BDS Panel at Brooklyn College Draws Crowd: Detractors Humiliated

Judith Butler began her February 7 talk at Brooklyn College in support of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel by saying, “Usually one starts by saying that one is glad to be here, but I cannot say that it has been a pleasure anticipating this event. What a Megillah! I am, of course, glad that the event was not cancelled, and I understand that it took a great deal of courage and a steadfast embrace of principle for this event to happen at all.”

In response to the public furor of last week, the Mayor of New York spoke out in defense of Brooklyn College.

Bloomberg said he “couldn’t disagree more violently” with the BDS movement, but “if you want to go to a university where the government decides what kind of subjects are fit for discussion, I suggest you apply to a school in North Korea.”

“The last thing we need is for members of our City Council or State Legislature to be micromanaging the kinds of programs that our public universities run and base funding decisions on the political views of professors,” said the mayor. “I can’t think of anything that would be more destructive to a university and its students.”

Bloomberg’s decisive words effectively ended the New York City Council’s campaign against Brooklyn College for holding the Students for Justice in Palestine event.

Political Science teacher at Brooklyn College Robin Corey reported delightedly: “Now that the mayor, the New York Times, and just about everyone else have come down hard on all the government officials and politicians who tried to force my department to withdraw its co-sponsorship of the BDS panel, the “progressive” politicians have issued a second letter to Brooklyn College President Karen Gould, in which they backpedal, backpedal, backpedal pull back from their earlier position. No longer, it seems, must we “balance” this panel or withdraw our co-sponsorship.”

BC Philosophy professor Samir Chopra sighs, “That it took a billionaire mayor to explain these simple matters to our progressive leaders is, well, what can one say?”

“While it was gratifying to see Dershowitz forced into retreat it is important not to exaggerate Bloomberg's role,” writes commentator John Halle.

“Some of those targeted by Dershowitz turned out to be experienced organizers and more than a little media savvy, deluging the twitter accounts of the officials, demanding answers from them and circulating via facebook a petition which quickly received over 2,500 signatures. Within days those local officeholders concerned with maintaining their reputations among their liberal constituents withdrew their names from the Fidler letter clearing the way for Bloomberg and the Times to issue ringing endorsements of academic freedom. And so what began as a potential fiasco ended as an inspiring lesson in grassroots organizing.”

As the instigator of the threats against Brooklyn College, Alan Dershowitz found himself at the brunt of not only mockery but the public shredding of his arguments.

Opined fellow New York attorney David Samel on Mondoweiss: “People often comment that Dershowitz is a clown who does not deserve the time and effort to discredit him. I could not disagree more... His brazen hypocrisy and serial dishonesty should be challenged regularly.”

“The outside agitators, like Alan Dershowitz, did us a favor. If they hadn’t tried to shut it down with City Council members, it would have been just another ho-hum event on campus,” said Jane Hirschmann, a member of Jews Say No (to occupation).

As a result of all the publicity, the panel discussion between Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti drew hundreds to the audience, filling the room to capacity, with more people turned away.

Butler exclaimed, “I thought it would be very much like other events I have attended, a conversation with a few dozen student activists in the basement of a student center.”

Gail Sheehy reported in the Daily Beast that “the forum went off without a single hateful word. At most, 100 protesters stood across from the Student Center... Police, out in force, were confined to directing traffic.”

BDS, the largest pro-Palestine civil movement, states three goals: end the occupation, end apartheid, and guarantee the right of return of Palestinians to their homeland. When Barghouti characterized the Israeli apartheid as more brutal than what American blacks went through before Martin Luther King Jr., he received a standing ovation.

Chemi Shalev reports in Haaretz, Israel: “Overzealous Israel defenders used a five-megaton bomb to swat a fly, and it blew up in our faces...The result of all of this surfeit and excess was a clear-cut, perhaps unprecedented PR coup for BDS and a humiliating defeat for Israel’s interests... the “pro-Israel camp” found itself, not for the first time, portrayed not only as heavy handed but a bit unhinged as well.”

Shalev concludes that “far too much of the public discourse on Israel has been dominated and dictated by super-conservatives and ultra-nationalists and the billionaires who fund them... who view any measured or nuanced debate about Israel as treason, who are hell bent on making their observation that liberals are turning away from Israel into a self-fulfilling prophecy... and will eventually erode the genuine bedrock of support that Israel enjoys in America.”

Professor Chopra is not so sure. “The pressure brought on Brooklyn College from the outside was an attempt to regulate discourse on campus. And in that, I fear it has succeeded in many ways. For one, this event does not make the controversial panel discussion on campus more likely. It makes it more unlikely. Which department or university administration wants to go through this fiasco again?”

This author does not share Chopra’s pessimism. For decades, BDS and other Palestine Solidarity groups have been kicked off campuses around the US due to angry threats from pro-Israel activists. The academic attack on Brooklyn College is standard. What is new is that the administration remained strong and refused to cancel the event.

Meanwhile, Gaza farmers are renewing a call for boycott of Israel to protest the destruction of their land and property as well as the 2006 Israeli ban on Palestinian exports, which devastated Palestinian agriculture, reports Electronic Intifada.

Palestinian farmers joined together with protesters Saturday to plant olive trees on Israeli-razed farmland and to implore international supporters to join the boycott of Israeli agricultural produce. They say the boycott is the “only hope for justice for Palestinian farmers being targeted by the Israeli army and oppressed by Israel.”

“We hope that it will put pressure on Israel to stop targeting us and allow us to farm our land as we used to.”

NY Students Prevail

Students who organize Palestine Solidarity events on US campuses have come to expect pro-Israel groups to bully and threaten the university administration in an effort to cancel their student activities, whether they are educational workshops or poetry readings.

But pro-Israel advocates crossed a line this month when they pressured Brooklyn College to cancel an event co-sponsored by Students for Justice in Palestine and Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP). The crusade against the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions Movement (BDS), led by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) along with torture advocate Alan Dershowitz, was so heavy handed that it provoked an international discussion on academic freedom in America.

Perhaps due to the worldwide attention, the college has (so far) refused to cancel the event scheduled for February 7, in which leading Palestinian rights activist Omar Barghouti and Jewish scholar Judith Butler are to discuss Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS). 

“As with many similar events, the Brooklyn College event is under attack, based on completely unfounded allegations of anti-Semitism. The truth is, boycott, divestment and sanctions are non-violent tools with a long history of being used by civil society to make social change, notably in the struggle against Apartheid in South Africa and the civil rights movement here in the United States. In no way can it be construed as anti-Semitic,” reads a statement by Jewish Voices for Peace (JVP). 

Glenn Greenwald writes in the Guardian UK that “the ugly lynch mob now assembled against Brooklyn College and its academic event is all too familiar in the US when it comes to criticism of and activism against Israeli government policy… But this controversy has now significantly escalated in seriousness because numerous New York City elected officials have insinuated themselves into this debate by trying to dictate to the school’s professors what type of events they are and are not permitted to hold.” 

Al-Awda New York reports: “At first, the demand from Dershowitz and a handful of city politicians urged the Brooklyn College political science department to rescind its co-sponsorship. Now, Lewis Fidler, Assistant Majority Leader of the NYC Council, and several other members of the City Council are threatening to pull Brooklyn College’s funding unless the school cancels or condemns the event.”

“Imagine being elected to public office and then deciding to use your time and influence to interfere in the decisions of academics about the types of campus events they want to sponsor. Does anyone have trouble seeing how inappropriate it is – how dangerous it is – to have politicians demanding that professors only sponsor events that are politically palatable to those officials? If you decide to pursue political power, you have no business trying to use your authority to pressure, cajole or manipulate college professors regarding what speakers they can invite to speak on campus,” writes Greenwald.

According to Al-Awda, students all along the West Coast currently face similar censorship attempts. “Students for Justice in Palestine and Muslim Student Association chapters in the large University of California system are being subjected to systematic silencing and intimidation at the local, statewide, and national level. Lobbying by well-funded pro-Israel groups has led to biased “campus climate” reports, a  California State assembly bill, and spurious federal complaints (leading to prolonged investigations); all deliberately and falsely conflating legitimate criticism of Israel with anti-Jewishness.”

According to their website, the US Department of Commerce Bureau of Industry and Security is “charged with administering and enforcing the Antiboycott Laws under the Export Administration Act of 1979. Those laws discourage, and in some circumstances, prohibit U.S. companies from furthering or supporting the boycott of Israel sponsored by the Arab League, and certain Moslem countries, including complying with certain requests for information designed to verify compliance with the boycott.” 

“Conduct that may be penalized include agreements to refuse or actual refusal to do business with or in Israel or with blacklisted companies, and agreements to furnish or actual furnishing of information about business relationships with or in Israel or with blacklisted companies… The penalties imposed for each “knowing” violation can be a fine of up to $50,000 or five times the value of the exports involved, whichever is greater, and imprisonment of up to five years. During periods when the EAR are continued in effect by an Executive Order issued pursuant to the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, the criminal penalties for each “willful” violation can be a fine of up to $50,000 and imprisonment for up to ten years.”

It certainly would seem to change the game, however, if a US company is being urged to boycott Israel by fellow Americans, not just by the Arab League. It may be time to change the law. At this point, however, the controversy is just about the right to discuss boycotting Israel! 

Ambassador Chas Freeman in his remarks to the December 2012 Jubilee Conference of the Council on Foreign and Defense Policy talked about Israeli Hasbara and the control of narrative as an element of strategy. Freeman stated that manipulation of information is an essential element of modern warfare:

“In politics, perception is reality. Narratives legitimize some perceptions and delegitimize others. Narratives can be drawn upon to reinforce stereotypes by imposing favorable or pejorative labels on information and its sources. Such labels predispose recipients of information to accept some things as credible, to disbelieve others, and to regard still others as so tainted or implausible that they can and should be ruled out of order and ignored.” This approach “seeks actively to inculcate canons of political correctness in domestic and foreign media and audiences that will promote self-censorship by them.”

What we are seeing now is that pro-Israel Hasbara has lost its effect on people. It used to be that even just meekly asking why Jews support Israel would result in the cruel and sudden loss of childhood friends, but these techniques are no longer working. Students no longer feel ashamed or afraid of discussing Israel’s brutality against the Palestinian population. It still happens that people who advocate for Palestine are attacked, verbally or otherwise. But now, they are instantly embraced by a warm group of supporters who urge them to continue speaking. 

“We pledge to continue our organizing on campus, to highlight the Israeli oppression of Palestinians, and to support and elevate the voices of Palestinian organizers and liberation movements. We will continue to educate, engage students, and mount campaigns using the non-violent tactic of boycott, divestment and sanctions. Despite the threats of powerful figures, we vow to continue to demand justice for Palestine,” pledged the National Students for Justice in Palestine.

Should We Boycott Israeli Art?

Sarah Gillespie started an interesting debate on deliberation.info with her article, “The BDS Cultural Boycott and Integrity.” BDS stands for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel. She opposes the call by the BDS to sabotage or ban any mode of expression delivered by state-enforced Israeli artists, musicians and thinkers because “art has the capacity to transcend the binary world of ‘placard politics’ (‘for’ this or ‘against’ that) and deliver the transforming might of pathos, spirit, sadness and beauty… We should boycott Israeli products, not art, spirit and ideas.”

While I share her reservations about why only Israeli-born Zionists are being boycotted, the inevitable ethical inconsistencies that arise in trying to avoid supporting any type of organized violence, especially when that would include boycotting one’s own country, and the funding by George Soros of the BDS movement, I disagree with her that “Art” is something that should never be boycotted.

Art is a luxury product. Jewish gift stores give a lot of legitimacy to Israel’s folk narrative by selling Israeli made handicrafts and clothes. People who shop there are usually buying those products in order to help support the financial existence of illegal settlers in Occupied Palestine.

Likewise, the Israeli government purposely promotes Israeli artists and musicians, considering them ambassadors for the legitimization of the Zionist State of Israel. The Shakespeare play shown in London, which Gillespie opposed boycotting, was not only funded by the State of Israel but was rewritten in order to generate more sympathy for the Jewish character, transforming it into a standard work of propaganda.

Boycotters make exceptions for those Jewish Israelis who are openly opposing Zionism, yet it would be ridiculous not to assume that all Israelis who are selling us products whether art or plastic storage boxes are participating in Zionism. In any case, they are paying taxes to the Israeli government and are at the very least in that way participating in genocide.

If we apply the same morals to Jews as we do to others, all Jews as a group, if they do not consciously defect from the Zionist racist movement, are guilty of participating in Zionist aggression, preventing public comment, or letting racist violence happen without comment.

It is quite standard to revile an artist or academic if he has ever been a member of any other racist organization.

For example, mainstream media consistently refers to former Congressman David Duke without his Doctor title as a way of belittling him, even though he has claimed that the KKK in his town was nothing more than a neighborhood organization. Nobody starts jumping up and down fuming at the mouth when someone condemns or boycotts a former member of the KKK, insisting, “But not all KKK members are violent!” Most people simply accept that the KKK is a purveyor of racist violence and try to avoid supporting it, even indirectly.

Yet we are asked to distinguish carefully between a non-violent Zionist and Zionism as a movement, even though all Israelis are required to serve in the Israeli military and are thus guilty of participating in organized crime.

The question of whether or not boycotting a theater production would ever end the Israeli state needs to be looked at in context of the American Jewish lobby. Any Palestinian poet who tried to book a show in New Jersey would automatically find himself canceled and playing outside the cafe in the street due to a deluge of angry phone calls from Zionist Jews, even if his poster had a picture of a dove on it.

It would probably be wise for more Americans to become similarly aggressive about getting Zionist performances cancelled. That way, the theater will learn to either avoid all controversial performances OR they will be forced to adopt a more balanced approach (for example showing both Palestinian and Israeli art productions). What happens when only Jews protest, the Jews get what they want while others just stew.

It is impossible to boycott entirely a country in which you live, but you can still make wisest choices about how to spend your money. I would only encourage a foreigner to spend money on American artists if I knew for sure that this artist’s world view supported something that person could morally accept. Paintings are a dime a dozen. If all you want is a pretty picture, frame a calendar photo. You should buy a painting because you are supporting a revolutionary movement – you want to give money to a particular artist because you want them to continue in their struggle for truth and beauty.

There are Israeli musicians and writers I support because they are outspoken anti-Zionists. But if some random Israeli musician was playing at my children’s elementary school I would oppose it, because that would be giving a public message that Israelis are cute and cuddly, that we should bond with them emotionally and give them our tax dollars and feel sorry for them because they are such good musicians.

The main idea behind a boycott is to delegitimize the fake Zionist narrative. There were a couple kids in my elementary school whose parents forbade them to participate in Israeli folk dances and it made long lasting impressions on their fellow students. At first we did not understand why these students opposed Israel, but eventually we figured it out.

One can only imagine with trepidation a world where no one ever spoke truth in the face of power and privilege.