As originally posted to Greens Against The Boycott: here.
I include the image discussed and featured on the blog-post advertising the Green Left Fringe: Anti-Zionism: A Jewish Perspective
The reason that cartoon particularly caught my eye was that it reminded me of the British elections (1997?) where BNP members wore labels over their mouths complaining of being silenced by the State/media. The idea being, I suppose that this implied there was some sort of dangerous truth being censored, and to demonise the censorers, which was somehow supposed to increase the truth/value of the message…
In this case the image is even more of a straw man, and it’s simplistic and obvious.
The implication of the cartoon is that because some criticism of Israel is not antisemitic, that it’s oppressive/idiotic to imply that any is.
The content of the fringe is also troubling. I find the idea that a Jewish person gets put up as pro-boycott both racist and childish. Surely it’s obvious that individual people of all religions support every possible political stand, it’s racist to imply that it’s amazing that some Jews are capable overcoming their own personal problems in order to empathise with Palestinians, and it’s childish to be amazed by this?
This is not to say that I don’t think there are strong parallels between the Israeli situation and South African apartheid, or that people should be free to choose to boycott for personal reasons, or that all the anti-boycott arguments were in the most diplomatic way. But the arguments have to stand on their own, and the anti-boycott argument I’ve seen has been the most level-headed and rational one (sometimes).
Furthermore, it borders on disingenuous to imply that there is no racism involved (along a spectrum of possibly unintentional racism of showing off ‘the good Jew’ to sharing a platform with or supporting radical islamic groups who believe in the ‘Protocols of the Elders of Zion’). Some of us on the left previously have complained about the artists formerly known as ‘Respect’ pandering to homophobic Islamic groups, but somehow it’s less of a problem with Jewish people.
If I can support some of those aims of those Palestinian organisations and understand the desperation that motivates people to commit suicide bombings (without agreeing with their anti-Semitism), I can understand the same need for survival felt by the people of the state of Israel (and their way of dealing with the threat with an organised military) without making generalisations about the inhabitants. Because of course there are racists and sociopaths on both sides.
I imagine most of the difficulty lies with the problem of Israel being an intersection of race, religion, nation and (heavily armed) state which make the situation very complicated, indeed.
Thanks Raphael for helping to crystallise my views.
Oh, sweet catharsis.
Footnote (from the ‘Greens Against The Boycott’ post above):
The cartoonist is Carlos Latuff, runner-up of the revolting Iranian Holocaust Cartoon Competition in 2006 (Ahmedinejad kicking the cat – his idea of payback for the Danish publication of Mohammed cartoons in 2006).
