Noted Liberal Zionist thinker and author Peter Beinart has never pulls any punches in his critique of Israeli policy, especially where he feels it diverges from his vision for a two state solution. He’s also an outspoken critic of the BDS movement – for essentially the same reason.
And as a professor at the City University of New York (CUNY), where students last week attempted to push through a divestment resolution by scheduling a vote during the Jewish Sabbath, he used his column in Haaretz to carry on both tracks simultaneously.
In its resolution, the CUNY Doctoral Students Council included a statement of support for the BDS movement. Beinart took it upon himself to show where the BDS was wrong in its claims and goals for the region.
Beinart’s point-by-point refutation of the BDS program is well worth reading in full. It can serve as a model for how to address the BDS movement that can influence people who tilt towards liberal or progressive causes, ie the people who are most likely to support BDS.
For example, Beinart makes an astute observation about what the BDS movement really means when it calls for “equal rights” for Arab-Israelis.
The BDS call demands “recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality.” If “full equality” means equal access to government services, absolutely. If it means ending Israel’s de facto exclusion of Palestinian-Arab parties from government coalitions, absolutely. But if it means ending Israel’s right of return for Jews, that’s an entirely different matter. Many European democracies maintain preferential immigration policies for their dominant ethnic groups. A Palestinian state would presumably do the same for Palestinians.
If you interpret “full equality” as erasing Israel’s Jewish character, then you’d better be prepared to boycott a Palestinian state, when one is born, too.
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He also explains what the BDS means when it calls for “ending its [Israel’s] occupation and colonization of all Arab lands.” According to Beinart, the statement reaches too far because it includes not only Jerusalem’s Old City and the Western Wall but also the Golan Heights. Other critics of the BDS may claim that it includes all of Israel as well.
But the power of Beinart’s critique of BDS lies in its moderation. He does not claim BDS leaders are lying to their followers and that they really seek Israel’s destruction. But he does question what outcome BDS supporters want to see “between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea” and points out the deficiencies of the BDS program.
Unlike many critics of the BDS movement, I don’t think boycotting Israel is anti-Semitic. (Though holding BDS votes on Shabbat may be). I don’t think boycotting Israel requires also boycotting every country that abuses human rights more. After all, some Jews boycotted the Soviet Union when it was oppressing its Jewish population in the 1970s without boycotting Idi Amin or the Khmer Rouge. And I appreciate the fact that the BDS movement – unlike Hamas – practices nonviolence.
But I disagree with the movement’s goals. The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the story of a powerful state oppressing a stateless people. But it’s also the story of rival, equally legitimate, nationalisms. In the BDS movement’s call to action, that second story is simply absent.
Image: CC BY flickr/Clover Autrey
