Posted: Sun, 03 Jun 2007
The British teachers’ union vote to encourage a boycott of Israeli academicians has been followed in quick order by a similar vote by Britain’s largest trade union, Unisom, which has threatened an economic and cultural boycott of Israel.
In a preamble, the motion “notes that, during 2006, Israel invaded Lebanon and Gaza, withheld tax revenues form the Palestine Authority and refused dialogue with the elected Authority following the democratic elections of January 2006, resealed the borders of Gaza, expanded illegal settlements in the West Bank, and continued the construction of the illegal Apartheid Wall.”
It accused the government of Prime Minister Tony Blair of adopting “a consistent stand in support of the Israeli government throughout the shameful events of 2006, even joining the U.S. in failing to call for a cease-fire amidst worldwide condemnation of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.”
Now the Israeli parliament is debating a consumer boycott of all British goods, according to The Times (London):
The proposed Bill is aimed at punishing Britain for recent threats from its largest trade union and UCU, the university lecturers’ union, to boycott Israel for occupying Palestinian land. The prospect of a boycott has prompted concern among the Israeli public. Leading commentators denounced the moves as anti-Semitic. Now a group of politicians has promised a harsh response, calling for Israel to begin its own boycott against Britain.
According to some Israeli critics, the government hasn’t done enough to counter the growing threats, says the Jerusalem Post:
The scheduled governmental meeting comes as some in the Foreign Ministry have said privately that Israel has not done enough over the last few months - as various groups in Britain debated boycott and divesture - to protest these moves, and to persuade the British government to register its opposition loudly and publicly as well.
Livni spoke to British Foreign Secretary Margaret Beckett about the matter on Friday and said that Israel viewed these steps “gravely” and that they stood in complete opposition to the good relations that exist between the two countries.
That’s the drama that’s taking place on the world stage. Via Normblog, Shalom Lappin gives a preview of what will happen behind the closed doors of academia as a result of the boycott vote, which requires follow-up votes—not to Israelis but to British Jews [e.a.]:
Several people have suggested that the boycott resolutions of the UCU and other unions are ineffective, and so need not be taken seriously. It is true that these resolutions have not interfered with institutional scientific cooperation between Israel and Britain. However, it would be foolishly insouciant to treat them as unimportant. The primary purpose of the boycott campaign is not to change Israeli government policy but to undermine the legitimacy of Israel as a country. It aims to isolate, not its political leaders and policy makers, but its people as a whole. It is, then, a form of branding which seeks to mark a group of people as social outcasts. The main damage that it does is to provide cover for acts of blatant discrimination against Israeli academics, committed by individual researchers acting as journal editors, conference organizers, tenure or appointment consultants, and in similar roles. We have seen several high profile cases of such individual boycott actions within the UK over the past seven years. This trend is likely to gather momentum if the boycott campaign continues unchecked.
In the end, the boycott is a far greater threat to the Jewish community in Britain than it is to Israeli academics. The latter will sustain robust research and teaching careers through a multitude of international connections that do not involve British institutions. Boycott actions constitute, at most, an unpleasant inconvenience for them. Alternative venues for publication and joint research can, in most cases, be easily arranged. However, British Jewish academics (and British Jews in general) will increasingly find themselves facing a stark choice. Either they endorse the boycott campaign and dance to its tune (as a number of prominent Jewish public figures have noisily done), or they face the prospect of being identified as Israel’s supporters, with the public exclusion that this entails. Cowering in fearful silence will offer increasingly limited protection against a movement determined to make the Israel-Palestine conflict the defining issue on which one’s claim to moral and political decency depends. In a polarizing environment of this sort, the fabric of normal collegial relations and academic life begins to unravel. This emerging dilemma is a reflection of the increasing isolation into which the British Jewish community at large is being forced.
Thus does anti-Zionism become politically correct—the only right way to think and behave. And via this soft totalitarianism hysterical, terrified, cowardly British leftists try to appease the Muslim masses at home in Britain. Brilliant strategy!
Posted: Sun, 03 Jun 2007
Eric Alterman , who most people wouldn’t characterize as a Fogey, comes down hard on the Whippersnappers:
Paul [Berman’s] path [as an independent intellectual], in other words, is open to anyone willing to invest the hard, lonely, and materially unrewarding work he has spent decades putting in. There is a point to be made about people with no experience, no qualifications, and no particular expertise, mouthing off about the work of people with experience, qualifications, and with expertise. They may be right, but they had better be able to prove it. Simply assuming the virtue of youth and inexperience is more wrong than not. …
When I read an attack on someone I respect by someone I’ve never heard of, I need a reason to take it seriously. The best reason is evidence. The second best is a track record. The third possibility is that it is intrinsically interesting and original, however speculative. Absent any of these qualities, it’s masturbation, which is certainly edifying for the person doing it, but for the rest of us, not so much …
Alterman is pissed off because Berman is his friend. But that doesn’t detract from his larger point, which is solid: the purge-happy young status warriors in Washington are both out of their depth and overinfatuated with themselves. And anti-intellectual to boot.
Posted: Sun, 03 Jun
I fell for the hoax:
A Dutch reality television show in which a supposedly dying woman had to pick one of three contestants to whom she would donate a kidney was revealed as an elaborate hoax on Friday.
The producers did it to publicize the lack of kidney donors.
Producers apologized to viewers and said they hoped “outrage” over the show would turn into anger over the lack of organs for transplant.
The minister of education gave them a hearty endorsement:
Dutch Education Minister Ronald Plasterk hailed the show as a “fantastic stunt” and an intelligent way to draw attention to the shortage of donor organs.
I guess he believes in advocacy entertainment—which, like advocacy journalism, seems to be a coming trend. Ugh. I don’t. I like to be entertained or informed, not corraled or assaulted. But the education minister’s reaction supports my little theory.
It does go to show that … well … you know: Infotainment Rules.
Posted: Sun, 03 Jun 2007
Shorter Fareed Zakaria: Everybody calm down—you’re scaring the bad guys! And that means you, too, Obama!
The presidential campaign could have provided the opportunity for a national discussion of the new world we live in. So far, on the Republican side, it has turned into an exercise in chest-thumping. Whipping up hysteria requires magnifying the foe. …
Though Democrats sound more sensible on many of these issues, the party remains consumed by the fear that it will not come across as tough. Its presidential candidates vie with one another to prove that they are going to be just as macho and militant as the fiercest Republican.
Repeat after Zakaria:
There is no real terrorist threat. We’ll never be able to protect ourselves against terrorism. It’s our response to terrorism that’s the problem.
With no apparent communication, collaboration or further guidance from bin Laden, small outfits from Southeast Asia to North Africa to Europe now announce that they are part of Al Qaeda, and so inflate their own importance, bring global attention to their cause and—of course—get America to come racing out to fight them. …
We will never be able to prevent a small group of misfits from planning some terrible act of terror. No matter how far-seeing and competent our intelligence and law-enforcement officials, people will always be able to slip through the cracks in a large, open and diverse country. The real test of American leadership is not whether we can make 100 percent sure we prevent the attack, but rather how we respond to it.
If we are attacked, we must think and act very, very carefully before we retaliate:
Were there to be another attack, politicians would fulfill their pledges to strike back, against someone. A retaliatory strike would be appropriate and important—if you could hit the right targets. But what if the culprits were based in Hamburg or Madrid or Trenton? It is far more likely that a future attack will come from countries that are unknowingly and involuntarily sheltering terrorists. Are we going to bomb Britain and Spain because they housed terror cells?
[ed: Not to be too cold-blooded about it, but I suppose it will depend on the circumstances. Any candidate for president must contemplate the seemingly impossible—such as the notion that 19 young men might bring down the World Trade Center, part of the Pentagon, and a plane full of valiant Americans in a Pennsylvania field on a crystal-clear late-summer day in 2001.]
We should engage Iran—our natural ally:
Iran is a Shiite power and actually helped the United States topple the Qaeda-backed Taliban regime in Afghanistan.
Besides, what’s the big deal about a nuclear-armed Iran?
There are many influential voices arguing for military attacks on Tehran. But let’s keep in mind that this is a poorly run, internally divided oil tyranny that is increasingly antagonizing the rest of the world. It is insecure enough to have arrested Iranian-American civilians and warned its own scholars never to talk to foreigners at conferences abroad. These are not the signs of a healthy system. [I’ll say! –ed.] Iran is a serious and complex problem, but it is not Hitler’s Germany. Its total GDP is less than one third of America’s defense budget. A nuclear-armed North Korea has not been able to change the dynamics of global politics. A nuclear-armed Iran—and we are still far from that point—will not bring about the end of the world as long as we keep it tightly contained.
We should put the failure of Iraq behind us and move on:
It would be far better for us to reduce our exposure to the current civil war, draw down our forces, let Iraq’s internal political forces play themselves out and restrict our troops to certain limited but core missions. We need to continue the battle against Qaeda-style extremists, maintain a presence to reassure and secure the Kurdish region, and continue to train and keep watch over the Iraqi Army. All this can be done with a substantially smaller force—about 50,000 troops, which is also a more sustainable level for the long haul.
The administration has—surprise—tried to play up fears of the consequences of a drawdown in Iraq (which is always described as a Vietnam-style withdrawal down to zero). It predicts that this will lead to chaos, violence and a victory for terrorists. When we listen to these forecasts, it is worth remembering that every administration prediction about Iraq has been wrong. Al Qaeda is a small presence in Iraq,
You natives are too goddamn restless! Stop talking trash about foreigners!They’re different from you and me. Some of them approve of suicide bombing. Deal with it. Consider yourselves lucky that there are relatively few of them.
The first comprehensive poll of U.S. Muslims, conducted last month by the Pew Research Center, found that more than 70 percent believed that if you worked hard in America, you would get ahead. That compares with 64 percent for the general U.S. population. Their responses to almost all questions were in the mainstream and strikingly different from Muslim populations elsewhere. Some 13 percent of U.S. Muslims believe that suicide bombings can be justified. Too high, for sure, but it compares with 35 percent for French Muslims, 57 percent for Jordanians and 69 percent for Nigerians.
This distinct American advantage—which testifies to our ability to assimilate new immigrants—is increasingly in jeopardy. If leaders begin insinuating that the entire Muslim population be viewed with suspicion, that will change the community’s relationship to the United States. Wiretapping America’s mosques and threatening to bomb Mecca are certainly a big step down this ugly road.
America is bad—do you hear him? B-A-D. It has been bad for decades. Its foreign policy has been a disaster. And yet out of this heap of ashes that Bush 43 has left in his wake, Zakaria is certain that if only American can move forward with—wait for it—confidence, why, then, maybe we can begin to rebuild our shattered image.
To recover its place in the world, America first needs to recover its confidence. For those who look at the future and see challenges, competition and threats, keep in mind that this new world has been forming over the last 20 years, and the United States has forged ahead amid all the turmoil. In 1980, the U.S. share of global GDP was 20 percent. Today it is 29 percent. We lead the world in technology and research. Our firms have found enormous success in new markets overseas. We continue to generate new products, new brands, new companies and new industries. …
Thanks for the reminder! Whatever would we do without worldly gentlemen like yourself, Mr. Zakaria, to tell us how to behave in front of the neighbors?
Posted: Sun, 03 Jun 2007
The AP reports that the Islamist-extremist intimidation campaign is now out in the open and in full flower. Female Palestinian TV broadcasters are now in the line of fire:
A Muslim extremist group threatened to behead female TV broadcasters if they don’t don strict Islamic dress, leaving the women terrified and marking a further downward spiral in Gaza’s anarchy.
The threat to “cut throats from vein to vein” was delivered by the Swords of Truth, a fanatical group that has previously claimed responsibility for bombing Internet cafes and music shops.
The new threat was the first time the organization targeted a specific group of people, and adds to a growing climate of extremism, fear and suspicion in Gaza.
The Jerusalem Post provides more details:
Members of the group are also responsible for splashing acid in the face of a number of young women who had been accused of “immoral behavior.” The Righteous Swords of Islam is one of three al-Qaida-affiliated groups that have popped up in the Gaza Strip over the past two years.
PA officials in Ramallah told The Jerusalem Post that the presence of the extremist groups in the Gaza Strip would “eventually lead to the transformation of the Palestinian territories into a Taliban-style entity.”
According to one official, “The day will come when we will miss Hamas. These are extremely dangerous groups that are trying to take Palestinian society back to the Dark Ages.”
The threats being issued are very specific and very close to home:
The group warned that its members would strike with an “iron fist and swords” against the women who are refusing to cover their faces. “We will destroy their homes,” it announced. “We will blow up their working places. We have a lot of information about their addresses and we are following their movements.”
The leaflet concluded by threatening to “slaughter” the women for allegedly spreading corruption in Palestinian society by appearing on the screen with their faces uncovered.
“The administration and workers at Palestine TV should know that we are much closer to them than they think,” it added. “If necessary, we will behead and slaughter to preserve the spirit and morals of our people.”
This extremism is familiar to Iranians and Afghanis, both of whom have been brutalized by fundamentalists. Now it has come to the Palestinians.
Somehow I don’t think a “binational state”—i.e., the one-state solution to the Israel/Palestine problem—is the magic cure. Three writers crocodile-feeders at The Nation do, however.
Posted: Sun, 03 Jun 2007
I don’t think I’ve ever addressed the matter of pseudonymity in a post. I wouldn’t be doing it now if I hadn’t found a post by someone else that gets to the heart of the matter.
I make no secret that I’m [an old media professional]. It’s right there in my profile. This means I have [colleagues and clients], and a [professional] image to live up to with [them]. Maybe maintaining my image … isn’t as onerous as the image-burden borne by, say, a Supreme Court justice, or the pope. But it’s not nothing. In front of my [colleagues and clients], I have to be … dignified and [professional]. This doesn’t mean being a phony; it’s more a question of emphasizing certain aspects of one’s personality and putting others in a closet for the day.
If you read my blog, you know that I use somewhat crude language from time to time. I say “f***” in several posts. …I have … a [vulgar] sense of humor … . I don’t tell my [colleagues and clients] that I’m always “the dignified [professional]” or that I never use crude language. That would be pompous and false, not to mention irrelevant. But I don’t use crude language around [them]…. Maintaining an image means drawing a line between your professional persona and your personal life.
Via Ann Althouse, who reminds us:
[Y]ou might say, but can’t a blogger adopt a persona and use a pseudonym to signify the disconnect between the writer taking a pose for literary effect and the real-world person?
Why, yes, she can! However, Althouse also gives this wise advice:
Don’t blog anonymously unless you’re ready to accept all the consequences that would come if everyone suddenly knew it was you.
I knew that, but it’s worth remembering. And repeating.
