23 November 2014

Let's counter boycott the boycotters!

It occurred to me that there might just be a solution to the problem of the Boycott. Divestment & Sanctions (BDS) movement: counter boycott. Why not? There are lots of us wrinklies remembering how we boycotted South Africa (if you want a real apartheid, there's one you youngsters out there should study). We might not have had the effect that we desired, but, by heck, we sure felt better!

Further, these days, Jewish communities in the West, especially, actually do have some real economic clout. This autumn, for those of you who missed it, the UK (for United Kingdom) Jewish Film Festival was due to show some of its films in a cinema/theatre complex called the Tricycle. situated in North London, in an area noted more for its Irish and Afro-Caribbean "immigrants" than those of any other ethnicity. The Tricycle had shown films for the Festival in previous years, but this year, for some unknown reason, they demanded to view the films due to be screened in advance, with a clear implication of potential censorship. Fortunately, the UKJFF Executive flatly refused.

So, the Tricycle Chief Executive and Board scrutinised the Festival's sources of finance and alighted on a grant of £1400 ($2100, or NIS8400, both approximate) from the Israeli Embassy (clearly an Arts Grant from the Israeli - for the Brits reading this - the equivalent of one from the UK Arts Council: government money but administered independently). They demanded that the Festival return this and they would replace it, pound for pound. Naturally, the Festival rejected this out of hand and withdrew their films.

The reaction among the London Jewish literati was immediate: lots of us (my wife and I and all our friends on their mailing list, etc) immediately wrote to them, telling them to delete our addresses from their lists and that we would not be returning until they changed their policy. It is notable that a significant number of Jewish sponsors/donors also withdrew their support. The Tricycle reaction was almost immediate: they promised to reinstate the Festival next year (2015). However, none of us going back until the Tricycle makes good on its promise.

They must have had a nasty shock when they lost the support of a significant number of their sponsors and mailing list members.

They forgot that Jews, these days, are, in the Diaspora, collectively pretty Middle Class +, with a significant spend available for the arts and entertainment sector.

The point of this preamble is to note that the Zim Line has decided to stop attempting to unload cargoes in Long Beach, California, following problems with BDS demonstrators at the port (see this Times of Israel article for details). Despite the efforts of the port authorities to play down the problems, one of them, Lee Peterson stating that "“At the time,...it did not affect the longshore workers and operations continued”, and despite a spokesperson for Zim Lines (apparently, the 10th largest sea-borne freight carrier in the world) suggested that this situation wasn't necessarily permanent, it would appear that Zim Lines will unload elsewhere on the West coast of the US for as long as it takes.

So, all of us supporters of Israel have purchasing power: we can buy or not buy where we like. Perhaps we should be making sure we buy in stores, etc, that are prepared to stock Israeli goods (even if that's not what we're buying today), and avoid stores that support BDS.Capitalist principles of the bottom line and profit margin will soon take over!

By Brian Goldfarb.

Update: Commenter Larry Sheldon is absolutely right, saying:

You make an error if you fail to include the Christian communities that feel and act more strongly FOR Israel [than] some Jewish communities do.
Indeed, the same call applies to our Christian friends as well.

15 comments:

peterthehungarian said...

The name of this disgrace of journalism (if there is anything today to disgrace this totally disgraced profession) is RUDOREN. We have to be cautious not to blame the numerous Ruderons of the world with rewriting history - in the case of Jodi Rudoren it became a habit..

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Thanks, Peter, my bad for copy/pasting without a second glance...

Larry Sheldon said...

You make an error if you fail to include the Christian communities that feel and act more strongly FOR Israel that some Jewish communities do.

Dick Stanley said...

Indeed, and a good place to start shopping would be the Christians United For Israel store:

https://store.cufi.org/

Dick Stanley said...

Thanks for this timely post. Lots of little ways to help, like, in the States, always buying Sabra humus instead of the multiple other brands.

Dick Stanley said...

Does seem only fair to mention who started the damn thing. Too fair, apparently.

David All said...

This is exactly what we should be doing. Give the boycotters a taste of their own medicine. Groups like the American Studies Association should have all their contributions from pro-Israeli groups taken away. They can see how they can make it with out money from the Jewish and pro-Israeli Christian community groups. Thank you Brian for a timely post.
PS: Sorry to be so late, but I really liked the post you did months ago about Israel's Arabs.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Agreed, Larry, and thanks for the remark.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Yep.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

And bon Appetit!

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Yeah, Judi R. is quite a singular force of damage.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Long as the T-shirts are produced I promise to continue with that obsession. But no longer ;-)

SnoopyTheGoon said...

"You have to remember that most students are not interested in politics. "

I agree, but still it is telling that while the students seem not to know about ISIS at all, a good percentage does know about Israel/Palestine.

man said...

This video makes me sad. As a recently graduate I can actually see this as being realistic, but I also agree with David's statement that most students probably viewed the "ISIS flag-waver" as a nut job that was too scary to engage with. Whereas they apparently weren't intimidated by the "Israeli flag-waver". Me personally I might have punched the first guy in the mouth. Then I'd get in trouble... Guess it's a good thing it didn't happen on my campus. Also, as someone that joined the Army on 9/11 I have a different outlook on some things...

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Well, we all agree on the element of sadness. Which is good.