Thread by @therubykid

Where Marlon describes BDS being “enacted against diaspora Jews”, pro-BDS folks might reply, “well, if you don’t want to be targeted, don’t have any links with Israel, no-one’s forcing you to.” If only things were that simple! [Thread]

https://twitter.com/supergutman/status/1448205788145668101

If only things were so simple that Jews could just detach Israel, the historical experiences that impelled Zionism, and the idea of Jewish nationhood, from their consciousness and identity. If you want such a “detachment” to take place, that all has to be worked through.

Which is to say nothing of the fact that almost every mainstream institution in Jewish communal life has some link, however notional/diffuse, with something Israeli. A consistent application of a “boycott Israel” approach would mean Jews disengaging from mainstream Jewish life.

The left, with our historic project of splitting ethnic minority communities amongst class/ideological lines, might well want to disrupt mainstream communal life in all sorts of communities. But we do that by supporting dissident struggles within it, not by posing ultimatums.

For example, youth wings of two mainstream synagogue federations took strong stances against Israel’s war on Gaza in May. But both are “Zionist”, neither has disavowed links with Israel, neither has called for boycotts. Engaging there is surely a better start.

A comparison with China is apposite here (and not in the “but what about China?!” way in which it’s often invoked in this debate). Most people on the left, including those strongly opposed to the CCP, would accept that a “boycott China” campaign, which made the breaking >

< of any and all links with China a red line of political decency, would not only be ineffective, but would inevitably end up targeting a minoritised diaspora community with cultural ties to the state, who are already victims of racism and bigotry.

Jews outside Israel aren’t the same as diaspora Chinese immigrants or other victims of anti-ESEA racism (for e.g., many of us are substantially integrated into whiteness), but the comparison is meaningful IMO. If the left can grasp the problem there, why not for Israel/Jews too?

The argument that the majority of Palestinian civil society supports BDS, and therefore it’s a duty of solidarity to support it too, is emotionally compelling. But the majority position of the PLO being for two states didn’t stop much of the left dissenting from that, so…

…either the left can argue that we just have to mirror whatever the majority viewpoint in the Palestinian national movement is, or we can accept it’s admissible to dissent and debate.

Palestinian workers have also decided to do things like join Histadrut-affiliated unions and go on strike, and BDS supporters tell us that supporting them contravenes BDS, so at the very least there’s a degree of picking-and-choosing which Palestinian struggles to support.

There are also attempts across the world to criminalise BDS advocacy, which are affronts to free speech. Whatever one’s view on the efficacy, or even potential antisemitic impact, of BDS, that’s a basic free speech issue. People who want to ban BDS aren’t good-faith actors here.

But BDS isn’t (or shouldn’t be) a political equivalent of religious dogma, beyond debate or criticism, including on strategic grounds. Take this sentiment from Palestinian socialist Maisam Jaljuli. Surely worthy of consideration, at least? workersliberty.org/story/2020-04-…

Personally, I would like to see “D” and “S” separated from “B”. Divestment from companies directly profiting from occupation, and specific/targeted sanctions like arms embargoes, seem entirely legitimate strategies to me, that target the Israeli ruling class, capital, and state.

A root-and-branch “boycott Israel” is inoperable (esp. for Jews), ineffective, and inevitably ends up targeting a minoritised community which a) experiences racism and b) much of whose relationship/affinity with the targeted state is related to historic experiences of oppression.

Finally, a comparison with South Africa that I think, unlike most made in this debate, *is* relevant. What finally toppled apartheid was social upheaval by those with transformative power in that society: fundamentally, Black workers, who organised themselves in powerful unions.

Socialists internationally who wanted to make direct links with those unions sometimes found themselves blocked by conservative gatekeepers in the anti-apartheid movement, who argued that such links would contravene the boycott.

There’s a lesson there both about agency and the source of transformative power, and how a seemingly “radical” stance can be used to reinforce a passive conservatism. There are definite echoes of that here: [/Thread]

https://twitter.com/therubykid/status/1447924315496894475