Published time: 25 May, 2019
05:53
Edited time: 25 May, 2019
11:03
Israeli criticism of the
Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) campaign is somewhat justified, but those
who won’t equally blast the apartheid politics of the state of Israel have no
moral high ground from which to preach.
First off, a confession. I’ve
always had a problem with the BDS movement which promotes various forms of
embargoes against Israel until it meets its obligations under international law
(which are withdrawal from the occupied territories, removal of the separation
barrier in the West Bank and full equality for Arab-Palestinian citizens of
Israel).
While I fully support these
goals, my reluctance towards BDS was based on two main reasons. One, in the
current situation when anti-Semitism really is alive in Europe, it’s dangerous
to play with the idea of blacklisting. Two, why should we not also boycott
China for what the Chinese state is doing to Uyghurs?
Of course, the cynical
response from my BDS friends is that such tactics would not work on China but
may work against Israel. But are they for real? Such reasoning implies weird
ethics: punish the relatively weak, not the really bad.
Here is an example of the
excess of BDS. When, a couple of years ago, I visited the Jerusalem film
festival to promote the pro-Palestinian film of my friend Udi Aloni, I was
attacked for participating in an Israeli state sponsored event.
A BDS fanatic asked me if I
was aware how my visit to Jerusalem was the same as journeying to Berlin in
1938? Indeed, there was even an ‘open letter’ circulating on the web which
criticized me for accepting the invitation.
My reply was: the visit was
paid by myself and Udi and I was presented by Udi as his personal quest, not
the festival’s guest. Plus if we leave aside the problematic nature of the
parallel between Jerusalem and the Nazi Berlin, yes, if I were to be invited to
Berlin in 1938 to promote a film celebrating Jewish resistance to the Nazis, I
would have gladly accepted it. Not that Hitler’s regime would have allowed it,
naturally.
Resistance reasoning
However, when, in May 2019,
the German Bundestag passed a non-binding resolution declaring BDS
anti-Semitic, alarm bells began to ring. Because the idea of BDS being
anti-Semitic is questionable.
For instance, all my links to
BDS are through Jewish friends who are part of it, and this was the idea from
the beginning: a joint action of West bank Palestinians with Israeli Jews who
oppose the occupation of the West Bank.
Thus, quite obviously,
something else is going on here: an obscene and diabolical pact between
Zionists and true European racists. As a consequence, the sacred memory of the
Holocaust is being mobilized to legitimize the corrupted politics of today: the
apartheid practiced against Palestinians. And it’s those who do it who are the
true desecrators of the Holocaust.
The privileged role of Jews in
the establishment of the sphere of the “public use of reason” hinges on their
subtraction from every state power. It’s this position of the “part of no-part”
of every organic nation state community, not the abstract-universal nature of
their monotheism, which makes them the immediate embodiment of universality.
So, it’s no wonder, then,
that, with the establishment of the Jewish nation state, a new type of Jewish
person emerged. A Jewish person resisting identification with the state of
Israel, and refusing to accept the state of Israel as his true home. Best
described as a Jew who “subtracts” himself from this state, and who includes
the state of Israel among the states towards which he insists on maintaining a
distance.
And it’s this uncanny Jew who
is the object of what one cannot but designate as “Zionist anti-Semitism,” the
foreign excess disturbing the nation state community. These Jews, the “Jews of
the Jews themselves,” worthy successors of Spinoza, are today the only Jews who
continue to insist on the “public use of reason,” refusing to submit their
reasoning to the “private” domain of the nation state.
This paradox of Zionist
anti-Semitism enables us also to solve another enigma: how can US Christian
fundamentalists, who are by their nature anti-Semitic, now passionately support
the Zionist policy of the state of Israel? There is only one solution to this
enigma: it is not that the US fundamentalists changed, it is that Zionism
itself, in its hatred of the Jews who do not fully identify with the politics
of the state of Israel, paradoxically became anti-Semitic, i.e., they
constructed the figure of Jews who doubt the Zionist project along the
anti-Semitic lines.
If you want further proof of
this, remember how just before the last Israeli elections, on March 19, a
campaign advert was released in which Ayelet Shaked, the right-wing justice
minister, moving in slow motion, appears to be modeling for a luxury perfume.
The perfume bottle label reads
“Fascism,” and while Shaked sprays herself with it, the narrator’s voice is
heard: “Judiciary revolution. Reducing activism. Appointment of judges.
Governance. Separation of authorities. Restraining of the Supreme Court.”
Finally the minister breaks the fourth wall and addresses directly the camera,
saying: “Smells like democracy to me.”
The (rather clumsy) irony of
the ad is clear: Shaked’s left-liberal critics attack her for (what they
perceive as) the fascist elements in her program (and in the measures enforced
by her ministry). But in her reply to these critics, she ironically assumes the
term ‘fascist,’ while the voice lists her actual measures which are democratic.
Although Shaked tried to
overcome Netanyahu from the right, Netanyahu took the same path in his
statements on Instagram where, after asserting that all citizens of Israel,
including Arabs, had equal rights, he added: “Israel is not a state of all its
citizens.” This referred to the controversial law passed last year declaring
Israel to be the nation state of the Jewish people.
Yet, we would come closer to
truth if we simply turned Shaked’s ad on its head – she instead sprays herself
with a perfume called “democracy” while a narrator enumerates her achievements:
the apartheid system with second-class citizens, leaving more than a million of
Palestinians in a legal limbo, bombings of civilians… and then a passer-by (not
Shaked herself) comments: “Smells like Fascism to me.”
The true political goal of the
ongoing campaign against BDS is to legitimize the stance shared by Shaked and
Netanyahu. Our answer to all those who support this campaign should thus be:
those who are not ready to criticize the apartheid politics of the state of
Israel should also keep silent about the possible excesses of BDS.
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