Because according to Jacob Weisberg, Newsweek columnist, “The very idea is repellent.”
Really? Let’s listen to some of what he has to say:
If you follow the news closely enough, you might have caught a small item recently noting that Meg Ryan had canceled a scheduled appearance at a film festival in Jerusalem to protest Israeli policy. This was significant not because anyone should care what the nose-crinkling movie star thinks about the Mideast but precisely because no one does. Ryan, a conventional Hollywood Democrat, is a barometer of celebrity politics. Her sort of sheeplike, liberal opinion once reflexively favored Israel. Now it’s dabbling in the repellent idea of shunning the entire country.
Support for the Israeli cultural boycott has been growing in surprising places lately. After the Gaza flotilla incident in June, rock bands including the Pixies canceled performances at a music festival in Tel Aviv. Elvis Costello announced in May that he was canceling two upcoming performances to protest the treatment of Palestinians. Unlike Ryan, Costello is a thoughtful person whose views are worthy of respect. So why, exactly, do I think he’s wrong, too? Why is a private embargo–which includes an academic boycott and the push for divestment on the anti-apartheid model–an unacceptable way for outsiders to protest Israeli treatment of Palestinians?
One argument is that academic boycotts are intrinsically unacceptable because they violate the principles of free expression and the universality of science and learning. A parallel objection applies to cultural boycotts, which directly target the most forward-thinking members of a society. In the case of Israel, shunning writers like Amos Oz and David Grossman, who serve as national consciences, seems not only intrinsically vile but actively counterproductive. On the other hand, it would be hard to justify a blanket rule that cultural and academic sectors are always off-limits. In authoritarian societies, cultural institutions do tend to become ideological proxies–think of the National Ballet in Cuba, or the East German gymnastics team.
It won’t work? So why is the Israeli Kenesset passing legislation that would criminalize boycott efforts inside of Israel and the West Bank?
Let’s see. Did Weisberg even begin to mention the reasons why boycotting Israel is justified, like the 43 year long military occupation of the Palestinians, whose sole purpose it is to colonize—well, let’s be frank about it—steal their lands, which continues today? And what about the atrocities perpetuated by Israel against the Palestinians, like the massacre of 1,400 mostly civilians in Gaza recently, including over 300 innocent children? Let’s not even mention the past 60 years. And what about the suppression of non-violent protests, including the deaths of protesters as well as the arrest of its leadership, the so-called Gandhis of Palestine, who are are jailed interminably. Not a word.
Instead, what we get from Weisberg is a repetition of Israeli propaganda talking points (could have been out of GIYUS or even StandWithUs): that “supporters of this boycott seldom focus on China or Syria or Zimbabwe–or other genuinely illegitimate regimes that systematically violate human rights,” and “because Israel is a refuge for Jews persecuted everywhere else, this kind of existential challenge is hard to disassociate from anti-Semitism.”
It’s those old defenses: why us and criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic!
Even though we finally get an admission from Weisberg that cultural and sports boycotts against South African Apartheid were effective, somehow Israel is not South Africa. It is a democracy. Well so was South Africa, and so was America when it supported slavery and then Jim Crow segregation for a hundred years.
Weisberg is just not convincing.
