Marg's Words, Our Vigil, the Courage of Youth

Framing the BDA Issue by Marg Jacobs, Melbourne, November

A serious matter, Boycott Disinvestment and Sanctions, but the e-mailed video clip of an action in a Toronto supermarket had me clapping and yay-ing along. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y6d09eVOY21)

A diverse group of people were having serious fun, bopping their way towards the shelf with the Sabra hummus, their whooping singsong perhaps a welcome distraction for bored shoppers. Certainly the security guard appeared torn between enjoying the show and his duty to move the demonstrators on.

Definitely more than serious fun, according to Rafeef Ziadah who was amongst the dancers: this is the kind of action that puts the Israeli authorities off their game, accustomed as they are to more reactive responses. Rafeef was in Melbourne recently speaking to the national Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions conference Building Solidarity, Combating Occupation and Apartheid. she is an organiser of the international Israeli Apartheid Week and a member of the Palestinian Campaign for the Academic and cultural boycott of Israel (PACBI). Their call can be summarised as a threefold demand to Israel: end its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands, (dismantling the Wall and freeing all Palestinian and Arab political prisoners); recognise the fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality; respect, protect and promote the right of return of Palestinian refugees.

Rafeef advised Australians pushing for BDS to learn from events in Canada, where the mainstream Jewish community tried to stifle the debate. Kim Bullimore of the (Australian) Palestinian Solidarity Campaign provided an example: QUIA (Queers United against Israeli Apartheid) was labelled anti-Semitic after film of a Gay Pride March was distorted to show a swastika effect on a T shirt. QUIA initially succumbed to the demonizing--fearing withdrawal of support by their university sponsors would threaten the whole Pride march--however that particular 'pinkwashing' tactic failed. A notional gay haven in the Occupied Territories turned out to be a mirage; Zionists in "Stand with Us" purporting to speak for queer Palestinians in the Occupied Territories were pressed for details about their supposed friends there, but couldn't name a single person. For one Palestinian speaker, freedom has the first priority and the fight for gay rights will have to wait.

Those mythical gay Zionists emerged from a hasbara campaign: the Hebrew word meaning something between propaganda and information. If, as it appears, the labelling of opponents anti-Semitic isn't working so much anymore, what about the label 'apartheid' for the actions of the state of Israel? According to Ginny Adams, an organizer with the Health and Community Sector Union who recently returned from a Union Aid Abroad APHEDA Middle East Study Tour, the term 'apartheid' provides a framework in which to explain what is going on and is neither anti-Semitic nor racist. The term was coined by the UN referring to '...acts committed for the purpose of maintaining domination, for example reserves and ghettos', and characterised by 'disproportionate funding of services; infliction of bodily/mental harm; degrading punishment, infringement of freedom of movement.' All of these if carried out on a racial basis constitute apartheid. Prevention of Palestinians moving from one Palestinian town to another Palestinian town would be illogical unless the aim is separation into reserves, rather then security.

In thinking about further boycotts, context and the circumstance are all-important. As to whether or to what extent Australia might learn from the Canadian experience, the PACBI organization website http://www.pacbi.org/ provides a possible starting point with some useful links to the ANC and Haaretz. For these Canadians, whether or not an Israeli cultural boycott would apply depends on the following circumstances, with further explanations on the site):

--Cultural product is commissioned by an Israeli body

--Product is funded by an official Israeli body, not not commissioned (no political strings)

--Event is partially or fully sponsored or funded by an official Israeli body

--event or project promotes false symmetry or "balance".

While a distinction was drawn between a speaker representing an Israeli university, and on acting on their own behalf, this may not provide sufficient guidance or reassurance, particularly in the context of visits to Australia, as many academic speakers would be unable to travel without support from their employer.

Despite complexities such as these, the speakers' reports, the references they provided and their insights and impressions constitute a valuable resource. A request has been made for the conference papers to be made publicly available: watch this space.

Marg

From the conference program--a list of companies and products to boycott:

Beigel and Beigel/Hydro-Industries/Naot Footwear/Ahava Dead Sea Cosmetics/Jaffa Citrus Fruit/Seacret Spa Dead Sea Products/Max Brenner Chocolate/Pirgate Grapefruit Juice/Sara Lee/Motorola/Elbit Systems/Revlon/Starbucks/Estee Lauder Companies/L'Oreal/The Body Shop/McDonald's/Intel/Coca-Cola/Caterpillar/Nescafe/Optus/Cemex/Veolia/Volvo/Danone

More about each of these companies and how they are involved in supporting the Occupation and the government that perpetuates it can be found at http://www.australiansforpalestine.com/

(list added by Joan)

An exchange at our November vigil: A man perhaps in his middle thirties, stands before us with his baby huddled on his chest. He tells us that Israel is right to kill Palestinians who threaten it.I know, he says, in his heavily accented English. "My country Lithuania was overrun by the Russians. You are wrong, you are wrong," he kept saying, his hand protecting the baby's head from the sun. "I live here now, in Australia, and I would kill for this land, I would show my love by killing for this country." One of us answered, why kill to show love, why is that the way to honor a country or life? He was shouting now and the baby woke and began to cry. No, No, you have to kill the enemy. He was bending over, trying to protect his child from his own anger. What I saw was a man, a loving man if history and national masculinities would allow him to be, torn between two urgings, his paternal self and his militarized self. We then with our banners and olive branches were like the Furies, tormenting him with futility of all he had been taught. And the child, what future awaits him? (Joan)

And then the courage of the young:

Two days ago at 11:30 in the morning in New Orleans, more then 12 young, proud Jews with Jewish Voice for Peace gave voice to the disillusionment of a generation. They loudly named the unnameable in the Jewish community-Israel's immoral vilations of human rights of Palestinians and much of the Jewish institutional world's active support of these violations.

And they did it in front of 3,000 Jewish leaders from across America--Israel Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu himself.

If there was ever a moment where courage and moral strength was required, this was it, each person carrying in him or herself the inspiration of Palestinian freinds who risk much worse to make their claim to peace and justice.

Their Statement:

We exist. We are everywhere. We speak and love and dream in every language. We pray three times a day or only during the high holidays or when we feel like we really need to or not at all. We are punks and students and parents and janitors and Rabbis and freedom fighters. We are your children, your nieces and nephews, your grandchildren. We embrace diaspora, even when it causes us a great deal of pain. We are the rubble of tangled fear, the deliverance of values. We are human. We are born perfect. We assimilate, or we do not. We are not apathetic. We know and name persecution when we see it. Occupation has contricted our throats and fattened our tongues. We are feeding each other new words. We have family, we build family, we are family. We re-negotiate. We atone. We redraw the map every single day. We travel between worlds. This is not our birthright, it is our necessity.

Go to http://www.youngjewishproud.org/ and see the bravery of these young people. Tell them of your thoughts. I think the next attempt to complex the discussion should have us both, the young and the old, with arms intertwined, so when the bullies come they will face their people's history in our gray heads and well as the future.