Another tale of two boycotts

Here's a Cathy Young in the Boston Globe describing the recent Israel boycott motions in two unions as, among other things, antisemitic.

The British Foreign Office condemned the teachers' boycott as ``counterproductive and retrograde." The reaction from Israel was even stronger. The chairman of the Knesset Committee for Science and Technology, Zevulun Orlev, asked the British parliament to ``decry the anti-Semitic and racist decision."

Anti-Semitic or not, the movement to boycott Israel is hypocritical, sanctimonious, and quite simply wrong. It is a shocking example of selective outrage. Yes, Israeli policies are a legitimate target for criticism, and even most of Israel's supporters will admit there has been ill-treatment of Palestinians. Yet no one is demanding a boycott of Russian academics over Russia's occupation of Chechnya, and the accompanying atrocities (which dwarf Israel's human rights abuses in the occupied territories). No one wants to boycott China because of the occupation of Tibet, the persecution of religious minorities, and other abuses by the Chinese regime. No one wants to boycott Saudi Arabia because of its misogyny and religious intolerance.

Partly, this double standard is rooted in the familiar leftist mentality that strenuously condemns bad behavior by Western or pro-Western governments while turning a blind eye to the far worse misdeeds of communist and Third World regimes. But the movement to boycott Israel is especially repulsive for several reasons.

Apartheid-era South Africa, whose pariah status also reflected a double standard, was at least a truly repugnant regime intent on preserving white supremacy. Israel is a flawed democracy intent on preserving itself in the face of forces intent on its destruction.

What's more, the anti-Israel boycott combines this anti-Western, anti-democracy bias with an element of ``picking on the little guy." The British professors and the Canadian public employees are not boycotting American institutions because of the occupation of Iraq. Obviously, such a boycott would cripple any institution's ability to function. But lashing out at Israel as a proxy for America is something that can be done with minimal inconvenience.

Nor should anti-Semitism be discounted. British scholar Mona Baker, a leading champion of the boycott, has written that while other countries are guilty of abuses, singling out Israel is appropriate because ``Zionist influence [that is, Israeli influence] spreads far beyond its own immediate areas of dominion, and now widely influences many key domestic agendas in the West. . . This is particularly obvious in the case of the United States, where Zionist lobbies are extremely powerful with both Congress and the media." An international Jewish conspiracy: a sadly familiar tune.

Two points glare at me here. The first is that South Africa seeking to preserve white supremacy is contrasted with Israel seeking to preserve itself and yet this is a bogus contrast. Israel seeking to preserve itself is Israel seeking to preserve Jewish supremacy, or at least to preserve itself on the basis of Jewish supremacy. The other, hopefully more obvious point is that Mona Baker does not allege an international Jewish conspiracy. Let's revisit what she actually says:

Zionist influence [that is, Israeli influence] spreads far beyond its own immediate areas of dominion, and now widely influences many key domestic agendas in the West. . . This is particularly obvious in the case of the United States, where Zionist lobbies are extremely powerful with both Congress and the media.

It's a very dangerous move when zionists start alleging that simple statements of fact are antisemitic.