This past week, Penn students held a three day conference on the BDS movement. The conference had been preceded by coverage from the local Jewish community pro-Israel newspaper and the Penn student newspaper which was not only antagonistic and unbalanced, but specifically, a professor penned an op Ed accusing BDS supporters of being “kapos.”

Not surprisingly, the BDS event organizers were a tad sensitive about who would be reporting from these media outlets. They ultimately decided to refuse access to the event for the Exponent’s reporter and a far-right pro-Israel filmmaker. Personally, I think they made a mistake. I would’ve negotiated with the Exponent for an op ed by a Penn faculty member who supported BDS in return for allowing a hostile reporter to have access. If the newspaper refused, then let them slam BDS while you point out how unfair they were in refusing to allow you to present your point of view in the newspaper.

It should e noted that The Exponent’s former editor, Jonathan Tobin, now graces the editorial masthead at Commentary. So the Exponent is certainly no exemplar of diversity on the question of coverage related to Israel or BDS.

Jane Eisner, the Forward’s managing editor decided to pile on, writing an editorial criticizing the decision to bar the reporter, as an infringement on free speech. This is wrong for all sorts of reasons. One, because the pro-Israel media has a monopoly on access to the mainstream community through it’s media outlets. That means that they present their slanted version of BDS to their readers without allowing the BDS movement to portray itself in their pages. If anyone is repressing free speech and the diversity of debate it is the Exponent and Forward.

But even more important is the fact that the Israel Lobby routinely restricts media access to reporters it doesn’t like at events they host. Aipac provided press credentials to The Guardian’s Chris McGreal to cover it’s 2007 national conference. When McGreal arrived to pick up his credentials and registration packet, he was not only denied access, but Josh Block, Aipac’s then PR capo di tutti, had the reporter frog-marched out of the hall escorted by security guards. I reported this story in my blog at the time and in the Guardian’s Comment is Free. But The Forward never took up the matter. Somehow, when the BDS movement stifles the press it’s newsworthy, but when Josh Block and Aipac do it they get a pass.

Further, if Jane Eisner wants to talk about freedom of speech in the media, she should look in the mirror. I, for example am blackballed from appearing there. How do I know? Let’s just say a little birdie told me. My crime? Criticizing The Forward’s decision to take Republican Jewish Coalition ads in 2008 which accused Barack Obama of being racist. You see some journalists can be very thin skinned about criticism. Which is ironic because those same editors refuse to allow activists to be equally thin-skinned about critical coverage.

Mao, who himself didn’t brook much dissent, said “let a thousand flowers bloom.”. Why can’t we in the Jewish community do at least as well?

Israeli minister Yuli Edelstein (l.) & Standwithus' Avi Posnick (r.) at Park Slope food coop patrolling Brooklyn's mean streets

 …We shall defend our island, whatever the cost may be. We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills; we shall never surrender, and if, which I do not for a moment believe, this island or a large part of it were subjugated and starving, then our Empire beyond the seas…would carry on the struggle…

–Winston Churchill

Edelstein "buys Israel"

The residents of upscale Park Slope (Brooklyn) will no doubt feel reassured that Israel’s Hasbara Minister, Yuli Edelstein, traveled all the way from the State of the Jews to defend the good citizens from the depredations of the BDS movement seeking to turn the neighborhood’s food coop into a Judenrein bastion of the Delegitimizers.

Readers of this blog will know that the Israeli government, its U.S.-based diplomatic personnel, and its water-carriers in this country, Standwithus, have joined in a lawfare-style campaign to harass and intimidate the Olympia food coop, which endorsed BDS a few months ago and removed nine Israeli products from its shelves.  Channel 10′s Tzinor Layla interviewed deputy foreign minister Danny Ayalon about the lawsuit and he confirmed that it was part of a concerted campaign by the government to fight BDS even if it meant taking American companies to court to do so.  SWU’s website even documented the effort to target Olympia and Park Slope and any other company that dared to entertain thoughts of divesting their shelves of Israeli products.  In the Pacific NW the SWU campaign is directed by the Israeli consul general, Akiva Tor and SWU director, Rob Jacobs.

In Park Slope, the SWU operative is Avi Posnick.  He is a Long Island native and Yeshiva University graduate who rose through the SWU campus program.  He seems to derive from the Orthodox Jewish community’s pro-Israel nationalist nexus.

Though an article in the local JTNews here in Seattle intimated that in the Olympia lawsuit the complainants were being represented pro bono, Ayalon’s interview statements inferred that either the government was funding the lawyer’s fees or it was helping to arrange for those fees to be paid by related parties (possibly wealthy American Jewish pro-Israel donors).

Why was Yuli Edelstein walking Park Slope’s mean streets seeking out anti-Israel villains to combat?  Because the food coop offered (but did not sponsor) its facilities for a program, Images of Palestine, about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.  SWU no doubt got wind of the program from anti-BDS coop members patrolling the organization’s bulletin boards and website for any hint of delegitimization.

Palestinian activist Phan Nguyen received this e-mail from a coop member who attended the education program:

“Afterwards a crowd of men formed a circle and chatted with Barbara Mazor [a prominent anti-BDS person at the Co-op].  Most but not all were in business suits & yarmulkes [and] had not attended our talk.  At peak, there were 15 people in a sidewalk clump outside the coop.  After chatting happily and amicably for nearly an hour, several of them broke off and piled into a scary new black SUV with a driver, followed by a late-model black sedan with two security types in it.  When asked who the VIP was, one of the remaining men on the sidewalk first joked that it was ‘your man, Barack Obama,’ and refused to say more.  But eventually another of them claimed convincingly that the VIP was ‘somebody from the embassy,’ which I assume means the consulate.”

Actually, the intimidating crowd was composed of Israel’s Minister of Hasbara, Yuli Edelstein, an ultra-nationalist settler and Standwithus’ local director, Avi Posnick.  They knew what others residents of Park Slope could barely discern, that if you didn’t fight this evil on the beaches, in the hills and alleys and on the stoops in a house-by-house campaign to rid your neighborhood, you would fall down a slippery slope into the clutches of the Israel haters and delegitimizers.

Barbar Mazor knows this.  That’s why, no doubt, if there is ever a vote in favor of BDS at the food coop, she and Avi Posnick will join together with New York’s Israeli consul general to sue the coop for having the unmitigated chutzpah to express their political opinions about the Israeli Occupation.  She’s such a pro-Israel groupie, and so impressed by her brush with greatness that she entitled her post about the encounter, The Minister and Me.

The Jewish Forward recently profiled SWU on its 10th anniversary and noted that if it receives any direct funding from the Israeli government it should be registering as a foreign agent under the Foreign Agents Act.  Of course, it hasn’t done so.  But whether or not there is direct financial funding, the two entities are virtually joined at the hip.  There is virtually no difference or separation between the two.  This is an issue that requires further research.

Haaretz’s trusty government stenographer, Barak Ravid, recounted the event inaccurately in an article recently:

One example is the story of “Park Slope Food Co-op,” a Jewish supermarket located in Brooklyn, situated in one of the most “Jewish” areas in the United States. Every week, hundreds of pro-Palestinian activists assemble near the entrance, where one can purchase Israeli goods such as Bamba, Milky, and hummus, and call for a general boycott of the store.

As Phan notes in his e-mail to me, there’s nothing “Jewish” about the coop since it’s open to membership for anyone, even an Arab or, God forbid, a Palestinian.  Yes, Park Slope is considered a Jewish neighborhood though it is quite a diverse place whose residents run the gamut of almost all ethnic groups living in New York City.  ”Hundreds” of pro-Palestinian activists” don’t assemble at the site ever.  Rather, a few members distribute flyers on an irregular basis.  No one is calling for a boycott of the store.  In fact, since only members can shop there, it would be foolish for members to support a boycott of their own store.  Finally, Bamba and Milky are not sold at the coop and hummus, contrary to Ravid’s and Edelstein’s rather insular viewpoint, are not “Israeli goods.”  Someone should tell Barak there’s nothing like a little good old-fashioned reporter’s shoe leather to do a bit of work and check the information offered you by your government sources with actual members of the food coop who can confirm or deny your sources’ claims.  No doubt Ravid doesn’t care whether his reporting has any credibility among people who really know what he’s talking about.  But a good reporter would.  What does that make Ravid?

Edelstein’s efforts were part of the Israeli government’s “Buy Israel Week” festivities.  Imagine an Israeli minister comes all the way to our shores to ensure that we Americans know to do what we’re supposed to do–buy Israel.  Edelstein doesn’t visit businesses like aerospace or high-tech where there’s real commercial prospects to sell Israeli products.  Instead he’s visiting supermarkets to make sure we can still buy Israeli hummus.  Don’t know about you, but as a Jew and someone who cares about Israel, it warms the cockles of my heart that there’s some Israeli out there doing this sort of dirty work for us.  Raymond Chandler would be proud to know that down these mean streets of Brooklyn walks an Israeli:

“…Who is not himself mean, who is neither tarnished nor afraid. He is the hero, he is everything. He must be a complete man and a common man and yet an unusual man. He must be, to use a rather weathered phrase, a man of honor, by instinct, by inevitability, without thought of it, and certainly without saying it. He must be the best man in his world and a good enough man for any world.”

I know that in my heart of hearts Yuli Edelstein is such a man.  Don’t you?

Related articles

• Settlers are excluded (sort of) from hasbara campaign on college campuses (mondoweiss.net)

Captain Barak Raz, Hasbara Ministry acknowledged he was one of Israel's 'chief delegitimzers'

In the aftermath of the murder of Mustafa Tamimi, Israel’s Ministry of Hasbara (that IS what they call it in Hebrew, in English it’s called the Minsitry for Public Diplomacy) last night issued an unprecedented statement acknowleding for the first time that the worst delegitimzer of Israel in the world today is not the BDS movement, nor the New Israel Fund, nor even Iran.  The worst delegitimizer is the IDF itself.

The Ministry pointed to the fact that an army Twitterperson (yes, they do have such an IDF job assignment and the skills necessary for the job entitle him to his high rank), Captain Barak Raz tweeted several times in effect blaming Tamimi for his own death.  Raz pointed out that Tamimi had a slingshot in his pocket when he was murdered and that he had been arrested in 2010 for inciting violence.

Minister Yuli Edelstein, despite the fact that he is himself an ultra-nationalist settler, apparently had had enough of the IDF’s flagrant disregard for human life (yes, he even conceded that Palestinians were a form of human life) and released this statement:

In this day and age, when Israel finds enemies practically in every nook and cranny of our world, when the BDS movement attempts to block the sale of hummus, one of Israel’s most critical exports, to the Park Slope food coop; and attempts to block the performance of a rock group deemed essential to maintaining the sanity of all Israelis, the Red Hot Chili Peppers; when the New Israel Fund whispers in Judge Goldstone’s ear sweet nothings about Israeli war crimes–to have the IDF fire a tear gas canister at point blank range and kill an unarmed Palestinian is just too much to bear.

Can’t we allow our real enemies to delegitimize us without doing their work for them?  Please IDF, if you want to kill Palestinians at least do it off camera next time.

Signed,

Yuli Edelstein
Minister, Settler, Israeli Legitimizer, Hummus Lover

The assault on academic freedom on Israeli campuses continues apace with a slimy report in Yediot Achronot which brays about a review of the department of politics and government at Ben Gurion University.  The committee appointed by the Israeli Council for Higher Education recommended closing the department for its so-called “extreme leftist tendency” if it didn’t mend the errors its ways.

The report, as portrayed in the article, seems astonishing in a number of ways (Dahlia Scheindlin has written about it here).  First, its contents seem heavily influenced by student evaluations of the program.  While student opinion should perhaps be a factor in such an evaluation, it should be a minor one at best since there are far more important factors in determining the quality of program.  But one thing the large amount of student input tells us is that the committee collaborated in ways large or small with Im Tirzu and other pro-Zionist academic advocacy groups which have been on the warpath regarding Ben Gurion in general and this program in particular.

I’ve written here about the University president’s invitation to faculty member Neve Gordon, to quit the school after he wrote a Los Angeles Times calling supporting the BDS movement.  Shortly after this controversy, the department responded to her high-handed tactics by appointing him its chair.  Now, it appears some in the University, Im Tirtzu and the Israeli far-right are taking the battle to a new venue.

Here are some of the real doozies in the Yediot article:

The department is known to have no small number of researchers with extreme leftist tendencies, who have expressed controversial views.

Among the views they featured were Neve Gordon’s supposed comments (and “radical ones” at that) during a class, that Gilad Shalit’s capture was not an act of terror, but rather a military attack.  Another faculty member, Danny Filk, organized official University meetings at which Im Tirzu claims only those from the “left camp” were permitted to address the gathering.

Another issue that bothered the committee was the faculty’s lack of care in making clear to students what their personal political views were in the course of classroom teaching.  Apparently, it believes that students aren’t able to distinguish between a professor’s politics and the course subject matter.  Nor did the reviewers like at all the supposed emphasis faculty made on political activism, which would distract from the serious pursuit of scholarly research.  They also claim that teachers do not represent a diverse set of views in their classrooms, but rather tend to present their own views and omit those conflicting with them.

Prof. Galia Golan, a member of the committee, disputed its findings, saying that the claim that the professors inserted their own views too prominently into the curriculum violated the fundamental value of academic freedom.

Scheindlin, in her 972Magazine post asked how could they know what ideas or values were espoused by professors in class when all of them, except for Golan, neither spoke nor read Hebrew.  Did they have classroom presentations translated for them into their native languages so they could evaluate?

She points out another coincidence: Education minister Gideon Saar is the chair of the Israeli Council on Higher Education and a devout supporter of Im Tirzu.  Could it be possible that the appointment of the committee was done at the behest of the minister and his friends in the far-right Israeli group?

The current department chair, Prof. Filk, dismissed the committee’s findings as a political witch hunt and noted that it was the most popular of its kind in any Israeli university.  He also noted that the evidence offered in the report was often faulty and simply wrong.  A senior member of the faculty went event farther:

This was an outside committee a portion of whose members have pronounced extreme right-wing views that created a reported fundamentally flawed.  Theirs is a political report whose agenda was to damage the department through exploitation of outside extremist groups [like Im Tirzu].

Prof. Carmi defended the department from charges that it wasn’t focussed enough on the traditional elements of the political science discipline by saying that this was precisely the mission of its program: to see the academic field from non-conventional, non-traditional viewpoints. This is why the faculty includes a medical doctor and architect among its members.

The truth is that for years now Im Tirzu and rightist Israeli academics have had it in for both the University and this department claiming it isn’t sufficiently “Zionist.”  That because it entertains views critical of Zionism or, God forbid, even anti-Zionist, that it departs from the national consensus.  Therefore a call for shutting down the program is music to their ears.  But as Galia Golan noted in her demurral, there is an even more important issue here: the critical need to support free inquiry and academic freedom.  In presenting their subjects to students and the wider world, they must do so in ways that are true to their own sense of themselves as academics and researchers.  They must not be pressured to present a certain point of view to the exclusion of others.

Yesterday, the Olympia Food Coop finally announced its legal representation and strategy regarding the lawsuit filed against it by Stand With Us in collaboration with the State of Israel and its Pacific NW consul, Akiva Tor.  Though the suit argued that the organization violated its bylaws in approving a BDS measure which excluded nine Israeli products from its shelves, the measure was meant to intimidate all U.S. businesses which attempt to pursue such policies.

The Food Coop, represented by the Center for Constitutional Rights and local counsel, Davis Wright Tremaine, have filed an Anti-SLAPP motion arguing that the lawsuit is a frivolous measure designed to impede the organization’s right to take a position on an important political issue of the day, that is also directly to its business (that is, refusing to carry Israeli food products as an expression of opposition to Israeli Occupation):

“We hope the court will strike down this effort to silence the Co-op’s principled stand on Israel’s human rights violations,” said Maria LaHood, Senior Staff Attorney with the Center for Constitutional Rights.  “Allegations that the Co-op Board acted beyond its power are a thinly-veiled attempt to stop concerned citizens from using a nonviolent and historical tool for social change.”

The group’s local counsel also made a statement defending the Coop board:

“This lawsuit, which seeks to penalize local citizens for exercising their rights as Board members to express views on Israel and the problems in the Middle East, presents a fundamental First Amendment issue,” said Bruce E.H. Johnson of Davis Wright Tremaine LLP, who drafted Washington State’s Anti-SLAPP law. “Our nation was born in the middle of a boycott of British goods, and boycotts have played an important role over the centuries in our system of freedom of expression, whether the subject is segregation on the Montgomery municipal bus system, lettuce picked by non-union labor, or apartheid in South Africa,” he added.

Until now, the Food Coop has been beset with false reporting by JTNews regarding the nature of the lawsuit and the figures pursuing it.  My expectation is that now, it will be able to vigorously defend and explain itself to the world.

I’ve reported here previously that Danny Ayalon, Israel’s deputy foreign minister acknowledged in an Israeli TV interview that his government was directly supporting such anti-BDS campaigns, implying the MFA was either directly funding the lawsuits or

The lawyer’s representing the Food Coop have released public statement (a synopsis of the case is here).  Olympia BDS has also published its own press release.

As someone similarly harassed by a libel suit, my attorneys attempted to use the California anti-SLAPP provision to strike that suit.  Our initially successful efforts were overturned by the Court of Appeal and we eventually won our case through a long, complicated and expensive (to my law firm, which represented me pro bono) trial.  My hope is that the current case can be disposed of without such waste of effort, energy and resources.  Clearly, the Israeli government and its SWU handmaidens seek to use the tools of lawfare to tie up their opponents in useless court procedures as punishment for speaking their minds on a matter of public import.

Cecilie Surasky: one Jew too hot (politically) for the Jewish federations to handle

Several days ago, the Jewish Federations of North America unceremoniously and without explanation dumped Cecilie Surasky from it’s  Jewish Heroes competition, where she was running neck and neck with Chabad Rabbi Manis Friedman, whose claim to fame is that he told Moment Magazine he supported the killing of Palestinian civilians in war.

JTA now provides a justification for JFNA’s inexplicable behavior. A staff member explained, though this is nowhere specified in the online page devoted to the rules for the competition, that the poll is meant to support Israel and since JVP allegedly supports BDS, that makes Cecilie treif:

“A central value of The Jewish Federations of North America is to support Israel, and the Jewish Heroes rules preclude us from accepting any nominees whose aims run counter to that mission,” Joe Berkofsky, the Federations’ managing director of communications, said in a statement.

“Our Israel Action Network is working to challenge the boycott, sanctions and divestment movement and other efforts to isolate and weaken the Jewish state. We cannot therefore support a group that seeks to harm Israel through its support for BDS.”

Here are the rules as specified on the Heroes website:

…This is our opportunity to celebrate the individuals who dedicate their lives to helping others…

We encourage you to nominate Heroes from all walks of life—the neighbor running nonprofit bake sales, a volunteer who serves the elderly at a local retirement home, a teacher building a school for the underserved, the community organizer bringing people together.

The essential criteria [for winning] will be:

• The nominee shows exceptional qualities and commitment in line with the mission of The Jewish Federations of North America, strengthening the Jewish community, and the ideals of tikkun olam.
• The nominee complies with the rules of the Jewish Community Heroes campaign.

Nothing about BDS.  Nothing about Israel.  Nothing about any political issue.  As far as the rules are concerned it’s an open competition.

So the JFNA statement offered to JTA is a nice bit of ex post facto hocus pocus, which is unworthy of any fair or reputable non profit organization. In fact, if she’s up for it I’d urge Cecilie to consider convening a Beit Din to adjudicate her complaint. It’s outrageous to prepare rules for a competition, and when something undesirable happens you change the rules in the midst of the voting.

In fact, what this PR flack is arguing is that there is an additional layer of unstated rules to which the candidates and competition have to adhere, that is, the Federation’s values (themselves unstated) which support Israel and oppose BDS.

I have stopped giving to my local Jewish federation for various reasons that are more economic than philosophical. But this schande doesn’t persuade me to change my mind.

One thing that does shock me is that no one has nominated any one from Stand With Us. Doesn’t the Jewish community believe that the group is doing heroic work on Israel’s behalf?

There are two good candidates in the running who I’ve voted for and would recommend. Though perhaps saying this publicly may even get my individual vote disqualified. They are Max Blumenthal and Rabbi Stuart Light.  The Republican Jewish Coalition has gotten wind of this and will likely torpedo Max’s candidacy as well.  I guess Cecilie and Max can’t be Jewish heroes in the insular world of Jewish federations.  Yet another reason why the organized Jewish community is rendering itself increasingly irrelevant.

A warning is also in order, voting in the Heroes competition will automatically add you to its mailing list.  There seems no option for opting out of it, which seems annoying.

Yesterday, I used Cecilie’s treatment at the hands of JFNA as a perfect example of how the affiliated Jewish community is circling the wagons and choosing only to deal with those within the increasingly narrow band of political consensus.  Instead of reaching out to all Jews who care about being Jewish and including them wherever possible, the Jewish leadership uses litmus tests to determine who’s worthy of entrance to the Holy of Holies of Jewish life.  This sort of thing turns Jews off, especially young Jews who look at our community and wonder why they should be involved at all.  In their world, there is so much freedom and openness to affiliate with whoever you want, to learn about any ideas you like, to consort with any person you find interesting.  How’re you keep these young Jews down on the farm after they’ve seen Paris, to quote an old WWI slogan?

Unfortunately, we Jews have a long history of banishing those who violate community standards.  The Jews of Amsterdam did it to one of the greatest philosophers in history, Baruch Spinoza.  But cherems don’t work these days.  There are too many options for Jews to choose from outside the community.  If you don’t want these Jews, they’ll go somewhere else and leave you alone crying in your beer about why all the good Jews are opting out, marrying out, etc.

I’ve reviewed JVP’s policies concerning BDS and it very specifically does not include support of any action that would harm Israel directly (or even indirectly for that matter).  It supports only divestment from, and boycott of companies that support or sustain Israel’s Occupation.  That is all.

Electronic Intifada and I have been reporting on the Olympia Food Coop BDS lawsuit brought by five members who claim the business violated its procedures by approving a boycott on nine Israeli products in its stores.  Up till now, we knew that Stand With Us and the Israeli consul general, Akiva Tor were instrumental in the process of initiating the suit as the SWU website indicates they attended key meetings at which decisions were made about the legal case including hiring of an attorney.

But now Tzinor Layla, Israel’s Channel 10 news program (at 3:04 of the above video) confirms via an interview with Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, that the Israeli government itself is willing to sponsor these lawsuits and presumably paying the legal bills.  Frankly, I find it astonishing that a foreign government would sue a U.S. company for such an alleged infraction.  First, I’ve never heard of a foreign government suing any overseas company for supporting a boycott against it; and second, I’ve never heard of a government initiating a lawsuit against an overseas company for political, as opposed to pecuniary reasons.

In interviews they gave to Electronic Intifada, Rob Jacobs of StandWithUs and Akiva Tor, Israeli consul general in the Pacific NW lied when the first claimed he knew nothing about where the funding for the lawsuit was coming from and the second lied when he claimed that he, and by extension his government had nothing to do with the suit.  You’d have thought that Tor and Jacobs would’ve coördinated things better with their bosses back in Tel Aviv.  Let’s watch to see how Tor and Jacobs worm their way out of this one.

In my earlier post I called this the pro-Israel version of lawfare, that noxious concept touted by Alan Dershowitz to deride human rights activists having the chutzpah to demand Israeli accountability for their actions.  It is a deliberate attempt to interfere with, and destroy American businesses willing to take a position that angers the Israeli state.  I say this is un-American and that it violates basic rights to free speech.  Besides lawfare, this is a perfect example of a SLAPP (strategic limitation of public participation) suit.  That is, a frivolous use of the legal system to strategically limit public participation in an issue that is rightfully part of social discourse.  On its merits, the Washington courts should throw this sucker out.  But the problem, as I’ve found, is that judges sometimes either get the law wrong or wish to allow a plaintiff to get his or her moment in court.  So they refuse to do the right and proper thing.  We’ll have to see how this plays out.

Concerning Stand With Us’ involvement in this process, an Israeli journalist who’s followed the group’s activities inside Israel and abroad told me: “Stand With Us is an unofficial arm of the Israeli government.”  In this blog, you’ve heard me often talk about groups like NGO Monitor, Im Tirzu, Middle East Forum, The Israeli Project and Stand With Us as doing the bidding of the Israeli government.  You’ve heard me claim that they closely coördinate their activities with the government and in effect become its mouthpiece.  But this is the first direct confirmation that SWU, at the very least, is literally joined at the hip with the MFA. In the video Ayalon specifically confirms the government’s “partnership” with SWU and acknowledges it has similar partnerships with other Jewish and non-Jewish American organizations. No sense of discretion here. Israel, under the Lieberman-Ayalon Plan, will throw its weight around the world, even attempting to smash food coops in Washington State.

Personally, I don’t mind having Israel lobby type organizations advancing their political agenda.  After all, that’s free speech and the American way.  But where I do begin to have a problem is when these groups become agents of a foreign government.  Of course, people like Rob Jacobs and Roz Rothstein are oblivious to the implications because for them loyalty to Israel is the same as loyalty to the U.S.  The interests of the two are virtually the same.  That’s the poison of this notion of pro-Israelism which posits no free will or independence on the part of American Jews and their leadership.

I’m hoping to inform the five litigants suing the Olympia Food Coop that they are fronts for the Israeli government in this matter.  It may not change their minds, but I hope it will at least give them pause.

One aspect of the legal strategy of the plaintiffs I find odd.  Since they are members of the coop they are filing their suit AS the coop.  They are claiming that they truly represent the coop and its interests whereas the board and staff and everyone else who voted to endorse the boycott are either impostors or abusers of the coop’s bylaws.  Keep in mind, that these five all ran for the Coop board and lost by a wide margin.  Another shrewd aspect of the legal thinking in this case is not to argue the merits or demerits of BDS.  The litigants know that not only will they fail if they put the issue to a vote, they know that a U.S. court would throw out a lawsuit against a company that was purely politically motivated.  The only possible legal grounds they have is to argue that the coop board violated its own bylaws in endorsing BDS.  Keep in mind too that all this brouhaha is over nine Israeli products taken off the shelves.

Does BDS mean Israel's destruction?

There are two groups who see the goal of the BDS movement as the destruction of Israel: anti-Zionists and right-wing Israelis.  That ideological dichotomy is remarkable and indicates that while one group opposes and another supports BDS, they both agree it will have the same outcome.

What is the BDS movement to those who support it, partially or in full?  For anti-Zionists and Israeli nationalists it is a means to hasten Israel’s destruction.  For everyone else (including progressive Zionists like myself) it is a way to end the Occupation and hasten Israel’s transformation into a “state for all its citizens.”  In other words, for the far left BDS is an end, while for others it is a means to an end.  The difference between these two approaches is wide and the arguments between both camps rage.  I’m going to try to put forward my own understanding of BDS.

Reviewing the BDS website, it lists three main points in its political platform:

1. Ending its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the Wall 2. Recognizing the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; and 3. Respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.

Frankly, I don’t see any way that these demands threaten the existence of Israel.  Yes, they would threaten the existence of the type of state Israel is now; that is, an ethnocracy in which Jews have superior rights.  But in the Israel that I envision, in which there is full protection of ethnic majority and minority citizens, their religion and culture, and all have equal rights, BDS does not threaten such a nation.

A side note: after a profile of me appeared in The Forward this week, CAMERA, one of the more mendacious of the pro-Israel propaganda outfits around, claimed I viewed the solution for the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as “one state for all its citizens.”  By which they were claiming I support a one state solution.  In the profile, I explicitly said that I supported a two state solution, but preferred for the parties to decide amongst themselves what solution they preferred over the long run and that if both parties agreed to a one-state solution, there was no reason for an outsider like myself to disagree.

Returning to the BDS issue and the anti-Zionist view of it…I have difficulty with this sort of statement tweeted to me recently:

‘Israel’:…That detested name will be tossed along with everything it has always stood for.

Anti-Zionists like this appear to believe that BDS will mean consigning Israel to the trash heap of history.  I don’t think so.  I don’t find the name Israel to be detestable and I don’t wish it or what it stands for to be “tossed.”  That doesn’t mean I don’t foresee a radical transformation of Israel into a state which embraces the linguistic, cultural and religious heritages of all its citizens.  So while Jews will no longer be king of the roost, they won’t become the sort of second-class citizens Israeli Palestinians are now.

There needs to be in Israel more of a sense of Israeliness, and less of a sense of Jewishness as a substitute for Israeliness.  Israeli Jews should have a religious identity, but that identity should not substitute for a national identity.  The same should hold true for Israeli Palestinians who are Muslim or Christian.

The problem I have is with anti-Zionists who seek to uproot everything that Israel has stood for.  Yes, Israel has stood for much that is evil including the Nakba and the Occupation.  Yes, Israel was conceived in the sin of expulsion and exile of nearly 1-million of its Palestinian residents.  But that doesn’t mean I conceive of a future state that eradicates everything from its past that relates to Israel as a Jewish homeland.

Israel, as I’ve written before, must be a homeland for Jews just as it is a homeland for Palestinians.  There should be no conflict there.  That is why I feel comfortable continuing to call myself a (progressive) Zionist, just as I believe Israeli Palestinians should feel comfortable calling themselves Palestinian nationalists.  The problem for both these nationalisms is when they seek to cancel out the other.  That cannot happen if Israel is to survive.

In the future Israel, history should be studied truthfully, warts and all.  But the notion that Jews must live in this state with their tail between their legs, always quivering, beating their breasts, and declaring their guilt for past sins, means essentially that there would be no Jews in such a state except perhaps anti-Zionist haredi groups like Neturei Karta.

There is another problem I have with any serious observer of this conflict who believes their solution is the only possible one and that all others are not just wrong, but morally offensive.  Studying this subject tends to make one humble and realize that while you may have a preference, or even a strong preference, things may turn out differently than what you conceive.  When we scorn the options that don’t meet with our moral approval we show hubris.  Future events may just take us down a notch or two.  That’s why I state my inclination that at the present juncture a two state solution is most advisable.  But who knows what the future may bring?  If 27 European countries can create a strong Union over decades, why isn’t possible something similar might happen in Israel-Palestine?  I leave myself open to these possibilities and wish those on my left (and right) would as well.

From debating the meaning of BDS, our Twitter dispute moved on to the topic of Israeli Palestinian identity within the contemporary Israeli state.  Reading polls over the years, I was frankly surprised that Israel’s Palestinian Arab citizens identified as strongly with the concept of Israeliness as they do.  I would’ve thought the level of hostility and alienation would be much higher than it is.

Andrew Kadi, among others, in his Twitter feed scoffed at these claims saying no poll result of Israeli Palestinians could be trusted with someone’s foot on their neck.  Rejecting this notion, I decided to examine some of the polls taken over the years chronicling Israeli Palestinian attitudes toward the Israeli state.  But before delving into that, let me be clear about what I’m not trying to do.  I’m not trying to prove how good Israel is to “its Arabs.”  Or how much Israeli Palestinian citizens adore the Jewish state, as pro-Israel hasbarists often do.  Unlike Daniel Pipes and his ilk, I do not believe the fact that Israeli Palestinians would choose to live in Israel rather than in a Palestinian state, means an endorsement of Israel or rejection of Palestine.  I recognize that there is deep ambivalence on the part of these citizens toward their country, which does, after all, discriminate against them in almost every aspect of life.

Now, to the surveys: Professor Sammy Smooha (and to a lesser extent, the Israel Democracy Institute) have extensively polled the Israeli Palestinian community on these issues over an extended period of time.  So it’s worth examining their findings.  In Smooha’s compilation of his survey results from 2003-2009, he found that Israeli Palestinians have grown progressively more radical and more hostile toward Israel and their role within the State.  They have done so because they view Israeli Jews as increasingly racist and belligerent towards them.  But it would be a mistake to claim, as anti-Zionists do, that Israeli Palestinians because of their suffering are anti-Zionists who seek the end of Israel.  The real picture is much more complicated and ambivalent.

Smooha, in fact posits a dual theory about Jewish-Palestinian relations.  The first is the mutual alienation theory which says that the two ethnic groups are on a collision course that will likely end in violence.  According to this perspective, Palestinians are an unassimilable minority and that as they become increasingly Islamized and nationalist and Jews become increasingly nationalist and Judaized, the only thing that remains is a lit match to ignite the coming inferno.

But Smooha also offers a more hopeful (perhaps more hopeful than might otherwise be justified) thesis which he calls the mutual rapprochement theory.  He describes it this way:

…The mutual rapprochement thesis, posits that Arabs and Jews are in the process of adjusting to each other and that strong forces moderate and counterpoise the forces that drive the two sides apart. Violence and instability are therefore avoidable. The attitudes and behaviors of the Arabs, the Palestinian people, the Jews, and the state are more balanced and less counterproductive to coexistence than the mutual alienation thesis assumes and predicts. Mutual rapprochement also postulates that Israeli Arabs are undergoing Israelization as well as Palestinization and Islamization, and that the first affects the second two. Israelization makes Arabs bilingual and bicultural and adds the Hebrew language and Hebrew culture to their repertoire.

Israeli Arabs, the thesis holds, are increasingly binding their fate and future with Israel and conceiving of Israel as their home country. They take Jews as their reference group and wish to achieve the same standards, services, and treatment. They abide by democratic rules for effecting change in Israeli society and avoid violence. Israelization renders Arabs impatient with discrimination and exclusion and drives them to lead a serious fight for change.

Another pivotal facet of Israelization is the sharpening line Israeli Arabs draw between themselves and the Palestinians across the Green Line and in the Diaspora. They view themselves as Israeli citizens entitled to all citizenship rights and as part of the Israeli economy, welfare state, politics, and public discourse, and in this capacity are only partly affected by what is happening to their Palestinian brethren. They endure Palestinization and Islamization differently because of their Israelization. For instance, Arabs in Nazareth who adopt a Palestinian identity would define themselves as Palestinian Arabs in Israel, whereas Arabs in the West Bank city of Nablus would categorize themselves just as Palestinian Arabs or as Palestinian Arabs in Palestine. The affinity and common fate with Israel make considerable difference and drive a wedge between Palestinians on the two sides of the pre-1967 border.

On the spectrum between the hopeful and hopeless regarding Israeli Palestinian-Jewish relations, I come down in the middle. While I believe that there is a very real capacity for violence between the two ethnic groups and that Israel will have to be radically transformed (but not destroyed) in order to fully realize the democratic rights of this minority, I do not believe either that Israel must end or that a civil war is inevitable before Palestinians become equal. Smooha’s survey results show that Palestinians have increasingly boycotted Israeli elections (voting declined from 73% in 2003 to 53% in 2009).  Jewish participation has also declined over the same period but by a smaller rate.  Voting for Arab parties increased from 69% to 82%. Smooha notes one of the most critical aspects of the dynamic at work governing inter-ethnic behavior involves what he calls a “fear balance:”

The most important development to follow the October 2000 unrest is, nonetheless, the emergence of a fear balance between the state and the Arab population. Both  sides are keenly aware of the heavy cost in the event of confrontation—use of violence, uprising, and repression. Each side does its utmost to keep quiet. The police do not intervene in Arab demonstrations, rallies, processions, general strikes, and other protest actions as long as there is no large-scale breach of law and order. They refrain from using firearms and coordinate their actions with Arab public figures. The Arab public also abstains from statewide mass disorder. The fear balance explains why the disturbances in Peqi’in and Acre did not deteriorate to the degree that the October 2000 uprising did.

While this isn’t a terribly hopeful portrayal of the equilibrium between Jews and Palestinians, it’s important to note that it exists. Here are some salient results from the survey.  In 2009, 64% believed Israel had a right to exist.  78% believed Jewish-Palestinian relations should only be changed by peaceful means.  53% believed Palestinians would have “national minority status and equal rights in a Jewish and democratic state, and would eventually come to terms with it.”  66% have positive attitudes toward Jews.

The following results show the increasing alienation over the period from 2003 to 2009: in 2003 only 16% were not ready to have a Jewish friend.  By 2009, that number had risen to 29%.  27% were dissatisfied with life as an Israeli citizen in 2003 and 43% in 2009.  14% were ready to move to a Palestinian state (not Israel) in 2003 and 24% in 2009.  In 2003, 75% believed Jews have a right to a state as opposed to 61% in 2009.  89% believed in a two state solution in 2003, and 65% in 2009.  72% believed in 2003 the Right of Return should be confined to a Palestinian state;  50% believed this in 2009.  In 2003, 29% believed the most important aspect of their identity was being Israeli, while that declined to 20% in 2009.  19% believed their Palestinian identity was paramount in 2003, while 32% believed this in 2009.  Those who saw Arabness as being most important to their identity numbered 53% in 2003 and 40% in 2009. In 2003, 63% believed Israel was a democratic state for both Arab and Jewish citizens.  By 2009, that number declined to 50%.  81% believed Palestinians could improve their status through peaceful activism, and only 62% in 2003.  The number who supported a national election boycott rose from 33% to 40%.  Only 5% supported violent protest in 2003, and 13% in 2009.  The numbers of those who rejected Israel’s right to exist rose from 11% in 2003 to 24% in 2009.  In 2009, 55% of Israeli Palestinians endorsed the concept of Arab-Jewish coexistence.

Smooha suggests that the best way to improve Jewish-Palestinian relations is by policy changes rather than paradigm shifts.  While I disagree strongly with a number of the provisions below (and others I haven’t quoted), I think they represent a decent, albeit distinctly Jewish starting point for discussion:

Israel can accommodate the Arab minority without losing its character as a Jewish and democratic state, and the Arabs can fulfill most of their demands without  transforming Israel into a full binational state. Moderating Israel’s Jewish and Zionist character, consolidating its democracy, and forming a Palestinian state on the West Bank and Gaza are compatible with the visions of both sides. Israel would continue to be a Jewish state with a Law of Return, Hebrew as a dominant language, Jewish symbols, and a Jewish calendar. At the same time, it would give up Jewish exclusivity and preferential treatment of Jews.

For example, some of Israel’s symbols would be Arab, the special status of the Jewish National Fund and Jewish Agency would be abolished, and discriminatory state policies would be terminated. …Arab citizens would be granted national collective rights in addition to their current ethnic collective rights. Recognition of Arabs as a national Palestinian minority (not coequal nation) would legitimize their ties with the Palestinian people and bestow on them cultural autonomy, proper representation in the national power structure (but not power-sharing by law), proportional share of the state budget and the civil service, and allocation of lands according to needs. Arabs would be denied veto power, but their political parties would be allowed into coalition governments and required to be consulted in matters essential to their community.

…Equality would be the cornerstone of Israel’s new constitution. Affirmative action in certain areas and for a limited time would replace institutional discrimination against Arabs. The Emergency Situation would end and an Israeli internal security law and regulations would replace the existing illiberal British legislation. Civil marriage and divorce law would allow interfaith mixing. A campaign to promote democratic culture among Jews and Arabs would be executed. Most important, the state would launch a large-scale program to raise Arabs’ standards in community services and socioeconomic achievements to that of Jews.

The Israel Democracy Institute also polls Israeli Jews and Palestinians for their respective political and social attitudes.  In 2007, its survey found (translation from Hebrew version of article) that 75% of:

“Israeli Arabs would support a constitution that maintained Israel’s status as a Jewish and democratic state while guaranteeing equal rights for minorities.”

As I’ve written before, I believe that both Israeli Jewish and Palestinians citizens could live together in a state that guaranteed equal rights to all, offered a constitution that enshrined protections for both majority and minority groups, and adopted a modified version of both the Law of Return and Right of Return.  There is no reason the State can’t be bilingual, and religious freedoms be guaranteed to all.  No reason budgets can’t be allocated equally to Jewish and Palestinian communities, and health care, job, and educational opportunities as well.  There is also no reason why Jewish and Palestinian children can’t learn Israeli history, warts and all, and learn to acknowledge both the virtues of their nation and its sins as well.

Though the Israeli Palestinian attitudes above don’t guarantee this vision can be realized, they go a good deal of the way in that direction.  To be perfectly frank, current Israeli Jewish attitudes preclude the type of transformation I envision above.  That will be an enormous hurdle to overcome.  I’m not sure it can be done.  But the alternative is precisely the sort of dissolution of the Israeli state which anti-Zionists anticipate.  Then we will have a one-state solution.