A Debate on BDS with Omar Barghouti and Rabbi Arthur Waskow

[Douglas Carpenter]

From Democracy NOW

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/4/bds

Boycott, Divest From, and Sanction Israel?: A Debate on BDS with Omar Barghouti and Rabbi Arthur Waskow

In 2005, a coalition of Palestinian civil society groups called for people all over the world to engage in a nonviolent campaign to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel until it complies with international law. The call was inspired by the international boycott and divestment initiatives applied to South Africa in the struggle to abolish apartheid. We host a debate between Omar Barghouti, a founding member of the BDS campaign and a Palestinian human rights activist and commentator, and Rabbi Arthur Waskow, a longtime antiwar and civil rights activist who is the founder and director of the Shalom Center.

JUAN GONZALEZ: Indirect negotiations between Israeli and Palestinian leaders are expected to begin next week as US Middle East envoy George Mitchell returns to the region. The Arab League has agreed to back the US proposal for four months of indirect talks.

While many observers are skeptical of these so-called proximity talks succeeding, when years of direct negotiations have failed to produce an equitable and lasting peace, meanwhile Palestinian civil society and international solidarity activists are using very different tactics to push for a just resolution of the conflict.

In 2005, a coalition of Palestinian civil society groups called for people all over the world to engage in a nonviolent campaign to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel until it complies with international law. Inspired by the international boycott and divestment initiatives applied to South Africa in the struggle to abolish apartheid, the new movement for Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions, or BDS, for short, was born.

AMY GOODMAN: This week marks what many BDS campaigners call “Israeli Apartheid Week.” First launched at the University of Toronto in 2005, it now includes events at university campuses in more than forty cities around the world.

Several Israeli officials and diasporic Jewish organizations have criticized the events, and a recent report by an Israeli think tank highlights the BDS movement as part of a “deligitimization network” that Israel should treat as a “potentially existential threat.”

Well, today we’re going to host a debate on the BDS movement, the call to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel. Omar Barghouti is a founding member of the BDS campaign. He’s a Palestinian human rights activist and commentator. He’s joining us from Berkeley, California. And for an anti-BDS position, we’re joined from Philadelphia by Rabbi Arthur Waskow, a longtime antiwar and civil rights activist, founder and director of the Shalom Center, http://www.theshalomcenter.org/

We welcome you both to Democracy Now! Omar Barghouti, why don’t you lay out why you established the BDS campaign, why you want people to boycott, divest from and sanction Israel?


snip: " JUAN GONZALEZ: Omar Barghouti, what about the issue, one, of whether the campaign demonizes an entire society? And also, if you can speak about the similarities that you see between the anti-apartheid boycott campaign and this one, especially in the situation where states, the existing states in the world, were unable to remedy either the South Africa situation or the current situation in the Middle East?

OMAR BARGHOUTI: This is not about demonizing Israel as in an abstract term. What BDS is delegitimizing is delegitimizing racism, apartheid and colonial rule, exactly what BDS in the South African case was delegitimizing. It was not delegitimizing white people or Christians; it was delegitimizing apartheid. So this is what we are against. We’ve never come out and said we’re against this or that group of people based on their identity. We’re against Israeli apartheid and colonialism. We couldn’t care less if Israel were a Jewish state, Catholic state or Muslim state. So long as it’s oppressing us, we will continue to resist it.

And BDS is a very nonviolent and effective form of resistance. It is growing tremendously. No one can speak on behalf of the Jews of the world, as if they’re are all in one basket. I think that’s completely inappropriate. There are many Jewish groups that do support the BDS movement, including inside Israel, including in this country. And increasingly in Western Europe, many Jewish groups are joining the BDS movement, because they see it as one that’s very morally consistent. It’s based on international law and universal human rights. It does not distinguish between people based on their identity, as the Israeli system does.

Second, the Israeli state is not standing alone in space. It is completely supported by the institutions of the state of Israel, including academic and cultural institutions. No amount of rebranding and dance groups and music and poetry can cover up Israel’s apartheid and colonial system. So this rebranding effort is exactly unethical, because it’s trying to whitewash this system of oppression.

snip: " AMY GOODMAN: —there is a point—Rabbi Waskow, is there a point that you would support—a point at which you would support BDS? What would—what do you think has to get worse?

RABBI ARTHUR WASKOW: No, it’s not a matter of what has to get worse. The question is how to end the worse. And I don’t think BDS is going to end it. And if BDS spreads in Western Europe, it isn’t going to matter. It’s the United States that has the actual power to make a difference. And BDS is not going to engage enough of the American population to matter. What is going to matter is the structure of American military aid and the structure of American diplomacy toward Israel, toward Egypt, toward the Arab world. That’s what matters. And BDS in Western Europe is not going to matter. So it’s not a matter of what gets worse; it’s a matter of how to end the worse.

And I say again, the—yes, there needs to be a social movement. There now is—in the Jewish community, there’s not only J Street having absorbed and empowered the folks of Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, there is also movement inside the Reform Jewish movement. There is movement among Jews who, in theory, are unaffiliated, but care about this issue, and who feel unrepresented by most of the American Jewish established institutions. That’s where the change has to include, and along with that, it has to include the Protestant and Catholic churches, it has to include Islam in America. And the working together is what’s going to make the difference. Those are the only Americans, aside, I guess, from the big oil, who care about the Middle East.

AMY GOODMAN: We’re going to have—we’re going to have to leave it there for now. We want to thank Rabbi Arthur Waskow, founder and director of the Shalom Center, and Omar Barghouti, who is one of the founding members of the BDS campaign, the boycott, divest from and sanction Israel campaign.

RABBI ARTHUR WASKOW: And I want to end by saying again, shalom and salaam and peace to all of us.

AMY GOODMAN: Thank you.



link to full interview - transcipt, audio and video:

http://www.democracynow.org/2010/3/4/bds