The Boycott Revisited
THE PEOPLE of Sodom, the Bible tells us, were very wicked indeed.
They had a nasty habit of putting every passing stranger into one particular bed. If the stranger was too tall, his legs
were shortened. If he was too short, his body was stretched to the required length.
In a way, each of us has such a bed, into which we put everything new. Confronted with a novel situation, we tend to
equate it with a situation we have known in the past.
In politics, this method is especially pervasive. It relieves us of the irksome necessity of studying an unfamiliar
situation and drawing new conclusions.
Once, the pattern of Vietnam was applied to every struggle around the world – from Argentina to North Korea. Nowadays,
the fashion points to South Africa. Everything resembles the struggle against apartheid, unless proven otherwise.
SINCE SENDING out last week’s article, “Tutu’s Prayer”, I have been flooded with responses, some laudatory, some
abusive, some thoughtful, some merely angry.
Generally, I don’t argue with my esteemed readers. I don’t want to impose my views, I just want to provide food for
thought and leave it to the reader to form his or her own opinion.
This time I feel that I owe it to my readers to clear up some of the points I was trying to make and answer some of the
objections. So here we go.
I HAVE no argument with people who hate Israel. That’s entirely their right. I just don’t think that we have any common
ground for discussion.
I would only like to point out that hatred is a very bad advisor. Hatred leads nowhere, but to more hatred. That, by the
way, is a positive lesson we can draw from the South African experience. There they overcame hatred to a remarkable
extent, largely thanks to the “Truth and Reconciliation Commission” headed by Archbishop Tutu, where people admitted
their past offenses.
One thing is certain: hatred does not lead towards peace. Let me be quite explicit about this, because I sense that some
people, in their righteous indignation over Israel’s occupation, have lost sight of this.
Peace is made between enemies, after war, in which awful things invariably happen. Peace can be made and maintained
between peoples who are prepared to live with each other, respect each other, recognize the humanity of each other. They
don’t have to love each other.
Describing the other side as monsters may be useful in waging war, but singularly unhelpful in waging peace.
When I receive a missive that is dripping with hatred of Israel, that portrays all Israelis (including myself, of
course) as monsters, I fail to envision how the writer imagines peace. Peace with monsters? Angels and monsters living
side by side in peace and harmony in one state, hating each other’s guts?
The view of Israel as a monolithic entity composed of racists and brutal oppressors is a caricature. Israel is a complex
society, struggling with itself. The forces of good and evil, and many in between, are locked in a daily battle on many
different fronts. The settlers and their supporters are strong, perhaps getting stronger (though I doubt it), but are
far – even in their own view - from a decisive victory. Neve Gordon, for example, has been left unmolested in his post
at Ben-Gurion University, because any attempt to remove him would have caused a public outcry.
I ALSO have no argument with those who want to abolish the State of Israel. It is as much their right to aspire to that
as it is my right to want to dismantle, let’s say, the USA or France, neither of which has an unblemished past.
Reading some of the messages sent to me and trying to analyze their contents, I get the feeling they are not so much
about a boycott on Israel as about the very existence of Israel. Some of the writers obviously believe that the creation
of the State of Israel was a terrible mistake to start with, and therefore should be reversed. Turn the wheel of history
back some 62 years and start anew.
What really disturbs me about this is that almost nobody in the West comes out and says clearly: Israel must be
abolished. Some of the proposals, like those for a “One State” solution, sound like euphemisms. If one believes that the
State of Israel should be abolished and replaced by a State of Palestine or a State of Happiness – why not say so
openly?
Of course, that does not mean peace. Peace between Israel and Palestine presupposes that Israel is there. Peace between
the Israeli people and the Palestinian people presupposes that both peoples have a right to self-determination and agree
to the peace. Does anyone really believe that racist monsters like us would agree to give up our state because of a
boycott?
The French and the Germans did not agree to live in one joint state, though the differences between them are
incomparably smaller than those between Jewish Israelis and Arab Palestinians. Instead, they set up a European Union,
composed of nation-states. Some 50 years ago I called for a similar Semitic Union, including Israel and Palestine. I
still do.
Anyway, there is no sense in arguing with those who pray for the disappearance of the sovereign State of Israel, rather
than for the appearance of the sovereign State of Palestine at its side.
THE REAL argument is among those who want to see peace between the two states, Israel and Palestine. The question is:
how can it be achieved? This is an honest debate and is generally conducted in a civil manner. My debate with Neve
Gordon is in this framework.
The advocates of boycott believe that the main, indeed the only way to induce Israel to give up the occupied territories
and agree to peace is to exert pressure from the outside.
I have no quarrel with the idea of outside pressure. The question is: pressure on whom? On the government, the settlers
and their supporters? Or on the entire Israeli people?
The first answer is, I believe, the right one. That’s why I hope that President Barack Obama will publish a detailed
peace plan with a fixed timetable and apply the immense powers of persuasion of the USA to get both sides to agree. I
don’t think that this is politically possible without the support of a large part of Israeli society (and, by the way,
of the US Jewish community).
Some readers have lost all hope in Obama. That is, without doubt, premature. Obama has not surrendered to Binyamin
Netanyahu – indeed, it is quite conceivable that the opposite is happening. The struggle is on, it is a hard struggle
against determined opposition, and we should do all we can to help Obama’s peace policy to prevail. We must do this as
Israelis, from inside Israel, and thereby show that this is not a struggle of the US against Israel, but a joint
struggle against the Israeli government and the settlers.
It follows that any boycott must serve this purpose: to isolate the settlers and the individuals and institutions which
openly support them, but not declare war on Israel and the Israeli people as such. In the 11 years since Gush Shalom
declared a boycott of the products of the settlements, this process has been gaining momentum. We must laud the
Norwegian decision, this week, to divest from the Israeli Elbit company because of their involvement with the
“Separation Fence” that is being built on Palestinian land and whose main purposeis to annex occupied territories to
Israel. This is a splendid example: a focused action against a specific target, based on a ruling of the International
Court.
I think that far more can be done by a concentrated national and international campaign. A central office should be set
up to direct this effort throughout the world against clear and specific targets. Such an effort could be helped by
world public opinion, which recoils from the idea of boycotting the State of Israel, and not only because of the memory
of the Holocaust, but will identify itself with action against the occupation and the oppression.
I have been asked about the Palestinian reaction to the boycott idea. At present, Palestinians do not boycott even the
settlements, indeed it is Palestinian workers who are building almost all the houses there, out of economic necessity.
Their feelings can only be guessed. All self-respecting Palestinians would, of course, support any effective measure
directed against the occupation. But it would not be honest to dangle before their eyes the false hope that a world-wide
boycott would bring Israel to its knees. The truth is that only the close cooperation of Palestinian, Israeli and
international peace forces could generate the necessary momentum to end the occupation and achieve peace.
This is especially important because our task in Israel today is not so much to convince the majority of Israelis that
peace is good and the price acceptable, but first that peace is possible at all. Most Israelis have lost that hope, and
its revival is absolutely vital on the way to peace.
TO REMOVE any misconceptions about myself, let me state as clearly as possible where I stand:
I am an Israeli.
I am an Israeli patriot.
I want my state to be democratic, secular, and liberal, ending the occupation and living at peace both with the free and
sovereign State of Palestine that will come into being next to it, and with the entire Arab world.
I want Israel to be a state belonging to all its citizens, without distinction of ethnic origin, gender, religion or
language; with completely equal rights for all; a state in which the Hebrew-speaking majority will retain its close ties
with the Jewish communities around the world, and the Arab-speaking citizens will be free to cherish their close ties
with their Palestinian brothers and sisters and the Arab world at large.
If this is racism, Zionism or worse – so be it.
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Uri Avnery is a journalist, peace activist, former member of the Knesset, and leader of Gush Shalom. He is a regular contributor to Scoop. You can email correspondence to correspondence[at]gush-shalom.org.