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Healthy
Institutions Don't Boycott Israel
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Among the enduring strengths of the Israel boycott movement are its
ability to convince certain types of people that the cause is not only
just but successful. But with whom are those arguments effective? There
is a strong contrast between institutions governed by rules and evidence
and those controlled by emotion.
Negative examples are ample: the European
Commission's relentless demands that products from Israeli
communities in the West Bank be specially labeled, the refusal of the
student government at Vassar
College to fund a J Street group on the grounds that "Zionism is
an inherently racist ideology," violence
directed at Jewish participants at the National LGBTQ Task Force's
Creating Change conference, the demand that singer Matisyahu
denounce Israel as a condition for performing at a Spanish reggae
festival. Many more could be cited.
There is a strong contrast between
institutions governed by rules and evidence and those controlled by
emotion.
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A look at the boycott movement's failures, and successes, tells us
much about the worlds in which it is embedded.
Those diverse worlds—of universities and academic associations,
liberal Protestant denominations, the European Commission, far-left
protest movements and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), far-left
Jewish groups, and Islamists—are failing, in the sense of intellectual
coherence, the ability to persuade, and basic morality. Some, like
liberal Protestants, are actually shrinking fast. But that doesn't mean
they will lose in the end.
Few
Organizations Are Discriminating Against Israel
Reality is different from how the movement portrays itself. Successes,
in terms of convincing institutions to boycott, divest from, or legally
sanction Israel, are meager. Global industries are uninterested in
excluding Israel. Investment in Israel is rising, especially from Asia.
Even trade with Europe is unimpeded. No university or corporation has
sold its stock in companies, like Intel or Caterpillar, for doing business
in Israel. Claims of the movement's success are therefore misleading;
misrepresentation is part of its tradecraft.
Successes, in terms of convincing
institutions to boycott, divest from, or legally sanction Israel, are
meager.
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For another thing, backlash against boycotts is growing, particularly
at the state level. Legislators in Florida
and California
have followed the lead of Ohio, Illinois, and South Carolina in
proposing laws that would prohibit anti-Israel discrimination by state agencies,
including pension funds. Remarkably, similar controls are under
consideration in Britain, where the Conservative Party has proposed to restrict
the ability of local councils and pension funds to discriminate
against Israel on political grounds.
Even at universities, where pro-boycott activists have occasionally
managed to manipulate or coerce student governments into passing boycott
and divestment resolutions (while harassing
Jewish and pro-Israel students), in no case have university
administrations, much less boards of trustees or investment managers,
followed suit. To the contrary: Israel boycott and divestment resolutions
are regularly denounced. It is one of the few signs that universities
remain under the control of responsible adults.
Where
Israel-Hating Thrives
But the opposite is true in student governments, which are regularly
co-opted by pro-boycott forces and their far-left allies. So too are
campus politics at large, increasingly dominated by retreaded New Left
politics of pique, the Black Panther revivalism of Black Lives Matter and
Ferguson, the Occupy movement's watery socialism, and neo-Victorian
anti-rape protests, against a backdrop of incoherent rage over cultural
appropriations and grievances, many so small as to be labeled
"micro-aggressions."
It is also not surprising the anti-Israel movement also finds limited
success in local "human rights commissions" and city
councils—but only in places like Cambridge and Portland, where students
who never fully grew up maintain the adolescent tone of local politics.
The very idea of education and the
mission of the university have succumbed to the politics of rage.
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A similar attitude of wide-encompassing anger applies to academics,
particular academic organizations. The Israel boycott resolution adopted
by the National Women's Studies Association is especially notable in this
regard. Their resolution is motivated
ostensibly by "intersectionality" and the
"interconnectedness of systemic forms of oppression,"
predictably personified by Israel. Such a complex formulation of a
traditional animus is neither a sign of clear thinking nor a healthy
discipline.
These are signs of intellectual and moral failure, the collapse of any
ideal animating the very idea of education and the mission of the
university beyond the politics of rage. They portend ill for society, for
there is no doubt that the activism of professors and students alike has
poisoned countless classrooms.
In contrast, the rejection
of an anti-Israel resolution by the American Historical Association is
heartening. It suggests, unlike in women's studies, "American
Studies," or anthropology, that an academic discipline which is
still actually about something academic may be salvageable, before
it descends down the rabbit hole of "relevance" and
"social justice."
The Borders
Between Rationality and Rage
But campus radicalism and "social justice" also have their
limits. Despite decades of anti-American agitation, America has still not
been transformed into a socialist paradise. Reality burns away many
collegiate fantasies and idylls, and the sheer hysteria and accompanying
intimidation of campus protests today is likely to alienate as many
students from causes as attract them. That alienation is quantifiable in
plummeting enrollments in the humanities
and social sciences, the epicenter for anti-Israel and anti-American
agitation. Another index is rising anger from parents, although
skyrocketing costs play an equal role with politics.
Despite decades of anti-American
agitation, America has still not been transformed into a socialist
paradise.
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It is also worth pointing out that calls for boycotting Israel have
not impeded the actual mechanism of the university, the daily life of
operations and finances, the churn of students and flows of money. Giving
to universities, including, paradoxically, by Jewish donors, remains at
record levels. Apparently the body and certain higher functions remain
alive even as large parts of the brain have turned rabid. Of course, a
university comprised of administrators, "diversity
coordinators," and part-time instructors hardly deserves the name.
But rules and procedures associated with the profitable business of being
a university are not easily overthrown in the name of "social
justice."
The recent decision by a Spanish
court to award damages to an Israeli university, located inconveniently
across the "Green Line," when a Spanish agency illegally
excluded its students from an international technology competition, is
also notable. It suggests that certain higher social functions, namely
the judiciary, have not been completely infected by the virus of
anti-Israel bias. In this respect it will be interesting to see the
result when the European Commission's blatantly discriminatory labeling
regulations for Israeli products from communities in the West Bank enters
court or World
Trade Organization arbitration.
The Flight
from Responsibility Accelerates
There are striking contrasts between how Israel boycotts are treated
by rules and results-based institutions, like legislatures, courts, and
pension fund managers, and institutions ruled by emotion that have no
oversight, like academic organizations, student governments, the European
Commission, or the NGO sector. By exempting themselves from rules, and in
some cases from the political process as a whole, the latter are often
uniquely in synch with Israel boycotters, and the pro-Palestinian
movement, which put the Palestinian cause above examination and exempt it
from criticism.
The flight towards ideological
politics and away from practicality and responsibility is a growing
problem in the West.
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But the fact that some institutions with real responsibilities, like
British councils and labor tribunals, could contemplate Israel boycotts
in the first place is another sign that politics have been infected.
While the Labour Party continues to deny it supports Israel boycotts, numerous
members of Parliament believe the opposite, both to pander to
constituents and as a matter of personal conviction, economic
consequences and morality be damned. Similar trends are evident in the
progressive wings of the Democratic
Party.
The flight towards ideological politics and away from practicality and
responsibility is a growing problem in the West. This will intensify,
precisely as a function of cascading social and political disasters,
especially the collapsing Middle East and social unrest resulting from
mass immigration to the West. Pressure to focus on the unique evil of
Israel and away from these self-inflicted wounds and their progressive
policy causes will be enormous.
But in a world of human rights abuses by ISIS, Russia, Iran, and
others, the health of institutions can be measured in part by how they
stand up to calls to boycott Israel. Corporations and judiciaries, and
occasionally even academics, each with greatly differing mandates, have
the potential to stem the flows of bias and hatred. There may even be
hope for universities. The trends are not positive, nor are they so
terrible to give up all hope that with strong leadership from above sense
may prevail.
Alex Joffe is editor of The Ancient Near East
Today, the monthly e-newsletter of the American Schools of
Oriental Research. He is also a Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow at the Middle
East Forum.
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