Knesset of Fools
BY HUSSEIN IBISH
Foreign Policy, 12-07-2011
A harsh new anti-boycott bill will help achieve the exact opposite of what its advocates intended: the delegitimization of the Jewish state.
In the latest of a series of extraordinarily self-defeating moves, "Israel's" legislature, the Knesset, has just adopted the so-called "Boycott Bill," penalizing any call within "Israel" to boycott "Israel" or its settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The new law allows for civil suits against boycott supporters, denies them state benefits, and prevents the "Israeli" government from doing business with them. For a society terrified of what it sees as an international campaign of "delegitimization," its own parliament could not have produced a more stunning blow to "Israel's" legitimacy by conflating "Israel" as such with the settlements and the occupation.
Of course this law could not have been otherwise, since virtually all effective BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) efforts in the West have been targeted against the occupation and the settlements, not against "Israel". Some BDS activists would clearly like to extend this campaign to target "Israel" proper, but such efforts have met with extremely limited success in Western societies. On the other hand, efforts to express disapproval of "Israel's" illegitimate settlement activities and therefore also illegitimate goods produced in the settlements have been meeting with a modest but increasing degree of effectiveness.
The "Boycott Bill," therefore, was never really about "Israel" at all, but about protecting the settlements and the settlers from a growing international campaign to refuse to subsidize a project that is a dagger aimed at the heart of prospects for a viable peace agreement between "Israel" and the Palestinians, as well as a blatant violation of international law. City councils and governments in Europe are increasingly distancing themselves from commercial activities connected to the occupation. Norway, for example, divested from Elbit Systems, a company that manufactures sensor devices for the West Bank separation barrier, and subsequently from Africa Israel Investments, which is heavily involved in settlement construction.
The campaign against "Israeli" settlements is real, but this new law will almost certainly backfire. By crudely conflating "Israel" -- which is almost universally regarded as a legitimate member state of the United Nations -- with its occupation and settlements in the West Bank -- which are almost universally regarded as illegitimate and indeed illegal, as well as a threat to peace -- the Knesset has yet again provided an official "Israeli" argument for those who would extend the boycott campaign to include all "Israeli" institutions and not just aspects of the occupation.
The "Israeli" government has done this numerous times in the past. For example, when "Israel" applied for OECD membership, the national economic statistics it presented included the entire settlement economy, but no statistics reflecting the Palestinian villages surrounding the settlements throughout the West Bank. What this suggests is an official "Israeli" perspective in which there is a virtual "Israel" that exists wherever a settler happens to be at any given moment, and an undefined, unresolved occupation everywhere else. This legally and politically untenable and indeed preposterous position is similarly reflected in the new "Boycott Bill."
Some of the boycott activities that "Israel" points to as "delegitimization" were forced by its own refusal to distinguish between itself and the settlements. In several instances, European vendors have made it clear that they are happy to sell "Israeli" products, but not those from the settlements, which they quite properly decline to support because they are illegitimate and dangerous. "Israel" has refused to provide any markings, identifying characteristics, or other indicators that would assure these vendors that the products in question were indeed from "Israel" and not from settlements in the occupied territories. As a consequence, several European vendors, particularly in Italy, simply stopped stocking "Israeli" imports, not because they objected to goods from "Israel", but because they refuse to unwittingly sell settlement products and "Israel" will not distinguish them.
Perhaps the greatest irony is that the Knesset members who passed the "Boycott Bill" and their supporters do not seem to understand that boycotts, divestment, and sanctions that are carefully targeted against the occupation and the settlements but scrupulously avoid targeting "Israel" legitimize rather than delegitimize the "Israeli" state. They say, in effect: We do not want to buy or sell the products of the illegitimate settlement program, but we are happy to buy or sell "Israeli" goods because "Israel" is a legitimate state. By carefully targeting the occupation and the settlements, such boycotts implicitly recognize the legitimacy of "Israel" itself. But to supporters of the settlements, this is of little or no importance. To them, it's all simply "Israel".
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has been engaged in precisely this kind of boycott in the small areas under its control in the West Bank. Beginning in March 2010, it circulated brochures to every household in "Area A" complete with color images of the logos of the banned settlement companies so that no one could have any doubts about which products were unlawful. After an initial grace period, the PA began forcibly removing these products from Palestinian shops and then shortly afterward began prosecuting those distributing them. Palestinians have been effectively urging people the world over, including sympathetic "Israelis", to join them in seeking clarity, and drawing a sharp distinction between "Israel" on the one hand and the settlement project on the other.
This Palestinian boycott of settlement goods is an integral part of the program of nonviolent resistance to occupation currently under way in the West Bank, and the international campaign is an extension of that. The "Boycott Bill" is an attack on precisely this kind of nonviolent protest, which is, of course, the appropriate alternative to the self-destructive and self-defeating violence of the past. But, as with other forms of nonviolent resistance, "Israel" is proving as intolerant to this nonviolent tactic as it has been to all other forms of combating the occupation. For "Israel", it seems, the only accepted response is to submit and stop making a fuss of any kind.
It's no surprise that large numbers of prominent Knesset members were unaccountably missing from the "Boycott Bill" vote, most notably Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This is not only because the law is an obvious affront to freedom of speech and other principles of democracy, but also because of the high likelihood it will be struck down by the "Israeli" Supreme Court. Canny "Israeli" politicians no doubt also understand that rhetorically conflating "Israel" and the settlements in such a crude manner is a very dangerous thing to do in the immediate term, and potentially disastrous in the long run.
Given the powerful international consensus against the settlements -- including the United States, which unequivocally holds that the settlement project is at least illegitimate, if not outright illegal, and which clearly distinguishes between "Israel" and the occupation -- this crude law inflicts the most powerful delegitimizing blow against "Israel" in living memory.
When the Knesset itself says it does not recognize the difference between any effort to boycott "Israel" and those that target the settlements, it invites the rest of the world to see things in the same light. It encourages those who would not stop at expressing disapproval of the occupation but wish to target "Israel" and "Israelis" generally. Moreover, by making "Israel" indistinguishable from the illegitimate settlement project, it raises the banner of delegitimization higher than any group of non-"Israeli" activists could ever have hoped to.
Foreign Policy, 12-07-2011
A harsh new anti-boycott bill will help achieve the exact opposite of what its advocates intended: the delegitimization of the Jewish state.
In the latest of a series of extraordinarily self-defeating moves, "Israel's" legislature, the Knesset, has just adopted the so-called "Boycott Bill," penalizing any call within "Israel" to boycott "Israel" or its settlements in the occupied Palestinian territories. The new law allows for civil suits against boycott supporters, denies them state benefits, and prevents the "Israeli" government from doing business with them. For a society terrified of what it sees as an international campaign of "delegitimization," its own parliament could not have produced a more stunning blow to "Israel's" legitimacy by conflating "Israel" as such with the settlements and the occupation.
Of course this law could not have been otherwise, since virtually all effective BDS (boycott, divestment, sanctions) efforts in the West have been targeted against the occupation and the settlements, not against "Israel". Some BDS activists would clearly like to extend this campaign to target "Israel" proper, but such efforts have met with extremely limited success in Western societies. On the other hand, efforts to express disapproval of "Israel's" illegitimate settlement activities and therefore also illegitimate goods produced in the settlements have been meeting with a modest but increasing degree of effectiveness.
The "Boycott Bill," therefore, was never really about "Israel" at all, but about protecting the settlements and the settlers from a growing international campaign to refuse to subsidize a project that is a dagger aimed at the heart of prospects for a viable peace agreement between "Israel" and the Palestinians, as well as a blatant violation of international law. City councils and governments in Europe are increasingly distancing themselves from commercial activities connected to the occupation. Norway, for example, divested from Elbit Systems, a company that manufactures sensor devices for the West Bank separation barrier, and subsequently from Africa Israel Investments, which is heavily involved in settlement construction.
The campaign against "Israeli" settlements is real, but this new law will almost certainly backfire. By crudely conflating "Israel" -- which is almost universally regarded as a legitimate member state of the United Nations -- with its occupation and settlements in the West Bank -- which are almost universally regarded as illegitimate and indeed illegal, as well as a threat to peace -- the Knesset has yet again provided an official "Israeli" argument for those who would extend the boycott campaign to include all "Israeli" institutions and not just aspects of the occupation.
The "Israeli" government has done this numerous times in the past. For example, when "Israel" applied for OECD membership, the national economic statistics it presented included the entire settlement economy, but no statistics reflecting the Palestinian villages surrounding the settlements throughout the West Bank. What this suggests is an official "Israeli" perspective in which there is a virtual "Israel" that exists wherever a settler happens to be at any given moment, and an undefined, unresolved occupation everywhere else. This legally and politically untenable and indeed preposterous position is similarly reflected in the new "Boycott Bill."
Some of the boycott activities that "Israel" points to as "delegitimization" were forced by its own refusal to distinguish between itself and the settlements. In several instances, European vendors have made it clear that they are happy to sell "Israeli" products, but not those from the settlements, which they quite properly decline to support because they are illegitimate and dangerous. "Israel" has refused to provide any markings, identifying characteristics, or other indicators that would assure these vendors that the products in question were indeed from "Israel" and not from settlements in the occupied territories. As a consequence, several European vendors, particularly in Italy, simply stopped stocking "Israeli" imports, not because they objected to goods from "Israel", but because they refuse to unwittingly sell settlement products and "Israel" will not distinguish them.
Perhaps the greatest irony is that the Knesset members who passed the "Boycott Bill" and their supporters do not seem to understand that boycotts, divestment, and sanctions that are carefully targeted against the occupation and the settlements but scrupulously avoid targeting "Israel" legitimize rather than delegitimize the "Israeli" state. They say, in effect: We do not want to buy or sell the products of the illegitimate settlement program, but we are happy to buy or sell "Israeli" goods because "Israel" is a legitimate state. By carefully targeting the occupation and the settlements, such boycotts implicitly recognize the legitimacy of "Israel" itself. But to supporters of the settlements, this is of little or no importance. To them, it's all simply "Israel".
The Palestinian Authority (PA) has been engaged in precisely this kind of boycott in the small areas under its control in the West Bank. Beginning in March 2010, it circulated brochures to every household in "Area A" complete with color images of the logos of the banned settlement companies so that no one could have any doubts about which products were unlawful. After an initial grace period, the PA began forcibly removing these products from Palestinian shops and then shortly afterward began prosecuting those distributing them. Palestinians have been effectively urging people the world over, including sympathetic "Israelis", to join them in seeking clarity, and drawing a sharp distinction between "Israel" on the one hand and the settlement project on the other.
This Palestinian boycott of settlement goods is an integral part of the program of nonviolent resistance to occupation currently under way in the West Bank, and the international campaign is an extension of that. The "Boycott Bill" is an attack on precisely this kind of nonviolent protest, which is, of course, the appropriate alternative to the self-destructive and self-defeating violence of the past. But, as with other forms of nonviolent resistance, "Israel" is proving as intolerant to this nonviolent tactic as it has been to all other forms of combating the occupation. For "Israel", it seems, the only accepted response is to submit and stop making a fuss of any kind.
It's no surprise that large numbers of prominent Knesset members were unaccountably missing from the "Boycott Bill" vote, most notably Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. This is not only because the law is an obvious affront to freedom of speech and other principles of democracy, but also because of the high likelihood it will be struck down by the "Israeli" Supreme Court. Canny "Israeli" politicians no doubt also understand that rhetorically conflating "Israel" and the settlements in such a crude manner is a very dangerous thing to do in the immediate term, and potentially disastrous in the long run.
Given the powerful international consensus against the settlements -- including the United States, which unequivocally holds that the settlement project is at least illegitimate, if not outright illegal, and which clearly distinguishes between "Israel" and the occupation -- this crude law inflicts the most powerful delegitimizing blow against "Israel" in living memory.
When the Knesset itself says it does not recognize the difference between any effort to boycott "Israel" and those that target the settlements, it invites the rest of the world to see things in the same light. It encourages those who would not stop at expressing disapproval of the occupation but wish to target "Israel" and "Israelis" generally. Moreover, by making "Israel" indistinguishable from the illegitimate settlement project, it raises the banner of delegitimization higher than any group of non-"Israeli" activists could ever have hoped to.
