Tag Archives: Politics of Israel

Desmond Tutu calls for divestment; some thoughts

Deutsch: Desmond Tutu beim Evangelischen Kirch...

Desmond Tutu writes a passionate call for American divestment in Israel. He gives me some food for thought on BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions), and on my role as an Israeli in the struggle for a just peace.

Justice requires action to stop subjugation of Palestinians

Desmond Tutu, TampaBay.com

A quarter-century ago I barnstormed around the United States encouraging Americans, particularly students, to press for divestment from South Africa. Today, regrettably, the time has come for similar action to force an end to Israel’s long-standing occupation of Palestinian territory and refusal to extend equal rights to Palestinian citizens who suffer from some 35 discriminatory laws.

I have reached this conclusion slowly and painfully. I am aware that many of our Jewish brothers and sisters who were so instrumental in the fight against South African apartheid are not yet ready to reckon with the apartheid nature of Israel and its current government. And I am enormously concerned that raising this issue will cause heartache to some in the Jewish community with whom I have worked closely and successfully for decades. But I cannot ignore the Palestinian suffering I have witnessed, nor the voices of those courageous Jews troubled by Israel’s discriminatory course.

 Continue reading on the Tampa Bay Times »

I’m not entirely sure what I think about the Palestinian BDS campaign.

Continue reading Desmond Tutu calls for divestment; some thoughts

Gideon Levy: “After 115 years, it’s time for Zionism to retire”

Gideon Levy suggests Zionism should be retired. (Ha’aretz)

After 115 years, it’s time for Zionism to retire

The national liberation movement’s time came and went. Now we have a state. Neither good citizenship nor misdeeds have anything to do with Zionism anymore.

[…]

Zionism’s way has been lost to us. That was inevitable, because it has completed its task. Once the State of Israel arose and became a national home nearly at the retirement age of the movement that engendered it, once it became established, strong and powerful, and brutal and impervious, its flag should have been folded, stored in the repositories of history as a souvenir, and Zionism should no longer have its name taken in vain. The old order of Zionism is over and the campaign over the character and appearance of the state should begin, as happens in every healthy state.

[…]

Read the whole thing on Ha’aretz.com »

( Original Hebrew » )

 

A modest proposal: debate arguments, not motives

Accusing the other side in a debate of a hidden agenda never gets us anywhere.  So let’s just not.

In the Israel/Palestine debate, there’s a trap that both sides fall into, repeatedly – and I’m no exception – which makes it more of a mud-slinging event than a discussion.  In a nutshell, the trap is claiming the other side has a hidden agenda.

I propose we all try to avoid this trap, for everyone’s sake.  To make that possible, let’s take a quick look at what it is, and how to avoid it. Continue reading A modest proposal: debate arguments, not motives

Words cannot express this shame

I have been wavering between the brink of rage and the verge of tears since I got up this morning. Basic details on Ynet; more info on +972.

May each of the 37 “parliamentarians” who voted for this thing die slowly, and alone. Preferably of thirst, in the desert.1

 

Footnotes

  1. Note: I am strongly opposed to any action intended to cause any person to die in such a manner, and this is not to be interpreted as incitement to murder. It is merely that I would find it a fitting fate if they were to suffer that way, especially if they had nobody to blame for it but themselves. []

Some more thoughts on exclusion, BDS and the housing protests

I got two comments on yesterday’s post via Twitter:

https://twitter.com/AnnaGaius/status/103504033813245952

I have some more thoughts on this.

I

The strategy of exclusion, of which BDS is one example, is a tricky thing. It is effective when the excluder is (potentially) stronger than the excluded, on some dimension. International BDS is an effective strategy because it can actually hurt Israel: it can deprive Israel of services (such as a European-made tram system), entertainment, and a general feeling of legitimacy and business-as-usual. Boycotting products of the settlements within Israel is the same thing again on a smaller scale: if many in the Israeli market boycott settlement products, Israeli factories in the West Bank move back into Israel, and it’s no more business-as-usual. For a European boycott of the settlements to have an effect you would hardly need a couple percent of the European market to adhere to it. But would the EU care if the settlers decided to boycott all European products? Even if all 300-odd thousand of them strictly adhered to the boycott, it would hardly register, never mind causing some shift in EU policy.

II

Although the housing protests are the strongest thing we’ve ever seen in Israel, garnering more support than any political party could ever dream of, it would be foolish to assume that this strength is of the same kind as the EU or US’s economic and political power, which makes BDS effective. The housing protest is strong only because it has managed so far not to step on anyone’s toes too hard. In Israel, that is an astounding achievement. If a prominent part of the protest movement1 should pick a fight with the people of Ariel for the sake of total BDS, the movement’s strength may very well dwindle rapidly. The movement may even splinter. The movement boycotting Ariel would quickly become meaningless because not all tent cities would accept the boycott and it would suddenly just be a few isolated left-leaning groups going on about the settlements as usual.

III

When all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail. BDS is an impressive and important tool, but it is not the only tool, certainly not the only tool available to Israelis who have the time and energy for political activity. The housing protests have to navigate the many illogical and contradictory conceptions prevailing in Israeli societies, and despite a majority opposing the settlements (in polls, at least), it is also a mainstream idea that Ariel is practically part of Israel and here to stay. (This stems from people not bothering to look at maps [PDF] or thinking these things through. Ariel has absolutely got to go in a two-state solution.)

Total inclusiveness, even of ideological settlers, drunks and lunatics, is probably the only way this movement can survive.2

IV

The fact that some so-called “leaders” of the movement fail to speak out against the occupation does not mean the movement ignores the issue or enables it. Actual discussions in the tent cities often turn to the occupation, and this movement has given the Israeli left more sympathy and more people willing to listen than anything else since at least the mid-nineties. But this too is different from one tent city to another, and it’s very hard to tell what the movement as a whole thinks. I doubt the movement as a whole agrees on anything except that the cost of living and the inequalities within Israeli society are unacceptable.

V

This movement is surprisingly open to criticism. Simply finding excuses to write it off and attack all those who support it will not get your issue addressed. If you think the movement should take a stand regarding the settlements, you have to either go to its assemblies or at least write something that actually tries to convince them. As Max probably knows, it takes a lot of explaining to get typical Israelis to even begin to understand BDS. Don’t take it for granted and just attack this whole decentralized thing for not following the methods you support. Engage the people involved in action and decision-making. You might even convince j14.org.il to list settlements separately from Israel proper if you actually try.

VI

I should note that despite my disagreement with Max, I’m sick of exclusion being the only kosher leftist tactic, and will continue to consider him an all-round good guy (as I consider other opponents of the West Bank apartheid). I will also continue to follow his blog and Twitter feed and list him on this site’s list of links. (I’m doing this as a favor to myself; I know nobody really cares who I like, follow or link to.)

Footnotes

  1. j14.org.il is just a part of the movement – it is a decentralized uprising with no real center, leadership, or hierarchy, despite what the press may say []
  2. As far as I know, the only thing excluded is exclusionary messages: when extreme racist settlers showed up on Rothschild, they were eventually kicked out for having shirts reading “Tel-Aviv for Jews [only]” and other exclusionary slogans. The only thing that’s not tolerated is open intolerance. []

A response to Max Blumenthal: Social justice for all, even settlers, is a good start

A neighbourhood in Ariel.
As much as settlements may remind of us of evil death robots, they are nonetheless home to human beings, many of whom are victims as well as criminals. (Image via Wikipedia)

Max Blumenthal has been raging against the official inclusion of the massive, strategically placed settlement of Ariel in the #J14 housing protest movement. (See Max’s Sunday post and Twitter stream.) I have to strongly disagree with his position, and I would argue that social justice for all, even the settlers, is a good goal and a good start.

I should preface this by saying that I’ve been following Max’s blog for months and this is the first time I ever strongly disagree with him; I think Max is an excellent journalist and activist and I believe we share many core values. I also agree with his assessment that the settlements, Ariel in particular, are unacceptable on multiple levels: they are built on stolen land, make people’s lives miserable (to put it mildly), and have done much to intensify and prolong the conflict.

However, the fact that the residents of Ariel are part of a horrendous crime does not mean they are not the victims of the Israeli socio-economic and political system along with the rest of us. No doubt, any person who knowingly makes the choice to move there is making themselves part of the occupation. But the fact that the settlements have grown so slowly despite massive government support, and the fact that only about a third of the West Bank settlers are ideological, tells me that the West Bank is hardly anyone’s first choice for location. Since stolen land tends to be the cheapest kind, especially when it’s also subsidized, there has always been a strong economic incentive to move to the settlements. The people who end up making that choice are people who, like the rest of us, were not able to achieve the standard of living they aspired towards, but made a dubious choice (one supported by many vocal members of society and government.)

Let me be clear: nothing can justify the choice to be part of the colossal crime of the settlements. But making that wrong choice does not make a person or their family less of a victim.1

But making this about the wrongs perpetrated or perpetuated by different parts of Israeli society is the wrong way to go. I’d say it plays right into Netanyahu’s hands, and goes along perfectly with the economic and social system of Israel, pitting sectors of the populations against one another. If Netanyahu had his way, J14 would exclude the settlers (alienating big parts of the right), it would exclude non-Jews (alienating big parts of the left) and it would be almost entirely a movement of spoiled young Ashkenazis whose parents and grandparents were part of the old elite (alienating almost everyone else). With that kind of movement, Netanyahu could just sit tight and wait for it to blow over.

But since the movement is radically inclusive – going both against mainstream prejudice (e.g. that the Arabs are not part of this society) and the prejudice of many activists (e.g. that all settlers are the enemy) – it is able to actually achieve something, and so far has not made an enemy of any major sector of society. Only the government and some far-right nationalists seem strongly against the whole thing. And this openness is undermining vital underpinnings of the occupation – whether J14 acknowledges the connection or not.

How? First and foremost, it has ended the prevailing apathy in much of society and made it possible to discuss almost anything. People are very publicly talking about racism, the division of resources, even the use of “security” to silence social movements, and many people are actually listening. This won’t end the occupation tomorrow or in a month, but then nothing else could, either. In the longer run, it sets the stage for major changes to happen, and we may find many more people willing to listen than we did before. The movement  seems to be redefining “left” and “right” so that for many people, being a “leftie” isn’t the absolute worst possible thing ever anymore.

Moreover, the movement’s focus on the division of resources will make it very difficult for future governments to act as if the settlements are the only part of the country worth their attention (as this government sometimes has). The movement may well work against the interests of the settlement movement while at the same time working in the interests of individual settlers. These interests are not identical.

Finally, with general welfare now at the center of the public agenda, and general disillusionment about the government’s narrative, many people will be reminded of how peace is in their own interest and refuse to buy excuses for maintaining the current line of policy.

I think it is unrealistic to expect immediate solutions from J14 – whether for social issues or political ones. There’s a lot of work ahead and absolutely nobody can predict how things will go. But looking for excuses to distance oneself from J14 plays only into the hands of the status quo.2

Footnotes

  1. In the same way, the generation that started this country was both victim and perpetrator, and the two do not cancel each other out — the victimhood does not cancel out the atrocities as the right would have it, and the atrocities do not cancel out the victimhood as some in the far left would have it. []
  2. And anyone who doesn’t see their position or background represented in the movement should stop whining, go out and make their voice heard. The only thing stopping you is you! []

Money, politics, and the ideologies I’ve gone through

So, I’ve been thinking a lot about economics. Now, with tent camp protests across Israel and a 40,000-person march over the price of housing just a few days past, I find myself getting involved in discussions of free market vs. socialism on a very concrete level, and I’m guessing there will only be more of these. I’d like to tell you a little about the different positions I’ve held on these matters, and to try to figure out where I stand now. I haven’t read all that much, I could be much more knowledgeable than I am, and wish I were, but somehow I’ve managed to go through quite a lot of ideologies since middle school.

The first time I recall taking a stance on free market vs. socialism was in the eighth grade, when I made friends with a ninth-grader who was in the Israeli Communist Youth Alliance. I went to their meetings for a while and remember arguing for the ideal of “from each according to their ability, to each according to their need”, which seemed like a very nice idea. Then at some point I had an epiphany that in practice, this would require going against human nature, as it takes away the fruit of people’s labor.

I don’t really know what my point of view was after that happend; these matters probably weren’t very central to me at the time, but I just don’t really remember. I do remember that I started getting a more libertarian perspective as I got involved with democratic education. I suppose I could have been described as a left libertarian, but I thought of myself as a social democrat.

Then, at eighteen, I read a book arguing for libertarianism, and became a libertarian. And a few months later, I read a couple of texts leaning towards anarchism, in particular T. A. Z.: The Temporary Autonomous Zone, and became a sort of anarchist. Very quickly, however, I acknowledged the limited applicability of anarchism in the reality around us today, and became what might be called a realistic anarchist, which is basically someone who is an anarchist at heart but doesn’t do much about it.

That must have been the point where I stopped paying attention to the economic side of things, which is unfortunate because it was also the time when I was probably first able to grasp the way that side of things works. I quickly slid into a kind of apathetic agnosticism about the whole thing, no longer calling myself an anarchist. I always stayed committed to personal freedom when it came to opinion and behavior, but for years now I have been unable to truly pick a side on the free market vs. socialism debate. I do believe that free-market capitalism is a highly effective and “smart” method of allocating resources. But there are two principal problems: that we never start with a flat playing-field, and that money brings along political influence.

It’s worth noting that every single socio-economical or political ideology seems to commit itself to some kind of idealized concept of the citizenry. Libertarianism assumes people are empowered, independent, and generally rational. Capitalism tends to assume the same. Communism assumes the people are committed to the joint effort. I think each of these systems does work well when the assumption is met. It’s just very unusual that it is.

In the case of free-market capitalism, I can imagine it being quite perfect if the playing-field were flat; if everyone were more-or-less equally rich, equally empowered, equally able to make an informed decision, obviously there would be no need for a welfare state. Everyone would be free to do what they want, with money just as with anything else. Nobody would have to be a loser. But this is an imaginary scenario we are never likely to encounter in real life.

When you combine this with the second problem, you have a real problem for libertarianism or free-market capitalism. In every present or past polity I can think of, money has been able to influence politics.

Sticking just to democracies for now, the influence of money on politics seems almost inevitable. Donations are only the most obvious part. The media is a more tricky aspect – those with big money can directly influence public opinion, and there’s no reason to expect this would always be done in an equal and balanced way, under any system. The result is quite simply that my opinion is less influential than that of a multi-millionaire, because my opinion can only reach people I know and people who read my blog, but I cannot easily get it into print media, onto large mainstream websites, or onto physical advertising of any kind. (Yes, I could afford a small print ad, but nothing major that’s likely to reach a whole lot of people, and not in a sustained campaign of any sort.)

So since we start with a tilted playing-field, our free-market economy ensures that the democracy is tilted towards those who start off with more resources. It seems to me that while laws might limit the tilt to a degree, they cannot eliminate it. Money is needed for effective political action, so political interests with moneyed supporters inevitably have an edge on the competition.

That’s more or less where my thoughts are now. I hate the idea of limiting people’s right to do what they want with what they work for and what they own, but I hate even more the idea of politics helping those who need help least urgently. Moreover, any system that creates and maintains social classes full of people who are essentially condemned to be losers is not the kind of system I want to be in.1 And when we look at Israel, we see a place where there are remarkably many people who are extremely rich, but far more people who are incredibly poor. And public policy does not seem to be able to alleviate their hardship, nor even make a reasonable standard of living and independence accessible for middle-class twenty-somethings.

Like it or not, the government is deeply involved in directing the flow of money in Israeli society, as in most if not all modern democracies. Whether or not this is ideal, it seems clear to me that we should be demanding that the government tilt the economy towards those who need most help, not those who need the least. In recent years, especially under Netanyahu, it seems to be doing its best to allow the rich to get yet richer, while the poor grow poorer and more numerous. (And those who think the income gap is only a problem for the poor, maybe inform yourself about effects it has on crime rates and the spread of epidemics.)

Footnotes

  1. Before someone comes and tells me that even the poor can work their way out of poverty, let me preempt: yes, individually they can, but in practice being born into poverty makes it very likely you will never feel you have the power to change the situation you live in for the better. You will also likely have neither the connections, nor the education or the background to climb the social ladder. While some individuals do manage to do it, it’s quite telling that those born into poverty tend to stay in it, and this tells me it’s a systemic problem, not the individuals’ own fault. []

[Video] Elizabeth Lesser: Take “the Other” to lunch

This excellent TED talk goes along the lines of what I’ve been thinking lately regarding Israeli politics and Israel/Palestine politics. Talking to the other sides is crucial in all conflicts, on whatever scale, internal or external — in a school, in a town, in a state, or between states. “Otherizing”, as Lesser calls it, is the seed of continued conflict and violence.

Interesting times…

A lot is going on on the Israel/Palestine front in the last few days… Unfortunately I’m a bit bogged down with schoolwork and work, so don’t expect long screeds from me before the end of next week (when classes are over, though not the exams)…

Just a few interesting links for the moment.

“The Gaza Flotilla Inquiry: Afloat in a sea of whitewash”

Sunday, +972 Mag

Roi Maor going over some of the failings of Turkel Commission’s “investigation” of the Gaza siege and the attack of the Mavi Marmara; even information within the report, not to mention public announcements by officials, starkly contradict the Committee’s “conclusions”.

A kick in the Israeli Left’s collective behind [Hebrew]

Monday night, Friends of George

Itamar Sha’altiel is rightly pissed off at the Left’s decidedly lame reaction to the Palestine Papers, their decidedly lame reaction to everything else going on, and their decidedly lame habit of lamely reacting to everything — not to mention their preoccupation with stealing votes from one another rather than focussing on winning the public back from the Right. The Right, he points out, has mastered the steering of public discussion to the point that even their legislation of late seems mainly part of that manipulation. Meanwhile, the Left shows off its socially progressive legislative record, instead of asking the pointed questions that beg to be asked of those in power.

A truly inspiring rant of rage.

“The leaders got it all wrong: Palestinian view on Palestine Papers”

Today (Tuesday), +972 blog (guest post)

Maath Musleh discusses some of failings of the West Bank leadership (perhaps “ruling elite” would be a better word?), as well as Hamas, surrounding the Palestine Papers. The piece also points out that mere peace is not the end-goal:

What Abbas and his peers don’t understand is that peace is not the target. If peace was the target, then the Palestinians could have just left and handed over their land to the Israelis. There you go – no more war.

But this is not about peace. It is about rights and dignity. Of course everyone wants peace. But peace is not just an absence of war. Peace is a state of being, in which people have their rights and dignity. It’s a state of being whereby no one infringes on anyone’s rights. For the Palestinians, the state of peace is what will be when the occupation ends and the refugees have their rights and dignity.

I’ll leave you with that for now, and turn to doing the work I’m paid to do. (Case in point: putting together bibliography databases for the Baure Documentation Project.)

…and five hundred reasons for pessimism

For those allergic to optimism, there’s also the Slippery Slope blog (Heb / Eng), where bad news about Israeli government and society is dilligently aggregated day after day. It’s not much for cheer, but it keeps you well-informed. (There are exactly 500 posts in the English version so far, and more in the original Hebrew.)

I will be occasionally translating for the Slippery Slope.