Chocolate Chips, Microchips, and Palestinian Rights

from The Propagandist

So, what's the connection between chocolate chips, microchips, and Palestinian rights?

No, that's not a joke. Or: in another sense, it is.

Answer: nothing at all, and that's just the point.

This is the subject of my inaugural contribution for The Propagandist.

The anti-Israel "BDS" (Boycott, Sanctions, Divestment) movement reached new heights of inanity this summer, where, in Australia, it has made boycotting Israeli chocolate the centerpiece of its efforts.  No, I couldn't make this stuff up.

Their public enemy no. 1:  the chic "Max Brenner" chain of gourmet chocolate restaurants. Strident activists gather outside the stores to shout that the owner is a "murderer" and supporter of "genocide," and to chant for "Palestine from the river to the sea."

Founder Oded Brenner, who calls himself "a man of peace," has said, "Whether it is in Israel or not, anything to do with violence, aggressiveness or appearing at protests or boycotts seems silly (to me). But then again, I am just a chocolate-maker." He confesses to being "perplexed and dismayed" at all the controversy.

Can you blame him? The protests have gotten a lot of attention, almost all of it negative. Leading Australian politicians have condemned them.  Faced with the sight of screaming mobs harassing customers and trying to obstruct the operation of Jewish-owned stores, they have tried to point out: uh, folks, the Nazis tried this once before, and we don't think this is the best model for you to follow.  Even the head of the leading pro-Palestinian activist group in Australia, who supports BDS, as such, called these protests "indefensible and stupid."

The character of BDS has lately become even clearer, in case anyone was not paying attention. There is virtually universal agreement that the solution to the Arab-Israeli wars ultimately lies in the creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel, and their mutual recognition that this division of the land puts a definitive end to their conflict. Indeed, that is at least the official position of both Israel and the Palestinian Authority. How and when that will come about is another matter.

The Palestinian Authority is pressing ahead with its quest for a vote on statehood at the UN, and although there is quite some debate as to whether that move is an attempt to revive (1, 2) or circumvent (1, 2, 3) peace negotiations, it has focused world attention on the issue as rarely before.

You'd think the BDS folks would be pleased at this turn of events. Think again.

For them, even a return to the so-called "1967 borders" (actually: 1949 armistice lines) without adjustments would be inadequate. Anything short of the return of all refugees and their descendants to what is now Israel—which would of course in practice eliminate one of the two states—is treason and betrayal. One of the more vocal advocates of that view, "Electronic Intifada" co-founder Ali Abunimah, therefore argues that the "UN ‘Statehood’ Bid" actually "Endangers Palestinian Rights.”

Just last night, he foolishly picked a fight on Twitter with Egyptian-American journalist Mona Eltahawy, accusing her of not being sufficiently dedicated to the Palestinian cause because she would not state her support for BDS. She replied he was not woman enough to challenge her political credentials, and it was downhill from there. Anyone familiar with her work knows that she can be a harsh critic of Israel. But her refusal to play the BDS street cred game earned her a spot on the politically correct blacklist, causing her to say, "Thought police. I will not submit to your litmus test."

Yesterday, too, the demonstrators were out in force again in Sydney, and very proud of their achievement. Those actually trying to shop and eat were rather less enthusiastic about the result. (this video captures some of the flavor of the event)

There you have it: To many observers, Palestinian statehood seems at last within reach.  And meanwhile, more than 19,000 Arabs have died in the ongoing struggle against their own dictatorships in recent months.

And yet the BDS crew is convinced that (1) the possible creation of a Palestinian state alongside Israel in the near future will be a betrayal and a disaster, but (2) persecuting a chocolatier and harassing Australian shoppers will bring about The Revolution.

So much for the chocolate chips. And the microchips? You'll just have to check out the whole thing in The Propagandist. (Hint: if you support BDS and used a popular search engine to get here, you'll have to change your habits. Better check that cell phone in your purse or pocket, too.)

Read the rest: "BDS Fail. Let the (Micro) Chips Fall Where They May"

Questions About Historical Analogies? Read Richard Evans

I wanted to add a footnote to my recent discussions of historical analogies by recommending the work of Richard J. Evans. Evans, Regius Professor of Modern History at Cambridge, is one of my favorite historians who, with only a handful of others in recent generations, has reshaped the field of German history and our attitudes toward it.

Evans is energetic, of dauntingly wide-ranging interests and knowledge, as his major publications show. He was a pioneer of real social history in the field of German studies. He has written about feminists, peasants, and workers. His conceptually as well as empirically studies of Hamburg are anything but mere "local studies."  Among the main themes of his work are the questions of continuity and change in German history, as represented by the twin emphases on the Wilhelmian Kaiserreich and the Third Reich. In the course of writing on the latter, he has also produced major works on historiography dealing with both the challenge of the Nazi past and general issues of method. His In Defence of History has been translated into German, Swedish, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Italian and Turkish.

Evans has just brought out the third and final volume of what is bound to be regarded as his magnum opus, a history of Nazi Germany (irony of success: one can only hope that it brings additional and deserved attention to his earlier works rather than eclipses them).

I thought of a review of his Third Reich at War this May and June, as Nazi analogies burst out like summer flowers on both the domestic and international fronts. The New York Times Book Review appraisal (May 17), by Walter Reich, former director of the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, made the point very simply:

The public’s memory of what Nazi Germany was and did has been, in recent years, mangled and trivialized. Widely seen but misleading films and politicized accusations of countries perpetrating “holocausts” against various groups have debased people’s sense of the real nature of the Germans’ deeds during World War II.

Which is why Richard J. Evans’s “Third Reich at War” couldn’t have come at a better time. The book may well be not only the finest but also the most riveting account of that period. If any work of accurate history has a chance to correct the distortions of public memory, this is it.

Agreed.  Read the book and learn.

Islamism, the Betrayal of the Left, and Prospects for Real Coalition-Building and Peace-Work

One of the peculiarities of the contemporary Middle East conflict has been the historically unprecedented willingness of the putative "left" or "progressive" community to make common cause with or condone the behavior of extremist—notably: reactionary, clerical-obscurantist, even terrorist—organizations with whom they have nothing in common and would under any other circumstances have no truck.  Indeed, only the shared visceral opposition to Israel seems capable of generating this sort of cognitive dissonance.

Almost half a decade ago now, the late, brilliant independent leftist Fred Halliday (1, 2, 3, 4)  warned his erstwhile comrades against the naive belief that radical Islamism represented "a new form of international anti-imperialism that matches – even completes – their own historic project." To see in it only "a movement aimed against 'the West'," he insisted, is inadvertently to recapitulate the argument of "the imperialist right" and willfully or otherwise ignore that "long before the Muslim Brotherhood, the jihadis and other Islamic militants were attacking 'imperialism,' they were attacking and killing the left - and acting across Asia and Africa as the accomplices of the west." (Not the kind of argument you will hear in the "mainstream media"—or even in most leftist discourse, for that matter.)

He further urged a cold, hard look at Islamist social and cultural policy:

The reactionary (the word is used advisedly) nature of much of their programme on women, free speech, the rights of gays and other minorities is evident.

There is also a mindset of anti-Jewish prejudice that is riven with racism and religious obscurantism. . . . Here it is worth recalling the saying of the German socialist leader Bebel, that anti-semitism is “the socialism of fools”. How many on the left are tolerant if not actively complicit in this foolery today is a painful question to ask.

Rejecting the application of the label, "fascist," as inappropriate, he concluded,

It does not need slogans to understand that the Islamist programme, ideology and record are diametrically opposed to the left – that is, the left that has existed on the principles founded on and descended from classical socialism, the Enlightenment, the values of the revolutions of 1798 and 1848, and generations of experience. The modern embodiments of this left have no need of the “false consciousness” that drives so many so-called leftists into the arms of jihadis.

In a similarly complex and textured analysis, Dave Rich now takes up the question in the context of the recent flotilla incident.  In essence, he shows how a desperate and directionless European left, accustomed to subordinating itself to its new Islamist partners at home, unwittingly repeated the mistake at sea, with graver consequences.

He doesn't make casual accusations or carelessly fling epithets. Indeed, he avers, "It is unfair, and inaccurate, to label the leftist participants as useful idiots. Their reasons for action are genuine and their humanitarian efforts at least have political coherence." Instead, he concludes by asking, in the most sober terms, who is controlling whom, and who, if anyone, gained?  In a nutshell, he argues that the leftists and violent radical Islamists on the flotilla both had humanitarian and political goals but that these differed significantly in substance, and each moreover viewed the enterprise through entirely different lenses:

Islamism, globally, is a movement with energy, resources, self-belief and, in some countries, real power. Socialism is anything but. It has failed in power and lost its ideological certitude a long time ago, to be replaced by a vague and, at times, contradictory, set of ideas: anti-globalisation, environmentalism, anti-imperialism and so on. This is not an alliance of equals. European leftists, so used to being the junior partner in their cooperation with Islamists at home, have given up any pretence that their support for Hamas and other Islamist movements is one of critical engagement, or that they would rather work with secular, liberal forces in Palestinian society (or even their own). In this respect, the flotilla is a metaphor for the whole left-Islamist alliance. A journey over which leftists have a semblance of influence but little real control, into a confrontation not of their own making, from which they derive no political benefit.

Meanwhile, Benjamin Weinthal, writing in Gay City News, asks why elements of the LGBT movement have suddenly fallen prey to boycotts of Israel, a nation that, whatever its failings, is the only one in the Middle East to guarantee gay rights (indeed, in many ways, to a greater extent than does the United States).  In particular, he castigated philosopher Judith Butler's assertion that radical Islamists "could be described as left,” and thus worthy of sympathy.  Referring to recent controversies over events in Berlin, he cited "a blistering critique—“In bed with Hezbollah”—by Jan Feddersen, a gay German editor of the major left-wing newspaper TAZ:

“That Butler gives a thumbs-up to the concept of narrow self-righteousness is actually consistent,” Feddersen wrote. “She who cannot and will not think in civil rights categories favors, in a global perspective, alliances in which homosexuals cannot be interested. Hezbollah and Hamas, she recently decreed in a speech, should be positively rated from the leftist perspective [as] organizations that fight misery and poverty and oppose what she sees as the Zionist impertinence called Israel.“

Some of my well-informed and thoughtful friends on the left and in the gay movement found the critique of Butler overly harsh or lacking in nuance:  She and like-minded activists are well aware of the relatively pro-gay conditions in Israel, they say, but do not see this as reason to withhold criticism of other policies that they regard as deserving of censure.  They also are, obviously, aware of the shortcomings of the Islamists in sexual and gender politics, I am told, reassuringly.  Fair enough.  I don't think any reasonable person would deny or assume that these hypereducated people do not know this.  But to pose that defense, I think, is to beg the question.  The real question (and here is the connection to Halliday and Rich) is not: Does the progressive character of one policy of a country inoculate it against criticism of it on the basis of others? Of course not.  Please.  The critics are not so obtuse, either.  Rather, the question should be the one that I posed at the outset:  Just how many sins are we willing to overlook in order to conclude that it is worth allying ourselves—on the traditional logic that "the enemy of my enemy is my friend," or in pseudo-Marxist terms, because it plays a "subjectively progressive" role—with a group that is otherwise inimical to our ideals and objective interests?  And to what extent do we morally compromise ourselves and become complicit in the crimes of these organizations if we do so? 

As noted, Fred Halliday, like many others in academe and on the left, was reluctant to apply the term, "fascism," to the Islamist movement, but on rigorous historical and intellectual grounds, and not simply, like the shallow majority left, because the Bush administration and other casual thinkers on the right had so passionately embraced it.

My fellow historian Jeffrey Herf is one who has had no such reluctance.  For several years now, he has sought to make a  case for the "fascist" nature of Islamism on the basis of its intellectual antecedents and concrete policies. Although rigorously argued, this has tended to be a minority view.  A turning point of sorts occurred when political scientist and German Green politician Matthias Küntzel, stunned by the attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon and the Hamburg connections of the hijackers, pursued the origins of the event and indeed found them in Germany—but the Germany of the 1930s as much as the 1990s.  He published the results as Djihad und Judenhass:  Über den neuen antijüdischen Krieg (Jihad and Jew-Hatred: On the New Anti-Jewish War; 2002); in English as  Jihad and Jew-Hatred: Islamism, Nazism and the Roots of 9/11 (Telos Press, 2007).  In his preface, Herf praised the book for showing how, following the defeat of Nazism, Islamism in effect assumed its mantle as the next "important political and ideological movement in world politics to place hatred of the Jews at the center of its ideology," thereby also forcing us "to rethink the issue of continuity and break before and after 1945 and expand our horizons beyond Europe to encompass the trans-national diffusion and impact of Nazism and fascism on the Arab and Islamic world."  It is precisely to these latter questions that Herf has now turned, with with pioneering empirical research into the causal connections between Nazism and Islamist antisemitism.

The not necessarily productive debate over Arab and Islamic complicity in the Holocaust has flared up again (e.g. 1, 2). Without delving into that whole topic, and to oversimplify: One view stresses the well-known collaboration of key Arab figures with the Nazi regime (from a Sadat for pragmatic reasons, to the Grand Mufti on grounds of ideological affinity). The other insists that the Arabs by and large remained immune to Nazism.  Each side can also point to evidence drawn from the behavior of ordinary people toward the Jews:  for example, the "Farhud," or pogrom against Iraqi Jews, on the one hand, or the increasingly well-documented efforts of Arab rescuers of Jews from the Holocaust (1, 2), on the other.  Herf addresses this historiographic problem in an interview with Viennese journalist and anti-fascist activist Karl Pfeifer concerning a recent conference on "Arab Responses to Fascism and Nazism."

His Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World, based on an analysis of German wartime radio broadcasts to the Middle East, actually helps to loosen if not break the logjam. (One can find a précis of some of the book's arguments in his article in Central European History 42 (2009): 709-36.)  It is noteworthy that it finally persuaded Daniel Pipes—an arch-conservative and critic of Islamism, if ever there was one, but hitherto a sceptic—that the fascist connection was integral and not incidental or rhetorical.  As he explains:

After reading Küntzel and Herf, I realize that my education about the modern Middle East was lacking a vital ingredient, the Nazi one. . . . As page after page of Nazi Propaganda for the Arab World establishes in mind-numbing but necessary detail, the Germans above all pursued two themes: stopping Zionism and promoting Islamism. Each deserves close consideration.  

Nazi propaganda in Arabic portrayed World War II, history's largest and most destructive war, as focused primarily on the sliver of land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. This interpretation both flattered Arabs and extended Hitler's grand theory that Jews wanted to take over the Arab countries and eventually the whole world, that the Allied powers were but pawns in this Zionist conspiracy, and that Germany was leading the resistance to them.

Palestine was the key, according to these broadcasts. If Zionists took it over, they would "control the three continents: Europe, Asia, and Africa. Thus they will be able to rule the whole world and spread Jewish capitalism." Such an eventuality would lead to Arabs oppressed and Islam defunct. "Should Bolshevism and Democracy be victorious," announced Nazi radio, "the Arabs will be dominated forever and all traces of Islam will be wiped out." To avoid this fate, Arabs had to join with the Axis.

Far from promoting antisemitism on "racial" grounds, which would have raised obvious problems among Arabs, the Nazis thus shrewdly justified their anti-Jewish policy on situationally appropriate religious and ethno-nationalist grounds. They took pains to anchor their antisemitism in the teachings of the Qur'an and Islam and in the language of the Arab revival and anti-imperialism (sound familiar?). In Pipes's words,

Ideas the Nazis spread in the Middle East have had an enduring twofold legacy. First, as in Europe, they built on existing prejudices against Jews to transform that prejudice into something far more paranoid, aggressive, and murderous. . . .

The fruits of this effort are seen not only in decades of furious Muslim anti-Zionism, personified by Arafat and Ahmadinejad, but also in the persecution of ancient Jewish communities in countries like Egypt and Iraq, which have now shriveled to near-extinction. . . .

Second, Islamism took on a Nazi quality. As someone who has criticized the term Islamofascism on the grounds that it gratuitously conflates two distinct phenomena, I have to report that Herf's evidence now leads me to acknowledge deep fascist influences on Islamism. This includes the Islamist hatred of democracy and liberalism and its contempt for multiple political parties, preference for unity over division, cult of youth and militarism, authoritarian moralism, cultural repression, and illiberal economics.

Beyond specifics, that influence extends to what Herf calls an "ability to introduce a radical message in ways that resonated with, yet deepened and radicalized, already existing sentiments."

To be sure, skeptics remain. In a debate in the Chronicle of Higher Education last fall, the otherwise generally intelligent and  well-informed Richard Wolin took Herf to task for purportedly concocting an intellectual history devoid of social context. Although Wolin seemed to direct his argument to issues central to the concerns of this blog—namely, the proper uses of history and analogy (especially where Nazism is concerned)—it soon became clear that his fear (or problem) was the conflation of Islam and Islamism. He objected to any association of Islam and fascism because that seemed to echo the disgraced vocabulary of the Bush administration and scurrilously implied "an integral relationship" between a historical political ideology and “one of the great religions of salvation”—a claim the book in fact never made. In ably defending himself, Herf clearly highlighted the real difference. Wolin asserted that Islamism was primarily a response to "the history and political experiences of the postwar Middle East."  In Herf's rather more nuanced view, by contrast, Islamism is neither a purely indigenous ideology arising from Islam itself nor a pure European import. “Rather, it emerged as the result of a conjuncture of fundamentalist currents within Islam and Nazi ideology and policy” and “was more cause than effect of the disasters of post-1945 Middle Eastern history.”

We seem to have come some distance from our original topic, yet these last issues are in fact intimately related to the earlier ones:  To point to these tainted origins of Islamism is not to indulge in accusations of guilt by association or inheritance. Rather, it is to cite one more reason for the most severe scrutiny of its contemporary manifestations.  There is simply too much here that should give western progressives pause.  There are far better ways to support Palestinian rights and peace and justice in the region as a whole than by "getting in bed with" the Islamists.

So, given this grim view of past, present, and future, why the flower at the top of the page?

Concerned by these developments and their deleterious influence on prospects for peace, labor leaders from the US, Europe, and Australia last year announced the formation of Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine, or TULIP,

a new global movement "to challenge the apologists for Hamas and Hizbollah in the labour movement" and to fight for a two-state solution to the conflict between Israelis and Palestinians.

They explained:

The solution to the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians is clear – and has been accepted in principle by both sides. Israeli and Palestinian states living side by side, within secure and recognised borders, is the only workable solution to a conflict that has dragged on for decades. . . .

People of goodwill everywhere want a process to succeed delivering peace, justice and reconciliation. Trade unions can play a positive role here, and often do.

Among the practical aims of the organization are to:

Work together with Israeli and Palestinian trade unionists and associated NGOs to find ways to provide practical on-the-ground assistance — rather than empty slogans.

Words about real actions, rather than just more words:  words too rarely spoken.  Let a thousand TULIPs bloom.

Nazis, Nazis . . . everywhere?! (I) more on the problem of inappropriate analogies

I just posted about sloppy historical analogies, and as readers will know from the periodic reports on this site, allusions to the Third Reich tend to be the sloppiest of all.  There's nothing like a political controversy to bring out this kind of atrocious reasoning and writing, so it's time for another brief round-up of recklessly wielded Nazi analogies and some of the rebukes they occasioned.

Although it's often foreign affairs that bring on the disease, there have recently been some domestic triggers, as well. Many liberals and leftists, outraged over the controversial new Arizona immigration law (SB 1070) did not hesitate to denounce the measure as something worthy of Hitler. Other groups and individuals that likewise opposed the law as a potential encouragement to racial profiling and anti-immigrant attitudes nonetheless condemned the comparisons as intellectually unjustified and ethically shameful. 

The Anti-Defamation League denounced a number of careless or provocative statements, declaring, "No matter how odious, bigoted, biased and unconstitutional Arizona's new law may be, let's be clear that there is no comparison between the situation facing immigrants, legal or illegal, in Arizona and what happened in the Holocaust."

NPR offered a more extended analysis in a conversation hosted by Alison Keyes. Guests Clarissa Martinez, Director of Immigration and National Campaigns, National Council of La Raza, and Ben Cohen, Associate Director of Communications, American Jewish Committee, agreed that the law was bad but the comparison was unhelpful.  Martinez observed that learning from the Nazi experience meant learning to speak out against injustice, but that not all injustices were of the same magnitude:  "we are also mindful that we cannot compare the shameful turn of events in Arizona with the systematic mass effort of a murderous regime to gas, shoot and exterminate the Jews in all Nazi-occupied territories."  Cohen said, "Basically, no. I don't think there is a comparison." One can legitimately "invoke the Holocaust" when speaking of contemporary genocides such as Cambodia or Rwanda. In this case, even the legal concerns are different:  In Nazi Germany, "people who had previously been equal citizens under the law suddenly found themselves horribly downgraded on the basis of racial origin. . . .  That prepared the ground for genocide, for the mass extermination of the Jews."

Of course, the writers of the right often turn to the Nazi epithet as a careless shorthand for the ultimate menace of "big government."  Last month, for example, Thomas Sowell warned that "American democracy is being dismantled, piece by piece, before our very eyes by the current administration in Washington, and few people seem to be concerned about it." He prefaced the piece by warning that both Hitler and Lenin had mobilized the apolitical or gullible in order to build their dictatorships. It was rather inane, but that was the extent of the totalitarian reference. Still, when the irrepressible and incomprehensible Sarah Palin encouraged her Twitter followers to "Read Thomas Sowell's article," criticism bubbled up. She was soon forced to tweet in self-defense, in her inimitable voice, "Lamestream media: I never compared Obama to Hitler. Quit making things up."

Sometimes, though, the commentators move from comparison to equation.   Simon Greer of Jewish Funds for Justice denounced conservative TV host Glenn Beck as "a con man" "bottling" an "ideological agenda" as "'theology'" by calling upon Americans to "Make sure your church puts God first and politics and government last." For Greer, "To put God first is to put humankind first, and to put humankind first is to put the common good first," which means turning to "effective and engaged government." Beck responded by charging,  "This leads to death camps. A Jew, of all people, should know that. This is exactly the kind of talk that led to the death camps in Germany. Put humankind and the common good first."  Emphasizing the common good, he said, would lead to the elimination of the undesirable. I guess they won't be going to any interfaith dinners together.

Beck was unrepentant, but former California Governor and current Democratic gubernatorial candidate Jerry Brown had to do some urgent backpedaling after he denounced his Republican rival.  "Taking a page out of the playbook normally reserved for Glenn Beck," (in the words of the Huffington Post; nice, how everything fits so well into my little schema), he said of Meg Whitman:

"You know, by the time she's done with me, two months from now, I'll be a child-molesting..." He let the line trail off. "She'll have people believing whatever she wants about me.

"It's like Goebbels," referring to Hitler's notorious minister of propaganda. "Goebbels invented this kind of propaganda. He took control of the whole world. She wants to be president. That's her ambition, the first woman president. That's what this is all about."

The Whitman campaign was not amused and made sure, in its two-sentence statement, to identify Goebbels explicitly with the Holocaust and not just the Third Reich in general (that's historically quite legitimate, though it does have the feel of overkill and pandering, given the loopy as well as minimalist context).

Still, I'm not quite sure why Brown felt he had to apologize for his statement. According to his spokesperson:

"I wouldn't vouch for the accuracy of it, but I also don't want to dispute the accuracy of it," he told The Associated Press. "It was jogging talk taken out of context."

"Jogging talk":  well that explains it. All clear?

So, Is the US Invasion of Iraq Like the Nazi Occupation of Czechoslovakia? (did anyone actually say it was?). On the problem of historical analogies

Even though or perhaps because I had by chance recently been posting a lot about the history of Czechoslovakia under the Nazis (1, 2, 3, 4, 5), I almost missed the furor that erupted over an analogy to the Sudeten Germans and the Third Reich in a discussion of the Iraq war last week. (h.t.: BHB)

One just wants to shake one’s head, except that it would hurt: anyone foolhardy enough to plough through Glenn Greenwald's “universality of war propaganda” in Salon, the riposte by Joe Klein in Time, and the responses they provoked—including, at last count, 405 and 161 talkbacks respectively—is bound to end up with a bad headache. I’ll summarize, but you really have to read the originals in order to savor the full aroma.

Continuing his long-running feud with the Atlantic’s Jeffrey Goldberg over this, that, and almost everything else (mainly the Middle East), Greenwald reacts vehemently to Goldberg’s invitation to visit Kurdistan and see the benefits of the US entanglement in Iraq, retorting: Well, of course the Kurds are happy because outsiders came in, and in a war fought mainly elsewhere in the country and at the expense of other citizens’ lives, defeated their enemy and secured for them a good and even favored status. For him, this is just rank apologetics by “the neocon fabulists who cheered on the Iraq War” (as he refers to his bugbears in one of his 6 “updates”). “It's difficult to find an invasion in history that wasn't supported by at least some faction of the invaded population and where that same self-justifying script wasn't used.”

He goes on to employ a series of historical analogies (most involving Nazis):

That's true even of the most heinous aggressors. Many Czech and Austrian citizens of Germanic descent, viewing themselves as a repressed minority, welcomed Hitler's invasion of their countries, while leaders of the independence-seeking Sudeten parties in those countries actively conspired to bring it about. Did that make those German invasions justifiable?

This predictably provoked impassioned criticism, for example, by Time’s Joe Klein:

This is obscene. Comparing the Kurds, who had been historically orphaned and then slaughtered with poison gas by Saddam Hussein, with Nazi-loving Sudeten Germans is outrageous. Comparing the United States to Nazi Germany is not merely disgraceful, but revelatory of a twisted, deluded soul

As to Greenwald’s built-in disclaimer—“It should go without saying, but doesn't: the point here is not that the attack on Iraq is comparable to these above-referenced invasions”—Klein says, “No, it's not irrelevant. If he's going to compare the U.S. in Kurdistan with Nazi Germany in Sudetenland, Greenwald can't just slink away by saying those actions "may or may not be comparable."

Klein does himself no favors when he speaks of Greenwald’s “patented, vile, intellectually dishonest jihads” (why that noun?), and the latter repays the courtesy by deriding (less felicitously) “those who want to deliberately distort what you say and/or whose reading comprehension skills are extremely impaired.” The point-counterpoint really goes downhill fast, culminating in an irrelevant and dilettantish debate among their respective supporters about whether Germany actually “invaded” Austria, the Sudetenland, the rest of Bohemia, and Slovakia, much of it based on second-rate sources and third-rate reasoning. Historians everywhere must be averting their faces.

So, who’s right?

Greenwald didn’t really quite say what Klein and others accused him of (“Glenn Greenwald Compares The Iraq War to the Nazi Conquest of Europe,” was the title of Goldberg’s response [cf. this]). Still, Klein is within his rights in shooting back with the charge of disingenuousness. It’s just that he misdirects his fire.

Goldberg’s point was that Saddam’s regime was oppressive and its elimination a good thing, as measured—for instance—by the improvement in status of the Kurdish minority. Greenwald disagrees, but he distorts and trivializes the argument by reducing it to the assertion “that if you can find some citizens in an invaded country who are happy about the invasion, then it demonstrates the aggression was justifiable or at least morally supportable.”

What, in the end has been proven?
Little, if anything.

Is it true that “Those who perpetrate wars of aggression invariably invent moral justifications to allow themselves and the citizens of the aggressor state to feel good and noble about themselves”? Yes, indeed. But it is no less true of those who engage in defensive or other justified wars (that’s implied in “universality”).

Since we’re all using Nazism as the gold standard of evil, and the fight against same as the gold standard of goodness, let’s return to some basic historical facts: The World War II Allies did not fight fascist Germany out of a desire to advance the cause of human rights and roll back repression. The British and the French appeased the Nazis until it was no longer possible credibly to do so, given their treaty obligations to Poland. Few were eager “to die for Danzig” (as the saying went). Stalin cynically partnered with the Nazis in carving up Poland, and it was only the incursion of German troops in 1941 that caused the two erstwhile allies to clash. As for the US, President Roosevelt did all he could to aid the beleaguered British. However, immediately after Pearl Harbor, Congress declared war on Japan alone. The foolhardy German declaration of war  three days later forced the US to follow suit (an inept Republican got in trouble over his ignorance of the latter not long ago). In other words, the four major Allied nations went to war because they were forced to do so, and not on some abstract moral grounds. Once they had entered the fray, they found ample justification for their cause, and portrayed it as the struggle of freedom against tyranny. Cynical and belated? Perhaps. Propaganda (in the original or other sense of the word)? Sure. Nonetheless true and justified? Absolutely.

It is perfectly legitimate to make an analogy and specify a limited application. Most of us do that from time to time. However, if the only point is that the welcoming of an invader by any part of the population is no proof of the morality of the invasion, then that’s unexceptionable because it’s banal and utterly uninformative. In that case, citing 5 duplicative examples from the Third Reich (along with pictures, for excess) really does start to look disingenuous, as if the writer seeks to avail himself of the full moral opprobrium of the Nazi analogy while at the same time maintaining plausible deniability.

It would be pedantic and uncharitable to focus on the multiple historical misstatements, but for the fact that they reveal the shoddiness of the historical reasoning.

Anyone who is historically literate will stumble over the phrase, “independence-seeking Sudeten parties in those countries”—twice. In the first place, the Sudeten German Party by definition existed only in Czechoslovakia, and not in Austria (“Sudetenland” was an artificial term for the western borderlands of the former, in which ethnic Germans predominated). In the second place, the German ultranationalists in both countries did not seek “independence.” On the contrary, they sought union with their larger kindred neighbor: their battle cry was “Heim ins Reich!”—“Homeward into the Reich!” Similarly, the phrase, “citizens of Germanic descent, viewing themselves as a repressed minority” will raise an eyebrow or two. It applies perfectly well to many of the so-called Sudeten Germans, but it is the first time I have heard it applied to Austria—and for good reason. Germans made up only 33% of the population of the Austro-Hungarian Empire but fully 95.3% of the population in the small Austrian republic created after World War I. Even the innumerate should be able to tell the difference. To the extent that Austrians welcomed Anschluss with Germany (and a rigged plebiscite notwithstanding, most clearly did), their complaint was not that they were a “minority.”

The sloppiness reveals an inability to rein in the instinctive desire for overkill, heedless of the merits. As David Hackett Fischer observed in his now-classic Historians’ Fallacies, “The word ‘analogy,’ in modern usage, signifies an inference that if two or more things agree in one respect, then they might also agree in another.”  My concern here is not with the rightness or wrongness of the Iraq war (about which decent people, pace Greenwald, have disagreed), and instead, about the right or wrong use of history.

If one employs a historical analogy, it really has to fit, and one has to be aware of both its strengths and its limits. This is a tempting but dangerous enterprise, as Hackett Fisher demonstrates. “The fallacy of proof by analogy,” he says, “is a functional form or error, which violates a cardinal rule of analogical inference—analogy is a useful tool of historical understanding only as an auxiliary to proof. It is never a substitute for it, however great the temptation may be or however difficult the empirical task at hand may seem.”

Greenwald is too smart to maintain that the Sudeten Germans are like the Kurds or the Nazis like the Americans. Unfortunately, he is unable or unwilling to use history in any meaningful way. It could have been productive to pursue the analogies rigorously: Was the US invasion of Iraq more like the German conquest of Europe or the Allied invasion of Normandy? How?  On what grounds is it justifiable to intervene militarily in another country’s affairs? What were the motivations: Was it “aggression” or “liberation”? How do we measure the consequences: What is the moral and practical trade-off between the benefit to a portion of the population and the suffering of the rest?

Greenwald sets up a whole display window full of straw men in which history is but cheap and incidental decoration. Instead of furnishing the fabric for a robust analysis, it just dresses up a rant.

As James Bryce famously said, “The chief practical use of history is to deliver us from plausible historical analogies.” And, from implausible and gratuitous ones, we might add.

Investigative Journalists: As South African Judge, Goldstone Condemned more than Two Dozen Blacks to Death

New information on the career history of Judge Richard Goldstone, author of the controversial report on the Gaza conflict of 2009:

Judge Goldstone's dark past

Yedioth Ahronoth investigation reveals man preaching human rights, who authored scathing report against Israel's operation in Gaza, sent at least 28 black defendants to gallows as South African judge under Apartheid regime

Tehiya Barak, Tzadok Yehezkeli
Latest Update: 05.06.10, 23:55 / Israel News
. . .
A special Yedioth Ahronoth investigation reveals Richard Goldstone's dark side as a judge during the Apartheid era in South Africa. It turns out, the man who authored the Goldstone Report criticizing the IDF's actions during Operation Cast Lead took an active part in the racist policies of one of the cruelest regimes of the 20th century.

During his tenure as sitting as judge in the appellant court during the 1980s and 1990s sentenced dozens of blacks mercilessly to their death. . . .

Yedioth Ahronoth's findings show that Goldstone sentenced at least 28 black defendants to death. Most of them were found guilty of murder and sought to appeal the verdict. In those days, he actually made sure he showed his support for the execution policy, writing in one verdict that it reflects society's demands that a price be paid for crimes it rightfully views as frightening. (read the rest)

The report goes on to detail other instances in which he upheld racist or oppressive laws, on one occasion handing down jail sentences to youths for mere possession of tapes by ANC leaders, while on another, exonerating white police officers "who had broken into a white woman's house on suspicions that she was conducting sexual relations with a black man."

Goldstone's defense was a not unexpected but nonetheless problematic one: though he had personally opposed the system and its laws, he was duty-bound to work within it and apply them as fairly as he could. In another interview, he added that Nelson Mandela had no problem appointing him as a judge. Naturally, this proved to be a rather unsatisfying answer for many, in light of both historical precedent and Goldstone's own moralizing stance since that time.

Critics, from US lawyer Alan Dershowitz to Israel's conservative Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon, were quick to note, with Schadenfreude, the similarity to the excuses of Nazi officials and war criminals:

"Goldstone took a job as an apartheid judge. He allowed dozens of black people who were unfairly tried to be executed," Dershowitz told Channel 2 TV.

"You know, a lot of people say we just followed the law, German judges… That's what (German SS officer and physician Josef) Mengele said too. That was Mengele's defense and that was what everybody said in Nazi Germany. 'We just followed the law.' When you are in an apartheid country like South Africa, you don't follow the law," Dershowitz added.

In one sense, Goldstone's record does not bear on the significance of his Report, which will stand or fall on its merits. But given that the document prompted widespread charges of bias, the investigation may yet prove to be pertinent to a new reading. Already we are hearing suggestions that Goldstone's opinions there (but presumably in other recent endeavors, as well), far from representing a set of neutral analyses, in fact reflected a sort of perverse overcompensation for a blemished moral past about which he preferred to keep silent. In the words of Deputy Foreign Minister Ayalon, "This so-called respected judge is using this [Gaza] report in order to atone for his sins and gain international legitimacy.”

I am very curious to see how this all plays out. In the meantime, it is interesting to see the Nazi analogy used somewhat more judiciously than is often the case. It remains provocative here, too, but generally within bounds (admittedly, I could have done without the gratuitous and inaccurate reference to Mengele). No one is accusing Goldstone of committing crimes like the Nazis. Rather, the charge is that he is rationalizing his complicity in the policies of a racist regime on the same grounds that they did. This reminds us of a moral dilemma that all of us should contemplate, and not only in this context.

Postscript: thus far, the story does not seem to have had any play in the mainstream western media.

Attempting to intervene in the Middle East conflict, however ineptly or disingenuously, is not the same as genocide

Those nasty Nazi analogies are all over the place.

Most often, nowadays, they of course emanate from the infantile anti-Israel discourse of those who, having abandoned the brains and scruples of the old left, retain only its name. Still, as we have seen, insensitivity and hyperbole know no ethnic or political bounds.

It was thus dismaying but not entirely unexpected to encounter the following:

Jeanette Pryor,"Clinton Joins World Powers for Wannsee Conference Part II: Condemnation is Final Solution to the Israeli Question"

It begins as a moving story of growth and witness:

When I was nineteen years old I sat in a classroom in France and was taught that the Jews control the entire world. My conservative teacher was deeply influenced by far-right French extremists and Holocaust Deniers who hated America and, of course Israel. I had always been interested, more like obsessed, with the history of the Holocaust. The Diary of Ann Frank was a favorite childhood book. I read The Hiding Place at least 100 times, no Irish exaggeration.

My easy repudiation of an accurate, open-minded world-view for radical extremism — coming as I did from a family that valued ethnic diversity — is a perfect example of the danger of the New Anti-Semitism. Teaching young people that Israel uses finance to undermine the global economy and “capitalizes” on the Holocaust to prevent anyone from criticizing her involvement in world governments is rampant. Rallying people against “all-powerful Jews,” happens in churches and even on nationally syndicated radio shows.

More than two decades and hundreds of hours of research separate me from the naïve child who simply accepted the lies about Israel and Her role in world politics. The regret of living a portion of my life with a paranoid worldview based on illogic, cruelty, and hatred is profound. Today, the nature of the lies makes me furious, furious with the girl I was, who should have known better, enraged with the teachers who could have opened a book, looked at a map, and known the truth. . . .

Sadly, it ends with a rant. The author denounces recent US and EU calls for a settlement of the Arab-Israeli conflict within 24 months:

When I think of Clinton and the other UN and EU representatives sitting politely around a table, drinking Perrier and deciding what “to do about Israel,” all I can think of is the Wannsee Conference, the oh-so-civilized reunion of top Nazi officials to “find a solution to the Jewish Question.” . . .

and concludes:

I live within a few blocks of the Midwest Center for Holocaust Studies. While doing research, I used to drive on the campus and notice all the cars with their Obama 2008 stickers. I wonder now if the patrons had any idea that their votes for Obama would be votes against the continued existence of Israel; votes that would send Clinton, the first-lady who embraced the wife of terrorist butcher, Yasser Arafat, to the second round of the Wannsee Conference, where she and like-minded revolutionaries would sign what may turn out to be a second death warrant for the Jewish People.

This is sad.

The Wannsee Conference was the secret gathering in early 1942 at which the Nazi leadership definitively decided upon the physical liquidation of the Jews of Europe: the official death warrant of the genocide.

Whatever one thinks of the continuing stalemate in the "peace process" and the intervention of the US and the EU, and even if one thinks that it may endanger the survival of Israel, this is unhelpful.

If the thrust of the essay was a compelling "witness" or "conversion" narrative of one who went from ignorance and blind acceptance to understanding and mature critical inquiry, then the closing lines wipe all that out. If the point is that the latter-day great powers are behaving, well, imperiously, they are still by no stretch of the imagination endorsing, much less, embarking upon a genocide. And if one unleashes that sort of barrage against the leadership of the west, what ammunition would the author have in reserve for the genuine antisemites and inciters of hatred? Talk about overkill.

Actually, were one to search for a historical analogy, the more apt one might be the notorious Munich Agreement (which I happened to teach yesterday): in September 1938, Great Britain and France forced their putative ally Czechoslovakia, the only democracy in the region—upon pain of being abandoned and blamed for any ensuing war—to surrender a portion of its territory in order to appease the Nazi demand for self-determination of restive and increasingly subversive ethnic Germans.

However, even that one is inappropriate. Fortunately, we're not yet there again, either. Perhaps, then, it is best to set aside forced historical analogies and instead deal with the very real problems of the present and future.

Dudes: Opposing a tax increase doesn't make one a Nazi; let's "damp down" the political rhetoric in Amherst

As I've said, this blog is not going to turn into one devoted to local politics, but as I also said, there are occasions when the historical concerns of this site and the larger issues of town affairs intersect.

As my reader will know, I'm always on the lookout for inappropriate historical analogies, particularly when they involve Nazism, which is something that I know something about. They are too numerous to count or address, so I choose to highlight select ones, or sometimes random cases that I just happen across. Here's one local example of the latter.

One of the most contentious issues on the ballot today is the proposed tax override (for you outsiders, Massachusetts Prop 2 1/2, following the pattern set by California way back in the 1970s, requires voters to approve any property-tax increase above the legally mandated 2.5 percent per year).

Tax increases are never uncontroversial, and in the current depressed fiscal climate, advocates and opponents alike can generate strong arguments as well as strong passions. Most people in my circles seem to support the override, whether enthusiastically or reluctantly. However, I know many other people who strongly oppose it for a variety of either ideological or practical reasons. Each group tends to think the worst of the other. This year's debate has been even more heated than usual because it coincides with ongoing controversies over our schools and the extent to which they are managed efficiently (1, 2, 3, 4).

Here's one case in which the political rhetoric got terribly out of hand. Local political gadfly Larry Kelley (self-proclaimed admirer of Robert Kennedy, diehard fan of the American flag, and diehard foe of the town's Cherry Hill golf course) is one of the most widely read local bloggers, known for castigating our liberal-leftist foibles, real or imagined. A strong opponent of this and other overrides, he has of course been posting regularly about it. The comment section of his blog is, let us say, among the more frank and freewheeling sites of local political discussion. Probably most of the anonymous posters are in agreement with his views, but there are the plenty of challenges, as well.

This comment, in which an anonymous reader called Larry a genocidal Nazi, crossed a red line:

Yellow signs = black death said... [the anti-override signs are yellow and black; JW]

In 2007, Amherst voters defeated the proposed override, setting off $7 million in cuts to annual, recurring expenses and changing forever how Amherst gets its work done.

The town is in better fiscal shape than it has ever been. Everyone agrees on that.

Now, what?

There is only $1.7 million left -- the schools.

Now, you want us to...

... finish off the schools?

Yes!!! The children must be made to pay!!

Why don't you just set up a gas chamber at the schools, it would be cheaper.

Start with the youngest.

Leave the oldest, to work in your factories. Someone has to clean up this mess.

Yellow signs = black death

I'm familiar with Godwin's law, and yet, I was taken aback. This is just deeply offensive, thoughtless, and idiotic. As I've said on these pages before, few if any things are "like" the Nazis (Larry himself has been known to slip into that mode of argument). To liken school budget cuts to Nazi genocide is to desecrate the memory of the 1.5 million children murdered in the Holocaust (1, 2). But even if one has no historical-moral sensitivity, one at least should not have a tin ear for political effectiveness. Resorting to this sort of mudslinging just makes one look lazy and stupid and undercuts the cause that one claims to support. Is that so very hard to understand?

Please, folks, let's take a step back and take it easy. Whatever happens on March 23, we are all going to have to live together and pull together on March 24.

It’s Official: BDS and Israeli Apartheid Week Are Not to Be Trusted!

Okay, so here’s my final comment on “Israeli Apartheid Week,” 2010.

I try to read material from a variety of viewpoints, including views that I oppose, so I therefore periodically check out the BDS websites and the like. However, when I recently got a new computer, I temporarily had to turn off some Firefox browser extensions while resolving a few software conflicts. Among the items that I then reinstalled was “Web of Trust”:

Web of Trust is one of Mozilla’s most popular add-ons. Our safe surfing tool uses a traffic-light style rating system to help you stay safe when you search, surf and shop online.

WOT ratings are powered by a global community of millions of trustworthy users who have rated millions of websites based on their experiences.

When I returned to the official site of “Israeli Apartheid Week,” here is what I found:


Couldn’t have said it better myself.

Take Down This (Extremely Silly) Wall (please!)

How does one determine the date of a sacred event? Traditionally, both Judaism and Islam relied on lunar observation to set the calendar, and the difficulty of communicating the news over long distances led to uncertainty. Diaspora Judaism solved the problem by simply adding an extra day to major holidays, for safety’s sake. And “Israeli Apartheid Week”? Well, it begins with the month of March, but when it ends is anyone’s guess. It lasted five days in its original incarnation, but in some places today, runs as long as twelve or fourteen (unless there’s a special deal: for you, seven!).

As I wrap up my coverage of our local festivities, I therefore wanted to make sure they were really over. Today is the 15th, so I should be safe. In fact, there’s been no visible activity for almost a week.

Let me, then, take you back to the (anti)climax.

March 6 was one of those glorious pre-spring days when the sun shines and the temperature tops 50 degrees Fahrenheit, and everyone, frustrated at having been cooped up during the New England winter, surges into the great outdoors. For better or worse, it was also the weekend, and what is more, the first (or only? see above) Saturday of “Israeli Apartheid Week.”

Sure enough, when I came downtown in the early afternoon, I spotted the dreaded hordes of shouting students. In fact, many were even wearing the tell-tale symbolic green of the faithful. As it turned out, though, they were all lined up in front of McMurphy’s tavern, and it was the green of Saint Pat rather than Hamas.


By contrast, over at the nearby Town Common, where the “Israeli Apartheid Wall” had just been erected, the scene was dead.


In fact, all the action was taking place on the blank backside of the wall, where students picnicked, oblivious to the great political crimes being pilloried but yards away.


And the fearsome construction itself?

Pretty much a joke, as well. Graphically, it was a disorganized mess. Intellectually, too, it used a “spaghetti against the wall” approach: throw everything up there, and hope that something sticks in the minds of the onlooker.

It contained a potted history of the Middle East conflict far too ludicrous to fisk here.


A few examples will have to suffice:

(1) “1920-The British Occupy Palestine.” Uh, no. The British army conquered the Ottoman territory in 1917-18 (do students no longer know the dates of World War I? well, they would if they took my classes). In 1920, the San Remo Conference assigned to Great Britain the League of Nations Mandate for Palestine. That still-binding document, which under the “international law” that activists so love to cite, authorized “the establishment of the Jewish national home,” went into effect in 1922.

(2) “1967-War; Israel annexes Gaza and the West Bank.” Sorry: never happened. The standard view is that Israel “annexed” only East Jerusalem, though even that is debatable, as it merely extended unified administration to all sectors of the city. There’s no mention of the "annexed" Golan Heights or the vast Sinai Peninsula (returned to Egypt), presumably because Palestinians do not claim them, and yet this omission completely and conveniently removes the context for the 1967 conflict, which was a major international war—Arab-Israeli rather than Israeli-Palestinian.

(3) More telling still, the overall logic is thus reminiscent of a magical rather than scientific mentality. Terrible things just happen without evident causation: “war ensues” (or more often, “war” is left an orphan, without even a verb for company). The standard set of propaganda maps, showing Israeli territory increasing and Palestinian decreasing, is thus presumed to speak for itself and send a message of relentless Jewish expansionism. Actions of the Arab side—most notably, rejection of a Palestinian-Arab state in 1947, and aggression in 1967—are conveniently absent.

(4) “1948 War, the Nabke [emphasis added]. 750,000 Palestinians displaced.”

Uh, . . . that’s “Naqba” (or: Nakba), activist dudes!!

The reference of course is to the Arabic term for “disaster” as a description of the war and the creation of the refugee problem: the absolutely central element in the Palestinian national narrative.

It would be like a Jew referring to the “Hokolaust.” Whoops.

Need one say more? The inability to get such fundamental facts and terms right speaks volumes. No need even to try to make sense of the bizarre depiction of other border barriers around the world, which not even the addition of the gratuitous epithet, “el muro fascista,” can rescue from graphic and conceptual incoherence.




Very few passers-by paused to engage in the desired conversation, or even to look. The only real activity I saw was the group’s videographer filming other activists:

* * *

The Wall moved to Hampshire College on Monday, March 8, where it garnered about the same amount of attention—and this, at the lunch hour on another warm and sunny day, when activity on central campus is at its height:


Once again, only the (now expanded) video crew was really in evidence: the monotonous monologue of activists talking about—and to—themselves.



An exercise in sheer self-gratification.

Twilight of BDS: a metaphor?

This was the scene shortly after 5 p.m. Even less action.


My suggestion: Drop the name, “Apartheid Wall,” and call it what it is: the “Apathy Wall.” No one cares. (In fact this seems to be the trend around the country.)

To be sure, SJP tried to cajole or provoke the apathetic masses into developing a suitable revolutionary consciousness by plastering the campus with "clever" flyers that invited community members to share their negative reactions and take the opportunity to inform themselves about the heroic action. Yeah, right.


Give ‘em points for trying, but few students were gullible enough to fall for that one. Even assuming they were both curious and naïve, they had papers to write, and spring break was less than a week away. You do the math.

It’s like what happened when the SJP kids tried to promote the first anniversary of their failed divestment attempt last month. Eager activists surged through the dorms, waking everyone up and exhorting all to celebrate and meditate on the great victory—at 8:00 a.m.

This certainly reveals a failure to understand what the old Marxist-Leninists used to call the subjective as well as objective conditions for revolution. Translation: no matter what his or her politics or preceding nocturnal activities, every normal college student wants to sleep in on Sunday morning.

The only response, on both occasions was: a big yawn.

Who says college students have no common sense?

Justice for Palestinians and Israelis: Invest in Peace (activism)

Where is the road to peace to be found: in great and empty journeys or small but meaningful steps?

The most obvious problem with the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement is its vicious doctrines and goals. But another is its lack of concrete results. After nearly ten years (five, if, following its advocates, we conveniently erase the first half of the decade): not only has it not helped the suffering Palestinians one bit, but it has caused no economic pain to the target country (on the contrary, entrepreneurship and even foreign investment in Israel have surged; bummer).

In only one area has BDS achieved even limited success, intrinsically disturbing but still marginal: namely in trying to smear and thereby delegitimize a United Nations member state. I’ve never liked the Anglophile neologism, “branding,” in the sense of marketing or attaching an image to a product. There was no need for a new term. And the proper meaning of the old verb, "brand,"—to mark or stigmatize—has served us perfectly well since the fifteenth century, thank you very much. In this case, though, both are appropriate. The BDS movement is simply an attempt to brand Israel: it wants you to associate “apartheid” and “Israel” the way people used to associate “cunning“ and “Odysseus” or “avid” and “reader.” That is why, absence of concrete successes notwithstanding, opponents are mobilizing (1, 2, 3) and proponents are redoubling their efforts.

Only this overriding goal of stigmatization and delegitimization can explain the persistence of a movement that by any normal standard would long ago have been abandoned as an abject failure (you know the popular definition of insanity: to keep doing the same thing over and over but expect a different result). Only this can explain the obsessive-compulsive need of BDS activists to engage in increasingly futile and ridiculous gestures.

Exhibit A is the recent Gaza Freedom March, a comedy of errors so ludicrous that it sounds like the sort of thing its opponents would have made up. I have heard the imploring and naïve presentations. “The call went out,” as the activists tell it with hushed tones but quickened pulse, and nearly 1400 of them (as many as half from the US) set out for Egypt “with the hope of breaking the blockade of Gaza.” For some reason, these soi-disant revolutionaries who can see so confidently into the distant utopian future neglected to coordinate with the local authorities about the events of the coming weeks (whoops). The Egyptians, who tightly control the border with Gaza, would have none of what they regarded as an affront to their sovereignty and a threat to their security. They not only refused the activists entry to Gaza, but even (this is a police state, as the visitors came to realize; surprise, surprise) refused to allow large demonstrations in Egypt itself. Eventually, 84 activists were allowed to visit Gaza for a quick symbolic drop-in, while the other 94% of them twiddled their thumbs in Cairo or unfurled a Palestinian flag on a pyramid. (The British "Viva Palestina" junket—whose bigots and useful idiots had the same goals as our Code Pinkers and local Raging Grannies (1, 2, 3)—managed to go the Gaza Freedom March one better: it got its leader, pseudo-leftist but genuine antisemite George Galloway, declared persona non grata, and provoked a riot that killed an Egyptian border guard and injured 3 Palestinians and 50 activists; can’t make an omelet without breaking a few eggs, don't you know.) Even the participants in these events admit that they achieved nothing tangible. They are reduced to spluttering that they at least garnered "a lot of Egyptian press" or inspired Egyptian dissidents to do something or other on their own (those helpless natives: a revealing touch of the paternalistic thinking typical of these fundamentally bourgeois-liberal "activists").

a "successful sit-in" at the UN in Cairo
("successful" in accomplishing . . . what??)

Can there be anything more preposterous? Well, perhaps only the thought of all these self-styled progressives driving their bumper-sticker-clad Priuses to the airport and then flying halfway around the world on gas-guzzling jets for the sake of an empty gesture. What, we may ask, was the monetary cost (simple to calculate) and carbon footprint (the precise math remains controversial, but you get the point) of such dilettantish political tourism? Could not those resources have been put to better use in concretely helping Palestinians?

Well, yes, for sure. Earlier, I promised to talk about some positive rather than negative approaches to the conflict, so here’s one: support organizations that, unlike BDS, are truly committed to peace, reconciliation, and practical results.

The Israel-Palestine Center for Research and Information (IPCRI) is a good example. Led by Israeli Gershon Baskin and Palestinian Hanna Siniora, it dates back to the first Intifada and has survived all subsequent communal and international violence between Arabs and Jews:

IPCRI seeks to serve as an intellectual platform for Israelis and Palestinians (and others) to create and develop new concepts and ideas that enrich the political and public discourse in order to influence decision makers and to challenge the current political reality with the aim of advancing the political solution of two-states for two-peoples. . . . .

IPCRI, with its active information activities and joint Israeli-Palestinian forums, is unique in that it is the only Israeli-Palestinian joint public policy think-tank and "do-tank" in the region. From the start it was based on what was then, and still is, a unique premise: IPCRI should be a truly joint Israeli-Palestinian organization with its governance and management built on co-leadership.

Accordingly, IPCRI has been named one of the world's best NGO's.

It meets my baseline standards:

• It is dedicated in equal measure to the interests of both peoples.
• It supports two states, living side by side, securely and in peace, on mutually agreed terms.
• It understands that one state will be the Jewish national home, and the other the Palestinian national home (though some members of each group may continue to reside in the state of the other, with full civil rights).
• It unequivocally condemns not just violence, but incitement and intolerance on both sides.
• It does not just encourage talk, but facilitates concrete collaboration on the part of Israelis and Palestinians themselves.

Not everyone will endorse all of its stances on any particular issue (even I may not)—and that is exactly the point. It is possible to disagree politically about an organization’s policies and consequences, but if its ethics are sound, that can be the basis for a conversation: dialogue rather than demonization.

Isn’t that better and more meaningful than wearing a clown suit in Cairo?

What’s better:

empty gestures

or

real peace-work?

IPCRI has just embarked upon its annual spring fund drive, and you can donate here if you so desire.

A contribution of $ 25 per month—less than the cost of a single day of "economy" parking at Boston's Logan International Airport—adds up to $ 300: way less pricey than a jaunt to Egypt, and way more satisfying for those who actually live in the region rather than just pop in for a pyramid and a protest.

Divest from Israel or invest in peace for both peoples? Not a hard choice, if you stop to think about it. Of course, "think" is the operative word here.