On Palestine (11 page)

Activism among young people has sparked broader popular movements. It's true for the civil rights movement, the antiwar movement. That can have a large effect and it's a matter of considerable concern for the Zionist organizations. They are talking about it, writing about it, they are worried about it. They realize that they are losing the youth. That's going to affect the population. Pretty much like in other cases. It can make a big difference. It tends to be played down in elite discussions. But if you look closely, even in the documentary record, you can see the effect. Take Vietnam again. One of the most interesting parts of the Pentagon Papers, which is never discussed because it is too inflammatory, is at the very end. The Pentagon Papers end in mid-1968, right after the Tet offensive, a big uprising in South Vietnam, which goes on for a couple of months. The president wanted to send more troops after the Tet offensive; the joint chiefs of staff were opposed. They said that they were going to need those troops for civil disorder control in the USA.
[They said] “There will be uprisings among young people, women, students, minorities, we are just going to have to suppress them, we cannot send more troops,” and they did not. That's not insignificant. It's because of mass popular activism. If that can be done in the Palestine case, I think it can change US policy. Which is not graven in stone. There are a lot of factors that can of course impel it, but they are pretty thin if you look at them. For example, if the significant domestic lobbies in the USA, the business lobbies, which just overwhelm everything else, if they came to the opinion that US policy in support of Israel is harmful to their interests, they would change it very quickly. That can be done.

IP:
I think we are talking about two levels of activism here. First the level of more organized activism on the ground such as the BDS movements and the Israeli Apartheid Week projects on campuses that started in Canada in 2005. They were, in a way, narratives created, invented, by young people because there was no guidance from the PLO, no clear leadership that told people how they would like the civil society to act on their behalf. The South Africa and antiwar movements inspired people. What they do, as Noam rightly says and I think it is a great success, is to change the language on campuses, on universities. Things that were taboos are now totally acceptable: it is far more embarrassing to be a pro-Israeli activist today than it was twenty years ago! It is a great success that does not necessarily translate immediately into a change of American policy on the ground, but it is part of a larger process.

The second level of activism is an internal recognition of the complex nature of its possible effect. There is no clear vision or way of assessing the impact activism had in the few cases in recent history which ended long chapters of human abuse. Take for example South Africa. It is difficult to measure the impact of activism, and even the efforts of the liberation movement on the ground that the impact of the fall of the Soviet Union played in toppling the apartheid regime. It is hard to conjure what will be the equivalent historical event in the case of Israel, but that event has to be a catalytic one, whether it is the fall of Saudi Arabia or something else. Whatever it is going to be we should not bother guessing the future. The relevant question is while one waits for the fundamental change in American policy, can one win small battles vis-à-vis its policies? Are there loopholes that would enable activism to convince the American policy makers to condemn or even stop isolated atrocious cases such as preventing the continued ethnic cleansing of Palestinians from the Naqab, Acre, or the Greater Jerusalem area?

Targets probably have to be “modest” in comparison to the big picture, although there is nothing modest in trying to prevent the continued starvation of the Gaza Strip. I am optimistic and I do believe a catalytic event will occur that would fundamentally change the picture. In the meantime, I totally identify with what Noam said about the suffering of the people on the ground and you know it as much as I do, Frank, when you come to the Jordan Valley, and I was just there a week ago, how difficult it is to lift spirits there by telling how impressive has been the shift in Western and American public opinion.
This does not alleviate their suffering in any way. You rightly receive stale looks when you tell them enthusiastically about the BDS campaign. They still are denied access to their water and land and are facing the danger of an imminent expulsion.

NC:
Yes.

IP:
I think expectations on the ground are far more concrete and immediate. Can the solidarity movement outside persuade the American consul in East Jerusalem to come and see with his own eyes what they are subjected to by the Israeli occupation? We need to strike the right balance between our success in changing the conversation in the West—through the actions of the BDS and the Apartheid Week initiatives—and achieving some old activist-style tangible results on the ground.

NC:
Yes.

IP:
The sense for the need for tangible results is particularly acute when you talk to people in the Gaza Strip.

NC:
That can be done by activism here. There could be campaigns here that would get people to pressure the American consul to go to the West Bank. It was actually done in the South African case. I do not want to go too far off on South Africa, but there is a crucial aspect of the end of apartheid that is totally suppressed here and in Britain for reasons of ideological fanaticism. Apartheid was substantially ended by Cuba. The scholarly record on this by now is just overwhelming. The Cubans sent military forces, mostly Black soldiers, who drove the South Africans out of Angola, forced them to leave Namibia, broke the mythology of this white superman, which had a big effect on white and Black South Africa. And the South Africans know it. When Mandela was let out of jail, his first comment was to praise Cubans for their inspiration and their help, because they played a huge part in ending apartheid. You cannot say that in the USA or in England, because we have a kind of religious fanaticism that says that we are not allowed to tell the truth about these matters. But that was an overwhelming factor, and of course, it's missing here. We should think about other models, but it is important to break through the ideological constraints in the West which prevent recognition of what in fact happened. That's pretty important.

IP:
There was a beginning of this model although it has not matured in a similar way. In the early days of what was called the Arab Spring, I remember the Israeli bewilderment at seeing young secular Egyptians who manifested and believed in everything the Israelis at least allegedly believed in as well—whether it is liberalism, democracy, and so on—and yet were very clear about Palestine, including in the signs that they were carrying. This combination of highly committed young Arabs to both the idea of Palestine and democracy frightened the Israelis who would be much more comfortable if the pro-Palestinian sentiment were packaged in an anti-democratic way.

NC:
Israel's mythology is the villa in the jungle, and then it turns out the jungle was watching the villa!

IP:
I am a historian, I am not impressed by a few years and I think we should be very careful when saying that we know exactly where the Arab Spring is going, but it has a potential, a kind of out-of-the-box factor that has not been there before. The unknown factors and actors disable us from predicting too well the future trends. We are familiar with the Arab regimes, the Islamic opposition, and Western policies. But the balance between them can all be reshuffled by the appearance of a new force.

NC:
At the moment, things are kind of in limbo, but in the early stages of the Arab Spring there was a very significant solidarity developing between American, European, and Egyptian activists. The Arab Spring began around the time of the Wisconsin uprising. There were messages of support from Egyptian labor leaders to Wisconsin activists, and conversely, Occupy people went to Egypt.

Another aspect of the Arab Spring which cannot be discussed in the USA for ideological reasons is the role of labor. The militant labor movement was very significant. One of the lasting achievements is a substantial boost in the opportunities for labor organizing which had been crushed under the previous regime. Again, that's the kind of topic that you are not supposed to talk about here, but it's important.

FB: What do you make of the American Studies Association passing a resolution endorsing an academic boycott of Israel? How important do you think that is?

NC:
Well, that's what I had in mind when I was bringing up the Jenin fiasco. It's very much like it. It was not prepared; it was guaranteed to create a backlash that would overwhelm it. It was not thought out properly. The result is that there has been a shift from concern with Israeli crimes and US support for them to the issue of academic freedom. Very much like what happened in 2002. Shift from focus on Jenin and the crimes there, and the US background, to a discussion about anti-Semitism at Harvard. The net effect of the ASA resolution, predictably, has been a huge discussion in the USA about academic freedom. That's harmful to the Palestinians. You have to think these things through. What is the effect going to be of the resolution that you are putting forth if you have not created an understanding among the population you are trying to reach? An understanding about what the significance of this is. It's going to be harmful. So anybody who looks at the resolution will ask immediate questions. The resolution began, “Whereas the USA supports Israeli crimes, therefore let's boycott Tel Aviv University.” That's not what is supposed to follow. It should say, “Whereas the USA supports Israeli crimes, let's boycott Harvard.” Well that's not a good proposal either, but at least it would be logical. I think around a hundred university presidents already immediately issued condemnations and there is a big debate around academic freedom. What good does it do to the Palestinians? It diverts attention away from the issue. And of course it does not affect Israel in any way at all. I would contrast that to the boycott of the products of the Jordan Valley. That's significant. First of all it has an impact and secondly people can understand it. It can be an entry wedge toward bringing out the major issues. Like what Israel is doing in the Jordan Valley altogether. How come they are able to get away with it? Only because of US support. That opens opportunities that have all the right characteristics. It harms the Israeli government policies significantly and it also opens the way to creating the kind of popular understanding and activism in the US that can change policy. On the other hand the ASA resolution had the opposite effect.

IP:
Here, I don't entirely agree with Noam. I am now spending a sabbatical year in Israel and I see on the ground the reactions to the ASA and similar kinds of declarations. I do think it has some positive effects in Israel. For instance it takes the intellectual academic elite of Israel out of its comfort zone. They are worried. They may not read the declaration pedantically, but they understand that what they are seeing, as far as they are concerned, is a kind of a domino effect by which societies of American academics are going to find ways or look for better or more efficient ways to convey a message to them that they are unhappy with the Israeli academic basic position on Israeli policies and so on.

There is also very little danger for backlash from Israel in the sense that the present political and cultural elites in Israel are so entrenched in their fanatic positions that they cannot dig deeper or become more intransigent than they are today. As for the liberal Zionist elements within these elites, I think campaigns like this embarrass them in a positive way. It forces them to adopt clearer positions on the oppression and occupation. They are being reminded in a very forceful way that their self-image of Israel as a democratic society is questioned by people they respect and societies and associations to which they want to belong. That is the way of sending a wake-up call to them.

Secondly, although there is a backlash on the part of the American presidents of universities and so on, I do think it comes to the issue of democratization in the academic system. In a similar way you could say that a civil society action against Israel will not be endorsed by Capitol Hill, in fact they might go and do the opposite: declare a counter position. I know it is not a democratic system; it is not supposed to be. It is a production of knowledge system, but it is also a human organism which has two kinds of memberships: members who are running the system and members who are part of the system. The latter are the ones who have a view about Israel; they have other ways of expressing it, they are also using academic societies for that purpose. The fact that this is not reflected in the positions of the heads of universities is not necessarily a bad thing. It is a kind of tough conversation that we are having with each other in modern academia.

NC:
I mentioned the hundred university presidents, but it's the academic world. For example, if you read the
Chronicle of Higher Education
, there are articles critical of the ASA resolution by long-term militant activists. People like Linda Gordon and others who have been at the forefront of activism in all kind of issues. They are the kind of people who are critical of the resolution. Now there could have been a sensible resolution. If the resolution had said, let's boycott in some fashion Bar-Ilan, because of the Ariel campus, in the middle of the West Bank, that would have been comparable to the Jordan Valley boycott. It is understandable, it makes good sense, they are directly involved in the occupation as an academic institution and it also brings out the basic fact about what the occupation is doing. Why is there an Ariel campus? It splits the West Bank in two, maybe in five by now. All of that is important to bring out. When you say let's carry out these actions against Israeli institutions, why not against US institutions, which have a much worse record? I mean, it's not just the university presidents. The ASA resolution is not going to affect construction workers. It reaches the academic world. And in the academic world it shifted attention from Israeli crimes, and crucially US support for them, to the general question about academic freedom. In that respect it's rather like what happened in the Jenin case. I think those things have to be thought through carefully. Israeli institutions are not more blameworthy than American institutions, much less. Focusing on Bar-Ilan or any others directly involved in the occupation could have been much more effective.