As hot as things have become in Israel and the West Bank over the last many weeks with escalating violence, here in North America a chill is palpable. It comes in the form of silencing within and across communities \u2013 in private homes, on university campuses and in community institutions. It\u2019s coming from both sides: those who call themselves \u201cpro-Palestinian\u201d and those who call themselves \u201cpro-Israel.\u201d While the Palestinian solidarity side uses boycott and silencing, the Jewish community has its own internal conversation watchdogs.<\/p>\n
Recently, a speaker at the University of Minnesota was shouted down, his talk delayed by 30 minutes. The invited scholar was Moshe Halbertal, a philosopher at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem and a professor of law at New York University. It was a scholarly talk: the Dewey Lecture in the Philosophy of Law, sponsored by the university\u2019s law school. Halbertal is also a noted military ethicist who helped draft a code of ethics for the Israel Defence Forces. The Minnesota Anti-War Committee took credit for the stunt; Students for Justice in Palestine endorsed it.<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re concerned by the extent to which civilians have born the brunt of violence and destruction in the Israeli-Palestinian context, Habertal is someone you\u2019d want to speak with, especially in an academic context, where the point is the free exchange of ideas. But it\u2019s hard to pose tough questions if you\u2019re trying to silence the person.<\/p>\n
This blocking of Halbertal\u2019s speech is a trend that gets its fire from the academic and cultural boycott of Israel organized by the BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions) movement, along with the more general push against what many Palestine solidarity activists call \u201cnormalization,\u201d meaning ordinary engagement with Jews and Israelis and their ideas. Activists argue that the target is institutions, not individuals. But the effects on individuals and open speech, as they were at the University of Minnesota, are clear.<\/p>\n
Continuing in this vein, producers of D\u00e9grad\u00e9<\/em>, a film about Gaza told from the perspective of clients at a hair salon, pulled it from the Other Israel Film Festival sponsored by the JCC Manhattan because it\u2019s a \u201cJewish\u201d festival. While it seems that the producers\u2019 decision was their own, it suggests a dangerous precedent: fortifying the silos between acceptable audiences and unacceptable ones in the world of art, ideas and culture.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, while the Jewish community doesn\u2019t talk in terms of boycott and anti-normalization, it has its own troubling rules of engagement.<\/p>\n There are the narrow speaker guidelines for those with whom campus Jewish groups allow their members to publicly engage in dialogue. The guidelines for Hillel International, the world\u2019s largest Jewish student organization, exclude anyone who \u201cdelegitimize[s], demonize[s] or appl[ies] a double standard to Israel, or supports the boycott, divestment and sanction movement.\u201d While it\u2019s natural that Israel supporters would bristle at those things, the rules effectively preclude Hillel students from inviting for debate and dialogue any Palestinian solidarity activists, almost all of whom, unfortunately, have jumped on the BDS bandwagon.<\/p>\n When my seven-year-long columnist post was cut from my local Jewish community paper last summer, I was told that it was to \u201cmake room for new voices.\u201d Since then, it\u2019s become clear that the publisher wanted only one angle on Israel. The columnist who focuses almost exclusively on the failings of Israel\u2019s adversaries remained in place, while my replacement is steering clear of Israel altogether.<\/p>\n And then there are the corners of quiet shunning. I recently organized a Jewish community youth project involving rotating hosts. One of the participants pulled out, citing the fact that her husband \u201cdidn\u2019t want me in his home.\u201d He was appalled by my last Globe and Mail<\/em> piece. When it comes to \u201csupport for Israel,\u201d they said, \u201cthere is only one side.\u201d<\/p>\n But some \u2013 young Jews in particular \u2013 are pushing back against this narrowing of discourse. First there was Open Hillel, a grassroots organization devoted to opposing the speaker guidelines mentioned above. (Disclosure: I am on the group\u2019s academic advisory council.) And now there\u2019s the Jewish People\u2019s Assembly, which has launched in Washington. The group is demanding that Jewish federations \u2013 the main funding body of local Jewish communities \u2013 \u201cnot condition support for Jewish institutions and organizations on these institutions\u2019 adherence to red lines around Israel.\u201d<\/p>\n One might fantasize about casting all the silencers into a room where they can sit in silence with each other to their heart\u2019s content. Meanwhile, the rest of us can continue to try to talk, to write and to publicly grapple with the dilemmas of the day, trying to search for bits of common ground wherever they might be.<\/p>\n Mira Sucharov<\/strong> is an associate professor of political science at Carleton University. She blogs at <\/em>Haaretz and the<\/em> Jewish Daily Forward. A version of this article was originally published by the <\/em>Globe and Mail.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As hot as things have become in Israel and the West Bank over the last many weeks with escalating violence, here in North America a chill is palpable. It comes in the form of silencing within and across communities \u2013 in private homes, on university campuses and in community institutions. 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