Why Boycott Israel?

Why Boycott Israel?

Excerpt:
Author and history professor Mark LeVine speaks with sociologist Lisa Taraki, a co-founder of the Palestinian campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel.
Mark LeVine: What is the "Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions" movement and how is it related to the academic and cultural boycott movement? How have both evolved in the past few years in terms of their goals and methods?

Lisa Taraki: The BDS movement can be summed up as the struggle against Israeli colonisation, occupation and apartheid. BDS is a rights-based strategy to be pursued until Israel meets its obligation to recognise the Palestinian people's inalienable right to self-determination and complies with the requirements of international law.

Within this framework, the academic and cultural boycott of Israel has gained considerable ground in the seven years since the launching of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and Cultural Boycott of Israel (PACBI) in 2004. The goals of the academic and cultural boycott call, as the aims of the Palestinian Civil Society Call for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions issued in 2005, have remained consistent: to end the colonisation of Palestinian lands occupied in 1967; to ensure full equality of Palestinian citizens of Israel and end the system of racial discrimination; and to realise the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.

The logic of the BDS movement has also remained consistent. The basic logic of BDS is the logic of pressure, not diplomacy, persuasion, or dialogue. Diplomacy as a strategy for achieving Palestinian rights has proven to be futile, due to the protection and immunity Israel enjoys from hegemonic world powers and those in their orbit.
Second, the logic of persuasion has also shown its bankruptcy, since no amount of "education" of Israelis about the horrors of occupation and other forms of oppression seems to have turned the tide. Dialogue between Palestinians and Israelis, which remains very popular among Israeli liberals and Western foundations and governments that fund the activities, has also failed miserably. Dialogue is often framed in terms of "two sides to the story", in the sense that each side must understand the pain, anguish, and suffering of the other, and to accept the narrative of the other.
This presents the "two sides" as if they were equally culpable, and deliberately avoids acknowledgment of the basic coloniser-colonised relationship. Dialogue does not promote change, but rather reinforces the status quo, and in fact is mainly in the interest of the Israeli side of the dialogue, since it makes Israelis feel that they are doing something while in fact they are not. The logic of BDS is the logic of pressure. And that pressure has been amplifying.

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Netanyahu and the one-state solution

Netanyahu and the one-state solution - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
Excerpt:

At this new intersection, there are two signs. The first points
towards the west and reads "viable and just two-state solution", while
the second one points eastward and reads "power sharing".

The first sign is informed by years of political negotiations (from
the Madrid conference in 1991, through Oslo, Camp David, Taba, and
Annapolis) alongside the publication of different initiatives (from the Geneva Initiative and the Saudi Plan
to the Nussaiba and Ayalon Plan), all of which have clarified what it
would take to reach a peace settlement based on the two-state solution.
It entails three central components:

1. Israel's full withdrawal to the 1967
border, with possible one-for-one land swaps so that ultimately the
total amount of land that was occupied will be returned.

2. Jerusalem's division according to the
1967 borders, with certain land swaps to guarantee that each side has
control over its own religious sites and large neighbourhoods. Both
these clauses entail the dismantlement of Israeli settlements and the
return of the Jewish settlers to Israel.

3. The acknowledgement of the right of
return of all Palestinians, but with the following stipulation: while
all Palestinians will be able to return to the fledgling Palestinian
state, only a limited number agreed upon by the two sides will be
allowed to return to Israel; those who cannot exercise this right or,
alternatively, choose not to, will receive full compensation.

Israel's continued unwillingness to fully support these three
components is rapidly leading to the annulment of the two-state option
and, as a result, is leaving open only one possible future direction:
power sharing.

The notion of power sharing would entail the preservation of the
existing borders, from the Jordan valley to the Mediterranean Sea, and
an agreed upon form of a power sharing government led by Israeli Jews
and Palestinians, and based on the liberal democracy model of the
separation of powers. It also entails a parity of esteem - namely, the
idea that each side respects the other side's identity and ethos,
including language, culture and religion. This, to put it simply, is the
bi-national one-state solution.

Many Palestinians have come to realise that even though they are
currently under occupation, Israel's rejectionist stance will
unwittingly lead to the bi-national solution. And while Netanyahu is
still miles behind the current juncture, it is high time for a Jewish
Israeli and Jewish American Awakening, one that will force their
respective leaders to support a viable democratic future for the Jews
and Palestinians living between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean
Sea. One that will bring an end to the violent conflict.

The rights of Israel

The rights of Israel - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
Excerpt:

The Israeli-Palestinian negotiations, now entering their twentieth
year had been hailed from the start as historic, having inaugurated a
"peace process" that would resolve what is commonly referred to as the
"Palestinian-Israeli conflict". For the Palestinians and the
international community, represented by the United Nations and the
myriad resolutions its Security Council and General Assembly issued
since 1948, what was to be negotiated were the colonisation of land, the
occupation of territory and population, and the laws that stipulate
ethnic and religious discrimination in Israel, which, among other
things, bar Palestinian refugees from returning to their land and
confiscate their property. In their struggle against these Israeli
practises, Palestinian leaders, whether in Israel, the Occupied
Territories, or the diaspora, have always invoked these rights based on
international law and UN resolutions, which Israel has consistently
refused to implement or abide by since 1948. Thus for the Palestinians,
armed by the UN and international law, the negotiations were precisely
aimed to end colonisation, occupation, and discrimination.

On the other hand, one of the strongest and persistent arguments that
the Zionist movement and Israel have deployed since 1948 in defence of
the establishment of Israel and its subsequent policies is the
invocation of the rights of Israel, which are not based on international
law or UN resolutions. This is a crucial distinction to be made between
the Palestinian and Israeli claims to possession of "rights." While the
Palestinians invoke rights that are internationally recognised, Israel
invokes rights that are solely recognised at the national level by the
Israeli state itself. For Zionism, this was a novel mode of
argumentation as, in deploying it, Israel invokes not only juridical
principles but also moral ones.

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Israeli soldiers open fire on Palestinian protesters marking Nakba Day

Palestinians killed in 'Nakba' clashes - Middle East - Al Jazeera English
Several people have been killed and scores others wounded in the Gaza
Strip, Golan Heights, Ras Maroun in Lebanon and the Israeli-occupied
West Bank, as Palestinians mark the "Nakba", or day of "catastrophe".

The Nakba is how Palestinians refer to the 1948 founding of the state
of Israel, when an estimated 700,000 Palestinians fled or were expelled
following Israel's declaration of statehood....

Israel's new laws promote repression

Israel's new laws promote repression - Opinion - Al Jazeera English
Excerpt:

There is a clear logic underlying this spate of new laws; namely, the Israeli government's decision to criminalise alternate political ideologies, such as the idea that Israel should be a democracy for all its citizens.

Hence, one witnesses an inverse trend - as the Arab citizens in the region struggle for more openness and indeed democracy, toppling dictators and pressuring governments to make significant liberal reforms, the Israeli book of laws is being rewritten so as to undercut democratic values.

Israelis celebrating the state's 63rd birthday should closely examine the pro-democracy movements in Tahrir, Deraa and across the Arab world. They might very well learn a thing or two.