614:HBI eZine from Brandeis

		Paranoia or Persecution? Belgium—a place where it is not only acceptable to hate Jews, it is recommended.
		Whose Battle IS This? Some people think that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict stands, symbolically, for all other conflicts in the world.

Why is there no taboo against antisemitism amongst British antiracists?

People know how to recognize racism.  They don’t know how to recognize antisemitism.  David T demonstrates.

Eve Garrard: What is to be done about antisemitism?

This is how Eve concludes.  The rest too is, as always, indispensable reading:

…Jews, like everyone else, have multiple identities, criss-crossing and overlapping in a variety of ways. With respect to her identity as a Jew, a British Jew might in the first instance feel fear and dread at the spectacle of resurgent anti-Semitism on the left (or anywhere else). But with respect to her identity as a Briton, she might feel appalled, furious, outraged at what is being done to the liberal culture which she (rightly) loves and admires and feels proud of. When the British left is ready to compare Israel to the Nazis, declare Gaza to be similar to the Warsaw Ghetto, and treat genocidal threats against Jews as a trivial matter; when the Guardian, the principal media organ of this sector of society, opens its columns to a constant stream of such venom; when members of the intelligentsia are ready with breezy nonchalance to dismiss Jewish concerns about anti-Semitism as overheated overstatement, and Jewish self-defence as sinister brutality; then a terrible degradation of thought and sentiment has taken place here in the UK, among an influential part of the chattering classes. For the sake of liberal culture in Britain, as well as for the sake of its Jewish citizens, we all have reason to fight resurgent anti-Semitism, and to support a renewed commitment to the universal values which protect us, irrespective of our race or gender or religion, and which make the inhabitants of this country, in global and historical terms, a very fortunate group of people.

Read the whole piece by Eve Garrard on normblog.

Shalom Lappin: “Therapists to the Jews: Psychologizing the ‘Jewish Question’”

In the past few years an interesting mode of discourse has gained currency among some critics of Israel. It consists in characterizing most Israelis, and the Jews who are concerned about Israel’s continued existence, as suffering from a deep collective psycho-pathology that conditions them to commit or to endorse systematic brutalization of the Palestinians. It takes Israel and its supporters to be acting out the effects of a long term historical trauma that reached its climax in the Holocaust. They are deflecting the intense anger, helplessness and shame accumulated over centuries of persecution in Europe on to innocent Arab victims in Israel/Palestine. These victims are surrogates for the real but no longer accessible oppressors of the Jews. The analogy driving this discourse is that of the abused child who grows into an abusive adult, imposing his childhood experiences of violence on members of his family and his adult environment.

Three clear examples of this psychologized view of the Israel-Palestine conflict are Jacqueline Rose’s book The Question of Zion (Princeton University Press, 2005), Caryl Churchill’s play Seven Jewish Children, recently staged at the Royal Court Theatre, and Anthony Lerman’s article ‘Must Jews always see themselves as victims’ (The Independent, March 7, 2009). Rose argues that Zionism, and the country that it created, derive from the the same psychological disorder that generated the false messianism of Shabbtai Zvi and his followers. She regards it as a form of mass hysteria generated by the inability of Jews to respond rationally to prolonged suffering. Churchill adapts this diagnosis of Zionism to Israel’s recent offensive in Gaza. She portrays Jewish children as obsessively raised with the collective memory of historical trauma as the pervasive background against which Israeli acts of murder and expulsion are justified or denied. Lerman invokes the work of Israeli political psychologist Daniel Bar Tal to claim that the inability of Israelis and Jews to deal adequately with the experience of the Holocaust has given rise to a persecution complex that is responsible for Israel’s perverse behaviour towards the Palestinians, as well as the willingness of Jews abroad to support this behaviour.

There are at least five features of the psychologizing discourse worth noting.

Find out what they are on normblog.

There must be another way

This piece, by Rachel Shabi, is from Cif.

The timing was doomed. Just as the Israel-inflicted death toll in Gaza reached 900, a third of those children, Israel’s entry to the Eurovision song contest was announced. It was the third week of Israel’s devastating assault on Gaza, in January, and an Arab-Israeli was going to sing to Europe with a Jewish-Israeli, a song about finding “another way”. Condemnation rained down on the duo. They were slammed as willing fig leaves for Israel’s deadly assault in Gaza, not to mention its stifling occupation of the Palestinian territories, not to mention its discriminatory treatment of non-Jewish citizens.

The objection was easy to follow: how could a Palestinian citizen of Israel, the actress-singer Mira Awad, choose to duet with the Jewish-Israeli singer Achinoam Nini (known as “Noa”), and thereby represent the very same state that crushes, maims and kills other Palestinians? The “radical” left wing both within and beyond Israel was unequivocal: Awad should refuse to sing on such a blood-soaked stage.

She didn’t refuse, and the two will appear at Eurovision this week. And while it might be easy to deride her decision, it is harder to dismiss her – or her creative partner, Noa. The Euro-entry song smacks of the sort of bogus peace PR at which Israel excels, but there doesn’t seem to be a lack of authenticity to the two singers. Of course they have polished the patter for the press. But I also saw them banter together once the TV cameras had gone, jokily flicking stereotypes at each other in the sort of dark, absurdist comedy that usually requires much more than a tokenistic understanding of co-existence.

I saw the duo – long-term friends and creative collaborators – sing something completely different, written and led by Awad, at an alternative ceremony for Israeli Remembrance Day. The event was staged by Combatants for Peace, an organisation of former fighters from both sides who are now battling together for an end to the occupation. Interviewing the two, I was struck by Mira Awad talking about staying friends and maintaining discussion with Noa despite their deep disagreements over aspects of the Gaza war. Sticking around for such conversations, when every part of you wants to walk away in disgust, is perhaps one of the most challenging aspects of genuine peace work – and it deserves respect.

Those that slam the duo quite often hold that Israeli society is woefully incapable of changing from within; that the only way to improve the lives of the Palestinians trapped under Israel’s brutal rule is through exerting external pressure. That is a legitimate point and a tactic worth pursuing. But is it so bad to have another view – one embodied by the Euro duo – running in tandem to it? These two singers seem to be saying that, whatever the international community does or doesn’t do about this conflict, Palestinians and Israelis are still going to have to find a way to live together. That’s the draining, demoralising and largely invisible day-to-day work of conflict resolution. That’s what they seem to want to use the Euro stage to state. And you could say it’s a bit hippie and way too understated – but is it nonetheless worth broadcasting?

This piece, by Rachel Shabi, is from Cif.

The UCU boycott campaign is about fuelling hatred against Israel – John Strawson

John Strawson

The latest installment of the UCU saga reveals, yet again, the obsessive character of the boycotters.

In the week after the end of the Gaza war 1300 Sri Lankan civilians were killed yet this is not an issue for the Israel boycotters.  Nor is the fact that since, this number has multiplied many times – with reliable reports of schools, hospitals and “safe areas” attacked, sometimes with hundreds killed in one incident.

The boycotters appear unconcerned about the way in which Singhalese nationalism has been nourished within some sectors of Sri Lankan higher education.  It could be argued that the production and circulation of such nationalism which sets out to exclude the Tamils creates the atmosphere which legitimizes the Sri Lankan military attacks on Tamil civilians. Those who have intellectually sustained Singhalese nationalism through writing books, teaching courses, and working on strategic research could be seen a complicit with the Sri Lankan military – a situation which has existed for at least 30 years.  I think this is the kind of argument that the motion is using about Israel, is it not?  However, over the three decades of the Sri Lankan civil war – which has been marked by systematic attacks on civilians, racist thuggery, dispossession, targeted assassinations and national exclusion – our boycotters have never raised the idea of an academic boycott of Sri Lanka.

The resolution itself is factually inaccurate and erroneous on international law. First Israel did not set out to remove an elected government.  It is a myth that the Hamas was the elected government of Gaza.  After the Hamas-led front won the Palestinian Authority elections in 2006,  the organization attempted a coup against the elected President (Abbas) of the authority in 2007, and was constitutionally removed from office.  It then retreated to Gaza – not as the elected representatives of the people but as failed coup-plotters.

Nor is it legally tenable than Israel’s war (which I absolutely opposed) was “aggression”.  Even the rather pathetic Arab League’s report “No Safe Place” concludes “due to the uncertain meaning of ‘aggression’ it could make no finding on the question of whether Israel’s offensive constituted aggression” (16:2).  The UCU boycotters are clearly legal experts in a very special sense.

The truth is that the obsessive and irrational character of the boycotters means that for them the actual adoption of any resolution is neither here nor there.  What they want is the opportunity to continue to circulate crude anti-Zionist propaganda at every opportunity.  Attacking Israel and normalizing historical and political falsities is their aim. It is not the boycott but the continual fueling of hate against Israel, Israelis and Jews whose national identity is shaped by Israel that is the purpose. In this sense the twisted logical of debating a motion that cannot be legally adopted becomes a clear political campaign.

John Strawson

UEL UCU

UCU publishes the boycott motion but with a legal disclaimer

It seems that what happened is that the trustees were persuaded at the last minute not to go to court, perhaps in exchange for this bizare legal disclaimer which has been tagged onto the motion, which has now been published.

It says that if Congress passes a motion to support the boycott of Israel then the union will “treat it as being void and of no effect”.

Motion 29: The union received advice from Leading Counsel that to pass this motion would be unlawful because it is likely to be viewed by a court as a call to boycott Israeli academic institutions. The union has previously followed advice from Leading Counsel that such a call would be outside the powers of the union to make. If the motion is amended to remove the affirmation of support for the Palestine call for a boycott, disinvestment and sanctions campaign, Leading Counsel has advised the union may lawfully pass this motion. If the motion is passed in its unamended form the President has been advised that she will have to treat it as being void and of no effect.

29 ��� Composite (University of Brighton Grand Parade, College of North East London, University of East London)

Congress notes:

�          targeting by Israel of civilians, homes, hospitals, UN facilities, university and school buildings to overthrow a democratically elected government;

�          blockade of medicine, food, fuel, trade and education of Gaza, and continued occupation and settlement of the West Bank;

�          complicity of Israeli educational institutions in colonisation and military preparation;

�          student occupations globally demanding justice and solidarity.

Congress believes:

�         a solution is impossible until Israel dismantles illegal settlements, withdraws to 1967 borders, and negotiates with Hamas;

�         international pressure is necessary to force Israel to abide by international law.

Congress affirms support for the Palestinian call for a boycott, disinvestment and sanctions campaign.

Congress resolves to:

�         intensify solidarity and renew urgently its call to members to reflect on the moral and political appropriateness of collaboration with Israeli educational institutions;

�         Support those Israelis who refuse to collaborate with Israel�s war against Palestinians

�         Demand that the British Government condemn Israeli aggression and ban arms sales to Israel

�         host an Autumn international, inter-union conference of BDS supporters to investigate implementation of the strategy, including an option of institutional boycotts.

Bernard-Henri Lévy and John Mann

The old Engage site is back up and running

Thanks to our technical people who have sorted out this problem.  We are trying to make sure that the old Engage site remains securely in place as a resource for our arguments against contemporary antisemitism and against the boycott campaign.

The old site can be accessed most easily by clicking on the links on the top left of this website Archive (old Engage site)

The Engage Journal is available also by clicking on the relevant text on the top left of this site Engage Journal.

You can browse by subject by clicking this link: Archive, by subject.

Also use the search facility on the top right of this page:  Search old & new Engage together.

Click here for a collection of links to Engage’s core arguments against the boycott campaign

Click here for David Hirsh’s argument about the relationship to the boycott and antisemitism, as well as Martin Shaw and Norman Geras’ responses.

Click here for the discussion between Seumas Milne and David Hirsh on the distinction between the politics of reconciliation and the politics of the denunciation of Zionism.

Why not paste your own favourites from the old Engage site in the comments box?

Peace and reconciliation or victory over the other?

Benjamin Pogrund

Benjamin Pogrund advocates peace – a two state solution – on Comment is Free.

The idea of two states – Israel and Palestine – living side by side in peace is endorsed by most of the world. The one-state solution that some support is a non-starter. Yet the chance of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestine conflict is diminishing. It is imperilled by unceasing growth in the number of Jewish settlers on the West Bank, known officially in Israel by the biblical names of Judea and Samaria. In 1972, 1,500 Jews lived there; now, it is more than 289,000. The more settlers and the bigger their settlements, the less possibility of creating an independent and viable Palestinian state. The Gaza Strip is out of the equation at this stage because of failure by Fatah and Hamas to agree on a joint government.

Israel has repeatedly promised to halt expansion on the West Bank. It has done so through its leaders and by going along with the road map of 2003, the Wye Plantation agreement before that, the Annapolis accord and so on. Despite this, last year the number of settlers increased by 4.9%, and the year before by 5.5%.

The ongoing process will be challenged on 18 May when the prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, will be in Washington DC for his first meeting with US president Barack Obama. The extent to which Obama insists that Israel keep its promises – and more importantly, how far he will go for fulfilment – will determine the future of the Middle East.

Obama has already declared his aim: the two-state solution. Secretary of state Hillary Clinton agrees. It’s also the policy of the Palestinian Authority. The European Union wants it. So does Russia. The Arab League has offered acceptance, with qualifications, through its Saudi peace initiative.

Former president George W Bush also wanted two states. Israel told him it would curb settlement growth. It did not. Every now and again secretary of state Condoleeza Rice visited Israel and gave a press conference to announce that she was telling the government to curb settlements. She was ignored.

The three years up to January this year tell the story. Ehud Olmert was prime minister. He began as a rightwinger, believing in Israel’s continued settlement of the West Bank, which it has occupied since the 1967 war. But he changed: during his last two years in office he increasingly supported a Palestinian state; by his last cabinet meeting he was saying passionately that Israel had to end its occupation. He warned that Israel was doomed if it stayed: its Jewish majority was threatened by Arab numbers and an apartheid situation would arise if it remained.

However, his government’s actions consistently contradicted his words. Statistics provided by the Peace Now movement, using census and UN details show that 5,111 new “housing units” (meaning anything from one to 20 apartments) were built from January 2006 to January 2009, and tenders were issued for more than 1,500 housing units.

The same pattern occurred in the “illegal outposts” set up without formal government permission. Israel has promised to evacuate them. But not one was evacuated during the three years; instead, the outposts acquired 560 new structures – mainly caravans but also permanent buildings. At the start of Olmert’s tenure, 475 roadblocks and checkpoints existed in the West Bank. Their purpose was and is security. With less tension and suicide bombings ended, the number was supposed to be reduced. Instead, according to the UN, by January this year there were more than 600.

East Jerusalem also features. It is intended to be divided and be a shared capital for Israel and Palestine. But the 250,000 Palestinians who live there have vast difficulty in getting permits to build houses and when they build illegally they are targets for demolition orders. At the same time, housing for Jews is fostered: during the three years, tenders were issued for 2,437 new housing units. These will add to the existing Jewish residential areas in East Jerusalem, which occupy 35% of the area and house 190,000 people. As far as is known, Olmert – who resigned as prime minister to face corruption charges – has never explained the discrepancy between his words and official deeds.

The fact is that the settlers do pretty much as they want. Many are driven by religious messianic belief that God gave Judea and Samaria to Jews and it is their right and duty to keep it so forevermore. Although the settlers are a tiny minority of the Israeli population they have become the tail that wags the dog. Successive governments have backed away from reining them in out of fear of violent resistance.

The settlers and their supporters – who include those who believe in possession of the West Bank for security purposes – permeate the government. That has enabled the illegal siphoning off of millions upon millions of shekels from departmental budgets to provide houses, build roads and lay on electricity and water to settlements and outposts – and to guarantee permanent protection by the army.

A government lawyer, Talia Sasson, appointed to investigate the illegal outposts, reported four years ago that the state was undermining its own rule of law. She has been ignored. None of it could be possible without the army’s active connivance. No Israeli can do anything on the West Bank unless the army agrees and helps. That is also a cause for government apprehension: the officer corps has changed in character and the proportion who are religious has increased to about one-fifth. They live in settlements, or have family or friends there. Will they accept orders to evacuate, if necessary by force?

The settlers and others who support them are deliberately creating facts on the ground to undermine the chance of a Palestinian state; and even if one comes into being to ensure that it is so divided and weak as not to present any security threat. The intention is also to establish a ring of Jewish settlements around Jerusalem to cut off the city from the West Bank so that it cannot serve as a Palestinian capital. Meanwhile, the new rightwing government’s policy on dealing with Palestinians is still being prepared and its statements are confused. Netanyahu, for example, says he wants to resume peace negotiations without conditions with Palestinians; in the next breath he says Palestinians must first accept Israel as a Jewish state.

Washington is sending strong signals: on Tuesday, Joe Biden and John Kerry told the pro-Israel Aipac lobby annual conference that Israel must freeze all West Bank building and make further concessions to the Palestinian Authority. It’s also reported that two weeks ago Obama proposed a new deal on Palestinian refugees to Saudi Arabia’s King Abdullah.

But will Obama wield a stick if Israel does not embrace a two-state solution and work with Palestinians to get swift agreement on the core issues of ending the occupation, borders, Jerusalem, the Holy Basin and refugees? How big a stick is available as he contends with the economic catastrophe, domestic problems and Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan? How can he drive an Israeli government to do what it doesn’t want to do?

Benjamin Pogrund advocates peace – a two state solution – on Comment is Free.