Boris Johnson’s BDS bill
JVL Introduction
Douglas Gerrard in The Independent follows Boris Johnson’s attack on the BDS movement, promising to make it illegal for public bodies (universities, local authorities and more) to engage in boycott activities of Israel.
It follows extensive interventions of this kind in the US and elsewhere, slandering BDS activists as antisemitic and more.
Not simply an assault on free speech, Gerrard argues, Johnson’s anti-BDS law effectively bolsters the occupation with international legitimacy as well as financial support.
“It’s now brutally clear,” he says “that the Trump administration is following a post-two-state strategy, of which anti-BDS laws are a central part.” Johnson and the Tories are following in his wake.
Plus a short video on what the BDS movement is actually about.
This article was originally published by The Independent on Fri 3 Jan 2020. Read the original here.
Boris Johnson's BDS bill brings Britain closer to America and Israel further from peace
Johnson is following Trump in kowtowing to an aggressively expansionist Israeli regime
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Just think if the likes of some of the Labour Right and the Jewish Labour Movement had not spent the last four years campaigning against the party majority and spreading the myth of a ‘crisis’ of antisemitism we might not be in this position. We could soon be in a situation where even the discussion of the issue would be illegal at the same time as the govt is supposedly promoting free speech
This is viscerally upsetting as there seems no hope , no way to tackle the increasing powers of this administration. What can be done?
This is an excellent article, especially as it appears on an MSM site. And yes, there is now a post-2-state situation and the left needs to acknowledge this quickly and develop an understanding commensurate with it. In fact, as a medium term aim, one state is easier to argue for: no leftist should ever support the establishment of exclusivist entities. We can now return to thecera of the “democratic secular state”.
On another note, the article again makes the error that you have to be religious to be Jewish. That is false. There are many atheist Jews: we have Jewish antecedants (some of whom could also have been atheists).
I agree with all the criticism in the article – but I want to propose a bit of optimism. Until the bill outlawing BDS support is introduced, we won’t know exactly what its scope is. However, from the description provided so far, the prohibition is on boycotting a country – Israel – not institutions e.g. universities within the Occupied Territories. Boycott of ‘the occupation’ need not be limited to boycotting of occupation goods. It can include boycotting institutions in Israel (or, indeed, anywhere) that service or cooperate with the Occupation. If such occupation-specific boycotting is outlawed, I would have thought we would be in breach of international law, so I am guessing the new law will be concerned with ‘Israel’ per se. Of course, boycotting institutions wont be as newsworthy as boycotting a country, but universities refusing to collaborate with, say, the university in the settlement of Ariel, would still garner some coverage.
Jewish organisations are now attempting to further prevent the Labour Party from giving the Palestinians any support at all under cover of reconciliation between the Jewish community and the Party. Sooner or Labour will have to fight back and defend ourselves from the terrible lie that we are antisemitic. Rolling over as we have done will only make things worse. I said before the election that antisemitism will increase in our country. Many people will come to believe their hopes for the future have been dashed by this campaign. The Jewish right will find it has neutered its strongest defender.
Many liberal minded people are horrified by the sight of Israeli soldiers shooting unarmed child demonstrators on the Gaza border. To imply that all Jews support this is actually calculated to create prejudice against Jews as such. That is anti-Semitic by any definition..