Over the past three months, the movement to promote a boycott of Israel in the United Kingdom has had some alarming successes. In April, the National Union of Journalists voted to boycott all Israeli goods. In May, the University and College Union decided to promote an academic boycott. And last week, Unison, the biggest trade union in the country, pushed through an “economic, cultural, academic and sporting boycott.”
Although these motions are the work of a few hard-left ideologues and have been widely condemned in the media, they have helped entrench in popular imagination the disastrous impression that Israel deserves to be an international pariah.
While all other reasonable people are questioning why Israel alone is singled out for such treatment, the question haunting Jews around the world is why Britain’s Jewish community did so little to pre-empt the boycott motions — at one stage leaving the American Jewish community to lead the fight. Indeed, the backlash against the British community leadership has been so pronounced that the boycott saga may very well force the British Jewish community to turn toward a more American style of lobbying.
It’s not that the community did nothing. The two main groups representing Anglo Jewry — the archaically named Board of Deputies and the Jewish Leadership Council — established the Fair Play Campaign Group, which raised the profile of joint British-Israeli academic projects before the University and College Union vote and brought a delegation of Israeli academics to meet their British counterparts before the union’s conference. But in the context of a vicious campaign to delegitimize Israel, these were mere gestures.
Following the University and College Union vote, the American Jewish community sensed that the British Jewish community had dropped the ball and decided to pick it up. The Anti-Defamation League took out large ads in the Financial Times and in major American newspapers, calling the boycott motions antisemitic. Lawyer Alan Dershowitz got 100 of his colleagues to promise legal action against any lecturer boycotting Israel. And 2,000 American academics, including at least nine Nobel Prize winners, pledged to stay away from any event excluding Israelis.
Naturally, the high-profile intervention was severely embarrassing to British Jewish leaders, and a sudden flurry of anti-boycott activity quickly followed. The Jewish Leadership Council and the Britain Israel Communications and Research Centre launched a “Stop the Boycott” campaign and published ads of their own in the Times and the Guardian.
For many in the community, however, this was too little, too late — and there was a palpable sense of anger against the leadership.
What went wrong? Some surmise that the Board of Deputies was lulled into a false sense of security after a 2005 boycott against two Israeli universities by the Association of University Teachers was rapidly reversed following an international outcry. They seemed to think that those behind the boycott were exposed as extremists with limited support, and that the fight against the boycott resolutions could be safely left to other bodies such as Engage, a far-left group that fights antisemitism.
Others think the board appreciated the scale of the threat, but erred by sticking to its longstanding belief in quiet diplomacy rather than grand gestures. This policy goes back centuries and stems, first and foremost, from the British Jewish community’s insecurity.
Before multiculturalism became the norm, Britain encouraged conformity, and Jews, like all minority groups, craved acceptance. As a result, they were extremely careful not to upset successive British governments, as shown most famously in their ambivalence about pushing the United Kingdom to allow in Jewish refugees fleeing the Nazis. Because they avoided thinking of themselves as anything but British, they also did not develop their own political agendas.
By contrast, in the United States — where Jews number roughly 6 million to Britain’s 270,000 — the Jewish community has always been much more confident of its place in American life, and therefore more upfront and aggressive about its political goals. Organizations such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobby openly for causes backed by American Jewry, and even less effective communal organizations have developed professional strength and expertise that top British Jewish groups lack.
However, following the recent boycott debacle — and despite the awkward timing, with the myth of a powerful Zionist lobby gaining currency in mainstream British debate — British Jews can expect to see their leaders increasingly taking on the bolder American style.
The British Jewish leadership has finally discovered that the current political climate does not reward timidity. The far-left and Islamist elements driving the moves against Israelis and other Jews do not respond to gentlemanly persuasion, which at any rate is not the approach that the majority of the Jewish community want their leaders to take.
British Jews are beginning to recognize that they have become politicized; against their will, they are becoming political targets. This new situation calls for an entirely different level of organization and an entirely new way of thinking about the Jewish community’s place in British society.
The Jewish leadership must put its historical reservations aside and carefully adopt a more assertive approach — or face the indignity of more American interventions.
Miriam Shaviv is a London-based journalist.
Well, well, the Anti-Defamation League is funding some ads, calling all in sight anti-semites, and like Pavlov's dog, Dershowitz hears a criticism of something Israeli and he barks and foams at the mouth and lines up a group of 200 lemings to sing "O say can you see, the anti-semites in the UK?" Just like he attacked the two professors, Jimmy Carter and the Iraq Study Group for not bowing in the direction of Tel Aviv (although the lobby would have preferred a bow in the direction of Jerusalem), Dershowitz demonstrates the shallowness of his position by his usual arm waving and name calling. For those of you who think that all citizens of the US are Israel supporters, think again. Many of us are American nationalists who put the interests of our country first, and that country is the US, which does not have interests in common with the state of Israel. Regards, Don
Please note that the Zionist Central Council and the Manchester Jewish Representative Council are having a public event, Sunday 8th JULY, 2007 at 8pm, Mamlock House. For security purposes, people intending to attend are asked to RSVP ZCC : 0161 740 8835 by 4th July *PANEL* *Lorna Fitzsimons, CEO BICOM, jointly spearheading the, STOP THE BOYCOTT CAMPAIGN *Ronnie Fraser, Founder and Director, ACADEMIC FRIENDS of ISRAEL *Doreen Gerson, Executive VC, TRADE UNION Friends of Israel *Richard Gold, North West Organiser, ENGAGE *Joy Wolfe, National Union of JOURNALISTS Chair : Lucille Cohen, ZCC President
As someone deeply committed both to the end of the Israeli occupation of the Palestinian territories and to the fight against antisemitism (and all forms of racism), I do feel ambiguous about the boycott and its choice of academic and cultural milieux - I'd have NO problem whatsover with a boycott of goods produced in the illegally-occupied territories, such as wines from Golan. But the purpose of the boycott is not to "help entrench in popular imagination the disastrous impression that Israel deserves to be an international pariah" or to "single out Israel alone for such treatment", but to press for an end of 40 years of illegal occupation. I know many Jews on several continents, including more than a few adult children of Holocaust survivors and refugees, who are adamantly opposed to the way Israel (a state) is treating the Palestinians. The Argentines I know are especially adamant, due to Israel's shameful collaboration with the viciously antisemitic military régime in their country (I won't single out Israel; Italy was just as bad, although the Italian population in Israel is even larger than the Jewish population). I would like to ask Ms Shaviv what method she proposes to end the occupation and achieve justice for the Palestinian people - indeed none of the progressive people I know would ever want to do anything that could lend succour to antisemitism, which is indeed a pervasive evil in western, Christian society.
Note which sector of the United Kingdom are advocating and doing the boycotts--unions. Thug run entities who are the backbone of support for every sick and sickening leftist notion in the world today. Unions MUST be broken!
To Donny, what rock did you crawl out from? Most Americans according to polls are solidly behind Israel. I guess you never read anything you disagree with. Nothing in common, oh come on. Where do you think your precious Christianity came from, the moon G-d? The Muslims are killing our brave boys and girls in Iraq, supported by Iran and Syria, which constantly ridicule all our principles, while (see latest beheadings by the Jihadists in Iraq and torture chambers galore in Sunni areas) they are the real barbarians. Given their druthers, we in the US would now be experiencing a series of Islamic Crusades (remember those?). Little Israel does not control the US gov't. True there is a pro-Israeli lobby and thank G-d for it Don't you dare think of us as second class citizens. We will never kowtow to the likes of your kind. Do you send funds to the American NAZI Party? If so, it doesn't shock me. NEVER AGAIN PAL. BTW I contribute greatly to the several pro-Israel PACs. Or as my Christian friends say, "Praise the Lord".
The British Jewish community is dying out or leaving. Anybody expecting activism to start with the elderly will be disappointed. The article doesn't mention Dershowitz and I've never heard anyone claim that "all citizens of the US are Israel supporters". Pretty dry straw man, that one.
Given the large Muslim population in Great Britian that is gaining notoriety due to recent events in the Middle East, it is more than necessary that her Jewish community get more outwardly aggressive and adopt an American style approach to this and other related issues. Failure to do so would lead to total capitualation resembling a neo-Neville Chamberlain tragedy of the 1930's.
Don, i love it. We have nothing in common with Israel except being a democracy, not homophobic, do not do gender mutilation, mercy killings, blow up innocent people,etc. The list could go on forever. What planet are you from? Yes we have much more in common with the Muslims.
JEWS CURED POLIO;SYPHILIS,INVENTED ATOMIC AND RELATIVITY SCIENCE AND DO NOT BELIEVE IN BIGOTTED BOYCOTTS. Anti=Isreal is anti-Jewish Palestinian school books define Palestine to include the borders of Israel,praise suicide killers and honor terrorist. The BBC is now known for slanted anti Israel reporting and as a result has lost respect in honorable journalism.British Universities will have a reputation comparable to Nazi Germany's after their Nuremburg laws kicked Jewish professers and students out. If the 21 century is going to be better than other times anti jewish hatred must end
This is an ugly and divisive action that will do nothing to end the occupation and everything to encourage anti-Semitism. Witness the ugly partisanship it has already generated in these comments.
I can tell you that every time Alan Dershowitz appears on British TV, he makes a few more enemies for Israel and Zionism. Probably most Brits would be against boycotting Israel if they ever gave it a thought, but they have long since written off the Middle East and its endless feuds as intractable and none of their business. The fact that their prime minister chose to embroil the UK in a couple of small wars out there counted against him, but there were other reasons-- such as sheer boredom after ten years of his simpering face-- why he has just had to quit. Besides, many of those clamouring for a British boycott are themelves left-wing Jews. The Tikkun tendency is uppermost among the Jewish intelligentsia. A total Jewish fraction of 1 in 200 of the UK population, internally divided and with nothing remotely resembling the political clout or 'apartness' of American Jewry going for it, will not have much impact in the public sphere. Behind the scenes it's another story. The new premier, Gordon Brown, is advised by a trust composed of Jews; his chief confidant, Sir Ronald Cohen, is not even a British domicilary, for tax-avoidance purposes. 'Labour Friends of Israel' is strong in Parliament. Pro-Zionism will not perish as Tony Blair and Lord Levy head for the exit. With this traction at the centre of things, proposed 'boycotts' of Israel, even if they are put into practice occasionally, will be idle gesture politics. However, if the organised so-called representatives of Britain's apathetic, unobservant, politically divided Jews set themselves up as another AIPAC or ADL they would risk suicide by ridicule. Remember the deadliest weapon in the Brits' political armoury: the refusal to take things seriously. Dershowitz's bullying rantings go over like a lead balloon here.
there is a funny skit about 2 mins about boycottinf Israeli and Jewishat http://www.aish.com.movies/israelBoycott.asp or Jewlarious.com --------------- I know the typing is bad
I am an outsider looking in and only see this filtered through whatever news or blog or agenda at the moment. None the less I get the distinct sense the Jews in the UK are ignoring the lobster in the pot syndrome. Not only do lobsters happily and slowly boil to death but they will pull down any other lobster that tries to escape. I think it will be very sad when one day you have an astonished look on your face after the UK erects some law that smacks of the Nuremberg race laws and you claim you never saw it coming. Let's hope that day never comes but let's not become crustaceans either. How long before there's a riot in London and the press attributes it to "Jewish elements" like they typically do in the Arab world? A year? Two?
The Palestinians called for a boycott of Israel because their own students and teachers weren't allowed to go to school in the West Bank. If the Israeli government allowed the Palestinians to go to school, the British academics would end their boycott. The lesson here is, "That which is hateful to you, do not do unto others."
Norman, I am not sure what you mean when you say that Palestinians were not allowed to go to school in the West Bank. Do you mean that it is hard to travel because of security measures? Not personally familiar with the situation on the ground, I nonetheless feel it is ridiculous for outsiders to declare Israeli security restrictions stifling without regard to the unchecked suicide bombing that would take place without them. The Palestinians, it seems, do not want to take responsibility for their fate, and prefer, instead of taking up the reins of governance and striking a compromise, to live in "resistance." Your encouragement of them in this regard serves them ill, since symptoms like the Hamas civil war in Gaza cannot be taken as signs that this is a strategy that is working.
to Maria Gatti to Maria Gatti: According to your way of thinking you'd have to boycott ALL the goods produced in Israel because according to your "Palestinian Arabs" all Israel is "illegally-occupied territories. I do drink the fine wines from the Israeli Golan and eat some good Beagles from Samaria. We both talk politics and we both must separate the Academia from the Politics rather to turn the Academia to be politics (as progressive Academia agents as you did once in USSR). Today you boycott Israel and tomorrow someone will boycott you and Britain for conquering Iraq, Afghanistan and some more places all around the world. If you want to persuade Israel to leave the occupied territories please act through political channels; demonstrate your stand at political conferences and streets, burn an Israeli soldier puppet in the middle of London and convince Mr. Gordon that your way is the only good way for Britain. Politically I think differently from you. I think that there isn't a unique Palestinian people but the Jews, I say that the "occupied territories" are not really occupied by Israel but were occupied illegally by Jordan and Egypt in 1948, and I say that those whom you call "Palestinian Arabs" have already a Palestinian state called Jordan. They need just a small change towards democracy there than they will exercise their household. Try to bring your Academia to deal with the historical-political problem and not to create new "problems", whom suffer the most, in such cases, are the Arabs in the "occupied" territories. I leave Argentina to you. You started a war against that state, for some small S. American occupied island by Britain..... Did the Brits really have to launch that war? Did Argentina really threaten the very survival of Britain as the Arabs in Palestine threaten the Israeli's? Achieving justice for the Palestinian problem (Why to say only "justice for the Palestinian people"? Are Jews not entitled to achieve their justice too?) Should be made in the political context and diplomatically arena. All demagogue protests of the UCU are just a burden over the try to solve the Palestinian problem.... burden …more to the Arabs than to the Jews.
to Norman: Why Israel should let the teachers and students to go free tied with explosive belts to "schools"? Do the Brits act that way when a bombing car found deserted in the streets of London? No, they close all links to and around that car until clarifying the situation. That is exactly what the IDF is doing among all around Arab try to exercise their terror.. There is no permanent blockade over all the territories but the Arabs moving from one city to the other in more restrict because of the Arabs terror operative. Arabs kids can go freely to schools because the searching points are out of the cities. The problem is less than the Arab ProPalganda tries to picture.
David L Nilsson said: As a matter of fact the origin of the modern clashes in Palestine is just because of the British policy towards the Palestinian problem. They once gave the eastern part of Palestine to the Arabs and forget to give the other half – the western part of Palestine to the Jews. The Brit conqueror damaged all chances to start the 20th century in peace in Palestine. Now the Arabs demanding the other half of the land by the destruction of Israel, by making a "peace" with her ("right of return" for Arabs and "step by step policy") or by fighting her till the end….. and the sea. It seems that Alan Dershowitz frighten you because his sincere and bluntly way to expose the Muslim and the Brit's left way of deceiving. It's the Brits right to boycott Israel as they others to boycott Britain. I don't that the average Brit wants to risk his daily life now for some else far political problem. You better take care from the growing Islamo fascists threat inside Britain but not on the expenses of the Israelis, just because some day Britain will ask for other to help her in the inner war on the new identity of Britain. And Israel will be there to help her.
Québec started a war against Argentina? Now we have passed into the surreal.
Perhaps now there will be a boycott against Muslims and their countries of origin in view of the latest terrorist attacks. As I'm sure everyone know Israelis and Jews have killed many more British Citizens in acts of terrorism that Muslims.
Good point "why Britain’s Jewish community did so little to pre-empt the boycott motions"...Probably it is part of the tradition, let me explain: In his biography, "Trial and error", Chaim Weizmann reckons that whereas he has been working for the establishment of Jewish state in Palestine, the English Jewry succeeded to downgrade the Balfour declaration to a promise of a "home". Nowadays more or less influential Jews in England are also are uncomfortable with Israel, as Pinter, the Roses, Ilan Pappe and probably much more The main danger the Jews are facing nowadays it is not exactly antisemitism, it is indifference, fear and insecurity, which originate essentially from ignorance and low self-esteem. If one has enough self-esteem and a good knowledge of the Jewish history, it is not difficult to find reasonable and defensible arguments to oppose the detractors, especially in the intellectual milieu. These are the main weapons to be used, besides a little bit of courage.
To Ms. Maria Gatti You should know that the Jews did not originate in Jupiter or Mars, the very name tells it clear, they are from Judea, whose name was changed to to Palestine when the Jewish revolt against roman occupation was smashed by Hadrian roman legions, in 135 CE. The Jews lost half a million lives while the roman lost 90,000, that´s history, you should the roman historian Dio Cassius soldiers...In the fourth century queen Helena, mother of emperor Constantine, already converted to Christianity, in her letters to her son used to refer about her pilgrimage to Judea, not Palestine. The Jews are the real aborigines of Palestine, the Arabs are only newcomers in Palestine that conquered our lands with the persuasion of their swords...The Jews are retrieving what is legitimately theirs..You should read History of the Jews and War of the Jews by the historian Flavius Josephus. PS I think that Mel Gibson´s with his fictional picture "Passion of Christ" did a wonderful job...he showed that about 2,000 ago there were only Jews (natives) and romans (occupiers)in Palestine...no "Palestinians"...All other later peoples in Palestine arrived as conquerors and occupiers...KC
This is all rather funny considering I expressed reservations about the academic and cultural boycott of Israel. What is less funny is the defence of the 40-year occupation of Gaza and the West Bank, in one case through denial of the existence of the Palestinian people, in another on the basis of who lived in Palestine 2000 years ago. Guess there is no Québécois or Canadian people then - and as a matter of fact even the Mohawks arrived in what is now Montréal only a few hundred years ago; a proto-Huron people lived here 2000 years ago. Fortunately there are also posters who uphold the venerable progressive tradition for which Forward is known, and don't see concern for the Palestinian and Israeli peoples as necessarily contradictory. And don't think bullying Jewish communities in other countries into acting more USian is in line with such a progressive tradition.
Unfortunately, we can't edit our posts. I do find it odd for someone defending the Jewish people to be quoting a vicious anti-semite, Mel Gibson. His father is active in the Fraternity of Pius X, a far-right split from the Catholic Church, known not only for anti-semitism but for harbouring Nazi collaborators in France. And although the son denies it (the truth comes out when he is tipsy) Mel is also active in this hateful anti-semitic sect.
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