http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?pt=Rvarh3Fqka4sCuPHii/mYT==

Last month, the General Synod of the Church of England announced that it would back a campaign urging disinvestment in companies “profiting” from Israel’s occupation of the West Bank. The announcement was the most high-profile success thus far in a series of efforts by British activists to punish Israel economically through boycotts or even sanctions. That’s the bad news. The good news is these campaigns don’t have a chance of working.

That hasn’t stopped the activists from trying. In 2004, the Irish branch of a British group called the Palestine Solidarity Campaign submitted a petition–signed by 275 European parliamentarians, 210 European NGOs, and 12,000 Irish citizens–calling for sanctions against Israel. The group also sponsors the Boycott Israeli Goods campaign, an effort that targets Israeli products like sage, rosemary, basil, coriander, thyme, oranges, and potatoes. Then there is a British group called Architects and Planners for Justice in Palestine, which is considering calling for an economic boycott of Israel’s construction industry. And, of course, there was last year’s decision by Britain’s Association of University Teachers (AUT) to break ties with two Israeli universities. While the decision was subsequently overturned, the recent appointment of anti-Israel activist Sue Blackwell to an AUT committee charged with reexamining the issue is not a good sign. For her part, Blackwell also backs the Boycott Israeli Goods campaign; on her website can be found the lyrics to something called the “Boycott Israel Song,” set to the tune of the Everly Brothers’ classic, “Bye Bye Love.” The lyrics, in part:
Don’t buy dates
Don’t buy Jaffa fruit
Don’t buy Israeli wine
There’s a boycott going o-on.

So help the people of Palestine
And don’t buy grapefruit or Israeli wine
And if you’re wondering what you can do
Then join the boycott and help them too
Yes join the boycott and help them too!

It goes without saying, of course, that the boycott is a nasty bit of hate-mongering. Those sponsoring it are obviously more interested in hurting Israel than in promoting human rights; otherwise they would be pushing boycotts of Arab dictatorships that are guilty of terrible crimes against their own people, rather than targeting the Middle East’s most vibrant democracy. Every once in a while an Arab leader acknowledges as much. The late PLO official Abu Iyad once stated that the crimes of the Syrian government against the Palestinian people “surpassed those of the Israeli enemy.” Even Arafat himself, speaking about Kuwait’s treatment of Palestinians following the first Gulf war, said, “What Kuwait did to the Palestinian people is worse than what has been done by Israel to Palestinians in the occupied territories.” Of course, Sue Blackwell and her allies are not campaigning for boycotts of Syrian or Kuwaiti products.

But the boycotts and proposed sanctions being pushed by these British activists aren’t just immoral; they’re also impractical. The last 15 years have seen a dramatic rise in economic cooperation between Israel and Europe. Neither the downturn in the international high-tech sector nor the souring of diplomatic relations between many EU capitals and Israel over the last few years has created a desire within any government, or the business community at large, to place artificial obstacles in the way of trade ties and research-and-development cooperation across numerous areas of economic activity. Annual bilateral trade between Israel and Britain has exceeded £2 billion for the past five years, making the Jewish state Britain’s largest export market and trading partner in the Middle East. The British Foreign Office estimates that these “excellent” ties will yield £3 billion in trade by 2010 as firms that have traditionally imported Israeli agricultural produce or textiles, like department store giant Marks & Spencer, are joined by a new generation of high-tech firms in areas like optical and photo equipment. Even France, which has been among the most outspoken critics of Israeli policies, has seen trade with Israel almost double over the last decade. As of early 2005, Israel was France’s sixth largest market for its exports and France was Israel’s third biggest partner in joint projects concerning scientific and technological research. In 2004 the two countries established an Israeli-French institution to promote scientific cooperation and research.
What’s more, the entire campaign is doomed to fail for political reasons: The EU isn’t going to back off from economic ties with Israel, since it wants to have a role in the Middle East peace process and therefore can’t do anything to tarnish its credibility as an impartial broker.

Of course, while governments get to decide a nation’s sanctions policy, there is little they can do to prevent their citizens from choosing to boycott Israeli products. Nor can they prevent universities or trade unions from voting to divest from Israel or refusing to work with Israeli partners. Still, it seems likely that ever-increasing trade and research-and-development ties between Israel and EU countries will only highlight the limited and futile nature of any private boycotts.

Indeed, no less a critic of Israel than Noam Chomsky has refused to support a boycott on the practical grounds that it would be “probably harmful and at best pointless.” Pointless because an effective boycott can never be achieved and harmful because such measures discredit the pro-Palestinian cause in the West. They also stand to hurt Israel’s Arab citizens as well as the Palestinian population of the West Bank.

And yet, here in Britain, a devoted band of Israel-haters continue to make boycotts a central plank of their program. Now more than ever, Palestinians need supporters to offer constructive suggestions that could realistically lead to the establishment of a state in the West Bank and Gaza, rather than policies designed only to turn Israel into a pariah nation. What, then, are these activists thinking? Maybe they could tell us in a song.

Efraim Karsh is the head of the Mediterranean Studies Programme at King’s College, University of London. Rory Miller is Senior Lecturer in Mediterranean Studies at King’s College, University of London. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East.