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The BDS (Boycott, Divestment,Sanctions) campaign has been gaining a lot of steam. Last Thursday a groundbreaking op-ed piece supporting BDS by an Israeli citizen was published in the Los Angeles Times…creating a frisson of excitement across the Palestinian- support community. This op-ed piece is copied in its entirety at the very bottom of this message, but first please read the commentaries that precede it. They make clear that BDS is not, by itself, a panacea…to be effective it must be inextricably linked to demands for full justice: Palestinian right of return, equal rights, etc.

Boycott Israel

Neve Gordon

Dear Friends:
BDS is not a strategy.  It's a tactic.  Other tactics are: guerrilla action against IDF soldiers (quite different from Qassam rockets against Israeli civilians), mass unarmed demonstrations against the wall, sit-ins at the Israel Consulate, and the like.  
BDS is a tactic that can express the solidarity of people outside Palestine and arouse their participation in the Palestine freedom struggle.  They must know what is the goal of that struggle.
To my mind (and I know that I am in the minority on this one) the role of BDS is to strengthen the popular struggle against the occupation, to strengthen the popular struggle for recognition of the refugees' right of return, and to strengthen the popular struggle against racist discrimination in Israel.  In other words, the role of the BDS tactic is to strengthen the struggle of Palestinians and Israelis against the Zionist regime. 
BDS will be an effective tactic if it is clearly linked to its strategic goal:  the overthrow of the Zionist regime and its replacement by a regime of equality, one that permits the refugees to return.
Note that I do not say "one state solution" or "2 state solution".  I say:  No "solution" is a solution as long as the Zionist regime of settler-colonialism , ethnic cleansing, and racist discrimination, is permitted to remain in place.
That must be said clearly.  The tactic of BDS will do nothing to arouse and strengthen Palestinian and Israeli popular struggle against the Zionist regime if the BDS tactic is linked to the so-called "2 state solution" (i.e. to the the point of convergence of Obama-Netanyahu- Barak policy).  In fact, such BDS will be unprincipled and will contibute to strengthening racism and national animosity and oppression.
We must state clearly:  We support BDS because we want to strengthen those forces -- in Israel and the occupied territories and the refugee camps -- whose task will be to overthrow the Zionist regime and replace it with a democratic regime.
Regards,
Henry Lowi  
 

To: NION-Tor@yahoogroup s.com
From: jjavanshir@rogers. com
Date: Fri, 21 Aug 2009 17:31:09 -0700
Subject: Re: [NION-Tor] another excellent article

Opinion

Boycott Israel

An Israeli comes to the painful conclusion that it's the only way to save his country.

By Neve Gordon

August 20, 2009

Israeli newspapers this summer are filled with angry articles about the push for an international boycott of Israel. Films have been withdrawn from Israeli film festivals, Leonard Cohen is under fire around the world for his decision to perform in Tel Aviv, and Oxfam has severed ties with a celebrity spokesperson, a British actress who also endorses cosmetics produced in the occupied territories. Clearly, the campaign to use the kind of tactics that helped put an end to the practice of apartheid in South Africa is gaining many followers around the world.

Not surprisingly, many Israelis -- even peaceniks -- aren't signing on. A global boycott can't help but contain echoes of anti-Semitism. It also brings up questions of a double standard (why not boycott China for its egregious violations of human rights?) and the seemingly contradictory position of approving a boycott of one's own nation.

It is indeed not a simple matter for me as an Israeli citizen to call on foreign governments, regional authorities, international social movements, faith-based organizations, unions and citizens to suspend cooperation with Israel. But today, as I watch my two boys playing in the yard, I am convinced that it is the only way that Israel can be saved from itself.

I say this because Israel has reached a historic crossroads, and times of crisis call for dramatic measures. I say this as a Jew who has chosen to raise his children in Israel, who has been a member of the Israeli peace camp for almost 30 years and who is deeply anxious about the country's future.

The most accurate way to describe Israel today is as an apartheid state. For more than 42 years, Israel has controlled the land between the Jordan Valley and the Mediterranean Sea. Within this region about 6 million Jews and close to 5 million Palestinians reside. Out of this population, 3.5 million Palestinians and almost half a million Jews live in the areas Israel occupied in 1967, and yet while these two groups live in the same area, they are subjected to totally different legal systems. The Palestinians are stateless and lack many of the most basic human rights. By sharp contrast, all Jews -- whether they live in the occupied territories or in Israel -- are citizens of the state of Israel.

The question that keeps me up at night, both as a parent and as a citizen, is how to ensure that my two children as well as the children of my Palestinian neighbors do not grow up in an apartheid regime.

There are only two moral ways of achieving this goal.

The first is the one-state solution: offering citizenship to all Palestinians and thus establishing a bi-national democracy within the entire area controlled by Israel. Given the demographics, this would amount to the demise of Israel as a Jewish state; for most Israeli Jews, it is anathema.

The second means of ending our apartheid is through the two-state solution, which entails Israel's withdrawal to the pre-1967 borders (with possible one-for-one land swaps), the division of Jerusalem, and a recognition of the Palestinian right of return with the stipulation that only a limited number of the 4.5 million Palestinian refugees would be allowed to return to Israel, while the rest can return to the new Palestinian state.

Geographically, the one-state solution appears much more feasible because Jews and Palestinians are already totally enmeshed; indeed, "on the ground," the one-state solution (in an apartheid manifestation) is a reality.

Ideologically, the two-state solution is more realistic because fewer than 1% of Jews and only a minority of Palestinians support binationalism.

For now, despite the concrete difficulties, it makes more sense to alter the geographic realities than the ideological ones. If at some future date the two peoples decide to share a state, they can do so, but currently this is not something they want.

So if the two-state solution is the way to stop the apartheid state, then how does one achieve this goal?

I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer. Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers. The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren't citizens and lack basic services. The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right.

It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure. The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.

I consequently have decided to support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement that was launched by Palestinian activists in July 2005 and has since garnered widespread support around the globe. The objective is to ensure that Israel respects its obligations under international law and that Palestinians are granted the right to self-determination.

In Bilbao, Spain, in 2008, a coalition of organizations from all over the world formulated the 10-point Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign meant to pressure Israel in a "gradual, sustainable manner that is sensitive to context and capacity." For example, the effort begins with sanctions on and divestment from Israeli firms operating in the occupied territories, followed by actions against those that help sustain and reinforce the occupation in a visible manner. Along similar lines, artists who come to Israel in order to draw attention to the occupation are welcome, while those who just want to perform are not.

Nothing else has worked. Putting massive international pressure on Israel is the only way to guarantee that the next generation of Israelis and Palestinians -- my two boys included -- does not grow up in an apartheid regime.

Neve Gordon is the author of "Israel's Occupation" and teaches politics at Ben-Gurion University in Beersheba, Israel.

Copyright © 2009, The Los Angeles Times

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