Gerald M. Steinberg: Anti-Israel Boycotts: A British Disease

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Gerald Steinberg directs the Program on Conflict Management at Bar Ilan University, and heads NGO Monitor. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.

Special To The Jewish Week

http://www.thejewishweek.com/top/editletcontent.php3?artid=5965

The vote on yet another anti-Israel boycott resolution by a British trade-union – this time by the Universities and Colleges Union (UCU) – is scheduled to take place at the end of May. Beyond the obvious violations of the academic process inherent in a political and ideological boycott, this effort is part of a carefully prepared strategy aimed at isolating the Jewish state.

While genocide is taking place in Darfur, bitter conflicts rage in Sri Lanka and elsewhere, Russia has destroyed Chechnya and basic human rights are denied in the dictatorships from Libya through Syria, Saudi Arabia, and Iran, democratic Israel alone is singled out for this dubious attention.

The leaders of these boycott efforts are all obsessive anti-Israel crusaders who use deadly “soft power” and the distorted rhetoric of universal human rights. Armed with intense passion and direct access to the media, marginal British academics such as Hillary and Steven Rose, and Sue Blackwell have single-mindedly pursued the academic boycott of Israel.

In parallel, Rev. Stephen Sizer (who also promotes replacement theology, or supersessionism) has pushed divestment and boycotts in the Anglican Church, while Derek Summerfield has spent years pursuing anti-Israel policies in British medical circles, most recently leading a “boycott Israel” campaign in the World Medical Association. And in April, a hard-core group passed a boycott motion in the National Union of Journalists.

The rhetoric of this warfare invokes terms such as “apartheid” and “racist” to demonize Israel, and strips away the environment of Palestinian terror and warfare. It is Israel’s existence that is rejected, and not specific policies.

On their own, this small group of individuals would remain on the fringe, but their impact is magnified by powerful nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) in Britain that have been campaigning against Israel for years. Well-financed “charities” such as War on Want, Christian Aid, World Vision, Pax Christi, Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch take the lead in singling out the Jewish state and applying unique criteria that systematically condemn Israel.

The strategy was articulated in the NGO Forum of the Durban conference that took place in September 2001, when representatives from 1,500 groups, including Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, adopted a strategy of boycotts and political action aimed at demonizing Israel. Going far beyond legitimate criticism, they promote a narrative focusing on Palestinian suffering and erasing Israel’s tiny size, which leaves it vulnerable to attack. Their invented histories claim that Israel was “founded in sin,” and numerous human rights reports use invented evidence to condemn Israeli responses to terror and aggression.

This rhetoric has reinforced traditional British anti-Semitism and Muslim racism to feed the hatred of Israel, while other trade union leaders, who know little about Israel or the Palestinians, accept the agendas of the activists.

Having heard so much about Israeli “disproportionate response” after its soldiers were kidnapped and killed by Hezbollah and Hamas, and about the “apartheid wall” (as opposed to a security barrier that has prevented untold attacks by Palestinian suicide bombers), members of the union leadership rarely question the attacks against Israel.

In 2006, however, the rank-and-file membership, which is usually passive in union affairs, woke up to stop abuse of their organizations for radical ideological agendas. The members of the Association of University Teachers forced a second vote on the boycott motions, which resulted in a reversal. They realized that such a partisan and wrong-headed boycott was antithetical to the principles of academic freedom. (A similar re-vote in the case of a second union – NAFTHE – was avoided when this group dissolved in a merger with the AUT to become the UCU).

In the Anglican Church, a majority of the leaders overturned the attempt to become involved in a one-sided and counterproductive political attack. More recently, many members of the National Union of Journalists were embarrassed by the obvious pro-Palestinian bias formally adopted by their organization, which showed that British media coverage of the Middle East was systematically biased. They are demanding a re-vote and repeal.

Most tragically, these boycott campaigns also fuel the conflict by providing the radical Palestinian and Arab leaders with a false hope that time is on their side and that Israel will be defeated through political isolation. For Israelis, including those on the left, the continuous stream of one-sided condemnations reinforces the perception that the international community, and Britain in particular, is hopelessly prejudiced. For those who vote for or acquiesce to yet another boycott motion, these are the only results that they will be able to claim. n

Gerald Steinberg directs the Program on Conflict Management at Bar Ilan University, and heads NGO Monitor. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East

Special To The Jewish Week

http://www.thejewishweek.com/top/editletcontent.php3?artid=5965

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Gerald M. Steinberg: Anti-Israel Boycotts: A British Disease

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AUTHOR

Gerald M. Steinberg

Prof. Gerald Steinberg is president of NGO Monitor and professor of Political Studies at Bar Ilan University, where he founded the Program on Conflict Management and Negotiation. His research interests include international relations, Middle East diplomacy and security, the politics of human rights and non-governmental organizations (NGOs), Israeli politics and arms control.

NGO Monitor was founded following the 2001 UN World Conference Against Racism in Durban South Africa, where powerful NGOs, claiming to promote human rights, hijacked the principles of morality and international law.  NGO Monitor provides information and analysis, promotes accountability, and supports discussion on the reports and activities of NGOs claiming to advance human rights and humanitarian agendas.

In 2013, Professor Steinberg accepted the prestigious Menachem Begin Prize on behalf of NGO Monitor, recognizing its “Efforts exposing the political agenda and ideological basis of humanitarian organizations that use the Discourse of human rights to discredit Israel and to undermine its position among the nations of the world.”

Steinberg is a member of Israel Council of Foreign Affairs; the Israel Higher-Education Council, Committee on Public Policy; advisory board of the Israel Law Review International, the research working group of the Norwegian Institute of International Affairs (NUPI), and participates in the Inter-parliamentary Coalition for Combating Antisemitism (ICCA). He also speaks at a variety of high-level government sessions and academic conferences worldwide.

Publications include “NGOs, Human Rights, and Political Warfare in the Arab-Israel Conflict" (Israel Studies); "The UN, the ICJ and the Separation Barrier: War by Other Means" (Israel Law Review); and Best Practices for Human Rights and Humanitarian NGO Fact-Finding (co-author), Nijhoff, Leiden, 2012.

His op-ed columns have been published in Wall St. Journal (Europe), Financial Times, Ha’aretz,International Herald Tribune, Jerusalem Post, and other publications. He has appeared as a commentator on the BBC, CBC, CNN, and NPR.


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