Greens Engage

For some reason this came up in an alert – Hansard’s Daily Written Answers from the House of Commons, 2nd Nov. It includes a statement on the boycott, the situation for Gazans, the British Government’s response to the flaws of the Goldstone report on Gaza.

Here’s the press statement.

Cross-posted on Engage.

After reading Gene’s reminder “Equally, boycott opponents have a right, and a duty, to express themselves as well”, I just sent this (which I’ve tweaked a bit since sending) to BBC and Cadogan Hall addresses listed on PACBI’s ‘call to action against the Jerusalem Quartet’s Proms Appearance’. I hope the links make it through their spam filter.

***

info at cadoganhall dot com
proms at bbc dot co dot uk
and the Quartet.

Hello,

I understand you are coming under pressure from the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel to cancel the performance of the Jerusalem Quartet on August 29th.

Hopefully cancellation is out of the question, but given the intensity of PACBI’s campaign, I thought I should contact you with some reasons to go ahead.

If you look at the boycott, divestment and sanction calls PACBI references, it is clear that PACBI and other boycott campaigners such as the Palestine Solidarity Campaign are not interested in establishing a Palestinian state alongside Israel. Rather, they are interested in eliminating Israel. This was made clear when PACBI successfully cancelled joint simultaneous peace concerts in Israel and the West Bank. PACBI and the PSC cannot tolerate peace work and move to sabotage it.

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1479

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1547

Some Israeli political groups and human rights and peace-making NGOs draw a distinction between boycotting the occupation on the one hand, which they view as appropriate, and boycotting Israel in its entirety on the other hand, which they recognise as eliminationist. PACBI and other groups pursue the latter – the entire social, cultural and economic exclusion of Israel. PACBI seeks, indiscriminately, to break links between medical institutions and cultural ones alike. Nothing less than the total pariahdom of Israel will suffice. PACBI is attempting to end Israel’s existence.

Unlike the boycott of South Africa, to which the boycott of Israel is frequently compared, hardly any Israelis call for a boycott. Those who oppose boycott include the Israeli socialist party Hadash and peace-making NGOs such as Gisha (legal centre for freedom of movement), the Abraham Fund for coexistence, and Peace Now (for an end to the occupation). The boycott is widely seen by peace-makers on the ground as counterproductive to peace. It is inarticulate, it causes more of the difference and division which are exascerbating the conflict, and it abandons Israeli peace activists.

http://links.org.au/node/968

http://www.peacenow.org.il/site/en/peace.asp?pi=69&docid=3303&pos=0

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1715

http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/07/09/a-cringe-making-boycott-letter/

Israeli authorities have attempted to disrupt Palestinian cultural and academic affairs; I and other anti-boycotters have spoken out against these politically-motivated acts, as I do here.

http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/05/26/protesting-the-israeli-security-forces-disruption-of-palfest/

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1940

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1029

http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/05/29/student-protester-arrested-on-israeli-campus/

Meanwhile even joint anti-war Jewish and Palestinian Israeli productions such as Plonter are prevented from staging performances in Israel’s neighbouring states; performances are held to ransom as if they could lever peace. And even joint Israeli and Palestinian Israeli relationships are the focus of PACBI’s ongoing attempts to drive a wedge into co-existence between Israel’s Jewish and non-Jewish citizens. Wafa Younis’s life was in danger after she took her youth orchestra, Strings of Freedom, to commemorate Holocaust Memorial Day.

http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/03/11/pacbi-drives-a-wedge-into-coexistence-inside-israel/

http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/03/28/good-things/

This is the nature of the cultural boycott.

Israel is unlike South Africa in a crucial way: its neighbours have only recently formally accepted its existence, this acceptance cannot be taken for granted, and there are enduring armed movements which hope to eliminate Israel. In South Africa anti-apartheid activists sought majority rule. In Israel there is majority rule. Israel is the world’s sole Jewish state, which came into existence after the attempted genocide of the world’s Jews. Hamas, Hesbollah and other factions continually preach hatred of Jews, and call this resistance to Israel. Beyond Israel antisemitism is a regional norm.

A total boycott of Israel – the campaign for boycott, divestment and sanctions of which PACBI’s cultural boycott is part – assists Hamas and other eliminationists by posing an obstacle to peace-making. In short, Israel is not and never has been the sole aggressor in this conflict, nor does it act capriciously or sadistically, as you might think if you were to read only PACBI’s, or only the Palestine Solidarity Campaign’s, narrative of the conflict. The settlers must leave the occupied land, reparations must be made to refugees, occupation must end, resources must be equitably distributed, infrastructure must not be used to control and subdue, and Israel’s neighbours must permit Israel to live in peace. In Israel and the occupied territories violence feeds on violence, extremism on extremism. The reason the conflict is intractable is because the causes endure, not because Israel is a brutal state.

Anti-Israel politics are frequently expressed as hostility to Jews. PACBI has been complicit in this, and seeks to diminish concerns about this.

http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/01/06/hamas-threatens-to-kill-jewish-children-anywhere-in-the-world/

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/feb/04/gaza-jewish-community

Boycotters will insist otherwise, but hosting an Israeli orchestra does not amount to acceptance of the decisions and actions of the Israeli government. Nor does it amount to a solution to the conflict.

But societies in conflict are vulnerable to the prejudice, demonisation, dehumanisation and despair which haunts conflicts, and without cultural and social exchange there can be no coexistence. And yet cultural exchanges are under attack not from peace-makers but from those who wish to prolong division.

The last time the Jerusalem Quartet was targeted in the name of Palestine solidarity, the protesters were charged with a racially aggravated offence. Separately, protest leader Mick Napier of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Campaign uses far right antisemitic materials in his arguments on behalf of Palestinians. He is part of a current of thinking that perceives anti-Jewish words and acts as a legitimate part of Palestine solidarity.

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1752

The attempt he led to disrupt the concert was met with boos from the large audience at the Queens Hall in Edinburgh.

http://www.edinburghguide.com/festival/2008/edinburghinternationalfestival/jerusalemquartet

I could think of many more reasons not to cancel the Jerusalem Quartet. Some of them would be to do with cultural exchange and some of them would be to do with art. None of them would be to do with discrediting solidarity with Palestinians under occupation. Israel is engaged in a violent occupation and ongoing settlement of Palestinian lands beyond its own borders. Israel has demonstrated it is willing to turn large parts of Gaza to rubble and make security for ordinary Gazans meaningless in the name of protecting its own security. But the cultural boycott of Israel will not help end the occupation nor the violence – if anything it will exacerbate the division. Additionally I think (unlike boycotters) that the best way for international community to end the occupation is to learn about the conflict, represent it accurately, and demand and take action which addresses the causes of the conflict. The best way for artistic bodies in Britain to reach out to Palestinians living under occupation is to invite Palestinian artists and performers to this country and pursue their travel permits with the Israeli authorities. I would be more than happy to play a part here, should such an initiative arise.

Thanks for reading and best wishes,

Mira

PS.

http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/05/22/tali-shalom-ezer-won’t-do-ken-loach’s-work-for-him/

http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/05/05/msu-jewish-studies-welcomes-honour-to-tutu-but-calls-on-him-to-renounce-israel-boycott/

http://engageonline.wordpress.com/2009/05/01/boycotters-target-leonard-cohen-as-a-bhuddist-jonathan-freedland/

Jon Pike, one of the founders of Engage, elected to the University and College Union National Executive Committee on an anti-boycott ticket, has resigned his position. Read his open letter to the Secretary General, Sally Hunt.

“Both Congress in 2008 and 2009, and a senior committee of the union have rejected calls for a ballot of the membership.  An amendment from my branch, to this year’s conference, calling for a ballot of the membership on this proposal was ruled out as a ‘wrecking amendment.’  It seems there is something incendiary about asking the members directly to express their views.  The call for a ballot has been rejected in the knowledge that, and because, such a ballot would lead to the overwhelming defeat of the boycott proposals.”

When proposals for boycott of Israeli universities have been considered by branches of the union and its predecessors, they have been overwhelmingly rejected. Members at Reading, Open, Oxford, Cambridge, Imperial, Bath, Warwick, UCL, Strathclyde, Lancaster, Kingston, LSE, KCL, Birmingham, Bristol, UEA, Sussex, Cardiff, LSHTM, The Institute of Education, QMWL, Aberystwyth, Swansea, Southampton, and others, have voted, at branch meetings, to reject such proposals. Previous similar proposals have been repudiated by individual branches, and overwhelmingly rejected by branch ballots of their membership.

The resolutions in question have been rushed through, in a way that has actively prevented the membership from scrutinising them.  Papers concerning the resolution have been distributed extremely late, with no explanation.  Legal advice, paid for by the members concerning the resolution has been withheld from elected representatives, branch presidents, and the membership.”

And the consequences are dire. Read on.

It’s a splendid letter but the fact that it has been written strikes a chill.

Sometimes there’s nothing you can do but walk away. Thanks for standing up to the Socialist Worker Party for so long, Jon. What a gruesome job.

Only a few countries’ affairs were addressed in the international business of the University and College Union conference, and all of the motions not to do with Israel were submitted as late motions and breezed through in ten minutes. The Israel business took well over an hour.

Why is this? Standing up to ‘Zionists’, ‘the law’, ‘Zionist law’, ‘Zionist power’, pusillanimous leaders and trustees – the only thing constant is the sense of standing up to something in a heroic “truth against power” kind of way – strongly motivates these Conference delegates, who are often marginalised in their institutions. So, members who actively oppose the boycott – it is no coincidence that most are Jews – are identified as Zionist, and inexorably, connections are made in many minds, such as Sean Wallis’, linked below.  And yet allegations of antisemitism within the union are now viewed as vexatious, because they often emanate from members who oppose the boycott and among these members was a group who decided to pursue litigation. This view that claims of antisemitism are vexatious is a good way to grow antisemitism. It’s not dissimilar from our own situation in the Greens.

Conference delegates are rarely chosen by their members, and the important thing to keep in mind is that the boycott has been extensively discussed for many years in branches, and no boycotter has ever managed to get a motion on boycott passed in their branch. Branches don’t want to boycott Israel, althoug Conference delegates do.

Engage has written on Conference:

• Why the lecturers’ union must oppose a boycott of Israeli universities – Jon Pike’s piece in the Education Guardian
• SWP backs down, and then indulges in disgusting anti-democratic display – Jon Pike
• The UCU boycott campaign is about fuelling hatred against Israel – John Strawson
• David Hirsh’s live blog of the international business of UCU Congress – notes of the debate
• UCU Conference votes down amendment to investigate antisemitism-related resignations
• UCU Congress has ruled out debating a ballot
• UCL UCU branch secretary Sean Wallis lines up with antisemitic Lehman Brothers conspiracy theorists

Here’s something still relevant by Mark Osborne, about the pro-boycott resolution 2 years ago.

“Somehow I can not imagine Sally Hunt fighting the battle of ideas against the SWP, slugging it out, campus by campus. I can, however, imagine her attempting to use some bureaucratic trick to cheat a pro-boycott UCU conference majority in a year’s time (after having done nothing much to tackle the politics of the matter over the next year).”

This is, in fact, what seems to have happened. In this year’s conference, boycott motions appeared in the agenda with a disclaimer that they would be voided if passed, and a strange pantomime of defiance predictably ensued.

This is likely to lead – and it will be stealthy and confusing for the target, because this kind of discrimination is against the law – to some Israeli exclusions, but given the clear views of the grass-roots, it is unlikely to be many.

This gesture by UCU once again subordinates academic freedom to its own self-indulgent gesture of defiance – for a clear view of what academic freedom actually means, read Jon Pike’s Education Guardian piece, linked above. It was also devoid of any conflict-resolving content. The word ‘peace’ was mentioned only once in the agenda, as part of the comically-worded Motion 27:

“Congress demands

…

• Lasting peace in Palestine.”

But this gesture has side effects on us with respect to UCU’s Jewish membership, the deficit at which Jewish members who want to participate find themselves, and the diversity of views, including Jewish views, which are heard. To make this point is not to campaign for Zionism – rather it resists a campaign to force notional ‘Zionists’ out of the union; a campaign which ends up forcing out Jews because, along with the needs they share with other members, many Jewish members also have a strong concern about how the union should comport itself with respect to a boycott campaign against Israel, a concern which is very widespread among Jews in general, but this particularly Jewish aspect of their membership is unwanted, and to express it, deeply antipathetic to the views of those who claim the right to be their branch representatives at Conference, the supreme policy-making body of the union. David Hirsh worries about the absence of Jewish voices speaking against the boycott at Conference, and he is right to worry.

This is institutional racism – institutional antisemitism.

Last month the Palestinian General Federation of Trade Unions and the Israeli equivalent Histadrut signed an agreement calling for “fraternity and coexistence between the two peoples.”

And yet the Green Party conference was awash with leaflets urging us to boycott Israel. We have a pro-boycott leader and a futile and simplistic resolution to impose total boycott, divestment and sanctions stands.

Now the PGFTU has indicated again that it does not support general BDS.

“We did consider the option, if it could pressure the Israeli government to obey United Nations resolutions and respect human rights”, said Mr Nasser “but we do not see it as effective. Instead we think there should be boycotts only of companies directly involved in building settlements and the apartheid wall.”

This makes much more sense (stupid apartheid comparison notwithstanding) because it is specific, bounded, related to its aims, and targeted at the occupation.

Trade Union Friends of Israel said of the Palestine Solidarity Campaign of Conference delegates:

“Three years ago they stripped our stand of all the leaflets,” said volunteer Ian Sternberg, “this year the stand is opposite that of the PSC and things are quite friendly.”

James Caspell hasn’t quite achieved the required u-turn.

Quote:

“Financial and moral support from the United States means that Israel has been able to act with relative immunity, hiding behind its incendiary claim that all who criticise its policies are anti Semitic. This does a great disservice to the many Jewish people who support the principle of universal human rights, and who oppose the current policies of the Israeli state.”

Full text of her article entitled: No green light for occupiers, here.

David Hirsh discusses Caroline’s use of the Livingstone Formulation, here.

UPDATE 1 (April 19, 4pm): It seems that Sian and Jenny do not confirm the JC information. We are waiting for a full statement from them; it will be published as soon as…

UPDATE 2 (April 24, 10am): No public statement from Sian or Jenny; I copy below the full press release from London Jewish Forum which was issued after the meeting (the JC article was based on this press release).

From the Jewish Chronicle

Green candidate: no to boycott
17/04/2008 12:01:00

Sian Berry, the Green candidate for mayor of London, has disavowed the party’s policy of support for boycotting Israel. She and London Assembly Green member Jenny Jones told the London Jewish Forum on Tuesday they looked forward to the policy being changed, according to the forum. Adrian Cohen, LJF chairman, said it was “a first step towards links between the London Jewish community and the Green Party”.

http://www.thejc.com

PRESS RELEASE (issued by London Jewish Forum):

London Jewish Forum meeting with Green Party candidates

17^th April 2008

Embargo: Immediate

On Tuesday evening, Adrian Cohen and other members of London Jewish Forum met with Green Mayoral candidate Sian Berry and Assembly Member Jenny Jones to discuss the London elections and to foster mutual understanding between the Green Party and London’s Jewish community.

The meeting saw a discussion of the priorities of Jewish Londoners, as well as those of the Green Party. Community safety and the threat of political extremism, cultural provision and the need for increased social housing to accommodate the growing Charedi community in Stamford Hill were all discussed. The Green candidates highlighted their commitment to increase the proportion of affordable housing in new developments to 60%.

There was a frank discussion surrounding the Green Party’s support for the boycott of Israel. Both Sian Berry and Jenny Jones confirmed that they did not support the current policy and looked forward to this being changed at their next conference.

The London Jewish Forum was invited to organise a speaker for a meeting at the next Green Conference, in London in September, to speak on the issue of Jewish community interests.

Sian Berry expressed serious concerns about the threat of BNP gains in the assembly election. LJF outlined the communal ‘Your Voice or theirs Campaign’, aimed at increasing Jewish turnout.

Adrian Cohen, Chair of London Jewish Forum, said “This was very successful meeting, with a frank discussion on a wide range of issues. It was a first step towards building links between the London Jewish community and the Green Party, and I look forward to that relationship developing further.”

Over the past months, London Jewish Forum has held meetings with the Labour, Conservative and Liberal Democrat mayoral candidates.

END OF PRESS RELEASE

As well as not working very well (especially when they’re vague and don’t have realistic aims, as in the case of our embarrassing and hate-inspiring Motion C05), boycotting a country causes that country to turn in on itself. It’s worth noting, since there’s a tendency to mis-compare Israel with South Africa, that the end of apartheid was achieved through popular uprising and the political acumen of anti-apartheid activists like Nelson Mandela, and the role of the boycott, which had the side-effect of making apartheid-supporting South Africans – the holders of power – defiantly hunker down, is contested.

Israelis understand that the intention of their boycotters is to cancel Israel – by referring to it as an ‘apartheid state’ as if Israel and Palestine were a single country, by proposing to starve it of weapons despite the avowed obliterationist intentions of powerful regional factions like Hesbollah and Hamas, or by claiming that all Palestinians have the right to live in Israel. Understandable if they feel a tiny bit alienated and insecure.

After all, Israel has been boycotted and under attack since its inception, a circumstance which, in the consciousness of many Jews, is merely a continuation of age-old attacks on, boycotts of, discrimination against, and explusion of Jews. British Greens should care more.

This Jerusalem Post article on an Israeli bill to introduce a 1NIS charge for each plastic bag used in supermarkets, makes a few points that Green Boycotters should note. One is to do with the fact that states who feel under attack relegate environmentalism down their list of priorities. Another is the impact of Israelis who have travelled and return with stories about how other countries are handling their environmental problems. I doubt if many Israelis are looking to Boycotting Britannia right now. Greens Stop the Boycott would like to change that.

Yehuda Olander, manager of the Sharon District Regional Division for the Quality of the Environment, attributes Israel’s lack of progress on environment preservation to its constant occupation with survival. “Survival here is not only talking about the environment, it’s talking about security,” he explains. “Ten to 20 years ago, when the rest of the world began caring for the environment, Israel was focused on surviving as a country.

“But it works to Israel’s advantage,” Olander continues. Through other countries’ successes and failures, Israel can learn how to be more environmentally responsible.

“[Israelis] come back from Europe and [other parts of the world] and say ‘Wow, look what they have done – how they recycle and how they avoid traveling too much in their cars.’”

The Israeli daily Ha’aretz reports on a joint initiative between a group of 17 Israeli Arab women and the Israeli Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel to establish an educational institute in the Galilee region that will teach environmental conservation, recycling and ecology:

The women, aged 30 to 35, come from varied backgrounds – Druze, Moslem and Christian. They are being instructed by the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel.

“This is the first group of Arab women to learn about environmental issues,” said Muadi. Explaining that in her neighborhood, environmental awareness is still in its infancy, she added: “We therefore decided to start with activities in the schools, because change has to begin with the students.”

After completing an SPNI course on environmental education, the women joined the staff of SPNI’s field school, which runs the environmental program in the village’s elementary school. The women gave several lessons to every grade, covering environmental topics such as nature, water, recycling, air pollution and ecology. Last week, the women and students went on a field trip that included a clean-up operation.

“The women’s involvement as part of SPNI’s teaching staff,” said Vasil Hazima, director of SPNI’s field school in Maghar”

The Green Party’s boycott Resolution C05 – part of a wider boycott and divestment initiative – currently acts against these types of partnerships. It is an entirely negative force that promotes hostility and inevitably contributes to pressure on Israel’s Arab (or Palestinian – depending on how they self-define) to turn their backs on such initiatives.

This pressure is evidenced in the experience of a delegation of philanthropists who were visiting Israeli Arab villages and institutions to research how best they might contribute to the kind of inclusive, equal society which is prerequisite of any kind of conflict resolution. There was a small but loud call to boycott the delegation. Here’s what Ami Nahshon, one of its members, had to say:

While the call to boycott fell on deaf ears among the vast majority of Arab public and civil society leaders, it taught all of us an important lesson: that the lines of conflict in Israel are not between the Arab and Jewish communities, but rather between those Jews and Arabs who embrace a vision of an inclusive and just society, and those who seem intent on pursuing an agenda of separatism and alienation. Our visit convinced us that it is our duty, as diaspora leaders, to embrace and support those who share this inclusive vision, and not to allow ourselves to be distracted by the separatist voices at the political fringes of both communities.

There is also the experience of peace activist Mohamad Darawshe part of an Israeli Jewish and Arab fact-finding mission to Northern Ireland who was boycotted by a Northern Irish International Relations academic for being Israeli.

And the experience of the Palestinian and Israeli workers and promoters of the Peace Oil initiative, a charity which was subject to a Palestine Solidarity Campaign (PSC) sabotage attempt.

“Anything that the Zionist Federation could get excited about would be bound to inflame the PSC. Pro-boycotters tend to act jealous when Palestinians cooperate with Israelis and frequently attempt to break things up. Targetting Israeli-Arab-Palestinian cooperation and making an issue out of the only product in the Good Gifts catalogue with an Israel connection is a wedge-driving tactic and part of the general boycott strategy. It’s of a piece with their hard work to stop OneVoice dual peace concerts in Tel Aviv and Jericho, and their condemnation of Israeli academics for apathy while simultaneously encouraging and pressurising Palestinian academics to have nothing to do with them.”

OneVoice is a citizens’ Israeli-Palestinian peace movement which was sabotaged by boycotters when they attempted to stage joint peace concerts in Tel Aviv and Jericho.

What contribution has the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement had on improving Palestinian lives and advancing towards a just resolution to the conflict? None. It’s logic is to polarise, not reconcile. And meanwhile Israel’s reprehensible settlement activity in Har Homa and Givat Ze’ev continues, in the face of the Annapolis agreement to freeze activity, and despite the long-overdue evacuation of 18 ‘outposts’. The security barrier’s mission creep endures, causing it to bite deep into Palestinian territory. Hamas consolidates power in Gaza, tolerating or promoting the persecution of Christians, journalists and Trade Unionists. Gazan women take up the veil to avoid negative attention. Fatah, the secular political force in the West Bank weakens as the clerical, anti-democratic parties of Hamas and Hizb ut Tahrir gain ground. Iran funds weapons for Hamas and Hesbollah.

The Green boycott is the opposite of helpful. Any green activist should understand that it has no place in a movement which purports to support ecological and environmental activism. Its logic is conflict, separatism and alienation, and we should get rid of it as soon as possible.

The Green Party should turn its back on anything that contributes to this pressure by rescinding Resolution C05. If we care about a peace beween Palestinians and Israelis, we should work on an alternative vision. And we will.

Harry’s Place is a good place to be seen. Go and follow the comments to this post.