Monday, August 19, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
When I first got into the game of fighting against BDS in
the early 2000s (simply called “divestment” back then), I became fairly
dogmatic regarding the superiority of political victories over legislative and
judicial ones.
This was largely due to the nature of boycott and divestment
activity at the time, which consisted of anti-Israel organizations seeking to
get a civic institution, such as a college, municipality, church or business,
to boycott or divest from the Jewish state through strategies that tended to
involve trickery (like getting organizational leaders to pass anti-Israel
motions before members knew what was going on) and moral blackmail.
Back then, members of such organizations tended to get
enraged once they realized what was about to be done in their name. This meant the most effective ways to counter
BDS votes was to activate those members and help them organize to defeat
unwanted political measures. While conflicts
generated by turning divestment into a political matter (usually accompanied by
an organizational vote) gave the boycotters the public show trials they craved,
their inevitable defeat left BDS looking more and more like a loser.
In many cases, ongoing defeat within a category of
institution helped immunize other organizations from the BDS virus. For example, food coops are no longer
targeted by boycott activists since a string of defeats helped establish the
fact that the coop movement should not be taking political stands on
controversial issues unrelated to their missions. In contrast, when wronged members of the
still-only boycott-embracing food coop decided to challenge that boycott in
court, they nearly faced
catastrophe in the form of harsh court-ordered punishments against them
(which have fortunately since been overturned).
Over the course of many years, however, I’ve been convinced
by other activists that legal remedies are sometimes warranted, given the
changing nature of boycott-related activism.
For example, Kenneth Marcus (now
in a position to do something about rising levels of bigotry directed against
Jews and Israel supporters on campuses) pointed out how Israel haters engaging
in brutish campaigns against their opponents use their own lawyers to scare
administrators away from punishing students who engage in gross violations of
campus rules. Under such circumstances,
it would be malpractice if our side didn’t challenge those same administrators
with better lawyers insisting schools enforce their own rules for civil
behavior.
Similarly, anti-boycott legislation at the state and federal
level serve two important purposes: (1) demonstrating that, far from being
widespread, support for BDS is marginal compared to support for Israel demonstrated
by the votes of overwhelming numbers of democratically elected representatives;
and (2) creating a counterweight to BDS activity taking place way above the
level that can be challenged effectively by local, grassroots activists (such
as attempts by the UN to create and implement a blacklist of Israeli
companies).
But even if some circumstances warrant legal/judicial and
legislative activities, I continue to be circumspect about how quickly our side
should reach for those arrows. Going to
court is tricky, with decisions creating precedents that can be
long-lasting. It is also time consuming,
and by the time matters are resolved by a judge or jury, the battle may have
moved to entirely different ground.
Laws passed to fight BDS can also be double-edged
swords. To take a high-profile example,
Israel’s law to bar BDS activists from visiting the country has generated bad
press for the Jewish state that needs to be compared to the damage that might have
occurred had those activists been allowed into the country. Legislators tend to be motivated by a desire
to do something in the face of perceived crises and be less concerned with the
consequences of the measures they vote in once enacted. Recent controversy
generated by banning two anti-Israel congresswomen from Israel also shows how
the worthy fight against BDS can get entangled with domestic politics, both in
Israel and in the US.
Given the growing and increasingly dangerous anti-Israel
project, its continued attempts to take over major institutions and its support
by powerful actors (such as national governments and major non-governmental
institutions), counting on grassroots activists to save the day is
unrealistic. But where and when to
appeal to higher authority (such as a judge or legislative body) needs to be
thought through and risks balanced against rewards before a strategy is
pursued.
If we consider grassroots activism, lawsuits, and
legislation as just three of many weapons we have at our disposal, then the
issue boils down to how to choose which one(s) to use and how they will be deployed
to help us achieve our goals. In other
words, it requires us to cultivate not a political or legal mindset, but a military
one appropriate when someone else has been waging war against you for over
a century.
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