Jewish Voice for Peace's campaign to support 60 leading Israeli actors and playwrights who are refusing to play a new theater in Ariel continues to grow. New notable figures are joining by the day. Ed Asner explains his support, "It is always amazing when actors turn down jobs.To have the actors of Israel say they will not work in those venues is truly an act of courage.. I applaud them and would live to instill the actors of America with that courage." And Corey Fischer, co-founder of the Traveling Jewish Theater (now Jewish Theater San Francisco), expressed his admiration in the spirit of the season, “It seems to me that, as often happens in our times, these artists are taking on what was traditionally the task of the Hebrew Prophets: speaking truth to power. I hope someone is listening.”
But some questions are being raised in Palestine about the Israeli actors' protest. The Palestinian Campaign for the Academic & Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) has issued a statement in response the Israeli actors' boycott [Editor's note: Just to clarify this statement is in response to just the Israeli actors' boycott, not the letter from US artists]. While PACBI is clear they "welcome acts of protest against any manifestation of Israel’s regime of colonialism and apartheid," they do raise some important questions about the boycott, and what the protesters might be ignoring.
From the PACBI statement Boycotting Ariel: Missing the Forest for the Trees.
First, we believe that the exclusive focus on settlement institutions ignores and obscures the complicity of all Israeli academic and cultural institutions in upholding the system of colonial control and apartheid under which Palestinians suffer. PACBI believes there is firm evidence of the collusion of the Israeli academic and cultural establishment with the major oppressive organs of the Israeli state. Focusing solely on obviously complicit institutions, such as cultural centers in a West Bank colony, serves to shield mainstream Israeli institutions from opprobrium or, ultimately, from the growing global boycott movement that consistently targets all complicit institutions.
Furthermore, the cherry-picking approach behind targeting a notorious colonial settlement in the heart of the occupied West Bank diverts attention from other institutions built on occupied land. Supporters of this peculiarly selective boycott must be asked: Is lecturing or performing at the Hebrew University, whose Mount Scopus campus sits on occupied Palestinian land in East Jerusalem, acceptable?
If opposition to Israel’s military occupation is driving this movement, then why has the deplorable stifling of cultural institutions in occupied Jerusalem, for example, been ignored? In 2009, the Arab League with support from UNESCO declared Jerusalem the Arab Cultural Capital for that year. Celebrations that were to be held across the city throughout the year highlighting the historical and cultural role of Jerusalem in Palestinian society and beyond were shut down and at times physically attacked by Israeli security forces in their ongoing attempt to stifle expressions of Palestinian identity in the occupied city. In scenes worthy of Kafka’s novels, organized activities throughout East Jerusalem were summarily cancelled as Palestinian artists, writers and cultural figures resorted to underground techniques to celebrate their city’s cultural and popular heritage [2].
If the artists’ and intellectuals’ role as voices of moral reason is behind this most recent call to boycott Ariel, where were these voices when academic and cultural institutions were wantonly destroyed in Israel’s war of aggression on Gaza in 2008-2009?
It has not gone without notice in Israel that BDS is gaining momentum internationally as an effective means of resisting Israeli colonial oppression. Given this context, one may be excused to assert that these recent efforts to narrow the focus of the boycott against Israel may be deliberately missing the forest for the trees.. It is important to reiterate the morally-consistent rationale and principles of the Palestinian boycott campaign against Israel.
Of course it’s “cherry picking” – this isn’t a government inspired or mandated boycott, it’s a specific group of people who work in a specific industry responding within that field. It’s a grass-roots groundswell start! Somebody tell PACBI that!
These actors/writers have to start somewhere.
And PACBI was smart to respond the way they did
Everyone is right. The journey of 1000 miles begins with a single step.
Many Hollywood folks may not be ready to join a frontal assault on ALL Israeli cultural and economic institutions, but muscles grow when you use them, even a little bit. A Jewish (and generally pro-Israel) actor who opposes settlements by narrow and selective boycott today may listen and hear what, for example, major universities in Israel are doing and one day come to oppose them, too. Or not.
But BSD needs all the allies it can get, at every level of involvement.
Vanessa Redgrave tried and she was shoved out of Hollywood. Listen to her words. Back then you would have thought she was dancing with the devils the way her words were spun.
link to youtube.com
Stephen Sondheim, wow! What a great genius and true humanitarian. And Julianne Moore, uhuh, not bad BDS people, not bad at all!
Good on you jolly good BDS fellows and fellowettes!
It’s looking more and more like you’re getting there.
anything to raise an awareness of israels ongoing settlement movement gets my vote… it’s through actions like this that viewpoints on the broader context can be voiced and understood more clearly and israel can be seen for the horrible character it is in all of this…
As this movement gathers speed and wider support in the US, the mere potential these principled acts of courage could have, has me moved.
I think PACBI’s criticisms of partial support for BDS should be comradely, principled, and encouraging when it finally moves beyond the obvious settlement-related boycotts. For now, however, this represents a big first step for some of these performers who are just now grappling with the ethical issues of Israel’s occupation. Welcome first steps.
The PACBI are quoted: “Is lecturing or performing at the Hebrew University, whose Mount Scopus campus sits on occupied Palestinian land in East Jerusalem, acceptable?”
It is possible that part of the Mount Scopus campus sits on occupied Palestinian land. But the major part of the Mount Scopus campus was not part of Jordan as of the 1949 armistice agreement, but was rather part of “no man’s land” that was designated by the UN as such:
From wikipedia:
After the ceasefire agreement of November 30, 1948, which established the division of East and West Jerusalem, Israel was alloted control of the western part of the city while Jordan controlled the east. Several demilitarized “no man’s land” zones were established along the border, one of them Mount Scopus.[10] Fortnightly convoys carrying supplies to the university and hospital located in the Israeli part of the demilitarized zone on Mount Scopus were periodically held up by Jordanian troops. [11]
When Israel illegally annexed occupied East Jerusalem, it used some of the land to expand the Hebrew University. That construction is illegal.
There is no difference between “major” or “minor” land theft. It’s theft.
The PACBI make a good analysis, but I think miss the point – these kind of unplanned eruptions of protest have more symbolic value – they may only target one institution, but it stands as a proxy for all the other assaults on Palestinian statehood and identity. And as such, it has enormous power to change perceptions, wake up those who idly thought these kinds of settlement growth were acceptable, and make it clear that many decent, mainstream people find it unacceptable. Like the flotilla, it has value way beyond its particular mission, and has far more impact than violence. The reaction amongst the Likudniks tells its own story – if there’s one thing they hate it is holding up their policies and occupation to the light, and the possibility that mainstream opinion will find them repulsive once it is informed – thus the continuous, overwhelming streams of disinformation and fake history which is a daily feature of the media, not to mention the plethora of well-funded media and hasbara ‘watchdogs’. The problem they have is the truth, which when it is generally understood, will be their biggest enemy. Campaigns like this are thus valuable way beyond their ostensible target.
Surprised to find PACBI bellyaching over a breakthrough BDS action. This is huge, they should be using it as a call to action, not a “forest for the trees” situation.
I share PACBI’s concerns regarding this and similar protests, although I think they might have explained their position a little better (for the politically-challenged majority). What appears to be a positive step, also has a negative and counter-productive side. Focusing attention exclusively on the post-’67 occupation lends legitimacy to pre-’67 Zionist colonialism and its ongoing ramifications. It is not just that the post-’67 occupation and settlement project is only a part of the problem; it is the very part stressed by liberal Zionists and “moderates” the world over to demonstrate that everything else is ok, that there was no Nakba, that there is no apartheid within Israel, that refugees do not have the right to return and compensation.
In a way, boycotts limited to the post-’67 OT actually undermine the goals and spirit of BDS. In a sense (but only in a sense), a partial boycott may be worse than no boycott at all.
These celebrities, putting their careers at risk, could be compared to the righteous gentiles who smuggled Jews out of Nazi-occupied Europe.
Now the favor is being passed on, by their extending a hand of recognition to the victims of oppression in Zionist-occupied Palestine.
Hi everyone,
Sorry, just to clarify, the PACBI statement was only in response to the original Israeli actor boycott, not the response from US-based actors, directors, etc. This was unclear in the post, and I updated it to reflect this.
Sorry for the confusion,
Adam