The era of Iran is
over; the age of BDS begins
How the boycott,
divestment and sanctions movement is changing organized American Jewish life.
Haaretz Newspaper — June 4. 2015
The news that Sheldon Adelson will this
weekend host a secret conference for Jewish groups aimed at
countering the boycott, divestment and sanctions movement is yet more evidence
that “pro-Israel” activism in the United States is entering a new phase. The
Iran era is ending. We are entering the age of BDS.
The Iran era started in the mid-1990s. During
the cold war, American Jewish groups had defended Israel primarily against Arab
regimes and the PLO. The most famous episode in AIPAC’s history had been its
1981 struggle against the Reagan administration’s bid to sell
AWACS surveillance planes to Saudi Arabia.
But in 1993, the PLO recognized Israel’s right to exist and began negotiating with it as part of the Oslo peace process. The following year, Jordan made peace too. With most Arab regimes at least tacitly supporting Oslo, Yitzhak Rabin argued that Iran—which supported rejectionist groups like Hezbollah, Hamas and Islamic Jihad—constituted the new threat. In 1994, according to Argentine prosecutors, Iran and Hezbollah blew up a Jewish community center in Buenos Aires, thus further linking the Islamic Republic to anti-Israeli and anti-Jewish terrorism. The prospect of Tehran developing a nuclear weapon made it all the more sinister.
American Jewish groups, suddenly deprived of their
traditional Arab and PLO enemies, gladly followed Rabin’s suggestion that they
focus on Iran instead. In his indispensable book about Iranian-Israeli
relations, “Treacherous Alliance,” Trita Parsi quotes Shai Feldman, an Israeli
foreign policy expert now at Brandeis University, as explaining that “AIPAC
made Iran a major issue since they didn’t have any other issue to champion. The
U.S. was in favor of the peace process, so what would they push for?”
But given the two leaders’ determination, it is more
likely that they will strike a deal, which Benjamin Netanyahu and the
Republican Congress will prove unable to torpedo. Already, Israeli security
experts are talking about using Israel’s acquiescence to a nuclear agreement to
win new military guarantees from the United States. And if
Israel does eventually acquiesce, even tacitly and sullenly, the two-decade era
in which Iran dominated “pro-Israel” activism in the United States will end.
The BDS movement has entered this breach. It offers
Palestinian activists a way to bypass their divided, corrupt, ineffectual
politicians by taking the struggle against Israel into their own hands. Its
three planks — an end to Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza Strip,
equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel and the return of Palestinian
refugees—offers something for each of the three main Palestinian populations
(those in the occupied territories, those inside Israel proper and refugees)
and thus unites a divided people. As a nonviolent movement that speaks in the language
of human rights and international law rather than Islamic theology, the
movement also attracts progressive allies who would never join a movement
defined by suicide bombings and the Hamas charter.
Already, BDS is changing
the landscape of organized American Jewish life. First, it is making Washington
less important, which may make AIPAC less important. AIPAC’s power rests on the
relations between its members and members of Congress. But the BDS movement
bypasses Congress in favor of universities, liberal Christian groups and trade
unions, where it can gain a more sympathetic ear. The response has been a gold
rush among American Jewish groups seeking to lead the anti-BDS charge. In 2010,
the Jewish Federations of North America and the Jewish Council on Public
Affairs created the Israel Action Network to combat Israel’s
“delegitimization.” As the Forward notes, AIPAC, the Anti-Defamation League and
the American Jewish Committee have all recently “set up operations geared at
students” largely to do the same thing. In Washington, AIPAC still dominates.
But in these new arenas where the BDS struggle will be fought, AIPAC is just
one Jewish group among many.
The second consequence of the rise of BDS will be to increase the prominence of Jewish Voices for Peace. Right now, many establishment-minded American Jews don’t know what JVP is. In their mind, J Street still represents American Jewry’s left flank. But as the only significant American Jewish group to support BDS, Jewish Voices for Peace will grow in prominence as the movement itself does. Already, non-Jewish BDS activists cite JVP as evidence that American Jews do not monolithically oppose their cause. The more that mainstream American Jews hear this, the more enraged at JVP they will become. How exactly that rage will express itself, I don’t know. But as JVP grows, its battles with the American Jewish establishment will make those of J Street look tame.
Finally, BDS will spark a
growing debate among American Jews about Zionism itself. American Jews are used
to thinking of Palestinians as residents of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. (By
using the phrase “Arab Israelis,” American Jews even delude themselves that the
Arabs living inside the 1967 lines are not really Palestinian.) But many of the
Palestinians active in BDS live in the West or hail from Israel proper or both.
That means that for them personally, the rights of Palestinian citizens of
Israel and the rights of Palestinian refugees are at least as important as the
rights of Palestinians in the occupied territories.
Donations can be sent
to the Baltimore Nonviolence Center, 325 E. 25th St., Baltimore, MD
21218. Ph: 410-366-1637; Email: mobuszewski [at] verizon.net. Go to http://baltimorenonviolencecenter.blogspot.com/
"The master class
has always declared the wars; the subject class has always fought the battles.
The master class has had all to gain and nothing to lose, while the subject
class has had nothing to gain and everything to lose--especially their
lives." Eugene Victor Debs
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