Samah Sabawi recently published here opposing the New Israel Fund’s stance on boycott. Naomi Paiss of the New Israel Fund then responded here.
Naomi Paiss, director of communication for the New Israel Fund offered no new ideas in her response to my article debunking Naomi Chazan’s talking points against the Boycott Divestments and Sanctions campaign. Paiss simply repeated Chazan’s words “BDS is a counter-productive and inflammatory strategy” without trying to persuade the readers as to why this may be the case. It is clear the NIF does not appreciate the gravity nor time-sensitivity of the Palestinian situation. Like many Jewish Israeli citizens who live comfortable lives with preferential treatment, their faith in Israel’s democratic liberal values is exaggerated.
Israel’s left continues to have a blind spot when it comes to Israel’s foundations – a state built on the ruins of a people’s rights and freedoms. This blind spot is evident in the Israeli left’s insistence that boycotts against the settlements are justified but a general boycott of Israel demonizes and delegitimizes the state. Are Israelis not aware that the settlements do not exist in a vacuum and that if it were not for state funding and protection they would not be there? Do they not see that it is their 18-year-old children dressed in soldier uniforms carrying big guns paid for by the state who are protecting these settlements? This pattern of selective vision that plagues Israel’s left hampers the process of change in Israel.
Consider Chazan’s statement in Haaretz regarding the passing of the Boycott Law: “We view it as one of the most antidemocratic, if not the most antidemocratic, to be enacted in Israel.” An astounding example of selective vision that ignores a history of far more devastating and anti-democratic bills passed by the state of Israel targeting Palestinians which have separated families and destroyed lives.
Take for example the Nationality Citizenship Law passed in 1952, which grants automatic citizenship to Jews who immigrate to Israel, while excluding non-Jewish native-born Palestinians who under this law must prove residency and pass other tests. Or the “family unification” laws passed in 2002, which in essence is a discriminatory system that prevents the applications for residency or citizenship from Palestinian spouses of Israeli citizens. These are only two of many examples of undemocratic laws passed by the Israeli Knesset which favor one group of people in Israel – the Jewish population – and strip another group – non Jewish Palestinians of fundamental rights and freedoms.
Israel’s left refuses to acknowledge that by their silence and lack of innovation they are responsible for Israel’s actions. They reject BDS and insist on “peace building” projects and “joint Palestinian-Israeli” initiatives as if they have just discovered the kryptonite for the conflict. They have not. There is nothing new about joint peace initiatives or peace building projects. Such initiatives have existed since the 1970s and increased in 1993 and throughout the Oslo years.
A study by Everett Mendelsohn that examined the impact of peace projects[1] concluded that such efforts were not successful at making peace and that most breakdowns took place in 2000 when the Oslo process negotiations broke down. During this time it was Palestinians, as individuals as well as organized groups, who began to withdraw and to postpone such initiatives.
Since the 2000 break down, Palestinians have shifted their focus to grassroots movements that aim to change policies and effect change. Even though so-called peace initiatives continue to attract some people on both sides, there is a consensus amongst most Palestinians that such efforts do more harm than good by normalizing oppression and prolonging Palestinian suffering.
These efforts have allowed Israel to evade international pressure by projecting a façade of normalcy and an illusion of progress while providing Israel’s left with a fig leaf allowing them to believe they were working on peace when in truth, their efforts should have been aimed at ending the occupation. The reality is that decades of such projects have not changed Israeli policies: settlements have grown at rapid rate, Palestinians have been walled in losing more rights, land and water than ever before.
In 2005, Palestinian civil society embraced a call for boycotts divestments and sanctions against Israel. For Chazan and others in Israel’s left to dismiss it as “counter productive” and “inflammatory” while only offering more joint Palestinian Israeli initiatives as the only option on the table is disingenuous and ignores the recent history of the conflict and the realities of the occupation.
The BDS campaign appeals to the intellect. It is an idea that is being embraced by the masses because it is one that makes sense. Naomi Chazan and others on Israel’s left, need to understand that the only way to defeat this idea is by presenting the Palestinians with a better one that can bring an end to their suffering. So far, all I hear from them is the same tired old rhetoric.
Samah Sabawi is a Palestinian writer from Gaza. She is the Public Advocate of Australians for Palestine.
[1] The Peace Makers: NGO Efforts in the Middle East 1948 – 2001 http://www.cdainc.com/cdawww/pdf/casestudy/rpp_mideast_case_study_set_1_Pdf.pdf
