This is a rough translation of a conversation I recently overheard in a German restaurant:
B: I don’t see the connection.
A: What don’t you see? Look at them. Look at Bubis. All his money. He owns the whole of Frankfurt. Where did he get the money?
B: Isn’t that somewhat superficial?
A: the fact is that Jews now own everything in Frankfurt.
I received quite a few emails commenting on my last blog, (Why do some Israelis call the world to boycott Israel?) Some of them questioned the efficacy of a boycott. The point I tried to raise was not the effectiveness and efficiency of boycotts. What I am interested in is:
2. Is it legitimate to do as Dr. Neve Gordon has done and “attack” one’s own country abroad?
Uri Avnery, the seasoned and well-respected Israeli left-wing politician and publicist, advocates not a general boycott on the State of Israel but rather a specific boycott on the product of Israeli settlements in the Occupied Territories.
He writes: “Some 11 years ago, the Gush Shalom movement, in which I am active, called for a boycott of the product of the settlements. Its intention was to separate the settlers from the Israeli public, and to show that there are two kinds of Israelis. The boycott was designed to strengthen those Israelis who oppose the occupation, without becoming anti-Israeli or anti-Semitic.” See LINK
This is also the thinking behind last week's decision by the Norwegian government to divest from an Israeli company (Elbit) because of their involvement with the “Separation Fence” that is being built on Palestinian land.
In an open letter published by the Los Angeles Times, Dr. Neve Gordon, a senior lecturer at the Ben Gurion University in Beer-Sheba, called on the world to boycott Israel: “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.”
Anat Matar, a colleague at the Tel Aviv University, came out in his support: “…only when the Israeli society’s well-heeled strata pay a real price for the continuous occupation will they finally take genuine steps to put an end to it.”
The general reaction in Israel, however, was uproar. Ben Gurion University’s President stated that Gordon’s remarks were “…an abuse [of] the freedom of speech prevailing in Israel and at the Ben Gurion University”. Moreover, they were “irresponsible and morally reprehensible”. She also suggested: “Academics who entertain such resentment toward their country are welcome to consider another professional and personal home.”
Not only right-wing Israelis are uncomfortable with calls such as Gordon’s or Matar’s. Gordon admits, “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?)”
Jewish history is a long story of the successful Christian drive at marginalising Jews and Judaism. When that came to an end after the Holocaust, Arab countries started to systematically boycott Israel. For many years they successfully blackmailed their European and other trade partners into boycotting the newly founded Jewish State.
These were boycotts stemming from hatred of Jews and a wish to get rid of them and later from a concerted and clearly stated Arab wish to eliminate the Jewish State of Israel. This hope is still very much a fact of life.
However, when Gordon calls for external pressure he does so as an Israeli patriot and out of love of his country. Gordon, Matar and many other Israelis who pray and hope that the new US administration will force Israel to get out of the Occupied Territories do not hate Israel; they love their country and want it to thrive. They just hate the grossly immoral condition Israel has deteriorated into over the last forty years. To change that, they call for a boycott.
Gordon suggests pressure be placed in a “gradual sustainable manner that is sensitive to context and capacity” and talks of “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.”
Is that wrong?
Saturday was the opening night of the Salzburg Festival. They performed an opera I had never heard, not even heard of before – Handel’s Theodora. The rather repetitive music is quite beautiful and pacifying to listen to. But, the music often does not convey the drama of the opera’s storyline. It was beautifully performed with splendid soloists and a wonderful choir.
I am not a music critic and the reason I am posting this story is a Salzburg phenomenon that has always amused me. Whenever one goes to opening nights or premieres at the Salzburg Festival, the narrow road in front of the Festival hall is full of local onlookers who stand to await the so called VIPs and admire them. This time, the most important guest was the President of Portugal. His car, accordingly, was marked “VIP 1”.
Most of the popular applause, however, is not directed at the foreign dignitary but at B list media celebrities. An aging German talk show host named Gottschalk traipses up and down together with his wife to the joy of dozens of press photographers and the street shouts in jubilation. Not seen last night was Bianca Jagger, the Salzburg regular, famed divorcee of the aging rock star Mick Jagger. The likes of her or of Gloria von Thurn and Taxis regularly bring out the Salzburg hordes.
Steve, my personal trainer, told me that he would only read my blog if I would write about the Tour de France. As eager as I am to widen my readership - what can I say about the Tour de France?
In a recent article in the Washington Post, disgraced and currently-under-police-investigations-for-corruption Ehud Olmert, Israel’s former Prime Minister, opined that the “United States' focus on freezing construction in the West Bank [is] an impediment to the Middle East peace process.”
Olmert calls for settlement construction to “be taken off the public agenda and moved to a discrete dialogue, as in the past… allow us to deal with the essential issues: the political process; preventing Iran's attempt to obtain nuclear weapons; eliminating Islamic extremist terrorism...”
The good news is that Israel is a democracy. That – is also the bad news.
The Central Committee of German Catholics, through their joint working group of Catholics and Jews, has recently produced a pamphlet calling for the Christian mission to convert Jews to Christianity to be abolished.
This German effort comes in the wake of last year’s decision of Pope Benedict XVI to bring back the Easter prayer’s old text. Many Jews were angered by the Church’s return to “Let us also pray for the Jews: That our God and Lord may illuminate their hearts, that they acknowledge that Jesus Christ is the Saviour of all men.” Some called for a freeze on Jewish-Catholic dialogue.
But, let us face it: according to their faith, for the whole of mankind to acknowledge that Christ is the Saviour is exactly what Christians should hope for.
