Three Thoughts on BDS and Liberal Zionism

by Corey Robin on December 13, 2014

So this is an interesting development.

A group of prominent liberal Zionists—including Michael Walzer, Michael Kazin, and Todd Gitlin—is calling for “personal sanctions” against “Israeli political leaders and public figures who lead efforts to insure permanent Israeli occupation of the West Bank and to annex all or parts of it unilaterally in violation of international law.” The personal sanctions they’re calling for include visa restrictions imposed by the US state.

Three thoughts about this move.

First, good for them. It’s limited and makes several assumptions that I don’t accept, but it ratchets up the pressure. That’s great.

Second, it shows just how aware these intellectuals are of the power of BDS. There’s little doubt that without BDS—especially the ASA academic boycott—this never would have happened. Indeed, as Haaretz explains, the group that organized this statement was formed in 2013 explicitly in response to BDS.

The signatories are all members of a group called The Third Narrative established in 2013 by the Labor Zionist group Ameinu as a Zionist-progressive response to far left attacks on Israel – including BDS.

“All of us are very engaged in opposing the academic boycott and other boycotts,” said Walzer in an interview. He is author of numerous books, including “In God’s Shadow: Politics in the Hebrew Bible,” (Yale University Press) and last year retired as co-editor of Dissent magazine. “But at the same time we always insist we are against the occupation. This seemed to be a usefully dramatic way of focusing attention on where it should be focused and not where some of the BDS people are trying to put it,” Walzer said.

“This would provide a way of mobilizing votes against blanket boycotts but equally against the attempts to make the occupation irreversible,” Shafir said….

“We really are fighting on two fronts,” said Shafir, who was born in Ramat Aviv and began his career at Tel Aviv University, before moving to California in 1987. “That is our identity.”

By opening that second front, we in the BDS movement give this group an identity (albeit a negative one), and I for one am happy to serve them in that capacity. We’re moving the needle, and as predicted, liberal Zionists are following us by deliberately staying five steps behind. That’s how politics works, and that’s all to the good.

Third, I am curious about the free speech implications of this move. As Haaretz reports, Cary Nelson opposes this petition on free speech grounds because it punishes these four figures merely for their statements (apparently, it’s okay to punish other individuals for their statements), but I think the move raises a different problem.

If a student group or scholarly association were to call for a ban on these four Israeli figures from speaking on a US campus or at an academic convention (or shout them down), I suspect the individuals signing this petition would immediately object on two grounds. First, not that the rights of these four individuals, but the rights of potential audiences in academia to hear them, were being violated. And, second, that by banning these speakers, students and academic associations were imperiling and narrowing open academic discussion.

But if the American state bans these four figures from entering the US, which would mean they couldn’t speak on US campuses or at an academic conventions, this group of signatories is okay with it.

It tells you something, I think, about the state of contemporary liberalism that when it comes to academic freedom and freedom of speech, some of its most thoughtful voices have a more permissive and indulgent view of the state than they do of students and scholarly associations.

Update (December 13)

As I pointed out to Michael Kazin last year, when he raised the call against the ASA academic boycott, the very same objection that he leveled against the boycott—why are you singling out Israel?—could be made against any move to oppose Israel. So in this case: seems like anyone who has bought into the “why single out Israel” line has to object to this move by Walzer et al. After all, why aren’t they calling for personal sanctions against four officials of the Chinese regime over their treatment of the Tibetans?

{ 71 comments }

1

Vladimir 12.13.14 at 4:57 am

“Israeli political leaders and public figures who lead efforts to insure permanent Israeli occupation of the West Bank and to annex all or parts of it unilaterally in violation of international law.”

Unless I’m mistaken , it is generally accepted in diplomatic circles that Israel has annexed East Jerusalem. So does this mean that Israeli politicians who support the law of the land should be denied visas? Furthermore, how does settling approximately 200,000 people in other parts of the West Bank not indicate efforts to “insure permanent Israeli occupation” ? This policy would effectively ban from America the majority of Israeli politicians. The four proposing this are all smart people. Smart enough to know better which leads me to believe that they’re not serious at all. This is like threatening to prosecute Wall St. CEOs to avoid discussing the issue of rising inequality.

2

Omega Centauri 12.13.14 at 3:47 pm

Since, as proposed it is contingent on the US political system to take clearly anti-Zionist steps (which we all know has a probablity indistinguishable from zero), I’d say its not a serious, but merely a rhetorical move.

3

J Thomas 12.13.14 at 4:31 pm

Since the majority of Americans probably hear more that Israel deserves to own all the land that God gave them, arguments that they should not annex all of Palestine and that Americans should do something to discourage them are a step in the right direction.

Even if the particular steps they propose are not practical, still it’s an improvement over what usually gets published.

4

Ebenezer Scrooge 12.13.14 at 4:50 pm

I think Corey forgot one thing. (Most) senior Israeli politicians are not US citizens. All persons have some rights in a liberal state, but noncitizens have fewer rights than others. And if citizenship has any meaning in a liberal state, one of these diminished rights is the right to travel into the US.

5

Ze Kraggash 12.13.14 at 5:07 pm

@1 “they’re not serious at all”

Their advocacy is consistent with (and beneficial to) the only non-crazy Zionist strategy – the “two-state solution”. Annexation (without ethnic cleansing, anyway) is advocated by anti-Zionists as the anti-Zionist “one-state solution”. It’s all logical.

6

Mike Schilling 12.13.14 at 7:05 pm

Opposing annexation bas been the liberal Zionist position pretty much forever, but if you want to take credit for it, knock yourself out.

7

John Emerson 12.13.14 at 7:23 pm

It wouldn’t be that hard to boycott academic conferences in Sudan at least.

8

engels 12.13.14 at 8:49 pm

‘the very same objection that he leveled against the boycott–why are you singling out Israel?–could be made against any move to oppose Israel’

I suppose the response could be: ‘this sounds reasonable on the surface, but why are you singling out liberal Zionists with your demands for logical consistency, when all around the world there are other nationalist ideologues making equally bad arguments???’ (continues on page 643…)

9

engels 12.13.14 at 8:50 pm

But good on ’em, all the same.

10

Brett Bellmore 12.13.14 at 9:39 pm

“Annexation (without ethnic cleansing, anyway) is advocated by anti-Zionists as the anti-Zionist “one-state solution”.”

More like, annexation with the ethnic cleansing an unstated but anticipated consequence not far down the road.

11

gianni 12.13.14 at 10:19 pm

three out-of-touch individuals intent on maintaining their self-conception as intellectual leaders tack leftwards onto course that they previously decried as dangerous and untoward

ie – this is all perfectly consistent with their past actions and statements. you just need to look for the consistency at the motivational level, and not in the explicit content of their statements.

12

PHB 12.13.14 at 10:26 pm

What is significant here is that it has become impossible for academics whose whole career has been based on finding a Liberal apology for Zionism have started to abandon the sinking ship. From Isaiah Berlin to Michael Waltzer, there has been a whole parade of ‘philosophers’ that have combined stirring liberal arguments for human rights with tendentious explanations as to why none of them applies to Israel-can-do-no-wrong.

Maintaining the fiction of the two state solution has always been essential for maintaining the pretense of a ‘liberal’ Zionism. But there can be no such thing because the whole project is based on the racist premise that one particular tribe has special rights over another.

There is a significant voting block in Israel that would like to undo Israel’s alliance with the US in favor of an alignment with mother Russia. Once free of US influence, Israel would be free to commit genocide ‘transfer’ and annex the occupied territories outright. One of the reasons for the sudden shift in the Israeli opinion polls is the fear that if elected, they might get their way.

To this extent the BDS movement is actually playing into the hands of the Israeli far right. But the whole project is doomed to failure because while Putin would very much like to disrupt the US-Israeli alliance, an alignment with Israel would mean losing Iran. It would be suicidal for Israel to reject the US Jewish community. ‘Transfer’ is simply not a feasible option.

There is now only one solution to the Israel/Palestine issue and that is for Israel to grant full citizenship to everyone living within the borders controlled by Israel.

13

J Thomas 12.13.14 at 10:47 pm

@12 PHB

There is now only one solution to the Israel/Palestine issue and that is for Israel to grant full citizenship to everyone living within the borders controlled by Israel.

But that is not a solution either, that is a failure. I think now the solution is to wait, and hope for something important to change.

Nasrudin was caught in the act and sentenced to die. Hauled up before the king, he was asked by the Royal Presence: “Is there any reason at all why I shouldn’t have your head off right now?” To which he replied: “Oh, King, live forever! Know that I, the mullah Nasrudin, am the greatest teacher in your kingdom, and it would surely be a waste to kill such a great teacher. So skilled am I that I could even teach your favorite horse to sing, given a year to work on it.” The king was amused, and said: “Very well then, you move into the stable immediately, and if the horse isn’t singing a year from now, we’ll think of something interesting to do with you.”

As he was returning to his cell to pick up his spare rags, his cellmate remonstrated with him: “Now that was really stupid. You know you can’t teach that horse to sing, no matter how long you try.” Nasrudin’s response: “Not at all. I have a year now that I didn’t have before. And a lot of things can happen in a year. The king might die. The horse might die. I might die.

“And, who knows? Maybe the horse will sing.”

14

geo 12.13.14 at 11:21 pm

JThomas @13: When you quote something as good as that, you have to say where it’s from.

15

J Thomas 12.13.14 at 11:49 pm

When I did a quick look for it, this is the first one I found.

http://www-personal.umich.edu/~jlawler/aue/sig.html

This is probably a better source.
https://en.wikibooks.org/wiki/Sufism/Nasrudin

16

Donald Johnson 12.14.14 at 12:06 am

I first heard the teaching the horse to sing story in Niven and Pournelle’s book “The Mote in God’s Eye”–the character says the story appears in Herodotus. I assumed that was true, but after googling around for a few minutes I haven’t been able to confirm it.

17

Joshua W. Burton 12.14.14 at 1:02 am

Seconding Mike Schilling @6. In other news, we got a charitable solicitation from the ASPCA this morning, which shows just how aware our local shelters are of the power of PETA.

18

engels 12.14.14 at 2:12 am

6, 17 completely miss the point. ‘Personal sanctions’ is the new part and it’s a response to BDS (see Haaretz).

19

J Thomas 12.14.14 at 2:33 am

I didn’t remember it from Herodotus. When I tried to find it in translation, I found “thief” only in a few places in Book I. I didn’t find “horse to” “cow to” “horse will” “cow will” “teach a horse” “teach the horse” “teach a cow” “teach the cow”. I think it probably isn’t there, but I’d have to reread the whole thing to be completely sure.

There is a story about a singer who was about to be thrown overboard a ship, who asked for a delay for him to sing one last song. While he was singing porpoises came near the boat and one of them helped him to land. Without the exact story, there are various examples of people playing for time. I didn’t find an earlier example of someone saying it was from Herodotus before Niven, but there could be one.

20

PHB 12.14.14 at 2:44 am

J Thomas

Abandoning a wicked, racist project isn’t a failure. It is a success.

21

Corey Robin 12.14.14 at 3:04 am

engels: Never underestimate the swaggering confidence of some of the dudes here who can’t be bothered to read a post or follow a link.

22

Joshua W. Burton 12.14.14 at 3:07 am

engels @18: ‘Personal sanctions’ is the new part

New where? Not in Israel, nor in Europe and the US. See also, if the 1980s is too “new.” I first attended a synagogue rally calling for personal sanctions against officers of JDL and Kach in 1974.

23

Joshua W. Burton 12.14.14 at 3:09 am

Sorry, link went bad. Wikipedia on JDL, Kach, Kahane Chai, and follow the footnotes from there.

24

Joshua W. Burton 12.14.14 at 3:30 am

Oh, and if personally sanctioning Feiglin is a figure of merit, the bar is actually pretty low. I would welcome Debra Nussbaum Cohen’s insights, in HaAretz or elsewhere, on how BDS pushed the Likud Central Committee into that one.

25

anon 12.14.14 at 3:34 am

Corey,

You write “we in the BDS movement”.

Just what is it that are you boycotting, divesting from or sanctioning?

26

Corey Robin 12.14.14 at 4:01 am

“Just what is it that are you boycotting, divesting from or sanctioning?”

Silly comment threads.

27

Mike Schilling 12.14.14 at 4:53 am

A more recent inspiration would be the University of Illinois.

28

Ze Kraggash 12.14.14 at 8:39 am

Hmm, the version of this Nasreddin story I know is about teaching a donkey theology in twenty years. Twenty years makes more sense than one year. And of course there’s no king; it’s emir.

29

Thomas P 12.14.14 at 11:24 am

What about the Golan heights?

30

JHW 12.14.14 at 11:34 am

“It tells you something, I think, about the state of contemporary liberalism that when it comes to academic freedom and freedom of speech, some of its most thoughtful voices have a more permissive and indulgent view of the state than they do of students and scholarly associations.”

I don’t think that’s the right way to think about this at all. Lots of things the state does restrict speech as an incidental matter. That’s different in kind from a specific ban on a particular person speaking on a university campus. To make this argument work, you need to compare attitudes toward (1) a state ban on universities hosting particular speakers and attitudes toward (2) the self-initiated adoption of such a ban by universities, at the behest of students and scholarly associations. Correctly framed, your criticism is clearly misplaced: people who oppose (2) would almost invariably also oppose (1).

31

J Thomas 12.14.14 at 11:58 am

#28 Ze Kraggash

There are lots of versions.

http://nasredin.blogspot.com/2007/11/ibn-khaldouns-mule.html

Anyway, it appears there is no generally-acceptable solution for Israel. If they commit genocide/ethnic-cleansing then they become monsters. If they accept a large minority of palestinians into their nation then Israel is no longer Zionist. If they accept a large enough palestinian state to satisfy arabs, they lose control of holy sites and parts of Eretz Israel that their own voters find unacceptable to lose, plus they have to take the palestinian water to have enough for themselves. If they give palestinians little scraps of land under threat of continual incursion, then palestinians won’t accept it and nothing is solved.

Given their constraints, there is nothing they can do that’s better than waiting for something to happen.

32

J Thomas 12.14.14 at 12:09 pm

#29 JHW

Lots of things the state does restrict speech as an incidental matter. That’s different in kind from a specific ban on a particular person speaking on a university campus. To make this argument work, you need to compare attitudes toward (1) a state ban on universities hosting particular speakers and attitudes toward (2) the self-initiated adoption of such a ban by universities, at the behest of students and scholarly associations.

So, if the US government says that person X is evil and must not be allowed to speak on a college campus, that’s something that right-minded people would oppose.

But if the US government says that person X is evil and must not be allowed to enter the USA at all, which incidentally also prevents him from speaking on a college campus, that’s entirely different and should cause no problem?

WTF?

But wait! If he can’t enter the USA, still he can speak on campus by teleconferencing! He can speak to anybody who wants to listen to him that way. Maybe it isn’t so bad. What he can’t do is things like eat the great New York knishes, or New York pizza. Except by mail order, and then it’s stale. He can’t have sex with US women unless they travel to meet him, although he can send sperm samples.

So a travel ban is a big annoyance to him, without actually interfering all that much with his communication.

33

Brett Bellmore 12.14.14 at 12:25 pm

We have an ethnic/religious group which gathered in Israel because they’d been subjected to ethnic cleansing throughout Europe, and wanted to be someplace THEY would be in control. They’re presently subjected to ethnic cleansing pretty much everywhere else in the Middle East. And they’re being asked to undertake steps which will have the predictable result down the line, of the ethnic/religious group that’s cleansing them getting control over their last refuge.

Ain’t gonna happen, they’re not suicidal.

34

Corey Robin 12.14.14 at 12:55 pm

JHW: One of the main things international leaders do when they enter the United States is to speak to audiences — whether at the UN, Congress, or college campuses. Particularly controversial leaders: Where did Ahmadinejad go in 2007 when he wanted an audience? Columbia. Castro in 1960? Princeton. It’s hardly an “incidental” effect of issuing a ban on their entering the US that they wouldn’t be able to speak on campuses. I’ve no doubt that you could “frame” this petition in a way that avoids its reality — indeed, you’ve demonstrated that ability quite handily in this thread — but it would hardly be “correct.”

35

Bo 12.14.14 at 3:11 pm

For me, what makes bds unacceptable is not the method, but the goal, namely the right of return. There’s no world where that leads to a more liberal state in Israel, because we already know what majority arab states look like. In the best case they look like Morocco, in the worst Saudi Arabia. Neither of those states are as liberal as Israel. I’m not willing to endorse a line of action that could lead to the immiseration of millions of people, roll back women’s and gay rights in the region by a generation, and restrict the ability of countless jews to practice their religion. That’s not a liberal outcome.

36

JHW 12.14.14 at 4:27 pm

Corey Robin: Controversial international leaders may want to speak to audiences when they enter the United States, but that doesn’t convert the punitive measure of barring their entry into a speech restriction. When it comes to penalizing people for wrongful conduct, we don’t apply one standard to people who want to engage in speech and another standard to people who don’t. We don’t generally think there’s a free speech problem, for example, with imprisoning someone who happens to be a political activist, even though it’s likely to impair their ability to reach audiences.

It’s different if we think people are being targeted for speech-restrictive reasons. But it seems unlikely to me that the signatories are seeking an entry ban because they want to bar these Israeli politicians from speaking on campuses. (How many invitations does Moshe Feiglin get anyway?) And if that is in fact a motivating reason for some signatories, I suspect that those signatories would also be okay with a direct university-initiated ban.

37

Corey Robin 12.14.14 at 6:21 pm

“We don’t generally think there’s a free speech problem, for example, with imprisoning someone who happens to be a political activist,…”

This may be the most comical thing I’ve read on a Crooked Timber thread in a very long time. Thank you!

38

PHB 12.14.14 at 6:36 pm

@J Thomas 30

No, lumping in a solution that is merely unacceptable to you with a group of solutions that are impossible does not make it impossible.

Israel is going to stop being an apartheid state for Jews. It may take ten years but it won’t take less than fifty. The rest of the world is losing patience with a state that insists on the need to massacre a couple of thousand Palestinians every few years so as to preserve an identity as a ‘Jewish state’.

The idea of a state for one group of people who are recent immigrants with rights that supersede and nullify those of the indigenous population is abhorrent. There is no place for a state that is founded on the basis of inequality.

While there are other states that have a state religion, there is none right now that practices such widespread discrimination against non members of that group. Before the end of the cold war there was no shortage of obnoxious regimes worse than Israel. But that is hardly the case any more.

39

Stephenson-quoter kun 12.14.14 at 7:14 pm

Corey @35:

“We don’t generally think there’s a free speech problem, for example, with imprisoning someone who happens to be a political activist,…”

This may be the most comical thing I’ve read on a Crooked Timber thread in a very long time. Thank you!

I think JHW was implying something like the following scenario: I’m a political activist, and I steal your car. My subsequent imprisonment is not a free speech issue even though it most likely prevents me from several forms of political activism for the duration of my sentence.

This certainly does leave open loopholes, viz. framing political activists for non-political crimes so that they can be silenced without being obvious about it in the way that banning them from speaking at campuses or rallies would be, but I suspect there’s still some merit in arguing against the blatant free speech restrictions even if you can’t so easily argue against the more subtle or indirect ones.

40

J Thomas 12.14.14 at 8:23 pm

#36 PHB

No, lumping in a solution that is merely unacceptable to you with a group of solutions that are impossible does not make it impossible.

It makes it politically impossible for Israel to try that solution.

Israel is going to stop being an apartheid state for Jews.

There are basicly two ways for them to stop. One way is to change their minds and choose something else. The other way is to get beat up to the point they have no choice. Like, the US south stopped slavery when they were starved and killed until they could no longer resist.

It’s possible that Israelis could change themselves around about it. It sort of looks to me like the demographics aren’t headed that way. They’re getting more haredi, they’ve got plenty of russians, etc. People I would expect to hold firm will probably get an increasing majority, and as things go bad I’d expect more of the reasonable people to leave instead of keep fighting it. But I’d be very happy to be wrong.

The other approach — South Africa folded without a fight. They wanted to keep doing business more than they wanted to officially stay on top, and they saw a way to do that and get the problem over with.

Would the US South have done that? If the North kept an army strong enough to repel invasion, but apart from that settled for blockade, would the South have gotten bored with a phony war and being blockaded, and negotiated an end to slavery with a million fewer deaths? I don’t know any way to tell. Maybe the British would have intervened if it settled down to a years-long stalemate. From what little I know I guess the British wouldn’t intervene, and it might take 5 to 10 years for the South to get bored enough to quit, but I can’t prove it.

When people are fighting for their lives they get excited and united. When it’s long dreary boring sanctions that prevent rich people from getting richer, maybe not.

Could that work with Israel? I can imagine reasons that would work against it. First, the USA is nowhere near ready to accept it. If we wanted to, we could blockade Israel but we might never be ready to do that or to allow anyone else to.

Second, there’s Jordan. When Iraq was smuggling oil across the border to Jordan, where did the smuggled oil go? Looking at a map, the obvious place was Israel. They could maybe ship a little through Aqaba, or send some to Syria. But Israel was the obvious choice. Similarly, smuggling stuff into Iraq despite the sanctions, Israel was the obvious source. The Jordanian economy depended on smuggling between Israel and Iraq, and they suffered when we destroyed the iraqi economy. If they had a chance to smuggle stuff into Israel, would they? How could they not?

Third, there are zionists scattered throughout the industries that would need to maintain and record an embargo. They would break the rules for Israel, far more than they did for Iraq or Iran or Syria. It would not be possible to freeze Israeli assets.

Fourth, about the time lots of US citizens get upset about Israeli policies, some arab terrorists will perform a horrible atrocity. Maybe they will rape and torture-to-death 50 Israeli schoolchildren, making public statements that no compromise is possible and this is what all Jews in the world deserve. Maybe it would be 500 US schoolchildren to punish the USA for supporting Israel. And the USA would go back to 100% unconditional support for Israel. Whenever Israel really *needs* arab terrorists, some reliably show up to do whatever Israel most needs.

Of course all of that will change in unknown directions over time.

41

Corey Robin 12.14.14 at 9:00 pm

Stephenson-quoter kun: Oh, I understood exactly what he was trying to get at. Which is why the comment is so funny. If you know anything about American history and how political repression has so often worked here.

42

PHB 12.14.14 at 9:12 pm

J Thomas, 38

As with all countries, Israeli power depends on its economy. It does not take much to disrupt a modern economy and send it into a recession. Israel is already an island economy with all goods having to come in and out by sea.

You seem to be unable to accept any comparison to South Africa. The Afrikaners were just as attached to their country and political system. The reason that they abandoned apartheid was the psychological impact of the sanctions. The rejection by the West really did have an impact.

Israeli apartheid would not last very long if it was subject to US sanctions.

43

stevenjohnson 12.14.14 at 9:39 pm

The psychological impact of sanctions on the Afrikaners was accompanied by the psychological impact of defeat in Namibia (notably, Cuito Cuanavale,) on the Afrikaner military/security apparatus. There’s no reason to think the BDS movement against Zionism could possibly work in the way alleged for South Africa. Further, the possible nuke or two that South Africa might have had is not at all the same thing as the armory at the Israeli state’s disposal. Given Hersh’s reports on the active planning for a genocidal assault on enemy peoples upon defeat, it appears that the Zionists have chosen their solution for the final problem.

In many respects Israel is not an independent country (an also in many ways not a country at all.) Its seeming independence of the US government is a consequence of the independence of the US deep state (to borrow a phrase) from any control by “democracy.” The end of Zionism is likely to be a stage in the end of US domination and is likely to be quite horrific. It’s like a “peaceful” overthrow of the northern regime in Korea by the southern regime…the supposed savior doesn’t have the wherewithal. Zionism is an integral element in US imperialism. That system is not reformable.

44

JHW 12.14.14 at 10:04 pm

Corey Robin: Your original claim was that contemporary liberal thinkers were more indulgent of state speech repression than student/academic speech repression, because they’re fine with this entry ban but would be against students or universities preventing these politicians from speaking on campus. I pointed out that these cases are qualitatively different from reasons that have nothing to do with the enacting agent: one is an incidental burden on speech (“You can’t come here,” which prevents you from speaking here), while one targets speech explicitly (“You can’t give a speech on this campus”).

We tolerate incidental burdens on speech all the time, even as directed against people whose main business is speaking. Stephenson-quoter kun’s example of the political activist imprisoned for car theft is nicely illustrative. (You can imagine lots of others. Maybe a political organizer gets lots of DUIs and gets her license suspended, and now has a far harder time doing her work. Maybe a professor is fired for sexual harassment and now has less opportunity to advocate his views.) You suggest that my view is comical, alluding to the pretextual use of the criminal law to target activists, but the fact that sometimes a person’s speech isn’t actually incidental to the choice to go after that person doesn’t itself alter the distinction between incidental and non-incidental burdens on speech.

Of course, the pretext problem is important here if we suspect that the real motive of the signatories is to keep people like Naftali Bennett and Moshe Feiglin from speaking at US university campuses. Do we have any reason to think that this is true? I don’t see any.

45

Corey Robin 12.14.14 at 10:58 pm

This is a genuine question: What is the purpose of banning international leaders from entering your country? I assume it is to punish them by denying them any platform to speak in your country, to register your objection to their peculiar combination of speech/action (what Douglas, in Brandenburg, called speech brigaded with action) by not allowing them to spew before your citizenry. Surely it’s not to deny them the beaches of Miami or the ski slopes of Vail? Or perhaps I’m wrong.

If I’m right, I don’t think these folks not speaking on US campuses is just incidental, a side effect of a visa restriction. It’s part and parcel of the main punishment.

46

J Thomas 12.14.14 at 11:40 pm

#40 PHB

Israeli apartheid would not last very long if it was subject to US sanctions.

I hope you’re right.

My concern is that first, Israel has enough connections to prevent US sanctions from actually taking effect. If the banks didn’t really cooperate, or any major businesses, what could the government do about it? Particularly when various government bureaucrats would be continually throwing figurative monkey-wrenches in attempts to monitor the situation. Plus there would be lots of smuggling. All that might keep the Israeli economy going long enough to get the US president impeached or assassinated etc.

Also, the US public is nowhere near ready for anything like that yet, and may never be. Any time they get too sympathetic to palestinians some sort of terrorists will reliably do something awful to persuade them that the towolheads don’t deserve any rights. It’s consistent. Whenever Israel needs terrorists to show up and do something awful to influence public opinion in favor of Israel, arab terrorists show up and do something awful to influence public opinion in favor of Israel.

Still, I hope that Israel would respond well to sanctions. And I hope that they will choose to do the right thing even quicker, before sanctions can take effect, out of their own free will.

47

MPAVictoria 12.15.14 at 12:29 am

“Particularly when various government bureaucrats would be continually throwing figurative monkey-wrenches in attempts to monitor the situation. Plus there would be lots of smuggling. All that might keep the Israeli economy going long enough to get the US president impeached or assassinated etc.”

What exactly are you trying to say here J?

48

Brett Bellmore 12.15.14 at 12:48 am

“Whenever Israel needs terrorists to show up and do something awful to influence public opinion in favor of Israel, arab terrorists show up and do something awful to influence public opinion in favor of Israel.”

Also when Israel doesn’t have any such need. Why, you’d almost think they were doing awful things because they’re awful people, rather than because it was convenient for Israel.

Talk of US sanctions seems rather silly. There aren’t enough antisemites in the US to support such sanctions, even if they are a bit concentrated in influential places, especially on the left. Just another way the US isn’t like Europe.

49

J Thomas 12.15.14 at 1:01 am

What exactly are you trying to say here J?

https://imgflip.com/i/fbkry

50

MPAVictoria 12.15.14 at 1:25 am

Hmm evasive. And you are usually very wordy and eager to reply. I wonder why you prefer not too in this case.

51

J Thomas 12.15.14 at 2:00 am

#48 MPAV

Hmm evasive. And you are usually very wordy and eager to reply. I wonder why you prefer not too in this case.

Hey, we’ve danced this same dance enough that we both know the steps. Every time Israel comes up you look for an excuse to accuse me of antisemitism.

It used to be, any time an American expressed doubts about the Israeli government, people could accuse him of being a racist bigoted antisemite and he’d shut up pretty quick. But you may have noticed that the topic here is BDS. That tactic just does not work as well as it used to. But you keep doing it anyway.

Anyway, back on topic. One does not just sanction Israel. Not with ten thousand men could you do this. It is folly.

52

MPAVictoria 12.15.14 at 2:02 am

” If the banks didn’t really cooperate, or any major businesses, what could the government do about it? Particularly when various government bureaucrats would be continually throwing figurative monkey-wrenches in attempts to monitor the situation. Plus there would be lots of smuggling. All that might keep the Israeli economy going long enough to get the US president impeached or assassinated etc.”

Come on J, what exactly are you saying here. And be specific.

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J Thomas 12.15.14 at 2:13 am

Come on J, what exactly are you saying here. And be specific.

You quoted me exactly. What I said was exactly what I was saying.

Artists have this problem a lot. People will come to them and say “Tell me exactly what this piece of art means.” But the art is supposed to express its meaning itself. If you don’t get the meaning from the art, why would anyone think you would get it from a bunch of words?

If you aren’t sure you caught my meaning, tell me in your own words what it meant to you, and I’ll tell you how close you came.

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MPAVictoria 12.15.14 at 2:16 am

Come on J. You can do better than that. What are you trying to implying about Jewish control over the banks and the government?

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J Thomas 12.15.14 at 2:23 am

Just what I said. What did you read in?

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MPAVictoria 12.15.14 at 2:30 am

Interesting that you refuse to elaborate. I mean you are normally exceptionally eager to write thousands of words yet not about this. Why is that?

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Corey Robin 12.15.14 at 2:44 am

MPAVictoria: Stop. We’re not going to have a big debate about Jewish control over banks and government. Again, as I said on another thread, if you want to go down this road, I’ll just shut the whole comments section down.

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MPAVictoria 12.15.14 at 2:50 am

Fair enough Corey. Just to clarify though J. Thomas brought it up not me.

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Fuzzy Dunlop 12.15.14 at 4:04 am

@ Joshua W. Burton: Are you saying that the fact that personal sanctions have been suggested before makes the context of the current call for them that Corey mentions irrelevant–in other words that people have been promoting personal sanctions all along, since the 80s, and it’s not even newsworthy? Otherwise, I don’t see the significance of your objection.

@ MPAV: A lot of people with strongly pro-zionist views are not Jewish, e.g. many are evangelical Christians.

60

PHB 12.15.14 at 4:05 am

“Talk of US sanctions seems rather silly. There aren’t enough antisemites in the US to support such sanctions, ”

You really think the only folk who are calling for sanctions are neo-NAZIs?

Take a look at who is running the BDS movement. It is largely a Jewish concern. The idea that anger at Israel is limited to anti-semites and a handful of ‘self-hating’ Jews is self deception.

AIPAC, CAMERA and the like have done a bang up job of alienating the liberal blogosphere. Telling folk that they are either with Israel 110% or they are against Israel has driven pretty much everyone outside the Zionist tent. The only prominent Jewish blogger who still calls himself a Zionist is Josh Marshall and he is certainly not an Israel firster.

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MPAVictoria 12.15.14 at 4:07 am

Fuzzy Corey asked me to drop this line and I am going to respect that.

62

gianni 12.15.14 at 6:04 am

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Joshua W. Burton 12.15.14 at 8:21 am

Fuzzy Dunlop @59: Yes, I’m saying that, and also that BDS taking credit for longstanding liberal animus toward Kachniks (and neo-Kachniks like Moshe Feiglin) is a pure PETA move. “Like Bacillus anthracis taking credit for mail delivery,” as Linus Torvalds once famously remarked in an unrelated context.

64

iolanthe 12.15.14 at 8:34 am

“it is generally accepted in diplomatic circles that Israel has annexed East Jerusalem.”

Not sure at all this is the case. There is a general acceptance that a lot of annexed Jerusalem will stay with Israel in the event of an agreement but there’s also a view that Palestine has Jerusalem as its capital so at least some goes to Palestine. Even the US though, as far as I am aware, doesn’t recognise the annexation of Jerusalem hence the constant goings on about moving the embassy from Tel Aviv by congress and even the most pro Likud Presidents like W vetoing this. How many Israelis would be willing to give up any part of Jerusalem in return for peace is unclear, I suspect very few but this could change in the unlikely event of serious pressure by the US.

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Brett Bellmore 12.15.14 at 10:50 am

“You really think the only folk who are calling for sanctions are neo-NAZIs?”

No, I said antisemites, not neo-Nazis. This is about hating Jews, not your economics.

There are first order antisemites, who hate Jews because they’re Jews. I think there are a larger number of what you might call “second-order” antisemites, who hate Jews for the way they expose the first order antisemites by insisting on not dying out.

The latter just want the whole thing to go away, and think the easiest way for it to go away is for the Jews to go away. That, if they won’t stop being Jews, “going away” involves allowing themselves to be the victims of genocide, doesn’t seem to change this sentiment.

So they produce all sorts of rationales for why a country under almost continual attacks by genocidally inclined neighbors should lower their defenses. And the attacks on Israel become Israel’s fault, because, well, there couldn’t very well be attacks on Israel without an Israel, could there?

This sort of thinking seems to be deplorably common in left-wing circles, and I guess that’s unsurprising, considering that communists tend to be about as antisemitic as neo-Nazis, (What is it about totalitarian ideologies and antisemitism, anyway?) and the left never did purge itself of it’s communist faction.

But, the fact remains that the US is pretty much the only country in the world where a positive opinion of Israel is common, and this despite the prevalence of antisemites in our media. And, while you might aspire to making that every country, so the final solution can resume, the influence of the media in America is actually on the decline.

So, no, I don’t think you’ll get the American people on board for ordering Israel to open its borders to Hamas, or to stop defending itself. For all that it would help make a troublesome annoyance go away.

Foolish aspiration, anyway, the Jews would just be replaced by another target of hate. You can’t make hate go away by killing off the people who are hated.

66

Ze Kraggash 12.15.14 at 12:14 pm

@65, South Africa was mentioned here. Out of curiosity: do you interpret the story there among the same lines? A brave little ethno-religious group of Afrikaners, trying to survive in a sea of genocidal black Africans?

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Joshua W. Burton 12.15.14 at 1:40 pm

@65: The latter just want the whole thing to go away, and think the easiest way for it to go away is for the Jews to go away.

Without making any assertion at all about its relevance to the present discussion, I would like to say that Brett’s formulation here has the ring of truth. There are still (and have always been) many, many people in the world who quite sincerely, as my relatives of the WW2 generation used to say, “don’t want to kill Jews; they want to mourn Jews.”

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Donald Johnson 12.15.14 at 2:57 pm

“There are still (and have always been) many, many people in the world who quite sincerely, as my relatives of the WW2 generation used to say, “don’t want to kill Jews; they want to mourn Jews.”

Evidence? That’s an awfully convenient accusation to have in one’s pocket to be pulled out when needed. I’m trying to think of who it could even mean. The closest I can come to would be fundamentalist Christians who are pro-Israel, but it’s not fair even to them. They see themselves as philo-semitic and see the Jews as part of the Biblical story, but also want them all to convert to Christianity (perhaps as “Messianic Jews”). Or maybe secularists who wish all religions would go away, which would include Judaism of course. But most of that type seem to focus on Islam these days.

There are anti-semites of varying degrees of intensity, but Brett is just making the usual sweeping statement about critics and mischaracterizing the issues so he can dismiss Israel’s crimes, which are supported and partly funded by the US. In some circles you can hear the same type of nonsense from the sillier segments of the far left–anyone who criticizes Hamas is really a white supremacist or anyone who criticizes Mugabe is really just a mouthpiece for British colonialism and so on. It’s a standard feature of discussion whenever human rights issues come up–the apologists for their favorite war criminals always find some way to claim the critics are really motivated by hatred.

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Fuzzy Dunlop 12.15.14 at 3:31 pm

” There are still (and have always been) many, many people in the world who quite sincerely, as my relatives of the WW2 generation used to say, “don’t want to kill Jews; they want to mourn Jews.”

And this explains the large number of Jews in BDS and other anti-zionist movements how?

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engels 12.15.14 at 4:01 pm

Hmm if you were Westerner who doesn’t violently hate race X but just wishes they’d go someplace else, what position would you be likely to adopt re Zionism?

Ps. This is a predictably godawful thread- does noone have anything to pay about Walzer et al?

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Corey Robin 12.15.14 at 5:16 pm

Sigh. I’m going to shut this thread down. Try as I might, it seems like people just can’t stay off the question of the Jews. Between this and the TNR thread, all I can see is people wanting to argue and counter-argue about just how much control the Jews have around the world and in the US. For each side, it serves a purpose: one side gets to indulge in its speculations about Jewish power, the other gets to scream about people indulging in speculations about Jewish power. The question of Israel, Palestine, BDS, and the like gets lost. Anyway, I don’t have the time to monitor this thread and constantly intervene, so I’m shutting it down now.

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