There is a recent, well-meaning Daily Kos post called "The Folly of the Academic Boycott of Israel," and it offers the usual wishy-washy left-wing reasons against it: it won't help, it injures academic freedom, it hurts academics sympathetic to the Palestinian cause, etc. It should not be necessary, but it in the face of such feebleness, it might be useful to review what exactly is wrong with the proposed boycott.
Israel is a liberal democracy. Its political center of gravity is somewhat to the left of that of the United States. That is not just a description of what it is but how it has acted. Israel has maintained the upper hand (although just barely) in a protracted and very difficult struggle with an enemy that will not accept its existence.
Israel has not had the stomach to take actions harsh enough to decisively defeat its enemies, and it recently damaged its security by handing over territory to an enemy that every reasonable person assumed would use the territory as a military asset. It was acting partly and incredibly, as it has in many instances, out of sympathy with its enemy. Israel (unlike its enemies, actually) has not done anything to merit a boycott.
On June 30, 2004, Israel's Supreme Court ruled that the route of the much-maligned security wall had to be changed because it was too injurious to Palestinian interests. A ruling equivalently sympathetic to people hostile to the interests of the society making the ruling would be unthinkable in a large number of countries hostile to Israel, and for what its worth, Israel is morally superior to all of them.
Supporting the proposed boycott is an act of solidarity with the Izz-ad din Al-Qassam Brigades, the Al-Quds Brigades, the Al Aqsa Martyrs Brigades, Abu Hitler (a real person--in fact, several real people), Carlos the Jackal, Imad Mugniyah, Iran, Syria, North Korea, and the PFLP. It is an act of retroactive solidarity with Nicolai Ceausescu, Walter Ulbricht, and the Red Army Factions. It is an offense to political moderation, common decency, and, yes, the Jewish people. It embraces evil, and its advocates should be evicted from the community of the reasonable.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad
No comments:
Post a Comment