{"id":15967,"date":"2015-11-20T00:12:21","date_gmt":"2015-11-20T08:12:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/?p=15967"},"modified":"2015-11-17T16:44:45","modified_gmt":"2015-11-18T00:44:45","slug":"panelists-talk-about-bds-movement","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/2015\/11\/20\/panelists-talk-about-bds-movement\/","title":{"rendered":"Panelists talk about BDS movement"},"content":{"rendered":"

Left to right, panelists Gabor Mat\u00e9, Michael Barkusky and Yonatan Shapira. (photo by Zach Sagorin)<\/em><\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n

Independent Jewish Voices-Vancouver hosted A Conversation About BDS (boycott, divestment and sanction) on Nov. 8. IJV\u2019s Martha Roth, moderator of the event, told the Jewish Independent<\/em>, \u201cThe Israeli government propaganda has been so strongly anti-BDS and people are terrified of it.\u2026 We wanted to make a safe space for discussion.\u201d<\/p>\n

In order of presentation, the four panelists were columnist Dr. Mira Sucharov, an associate professor of political science at Carleton University, who joined the discussion via FaceTime; Yonatan Shapira, a former Israeli rescue helicopter pilot who has become a Palestinian solidarity activist; Michael Barkusky of the Pacific Institute for Ecological Economics, who was born in South Africa and was an anti-apartheid activist during university; and author and speaker Dr. Gabor Mat\u00e9, a former Zionist youth leader.<\/p>\n

The BDS movement (bdsmovement.net) calls for Israel to end \u201cits occupation and colonization of all Arab lands occupied in June 1967 and dismantl[e] the [security] wall\u201d; recognize \u201cthe fundamental rights of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality\u201d; and support \u201cthe rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN Resolution 194.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shapira told the crowd: \u201cThe BDS movement is a human rights-based initiative calling for equality \u2026 end of occupation, end of apartheid situation and to promote the right of return. It is not saying that Israel is the most devilish thing in the world. It doesn\u2019t say what is happening in Syria is better.\u2026 It is just a nonviolent practical tool to change the power balance in the situation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mat\u00e9 based his view on the actions carried out in 1947\/48, which, he said, \u201cinvolved massacres \u2026 expulsions of large numbers of people from their homeland \u2026 demolition of hundreds of villages, the bulldozing of gravestones. Going to Palestine-Israel today is like going to Europe today and looking for a trace of Jewish life.\u201d<\/p>\n

He continued, \u201cOn top of that now, you have this occupation, this totally illegal occupation\u2026 Even if you assume Israel has a right to conquer those lands in 1967\u2026. They never had the right under international law to enter these demographic changes, that\u2019s against the law. To build businesses and economy, that\u2019s against the law. It\u2019s not even controversial.\u201d<\/p>\n

The only panelist against BDS, Sucharov said, \u201cI have spoken out, mostly through writing, against BDS \u2026 for the reason, I think the end-game is confused.\u201d<\/p>\n

While portions of Sucharov\u2019s arguments were inaudible due to technical difficulties, she did make her main points heard. She referenced Prof. Rex Brynen of McGill University, in saying, about the right of return, \u201crepatriation in that case would refer to Palestinians who are still stateless being able and encouraged to return to a Palestinian state, but, in order for that to happen, a Palestinian state needs to come about. So the question is, How to change this tired and bloody status quo that we see right now in order to see a Palestinian state?\u201d<\/p>\n

She added, \u201cInstead of boycott, I call for wrestling, grappling and engagement. Instead of shunning, I call for dialogue. Both sides want, if you want to use the binary construct of sides, to play their own game of boycott and shunning and narrowing of the discourse\u2026. The most egregious expression of that has been the academic boycott that has been used to cut off the kind of debate and dialogue we are having today.\u201d<\/p>\n

She said, for example, that philosopher and law professor Moshe Halbertal was blocked from speaking at the University of Minnesota on Nov. 3 for 30 minutes by BDS supporters, and that she has witnessed the same shunning of dialogue \u201cwithin the mainstream Jewish community.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shapira later responded to the notion of academic boycott: \u201cOnly if the professor is connected and representing an official institution in Israel, then it\u2019s a target for the boycott.\u2026 All Israeli universities are connected to the occupation … therefore, if someone is representing them, it\u2019s a target for the boycott.\u201d<\/p>\n

About the debate over SodaStream, which was located in the West Bank and employed 500 Palestinians, Sucharov said, \u201cOne could certainly view that as a way of propping up the settler project, and we know the settlements are illegal under international law. What was key and what the boycott movement got wrong [is], the owner had stated that if and when there would be a Palestinian state, tomorrow he would seek to keep the plant there and simply pay taxes to the new Palestinian state.\u201d She later added, \u201cThis is an example of direct investment that will be essential to help the Palestinian economy in its sovereign incarnation.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mat\u00e9 countered, \u201cWhen you are taking people\u2019s lands, when you build a wall that separates them from their fields, when you make life impossible, when you destroy their economy, when you practise environmental degradation on their whole country, guess what, they are going to be desperate for jobs.\u201d He said SodaStream\u2019s \u201cgiving 500 jobs to the Palestinians\u201d was \u201cnot an argument against boycott, not an argument against economic pressure.\u201d<\/p>\n

Sucharov argued that BDS works against a two-state solution: \u201cScores of Palestinian, Israeli and joint Palestinian-Israeli NGOs are doing work in the West Bank and Israel. There are many groups seeking to engage the situation. With boycott, one has cut off one\u2019s ability to connect with those activists who seek to engage, to visit Israel, visit the West Bank and try to change status quo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shapira said, \u201cWake up from this old dream of a two-state solution\u2026. We are intertwined together with the Palestinians whether we want it or not. We have to move on from a conflict between two sides \u2026 an occupier force and an occupied, an oppressor and oppressed, a colonizer and native. This is the context and we have to change the mindset.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt is not, let\u2019s go for a dialogue meeting with Israeli and Palestinian kids. I am not saying I am against dialogue,\u201d but dialogue \u201cwill not be what brings the solution \u2026 the solution will come when we change the power dynamic.\u201d He said, looking at the audience, that they \u201cwere probably a part of struggle to end apartheid…. If you supported boycott back then, you should support boycott now.\u201d<\/p>\n

About the use of BDS to end apartheid, Barkusky said, \u201cAbout 25% of South African civil society wanted the end of apartheid \u2026 and my worry is that I don\u2019t think that 25% of Jewish Israelis today are ready for a two-state solution, or certainly not a one-state solution.\u201d Barkusky warned that \u201cany BDS strategy, to be effective, needs to avoid sweeping the centrist majority in Israel into the hands of the right-wing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Barkusky was \u201cambiguous\u201d about BDS. \u201cThere are certain, obviously attractive features of BDS. It is accessible when other strategies seem futile and it appears to be nonviolent,\u201d he said. However, he added, BDS \u201cis a collective punishment strategy,\u201d akin to an aerial bombing: \u201chard to target and collateral damage.\u201d BDS can be \u201cdamaging and [destroy] people\u2019s livelihoods,\u201d he said, and it \u201cis not exactly nonviolent: it can crush peoples\u2019 hopes, it can lead to suicide, it can lead to domestic violence.\u201d<\/p>\n

Mat\u00e9 said it is a \u201cpipedream to shift Israeli policy by being really nice about it.\u201d When it came to boycott specificities, he said, \u201cIf you are only willing to boycott stuff from the occupied territories, boycott stuff from the occupied territories. If you want to boycott everything, boycott everything\u2026. If you want to boycott academia as well, go ahead, I don\u2019t care. Because it doesn\u2019t matter what small, little arguments or details we want to engage in because the overall reality for everybody who has been there \u2026 is so horrible and is getting daily more horrible that the insanity is out of control now and only external pressure will do anything about it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Shapira said, \u201cYou cannot live in peace and security if you are superior over other people in that country. You cannot have the oxymoron of a Jewish democracy. We have to give up this idea, it is not possible.\u201d<\/p>\n

Around 80 people attended the event, which was held at the Peretz Centre for Secular Jewish Culture, including professor Rabbi Dr. Laura Duhan Kaplan, interim director of Iona Pacific Inter-Religious\u00a0Centre at the Vancouver School of Theology. She told the Independent<\/em>, \u201cThere was a significant amount of agreement in the audience and so the questions were not as provocative as they would have been if \u2026 most people weren\u2019t left-leaning.\u201d<\/p>\n

Zach Sagorin<\/strong> is a Vancouver freelance writer.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Left to right, panelists Gabor Mat\u00e9, Michael Barkusky and Yonatan Shapira. (photo by Zach Sagorin) Independent Jewish Voices-Vancouver hosted A Conversation About BDS (boycott, divestment and sanction) on Nov. 8. IJV\u2019s Martha Roth, moderator of the event, told the Jewish Independent, \u201cThe Israeli government propaganda has been so strongly anti-BDS and people are terrified of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":15955,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[3555,3976,4629,4882,1245,1673,4881,4364,4880],"class_list":["post-15967","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-local","tag-bds","tag-boycott","tag-gabor-mate","tag-ijv","tag-independent-jewish-voices","tag-israeli-palestinian-conflict","tag-michael-barkusky","tag-mira-sucharov","tag-yonatan-shapira"],"blocksy_meta":{"styles_descriptor":{"styles":{"desktop":"","tablet":"","mobile":""},"google_fonts":[],"version":8}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15967","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=15967"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15967\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/15955"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=15967"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=15967"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jewishindependent.ca\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=15967"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}