Mike Leigh’s appearance

Mike Leigh has given Jerusalem’s Sam Spiegel TV and Film School late notice cancellation of his visit there, saying that “cowardice” prevented him from pulling out earlier.

It’s one of the more confused and self-absorbed boycott undertakings you’ll have read. On the one hand he talks about his conscience. On the other hand he talks about having no choice, catharticly exclaiming “I cannot come, I do not want to come, and I am not coming”. On the one hand, he’s rightly outraged by the Israeli cabinet’s approval of a loyalty oath and the resumption of building in the Occupied Palestinian Territories, and on the other indicates that it is the profile of his visit rather than the visit itself that’s his ultimate headache. To his correspondent, who opposes the Israeli government, he writes accusingly about “your government” but, as if Israel acted in isolation, glosses the conflict and wider regional turmoil. He designates responsibility for the conflict entirely to Israel while boycotting Israelis who are active in building for peace.

He refers to “what would unquestionably appear as my implicit support for Israel”, yet he was offered, and turned down, a platform to sharply oppose the acts of the Israeli government. You get the impression that his hosts had attributed to him a desire to use the visit as an opportunity to promote peace which he didn’t actually have, and continued not to have even after the ignominious prospect of being spotted in the pariah state panicked him into cancelling.

In the end, the dilemma he sets out is a solipsistic one between commitment to his friend on the one hand, and antipathy to Israel on the other. There is no mention of the impact of his decision on the cause of peace he espouses, nor to what can be done practically to strengthen Palestinian – let alone Israeli – civil society to stand against the forces of conflict. The letter may be confused but it’s consistent in one thing: it’s exclusively about Mike Leigh.

One small point of positive note – the BBC has linked to the letter of response from Renen Schorr, director of the Sam Spiegel Film School director. From it:

“Thousands of Israelis are active in hundreds of organizations that champion peace and coexistence, roundly denouncing acts that are non-democratic or unethical, and promoting Israeli-Palestinian dialogue. Hundreds of protestors take to the streets each week to oppose their government’s policy, and they do this despite the strident condemnation and criticism of large portions of our population here. Over the decades Israeli filmmakers (joined by artists from the full cultural gamut) have used documentaries and features to grapple with the myriad strata of the conflict’s complexities. Those carrying out these courageous, controversial endeavors are people who see no contradiction between their being Israelis, Jews and Zionists and their belief in humanitarian, ethical principles, or identifying with the suffering of others. They fight, to a great extent, against the denial of this harsh reality by other Israelis.”

I realise that boycotting Israel must feel like a weight off a famous person’s mind in these weird and avid times, but I dispute that Mike Leigh has grounds for feeling less of a coward now.

In contrast:

• Ian Anderson to boycotters: “Don’t fucking tell me what to do”
• Editors: putting the independent back into indie
• What will Johnny Rotten do in Israel?
• Vanessa Redgrave on the importance of standing with the Israeli peace bloc

Boycott Israel “as a Jew” – Ran Greenstein

On September 29 the University of Johannesburg’s ruling body met to discuss a proposal from the boycott campaign that it should sever its research links with Ben Gurion University.  It set an ultimatum for BGU and it postponed the decision for six months.  To read Desmond Tutu’s support for this move, click here.

Click here for the response of David Newman, who is Dean of Social Science at BGU. This proposal in South Africa sparked renewed debate on the Engage website.

Neve Gordon wrote an article about academic freedom in Israel here.

David Hirsh wrote a critique of a piece by Neve Gordon on academic freedom in Israel.  Read it here. David Hirsh wrote a second piece tracing Neve Gordon’s journey from sharp critic of the boycott campaign to important supporter.  Read it here.

Robert Fine, meanwhile had an engagement with Desmond Tutu published in the South African Mail & Guardian, here.

Last year Uri Avnery, the veteran Israeli campaigner for Palestinian rights, published a critique of the Israel-apartheid analogy and a critique of the boycott campaign, which related explicitly to the positions of Desmond Tutu and Neve Gordon.  Read it here.

Ran Greenstein, a supporter of the boycott campaign in South Africa responded to Engage here, in a trenchant critique of the Fine and Hirsh articles.

Robert Fine’s further response.

Here is Ran Greenstein’s latest:

Dear Robert,

Thank you for your response to my criticism of your article. Let me clarify my position: the academic boycott campaign is not a sacred cow, and you can criticise it without necessarily becoming an apologist for the Israeli state. Israeli scholars such as the late Baruch Kimmerling and Neve Gordon argued against academic boycotts without compromising their critical perspective. Unfortunately, most of those who take this position on Engage do become – wittingly or otherwise – such apologists. Your article falls, in my view, into this category. You are indeed critical of some Israeli policies and practices, but you present your views in a way that shields other policies and practices from criticism.

Allow me to elaborate on that point. You argue: “I hold that a Jewish-democratic state has a right to exist and defend itself, even as it has the responsibility to treat Palestinians in Israel as equal citizens and to allow Palestinians in occupied territories to form their own Palestinian-democratic state. It is quite normal for people in modern states to find ways of living with the contradiction between democracy and national identity.”

There may be a contradiction between national identity and democracy in all states. What is unique to Israel is that national identity is defined solely in ethnic-religious terms, and civic nationalism which encompasses all citizens equally does not exist. Further, it is the declared policy of the current Israeli government and its predecessors, backed by the courts, to ensure that such national identification never emerges, and to suppress all its manifestations by legal as well as coercive means. In this sense a Jewish democratic state is a contradiction in terms. As the saying goes, it is ‘Jewish’ for Arabs and ‘democratic’ for Jews. The exclusion of Palestinians (as second-class citizens, as occupied subjects, and as stateless refugees) has been the foundation of the Jewish state since its inception. What political thugs like Lieberman and Yishai (respectively foreign and interior ministers) say openly today, has been practiced since 1948 in a more diplomatic but no less oppressive manner by all preceding governments.

You argue that the analogy between Israeli and apartheid practices ends with the occupation and the views of the “ultra-nationalist right wing in Israel”. I beg to differ. In a long analysis, which cannot be replicated here, I argue that the analogy must be based on the realization that ‘Israel proper’ (in its pre-1967 boundaries) no longer exists. The occupation has lasted for 43 years (already a year longer than apartheid), and there is no going back from it. Greater Israel (with the occupied territories) and Greater Palestine (with the refugees) are the meaningful units of analysis, when we consider Israeli practices and compare them to apartheid SA (see detailed discussion in http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/greenstein220810.html AND http://mrzine.monthlyreview.org/2010/greenstein270810.html). I would welcome your comments on it.

You argue: “ It seems to me vital to get some perspective on what the state of Israel has done, of which we may strongly disapprove, compared with situations in which ethnic groups are slaughtered, oppositions forces murderously suppressed, students beaten up and removed, trade union leaders defenestrated, women stoned to death, and gay people persecuted.”

I agree that if we wished to construct a universal scale of human rights violations, that would indeed be the case. That may be a worthwhile project, but not one I have any interest in. As an Israeli citizen my concern with what ‘my’ government is doing. As a Jew, my concern is with what the state that claims to represent me is doing in my name. That it is not the only or the worst offender violating human rights is irrelevant. Israel has done its share in expelling ethnic groups (80% of the indigenous inhabitants of the territories that became Israel in 1947-48), murdering opposition forces (defined as ‘terrorists’), beating up and killing students (in the occupied territories), and so on. That some other governments behave similarly is no consolation at all.

You argue that there are progressive academics and radical dissidents in Israel. Of course there are, and I am proud to have met and worked with some of them. But, the universities as institutions have NEVER voiced the slightest criticism of human rights violations, the occupation, military abuses, bombing civilian targets, and so on. They have never raised their voices against suppression of academic and educational life for Palestinians in the occupied territories. That is why the campaign should target institutions and not individuals. No-one I know in South Africa supports the exclusion of Israeli academics as individuals from presenting papers, participating in discussion, attending conference, publishing articles, and other such individual activities. BGU, Wits and other institutions have hosted Israeli academics of different political persuasions without any calls to boycott them. The campaign aims to sever institutional links rather than prevent relations between scholars. Read the UJ petition and talk to those who signed it if you are sceptical.

How can a campaign distinguish between individual and institutional targets? Here are some thoughts based on the need to convey the notion that things cannot proceed as usual, that there is no normal academic life in an abnormal society: do not attend any conference in Israel that does not explicitly address issues of rights and justice; link up with internal dissident forces and work with them to undermine discriminatory and abusive institutional practices; boycott any academic project that has military links; do not teach in specialized programmes dedicated to members of the security/military apparatuses; campaign against European or British financial support for any academic programme that does not have explicit progressive content (including ‘neutral’ or ‘value-free’ research); condition any further cooperation by insisting that the institution subscribe to something along the lines of the ‘Sullivan Code’, which was used under SA apartheid to enforce a minimum code of acceptable practice. I am sure you can come up with more ideas of this nature.

This is an ongoing debate. I am not the only one taking part and would strongly recommend that you read today’s Mail & Guardian for an effective response by Farid Essack to your article. It has not been posted online yet, but I would be happy to forward it when it becomes available

Best wishes

Ran Greenstein
Associate Professor
Sociology Department
University of the Witwatersrand

Meretz MK slams boycotts, binational state as “recipe for civil war”

By Kubbeh

Member of the Israeli Knesset, Nitzan Horowitz, spoke of his opposition to the proposed boycott of Israeli citizens and institutions and slammed the idea of single binational state as a “recipe for failure and civil war” in London this week:

“I am against boycotts. I don’t think that they are a positive way to act. Many people who support the boycott [of Israel] don’t want Israel to exist at all, it is nothing to with the occupation. They describe Israel as an anomaly,” Horowitz told Engage at a meeting organised by Meretz UK.

Horowitz, an MK for the left-leaning Meretz party, is the second openly gay Knesset member and is active in civil rights causes and the separation of state and religion in Israel. The Meretz Party was instrumental in the start of the Israeli-Palestinian peace process in the 1990s, including the Oslo Accords. He rejected claims by anti-Israel activists in the UK that the two-state solution is irrelevant and the only option left is for a single Arab-Jewish state:

“In a binational state it will be almost impossible to conduct a common government. Most Israelis and most Palestinians don’t want it. It is the perfect recipe for failure and civil war. The two-state solution is viable and can be done, all we need is the political will.”