When a United Nations Commission singles out Israel and Israel alone for violating the rights of women, it barely registers. The U.N., when it comes to Israel, has long been a joke. When the American Studies Association singled out Israel and Israel alone to boycott, people were shocked, but only because they were unaware that the obscure American Studies Association had long been populated by academics who saw Israel as an accessory to America’s racist and imperialistic crimes.
But I have to admit that I was taken aback when I learned from David Bernstein of George Mason University that the Virginia State Bar has canceled a conference in Israel citing “some unacceptable discriminatory policies and practices pertaining to border security.” A “state agency,” president Kevin E. Martingayle sniffs, has to be concerned with “maximum inclusion and equality.”
As Bernstein points out, this is not about border-security practices. At the Modern Language Association last year, academics who favored the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement against Israel went with what they thought they might be able to get: a resolution calling on the State Department to denounce Israel’s visa policies. Max Eden of AEI was right at the time to call the resolution “a savvy and deeply hypocritical opening gambit,” designed to secure any propaganda victory that could be secured. Bernstein may well be right that Martingayle and his colleagues “can’t be so naive and out-of-touch to think that the concerns raised are not part of the broader divestment, sanctions, and boycott movement meant to delegitimize Israel.”
It doesn’t inspire confidence that, as Bernstein also notes, the pro-boycott site the Electronic Intifada evidently had a copy of President Martingayle’s letter to members before members did.
Bernstein calls on Bar members to boycott the Virginia State Bar, avoiding whatever alternative site is chosen for the conference, and limiting ties to the VSB as much as is consistent with fulfilling one’s professional responsibilities.
Perhaps still more can be done. BDS supporters may have overplayed their hand. There was apparently no public discussion of the move to cancel the conference. Instead, the leadership was evidently moved by a petition signed by just 34 people. One doubts they represent Virginia’s lawyers. We have here a classic example of how an organization consisting of numerous but marginally involved members can be influenced by a small, determined group. Members of the Virginia State Bar should demand a statement dissociating the VSB from the boycott movement, and members of other state bars and bar associations should protect themselves by insisting on similar statements, whether dissociating themselves from the actions of the VSB or from the boycott movement in general.
There is a model for this. When the American Studies Association voted to boycott Israel, well over 200 college and university presidents issued statements distancing themselves from and sometimes condemning in the harshest terms the ASA’s move. What looked like a victory for the BDS movement was turned into an embarrassing defeat.
College presidents, perhaps unfairly, are not noted for stiffness of spine. Let’s see if the lawyers can show the same backbone.
