We’ve failed to cover the debate of boycott at Harvard Law School last Friday (poster left). What follows is an anonymous account of the event from an audience member sympathetic to boycott.
Dershowitz did not show up.
And there was only one hostile question (actually, a comment “I notice that you did not talk about terrorism”) directed to Palestinian lawyer Diana Buttu by an Israeli who is studying at Harvard Law School. Roy Kreitner, of Tel Aviv Law School, actually stepped in to respond by saying that this was irrelevant to the topic at hand and would take the conversation “backwards. ” That was the end of that.
Louis Seidman got one sharp question from a woman who identified herself as the daughter of Iraqi Jews now living in Israel and asked “where would you want us to go?” This was in response to a speculative remark he made that many Jews may indeed leave (or be forced to leave) Israel as part of a resolution of the I/P conflict. This same woman also challenged Seidman to acknowledge that the “Jewish heritage” – which he identifies, at least for himself, as Spinoza, Marx, Freud – should be broadened to include the history of Jews in the Muslim world.
A bit of history is useful, I think, for contextualizing this event. Two and three years ago, events like this – i.e. anything focused on Israel/Palestine that had even the slightest concern for Palestinian rights – drew a heavily “AIPAC” audience and the speakers would be peppered with hostile questions (I don’t think any were actually shouted down or unable to complete their presentations). In the last year or so, similar events fill up large lecture rooms and there is typically not even ONE hostile question – this includes a talk Finkelstein gave at Harvard on the Goldstone report.
So, all in all, I think I’m not being insanely optimistic to say there’s a sea-change in public opinion.
At this particular event, which is quite typical in its composition (an American Jew, an Israeli, and a Palestinian), the audience really seemed to want to hear and talk with the Palestinian. And the conversation was mostly about our mental models for how the boycott might work. Buttu seemed to focus on the direct economic impact of the boycott in Europe (Israel’s major trading partner). Duncan Kennedy argued that the usefulness of the boycott in America was unlikely to be in its economic impact, but rather in its potential to be used as an educational opportunity to change universities and churches and thence American political support for Israel.
