at the surface. The explosion would have evaporated some of the sea and the detonation drew salt from it and from the surrounding salt desert up to itself, then scattered the salt widely. They write, “anomalously high salt content in the debris matrix is consistent with an aerial detonation above high-salinity sediments near the Jordan River or above the hypersaline Dead Sea. This event, in turn, distributed salt across the region, severely limiting regional agricultural development for up to ~ 600 years.”

Thus, not only did the airburst obliterate the town at the site of Tell el-Hammam, it wiped out Jericho and other Canaanite cities in the area, and sowed salt into their soil so thoroughly that they were not inhabited for the subsequent three to seven hundred years. Population in this region fell from some 60,000 to a few hundred hunters and gatherers and stayed that way for centuries. As a lay person I wonder if this long term depopulation accounts for the tiny population in Jerusalem from the 1600s through about 1000 BC, when there were as few as 500 people living there. If David existed and was in Jerusalem (who knows?), he clearly was a village headman in a minor place with some roughhewn stone fortifications rather than a magnificent emperor with a shining palace.

The authors of the paper go on tentatively to suggest that the airburst could have become a folk memory, passed down in tales from generation to generation for a millennium as so was incorporated by the scribes in Achaemenid Babylon into the Genesis story of Sodom and Gomorrah.

Personally, I don’t approve of this sort of “biblical archeology.” Apocalyptic poets and sages were perfectly capable of imagining the wrath of the gods falling on a human city with cosmic ferocity without needing the actual example of a astronomical event like a meteor fall to inspire them. Many biblical materials go back to ancient Levantine religion of a thousand or two thousand years before the Tell el-Hammam airburst, visible in the Ugaritic tablets of ancient greater Syria.

Still, you can’t rule out that such a huge event could have left a long-term mark on the local Canaanite culture from which the Israelis emerged.

Genesis 19:1-5 says,

The two angels came to Sodom in the evening, and Lot was sitting in the gateway of Sodom. When Lot saw them, he rose to meet them, and bowed down with his face to the ground. 2 He said, “Please, my lords, turn aside to your servant’s house and spend the night, and wash your feet; then you can rise early and go on your way.” They said, “No; we will spend the night in the square.” 3 But he urged them strongly; so they turned aside to him and entered his house; and he made them a feast, and baked unleavened bread, and they ate. 4 But before they lay down, the men of the city, the men of Sodom, both young and old, all the people to the last man, surrounded the house; 5 and they called to Lot, “Where are the men who came to you tonight? Bring them out to us, so that we may know them.”

Lot offered them his daughters to rape instead of allowing the mob to rape his divine male visitors, but they would not be mollified. The angels advised Lot and his family to flee the coming consequent wrath of the Lord. Gen 19:24-26 says,

24 Then the Lord rained on Sodom and Gomorrah sulfur and fire from the Lord out of heaven; 25 and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain, and all the inhabitants of the cities, and what grew on the ground. 26 But Lot’s wife, behind him, looked back, and she became a pillar of salt.

These passages became the basis for Jewish and Christian condemnations of gay people as wicked much later, in the medieval period, though the sin of the people of Sodom was not homosocial pleasure but rather the threat of male on male gang rape. That is, it was about sex as illicit power, applied to a guest. In societies marked by practices of reciprocity, disrespecting a guest is the worst thing you can do. Such societies are typically characterized by scarcity, so people are amazing generous when they have enough to share, in hopes that when thing turn down for them, others will reciprocate with their own generosity.

The Qur’an retells Gen 19 in a set of midrashes or interpretive reimaginings. One of these, The Spider 29:26-35, goes this way:

²⁶Lot believed in Him, saying, “I am setting out to my Lord. He is the All-Glorious, the All-Wise.”

²⁷We bestowed upon him Isaac and Jacob and established in his lineage a tradition of prophesying and delivering scripture. We gave him his compensation in this world, and he is among the righteous in the next.

²⁸Lot said to his people, “You commit sexual improprieties to a degree that is unprecedented among all the peoples of the world. ²⁹You approach men, and block the way, and commit immorality in your gatherings.”

The story ends as in Genesis:

³³When Our emissaries came to Lot, he was distressed for them, since he could not protect them.

They said, “Have no fear, and do not be sad. We will deliver you and your family, except for your wife, who lags behind. ³⁴We are raining down desolation on this city from the sky in retribution for their debauchery.”

³⁵We left behind a clear sign from it for a people endued with reason.

Muslim clerics again misinterpreted this passage as a condemnation of homosexuality, when it is clearly slamming instead the predations of the people of Sodom, who sexually preyed upon and raped male strangers who came to their town.

If Bunch and Malcolm et al. are right, then a cosmic event, the airburst of a meteor, became an occasion for millennia of puritan preaching depicting the catastrophe as the result of human moral failings. In turn, they specified the supreme moral failing as sexual predation on guests.

And then subsequent millennia of clerics and religious authorities misinterpreted the scriptural story as a condemnation of homosexuality. So in this telling, a superstitious approach to a scientific even produced a superstitious approach to morality that eventuated in homophobia.

Me, I think the reality is likely a good deal more complicated and less positivistic, and that no meteors were needed for the bigoted to impose heteronormativity on society.

For more of my modern readings of the Qur’an, the scripture of Islam, see my recent book,

Purchase

By responding to the Palestinian call for boycotting apartheid Israel, the ice cream giant has delivered a blow to Israel’s attempts at criminalising and, ultimately, ending the global Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign.

What differentiates Ben & Jerry’s decision to abandon the ever-growing market of illegal Jewish settlements in the West Bank from previous decisions by other international corporations is the fact that the ice cream company has made it clear that its move was morally motivated. Indeed, Ben & Jerry’s did not attempt to mask or delude their decision in any way. “We believe it is inconsistent with our values for Ben & Jerry’s ice cream to be sold in the Occupied Palestinian Territory,” a statement by the Vermont, US-based company read on 19 July.

Expectedly, the Israeli government was infuriated by the decision, especially as it comes after years of a well-funded, state-sponsored, global campaign to discredit, demonise and altogether outlaw the BDS movement and any similar initiatives that aimed at boycotting Israel.

For years, the Israeli government has viewed the boycott movement as a real, tangible threat. Some Israeli officials went as far as perceiving the ‘delegitimisation’ resulting from the boycott campaign as the primary threat faced by Israel at the present time. Well attended conferences were held in Las Vegas, Brussels, Jerusalem and elsewhere, hundreds of millions of dollars raised, fiery speeches delivered, while politicians and ‘philanthropists’ lined up at many occasions, vowing their undying allegiance to Israel and accusing anyone who dare criticise the ‘Jewish State’ of ‘anti-Semitism’.

However, Israel’s biggest challenge was, and remains, its near complete reliance on the support of self-serving politicians. True, those ‘friends of Israel’ can be quite helpful in formulating laws that, for example, falsely equate between criticising Israel and anti-Semitism, or render the act of boycott illegal, and so on. In fact, many US states and European parliaments have bowed down to Israeli pressure to criminalise the BDS movement and its supporters, whether in the realm of business or even at the level of civil society and individuals. All of this is amounting to very little.

Additionally, Israel doubled down on its attempts to control the narrative in mainstream media, in academia and wherever the anti-Israeli occupation debate proved to be consequential. Through a Kafkaesque, and often bizarre logic, Israel and its supporters deliberately misinterpreted the IHRA definition of anti-Semitism, applying it at every platform where criticism of Israel or its Zionist ideology is found. The reckless Israeli dialectics was, sadly – albeit predictably – embraced by many of Israel’s Western benefactors, including the US, Canada and Italy, among others.

Yet, none of this has ended or even slowed down the momentum of the Palestinian boycott movement. This fact should hardly come as a surprise, for boycott movements are fundamentally designed to circumvent governmental control and to place pressure on politicians, state and corporate apparatuses, so that they may heed the calls of civil society. Thus, the more Israel attempts to use its allies to illegalise, delegitimise and suppress dissent, the more it actually fuels it.

The above is the secret of the BDS success and Israel’s very Achilles’ heel. By ignoring the boycott campaign, the movement grows exponentially; and by fighting it, using traditional means and predictable language, it grows even faster.

In order to appreciate Tel Aviv’s unsolvable quandary, just marvel at this odd response, which was offered by top Israeli officials in response to Ben & Jerry’s decision. Israeli Prime Minister, Naftali Bennett, warned the British company that acquired Ben & Jerry’s in 2000, of “severe consequences”, threatening that Israel will take “strong action”, most likely referring to legal action.

But what was truly strange was the language used by Israeli President, Isaac Herzog, who accused Ben & Jerry’s of participating in “a new form of terrorism”, namely, “economic terrorism”. On 21 July, Herzog vowed to fight “this boycott and terrorism in any form.”

Note how the Israeli response to the continued success of the Palestinian boycott movement remains confined in terms of options and language. Yet on the legal front, most attempts at indicting BDS activists have repeatedly failed, as the recent court rulings in Washington demonstrate. On the other hand, the act of accusing an ice cream company of ‘terrorism’ deserves some serious examination.

Historically, Israel has situated its anti-Palestinian propaganda war within a handful of redundant terminology, predicated on the claim that Israel is a Jewish and democratic state, the security and very existence of which is constantly being threatened by terrorists and undermined by anti-Semites.

The above mantra may have succeeded in shielding Israel from criticism and tarnishing Israel’s victims, the Palestinians. However, it is no longer a guarantor of international sympathy and solidarity. Not only is the Palestinian struggle for freedom gaining global traction, but the pro-Israeli discourse is finally discovering its limitations.

By calling an ice cream company ‘terrorist’ for simply adhering to international law, Herzog has revealed the growing lack of credibility and absurdity of the official Israeli language.

But this is not the end of Israel’s problems. Regardless of whether they are branded successful or unsuccessful, all BDS campaigns are equally beneficial in the sense that each campaign kickstarts a conversation that often goes global, as we have seen repeatedly in the past. Airbnb, G4S, and SodaStream, are but a few of many such examples. Any global debate on Israel’s military occupation and apartheid is a BDS success story.

That said, there is one strategy that will surely end the BDS campaign, and that is ending the Israeli occupation, dismantling the racial system of apartheid and giving Palestinians their freedom as enshrined and protected by international law. Alas, this is the only strategy that Israeli officials are yet to consider.

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor or Informed Comment.

Via Middle East Monitor

This work by Middle East Monitor is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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Bonus Video added by Informed Comment:

MSNBC: “Mehdi Hasan Rants On Ben & Jerry’s Israel Drama”