Comments on: Academic Nuance Or Fanaticism?

By: Petra

Petra — Sun, 14 Sep 2008 21:18:17 +0000

s.o.muffin–good job, much needed

By: s.o.muffin

s.o.muffin — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 22:42:19 +0000

I try not to comment on each and every misguided comment, since life is short (and way too pleasant to be spent in front of a laptop). Moreover, I’ve noted this thread as it is slowly on its way toward extinction. Yet, on the off-chance that somebody is reading this, let me debunk the fanciful version of reality of Judy because it is likely to mislead the unwary and those who don’t really know the situation.

The Palestinian “civil society” grouplets calling for boycotts are mostly not Fatah and have nothing to do with Fatah (which itself is a very heterogeneous mix-and-match of groupings). They are Palestinian self-described “leftists”, mostly associated with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) and a large collection of small grouplets with fewer members than the number of capital letters in their acronyms. In the Palestinian scheme of things they are either insignificant or, in the case of PFLF, marginal, but they have a number of advantages for ignorant supporters in the West: they speak the right language, press the right emotional buttons and provide a perfect alibi to support an extreme right-wing programme of Hamas under a faux left-wing pretense.

Judy should admit to an agenda. She doesn’t want a two-state solution based on an agreement between Israel and PA (which means PLO, which means al-Fatah). This is her right (she is in this in agreement with Sue Blackwell and with Hamas, but again this is her right). To this end she needs to smear the Fatah (which has enough faults – a good smear must contain some truth). This is familiar, since UCU boycotters are equally eager to smear Israeli moderates (who have enough faults – a good smear must contain some truth), and for an identical reason.

By: modernity

modernity — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 14:09:25 +0000

thanks everyone for your comments (I think Graham and Petra’s points deserve more consideration) and if someone is willing to help TheIrie with basic reading and comprehension skills, I’d appreciate it :)

By: TheIrie

TheIrie — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:48:05 +0000

“Why do British supporters of boycotting Israel seem more extreme and intransigent than the Palestinians ?”

You mean “the Palestinians” who disagree with the general boycott, which isn’t all of them. Anyway, its a rhetorical question – there is no answer. I’d be quite interested if anyone wants to answer Benji’s question above – what do we think about the PGFTU proposal of a targeted, rather than general boycott. I think it could be workable.

By: Nearly Oxfordian

Nearly Oxfordian — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 12:36:25 +0000

Excellent, Petra.

By: Oniad

Oniad — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 07:01:42 +0000

“Why do British supporters of boycotting Israel seem more extreme and intransigent than the Palestinians ?”

-maybe too many of them are sourcing their info from Mr Duke?

By: Petra

Petra — Sat, 13 Sep 2008 01:53:54 +0000

modernity – you pose a very interesting question, and I would have loved to join the debate earlier. I would suggest that one answer to your question has to do with the media coverage of the I/P conflict (and some of the relevant issues were raised on another current thread here, i.e. the one on the Seth Freedman affair); the problem is perhaps also particularly relevant WRT the blogosphere and sites like Cif: while professional journalism requires that subjects are covered with at least some reference to the relevant context, the blogospere offers ample opportunities to satisfy the all too human desire to get a simplistic black and white picture that invites emotional identification (us vs. them) — oh, those poor Palestinians vs. those dreadful, dreadful Zionist occupiers who wantonly oppress the poor Palestinians.

Take e.g. a recent Cif-piece by a guy (Leech) who, according to his profile, is an expert on Palestinian factionalism. He wrote a piece about a Palestinian student who was arrested by the IDF half a year ago, and has since been charged with throwing stones ages ago – obviously not a very convincing charge. Leech tells the guy’s story, i.e. how terrible it all is, and that there are many detainees like him, without even hinting once that the guy was arrested in the run-up to the student council elections that were surrounded by bitter infighting between Hamas- and Fatah-affiliated groups. The fact of the matter is that in the past few months, there was a big effort to crack down on Hamas in the Westbank – and guess what: on this issue, Israel and the PA have managed to find quite a bit of common ground…
To be sure, it doesn’t make the fate of the individual detainees any better if they were arrested because it suited not just the Israeli authorities, but also the PA. However, what makes the case so terrible for the Cif-audience is not that some guy is being detained on what looks like trumped-up charges, but that he appears to be the victim of a cruel militaristic disaster-capitalist occupying power etc.

Consider in this context e.g. the almost non-existent Western media coverage of the recent Hamas assault on the Hilles clan in Gaza: at least 10 dead, the clan’s neighborhood severely damaged by Hamas bombardment, and some 200 “refugees”, including wounded, who fled to Israel (which tried to convince Abbas to grant them political asylum on the Westbank, but he wasn’t really eager to do so).
Now imagine the uproar in the media if Israel had wrought the same death and destruction…
The first version that really happened doesn’t have much potential to identify emotionally: a political group with an extremist Islamic agenda vs. a clan that runs its affairs Mafia-style – whose side to choose?
But if the same death and destruction had been caused by Israel, it would be perceived as a very different story, because it would allow the us-vs.-them identification.

So all the factors that have been mentioned here in the various comments, i.e. antisemitic sentiments, leftist obsessions etc. do play a role, but there is also, on a very fundamental level, the us-vs.-them impulse that is so easy to feed in cyberspace, where you can get all your news from a Favorites folder that makes it simple to build a well-isolated echo chamber.

By: melk

melk — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:41:38 +0000

The anti-Israel cowd hate Israel far more than they care about the Palestinians. And, if the Palestinians’ adversary was, say, Saudi Arabia and not Israel, no one would care about the Palestinans at all. Just like no one cares about African human rights when all the parties involved are black. The anti-apartheid struggle was far more invigorating.

By: Nearly Oxfordian

Nearly Oxfordian — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 16:37:54 +0000

“proletarian scum, we can ignore them can’t we?”

Not sure whether you are suggesting that this was what I implied. It wasn’t what I meant, in any event.
I detest proletarian scum just as much as I detest ‘nice middle-class’ scum, no more nor less, and I don’t think it’s a good idea to ignore either kind.

By: tonyS

tonyS — Fri, 12 Sep 2008 15:53:16 +0000

“I know a few pro boycott/Israel hating people and they are without exception in nearly every respect good, kind and generous people”

Oh, yes, ‘good’, ‘kind’, ‘generous’ antisemites. There were plenty of such people in the Third Reich.”

That is of course precisely the point, if they were all shaven headed twats with ‘nosy cunt’ tatooed on their foreheads, there would not be anything for us to worry about; proletarian scum, we can ignore them can’t we?