The British Academic Boycott of Israel
and some of its Deeper Meanings
Christopher Barder
| |
“When I arrived
in London, I was not fully prepared for the anti-Israeli hatred existing
in Europe. My meetings with the British Left were a rude awakening. During
my ambassadorship a number of major anti-Semitic events occurred, both
inside and outside Great Britain, that cumulatively served as repeated
warning signs.”
1 |
Introduction
A large number of moral points can be made about the British academic boycott of
Israel, concerning freedom of speech and exchange of ideas, as well as the
importance of academic interaction. In the words of Dr. Sari Nusseibah,
president of the Palestinian Al-Quds University:
The free flow of science and information...constitutes a
powerful force against war... Of all possible bridges to burn as a form of
“well-intentioned” political pressure, the boycott of academic cooperation
between Israelis and Palestinians should be excluded...2
Israeli academics are among the foremost to encourage Arab undergraduates and to
oppose security limits on their attendance at Israeli universities.
This boycott is part of a long history of boycotts aimed at demeaning and undermining the
existence of a Jewish state in the supposed Dar al Islam and so turning
the region into a Dar al Harb. Therein lies its first point of
significance. This one, although perhaps inspired in response to no small extent
by the loud voice of Muslims in Britain and a wide-spread desire to please,
appease and placate them, nonetheless represents “considered” Left-wing academic
opinion rather than the Arab states’ refusal to accept Israel’s existence and
their support for, at the least, the destruction of it by stages and in many
instances, its immediate destruction, by direct confrontation and violence.
It is easy to overlook the history of the Palestinian work to manipulate public
opinion in Britain. In December 1974 the Arab boycott spokesman in London, Kamel
Georzes, made it clear that boycott offices did not need to tighten their
regulations because “British businessmen were ready to conform voluntarily with
the Arab boycott, in spontaneous surrender.”3
Even before that, in 1972, Zeev Schiff and Raphael Rothstein had documented the
power of Palestinian propaganda in the USA and Europe and also its particular
appeal to left-wing students. Indeed, the violence of the fedayeen seemed
to have extra attraction for this latter constituency.
The emphasis placed by the fedayeen on propaganda in the
Arab world has [sic] also been extended to the Western world where the
Palestinian issue often provides a convenient and effective instrument for
mobilizing public sympathy on behalf of the Arab cause and combating
pro-Israel sentiments on the part of politicians, writers, and people in
positions of cultural and social influence.4
A Matter of Islam and...the Political Left
Not only does the boycott reflect the growing power of the Muslim minority but
it, also significantly, represents the power of the Left, its opinion’s
prevalence and its deep-seated antipathy, at best, and loathing at worst, for
Israel. This requires some explaining and quantifying. It is accompanied, for
the most part, by astonishing ignorance.
Some British non-Jews I spoke with thought there were five
million whereas the number is about 300,000. A lady from one of the University
Teachers’ Unions told me that 80% of the university teachers in the UK are
Jews.5
This may all suggest ominous echoes from the 1930s.
Of the three features identified to explain how the British public has been
“captured by the jihad”, America, Israel and the war in Iraq, it is
Israel which is the main focus, the Palestinians having
replaced the IRA as the terrorist fashion accessory du jour
and have become the cause of choice for every heart that bleeds...When it is
not marching against Israel or writing newspaper articles or making TV
programs against it, the left is busy organizing academic and economic
boycotts to bring it to its knees.6
The requirements of Israeli hasbara to counter the ignorance and pro
Palestinian fashion must be stressed.7
Zvi Shtauber’s comments, however, tell an important part of the uphill climb
necessary to shame by exposure the deep-rooted bigotry and prejudice that now
holds in thrall, masked by political correctness and an ill-founded and
mendacious ethical cry, which stifles debate. Described by one former Australian
government minister as “intolerant”, “self-righteous” and “quasi-religious”,
political correctness is also “a heresy of liberalism. It emerges where
liberalism and leftism intersect. What began as a liberal assault on injustice
has come to denote, not for the first time, a new form of injustice.”8
Shtauber encountered just this form of injustice, even if he might categorize it
differently, and found it, plainly, entrenched. It is very important to
understand this, in order to counter the academic boycott and other ones, which
may well occur. The boycotts are not phenomena or aberrations isolated from a
range of undercurrents and analyses, outlooks and attitudes.
The left-wing anti-Israeli bias is almost irreversible. I asked
an editor of The Guardian: “Did you support Israel during the Camp
David negotiations?” He said: “Oh no.” I went on and queried: “Why do you
always quote extremists in Israel, settlers or left-wingers, rather than
spokesmen of the mainstream?” To defend himself, he answered: “Many of our
writers are Jews.” It shows that he does not know much about the British
Jewish community and also believes the stereotype that every Jew is
pro-Israeli. Writing against Israel advances one’s career. Suzanne Goldenberg,
who was The Guardian’s correspondent in Israel, received several
awards... In the media there is no
limit to the idiocies one is confronted with. Many young journalists do not
listen to what they are told. The reports they prepare are often
unprofessional. But it is not only a question of inexperienced people. Shortly
after I arrived in London, the board of an association of journalists came to
visit me. One of the five respectable visitors, a very important journalist,
asked me: “We want your assurance, Mr. Ambassador, that it is not the official
policy of the government of Israel to shoot journalists.” I looked at him and
hardly knew what to say.
It is the present writer’s position that “almost irreversible” does not
necessarily mean totally. If enough noise is made and countering material is put
forward, they are hard to ignore. The points of contact need working on. Groups
need to be found to work with, whether from within the Jewish community or not.
All this is part of a wider process. But, notionally at least, the Israeli
government has called together a group to begin work on counter measures, itself
an encouraging sign, although it would be far better if professional and expert
groups were already in place, since the conditions certainly merit no less.9
The West Has Lost its Ability to Tell Truth from Falsehood
The desire for veracity and truth among academics perhaps ought to be pronounced
above any other motive. However, this is plainly not the case any more. There
are, so to speak, “deeper” issues, as it would appear and this represents a
profound shift in emphasis, from seeking accuracy to allowing “loaded” material
to take the place of searching, checked and rechecked, and documented analysis.
This means that there is a veiled anti Israel agenda, and/or an absolutely overt
one, which comes to the surface as a consequence of the in-built prejudices,
which are no longer subject to restraint, being given an ethical cover and
freedom of expression granted probably to no other ethnically slanted slurs in
Britain.
It is now of critical importance to recognize the degree to which
People can be deceived by conscious deliberate lies which are
directly communicated to them by word or deed... They can be systematically
manipulated by propaganda designed to spread particular ideas which influence
the attitudes of large numbers of people. The public can be the subject of
governments “manufacturing consent”, a process of managing and orchestrating
information a process received by the public so as to set and limit agendas
and color opinions. They can be deceived by other forms of institutionalized
forms of lying, by misinformation, the distribution of official lies to give a
misleading account of the truth; or by disinformation, the spreading of false
information to conceal the truth. Rather than an explicit lie being told, the
truth can be evaded by manipulating information and presenting it in such a
way as to disguise a problem from public view. The truth can be hidden.
Official secrecy can be used to control and suppress information to prevent
democratic debate about matters of substantive significance.10
The Palestinians and Hizbullah are masterful at lying and maintaining
intimidatory and cunningly articulated relations with reporters and governments.
Without over-emphasizing to the point of parody, the way that governments and
their advisers form policies and opinions, in ways which brook no serious debate
and criticism once the die is cast, it is not difficult to discern that a
powerful consensus can emerge, almost regardless of its real coherence and
intellectually verifiable or falsifiable evidential basis. This is a very
disturbing reality, especially considering its not inconsiderable prevalence in
British academic life.
Melanie Phillips, a consistently perceptive and daring analyst of British
society and politics, commented in 2005 upon “the lamentable conformity of most
politicians” in Britain.11
It is therefore hard to envisage very many of them breaking with the consensus
about foreign policy and Israel. If then, the vast preponderance of sources they
come across, stress the wickedness of Israel, even those who might shrink back
from anti-Semitism in any obvious form, certainly do not have either the daring
or the willingness to challenge received opinion, or the motivation to conduct
research to find it false.
An Abandonment of Reason
It is documenting a revolt against reason, which helps to explain the British
phenomenon and its intensity, albeit with suggestions of Weimar Germany.
The irrational witch-hunt against the Jewish people now
consuming much of Britain is surely part of a far wider revolt against reason
itself.
Britain prides itself on being a secular, post-religious
society that therefore stands for reason against religious obscurantism. In
fact, by dumping religion it also dumped reason. This is because reason
actually depends upon the Judeo-Christian tradition – and especially upon
Judaism, the most rational of all religions.
The outcome is a supposedly rational society which has in fact
become deeply irrational. Post-religious Britain now invests its faith in New
Age cults, paganism, witchcraft and psychic phenomena such as reincarnation,
astrology and parapsychology.
Wild conspiracy theories are lapped up by millions, including
the belief that the Americans were responsible for 9/11 or that hidden elites
manipulate world affairs, all heavily laden with paranoia about the alleged
sinister hidden power of the Jews.
And in the universities, the epicenter of anti-Israel hatred
and boycott hysteria, post-modernist orthodoxy has long proclaimed the death
of truth and objectivity. The result is that our society has become a sucker
for propaganda because it no longer has the means to distinguish between truth
and lies by using evidence, logic and reasoning.
This moral and intellectual nihilism is not unique to Britain
but is evident throughout the west. What is
different about Britain is that there is no opposition to it. In America there
is at least a culture war. In Britain there has been a rout.12
It would appear that there is a growth in political lying as a normal practice.
The trouble about a political culture that tolerates and
promotes figures ... [who lie] is it sends out a message that lying is
acceptable. Civil servants and others take their lead from ministers and do
the same.13
It has been suggested that in Britain’s liberal democracy,
...lying, deception, manipulation and fabrication of the truth
have become routine and to a large extent systemic inside the political
system.14
Part of the cause at least is a cheapening of language and thence of political
discourse, responding to techniques of advertising and modern communications,
which create “sound bites”, distortion through over-simplification and
personality cults, all of which have led one commentator to describe the new
realities as “Post Democracy”.15
A major consequence of these trends affects understanding of the Middle East and
the quality of debate about it helping to create a fashionable and politically
correct notion of how to view Israel and its behavior. The result is that it is
much harder for those seeking to create a different kind of reasoning and
consensus over many issues, including the Arab-Israel conflict, to succeed.
...political debate is no longer qualified to address the deep
and profound issues about what kind of society we should seek to be, or how
underlying problems such as terrorism or immigration should be addressed. In
fact, Humanity, complexity and truth are all being driven out of this kind of
discourse.16
A new kind of political elite is willing to “manufacture” the truth and to
create an illusion of it without being bothered by the way that fact and fiction
merge to bamboozle and manipulate the public.
It is too easy to fall back on an almost simplistic all-embracing anti-Semitism
explanation, without realizing how far the cultural and intellectual flaws have
gone, so that the liberal and left-wing voices do not, in the phrase of Conor
Cruise O’Brien, cast a “suspecting glance” at themselves and their own opinions.
In a nutshell, intellectuals in the liberal West do not necessarily see
themselves as anti-Semitic, even if their stances and reasoning manifestly are,
and plainly lead to anti-Semitic results, however they are measured by reality.
That is, where interpretation of statistics and history should come into play,
nonetheless the reasoning of anti Zionism and anti Israel argument carries more
weight. It does so, according to this appalling paradigm, because it must do,
because that is where the force of reasoning ought to lie; and so it
does.
Professor Eytan Gilboa has commented “Anti-Semitism, not policy criticism, is
the motor driving anti-Israel efforts in England.”17
But the one informs and interacts with the other. They have become almost
indistinguishable. That is, the “case” is probably even more dangerous and
convincing to intellectuals used to collective opinion forming and agreement. It
has perhaps become harder to stand out and not to conform.
The Domination of Political Correctness
The demand for politically correct conformity to an anti Israel position may be
all the more true as Gilboa’s list is remarkably, sadly, comprehensive:
This [academic boycott] represents a serious trampling of
academic and scientific freedom. It is a political witch hunt, and to a very
large degree it is a cynical, anti-Semitic move. No similar decisions have
been taken about any other country, even ones responsible for serious human
rights abuses.
This decision joins other serious steps. In the past
year, lawyers have gotten arrest warrants for IDF generals, including Shaul
Mofaz, Aviv
Kochavi and
Doron
Almog,
claiming they committed war crimes.
A group of British architects passed a resolution to boycott their Israeli
counterparts because, according to them, the Israelis were partners in creating
the “criminal” security fence. The editor of Dance Europe refused to
publish an article by Israeli choreographer Sally-Anne Friedland unless she
issue a public denunciation of the “Israeli occupation”, and the
Anglican Church
has recommended boycotting Israeli businesses, which would mean pulling
investments from companies and factories that do businesses with Israel.
However the prejudice and ignorance which fuel these moves is rooted in
perceptions about the Arab-Israel conflict and the way it is portrayed. It is a
product of the misuse and clever use of information, far more than it is
solely and concisely part and parcel simply of anti-Semitism. It is a
product of non-existent and shoddy scholarship, lack of learning and
professionalism and also of the climate of lies and opinion, which serve to
“inform” about the whole range of issues, which create “the situation” in
Israel. It is also, unfortunately, a product of the dire and often commented
upon, defeat of Israel in the hasbara battle with the Palestinians.18
None of the above is to say that there is not anti-Semitism or that it does not
have far-reaching and deep antecedents or that it lacks weight today. Nothing
could be further from the truth. However, it is not just that, and failure to
see that it is not just that, although it incorporates it, as stressed above,
will damage and blunt Israel’s capacity to fight back.
Professor Gilboa’s brief survey serves to illustrate some of the very important
points surrounding an attempt at understanding and exposing the roots of the
boycott keenness in Britain and among academics in particular.
In each of these cases [of boycotts, cited above], the
underlying motor driving these efforts is a rejection of Israel’s fundamental
right to exist. They are more than simple criticisms of Israeli policy.
There are several reasons for this British hostility, including
the anti-Israel activities of radical and post-Zionist Israelis living in
England, Israel’s portrayal in the British media, and the country’s weak
Jewish community.
The British media systematically supports the Palestinians, and
openly slants its reporting about Israel and Israeli policy. The left-wing
Guardian and Independent newspapers regularly print accusatory, anti-Israel
editorials, and their correspondents in Israel file biased, and occasionally
false, reports. The supposedly prestigious BBC has long been a sounding board
to trumpet Palestinian propaganda.19
Britain’s academic community has proven just how small and
outrageous it really is. Maybe the English think they still rule the Land of
Israel. Perhaps they are just taking revenge for losing their mandate here to
small, determined group of Jews.
The time has come to focus on Britain. The government must join
together with non-governmental organizations to focus efforts on repelling the
spiteful wave of ugly anti-Semitism.
Establishment Shared Attitudes
What Professor Gilboa seriously under emphasizes is that the government, its
advisers and the Establishment as a whole, share precisely these attitudes he
outlines, and have few tools if any, least of all desire and motivation, with
which to fight them. Zvi Shtauber also suggested that politicians were not anti
Israel, except for those on the Left. However, this is to judge by what they
might be like and in the context of the widely recognized links and friendship
with the Arab world, truly pro Israel opinion hardly exists among them. Often
“friendship” is couched in terms of the context being criticism or the mantra
that it is policy or the government, not the people, which are subject to the
particular opprobrium.
There are virtually no such NGOs, which are not deeply imbued with antipathy
towards Israel, as the research of Professor Gerald Steinberg and his monitoring
service, all too consistently have had to demonstrate,20
and which can counter the negative views of Israel, although, in Britain, quite
a number of groups disseminate corrective and informed opinions in Israel’s
favor, on the internet and as minor lobbying groups. Their degree of influence
at high level has yet to be demonstrated.
The British Foreign Office has a long history of espousing Arab causes and
ensuring that the words which come out of foreign Secretaries’ mouths are chosen
to avoid annoying Arab governments and are soft-soap to the Palestinians. This
must, for reasons of limitation of space, stand for a whole raft of such
instances. Then Foreign Secretary Margaret Becket is addressing the United Services Institute, a by no
means unprestigious organization.
The British government has repeatedly expressed its deep
concern over mounting casualties and civilian suffering in Gaza and raised
these concerns with the Government of Israel. The continuing rocket attacks
into Israel are also unacceptable. Only yesterday I expressed my grave
disturbance at the killing of around 20 Palestinians in the Israeli strike on
Beit Hanoun. Many more were injured and I was particularly horrified at the
large numbers – as is all too often the case – of children and women amongst
the casualties. It is hard to see what this action was meant to achieve and
how it can be justified.
Such violence only adds to the difficulty of reaching a
peaceful solution.21
There is no attempt at all at explaining or understanding Israeli policy or the
reason that Arab women and children are wantonly placed in places, deliberately
chosen, of acute danger, or why Israel attacks an incipient terror state in the
making. Indeed, like so many broadcasts, cause and effect are abandoned. Israel
appears far more violent than Palestinian society.22
An Early Day Motion in the House of Commons put forward by Jane Kennedy MP,
opposing the boycott, has gathered 83 signatures at time of writing (out of well
over 600 MPs),23
rather few considering that “Human and Trade Union Rights in Colombia” obtained
228 signatures in January 2007 and “Wallace and Gromit’s Wrong Trousers Day 29th
June 2007”, put forward in June 2007, obtained 109 signatures! Priorities
do not appear to lie with addressing the seriousness of the boycott and its
implications.
Both academics and government ministers are in fact feeding on the same range of
ideas and modes of expression, fuelling similar and consistent ways of thinking.
It is the boycott as a method that differs, not the critique behind it.
Therefore, although, as we shall see, government ministers may deplore boycott(s),
especially for the exposure of the illiberalism and partiality that they
display, nonetheless, the raw and crude criticism of Israel and the ignorance
behind it are shared as if in a common cause. That is partly why the boycott is
so dangerous a weapon. It could catch on and so divide opinion that a number may
agree with it and try to practice it as a misplaced form of mirroring protests
at South African apartheid, in a self-righteous sop to their consciences and
attempt at whitewashing Palestinian society, at least partly because the reality
of it is so horrifying.
The antecedent history of the PLO factions before they were ousted from Lebanon
and sent packing to Tunis is replete with gratuitous violence: tying of different
limbs to different cars and driving off in different directions, pulling the
bodies apart; delivering dismembered body parts in plastic, transparent bags to
door steps for discovery by the relatives – all of this was normative in south
Lebanon as was routine rape of any woman unwise enough to venture out. All of
this and more besides should be common knowledge and signs of profound change
should, rationally, be sought by all prospective donor organizations and states
before parting with their money and resources to the PA.
More recently, the dismemberment and display of interior body parts of two
Israeli soldiers in Ramallah, along with the Palestinian Arabs’ response to a
mobile phone call from one of the dead soldier’s Israeli wife, announcing his
death, all of this, like the Palestinian “police” failure to prevent the
atrocities, tells an illuminating story about the ethos and tenor of Palestinian
“society”. However the West prefers to blame “the occupation” (which actually
does not exist) and Israeli policies for the brutalizing effects and norms of
the PA and the society it has fostered and failed to correct.
The June 2007 displays of vicious murder and destruction in Gaza and the cities
given over by Israel to the PA in Judea and Samaria ought to come as no surprise
to Western media writers and program-makers. Certainly governments should be
well informed and therefore not taken by surprise when there has been no rule of
law and only a revolving door policy when Palestinian perpetrators of violence
against Israelis have suffered arrest at the hands of the many “security
services” run by various factions in the Palestinian ruling cadres. Yet Israel
gets the blame. Given such an ugly distortion and often-asserted apparent
reality, it is hardly surprising that even serious people, who fancy themselves
as possessors of a political conscience, conclude, not that they are being
deceived and lied to – as they should – but that Israel must be the culprit. The
“big lie” works if put forward, as by the Palestinians and Western politicians
and media, consistently in a cacophony of chorused lies.
Nor is it a small minority that is responsible for such violence and deep-seated
anti Israel outlook. It must be emphasized that even the Western media stressed
how the speeches of Arafat and Kaddoumi, for instance, catered for a
constituency – i.e. a majority. It was this majority that, despite warnings,
elected, in neither free nor fair elections, to be sure, despite propaganda to
the contrary and despite the Fatah hold on the levers of power and media, Hamas
to take over the Palestinian Authority. Opinion polls regularly demonstrate the
depth of anti-Israel antipathy among Palestinians of all types. This is, for all
concerned, whether they like it or not, a gun culture, a society rooted in
routine violence. However the Palestinian culture of lies and distortion has
produced a convincing pseudo contemporary history and this fits with the Western
agenda and British inability to discern accuracy from distortion, truth from
falsehood. There is a bizarre mirroring and parallelism at work here. The
delegitimization of the Jews and consequently their state, has been part of “the
longest hatred”, to be sure, in Europe and Britain, but now that falsehood is so
much the norm, the Palestinian mythology has a yet more fertile soil in which to
grow.
Lies and distortions depicting loathsome Jewish-Israeli
behavior and character traits are published and televised regularly. In
educational programs and in articles, the PA media erases Jewish history in
Israel, as part of an active program to negate the rights of the Jewish nation
to the Land of Israel, while at the same time inventing an ancient
Palestinian-Arab history. Based on these fabrications, the PA teaches its
people that they have the exclusive historical right to the land.24
Bias as an Intellectual Way of Life
As an example of willful and culpable burying of one’s head in the sand, Chris
Patten, when Foreign Affairs Commissioner in the European Commission, went on
record for saying an investigation into the manifestly corrupt PA was needed
“like a hole in the head”. His corrupted outlook, which shunned the truth, is
now a common currency.25
If only Israel behaved as required, the Palestinians would behave properly, is
the popular way of thinking. If this idea was seen to be deeply flawed, then
Eurabia as a policy and the EU hope of a broader economic hold on the
Mediterranean, especially the Eastern part, would collapse. So too would
neutralization of aspects of the Islamicization threat to Europe. It remains
essential to weaken Israel to curry favor with the Arabs. They supply oil and
arms purchases and so augment European influence and trade. Boycotts demonstrate
a kind of diplomacy by other means. They please Muslims who have a long history
of boycotting against Israel.26
The BBC represents a serious and increasingly well-publicized source of bias and
anti Israel opinion, constantly drip-feeding with distortions. For instance,
senior correspondent (Middle East Editor, alas, no less), Jeremy Bowen makes it
clear Israel is at fault in the June 2007 Gaza outrages, the above Palestinian
behavior and history, a fraction of what could be said, notwithstanding. No
wonder there is a boycott. Only a dedicated researcher, an expert in the field,
would be suspicious and determined enough to find the truth elsewhere and by
disregarding most “respectable” opinion. The boycott of an evil regime is an
appealing proposition at a time when the “democratic deficit” is keenly
perceived and many feel politically distant and disempowered, partly because
globalization superficially familiarizes them with a plethora of unsubstantiated
opinions purporting to be reputable.
On June 15, 2007, Bowen declared:
The institutions, and the hopes behind them, have already taken
a severe battering from Israel’s military actions over the last seven years
and, more recently, by the punishing financial sanctions imposed by Israel and
other countries after Hamas won a free election [sic] at the beginning of last
year... What has happened also shows the failure of the decision of the
world’s big powers to isolate Hamas.27
Factually inaccurate, absurdly slanted and directly misleading, this kind of
reporting of prejudiced opinion makes it clear that the true nature of the
Palestinian social failure is deliberately regarded as invisible to the West
altogether and therefore terrorism as a matter of domestic and neighborhood
political normality is acceptable, even with Western journalists being
intimidated or indeed kidnapped. The whole region is (supposedly) in turmoil
because of Israel – exactly as the Arabs have always maintained. Melanie
Phillips wrote in her diary, in relation to the Bowen interpretation, an
appraisal in total rebuttal.28
The problem is that Bowen has a far bigger audience and sounds authoritative.
There is no mention that the Israelis have persistently benefited mankind, won
Nobel prizes, treated terror perpetrators the same as their injured victims in
the same hospitals, transformed life expectancy and educational opportunities
among the Palestinians and consistently been the victims of terror. No such
behavior pattern has taken root on the Israeli side and even when crime does
occur, it is subject to court action of an appropriate kind. Instead terrible
sacrifices have been made, for example in dealing with the “RPG boys” in Lebanon
and in sending in ground troops to deal with the booby traps and terror
infrastructure in Jenin, to save the lives of those who nurtured the terror
groups there and were classified as “civilians”. Purity of arms doctrines find
no place in Western reporting. Furthermore, the apartheid often uttered as a
mantra by the boycotters against Israel, consists, in reality, not of Jews
banning the presence of Arabs but of all PA areas and of many of the neighboring
states deliberately practicing a policy of being Judenrein.
Clearly what is at work behind the boycott is not just anti-Semitism but
actually a problem concerning the perception of reality as well, a kind of
inability to discern truth from falsehood, in some cases a genuine incapacity to
maintain critical faculties. This requires explanation on a number of levels. It
is for the Israeli task force to realize this and to probe sufficiently deeply
so that its counter measures can for once be effective. However difficult and
uphill the forces against which it must struggle, Israeli prosecution of its
case must confront the boycotters with an alternative reality and a searingly
penetrative one
which will operate on a multi-level basis.
The Need for Israeli Public Diplomacy
Professor Gilboa, in a seminal article, has suggested Israel must change its
approach to Public Diplomacy and fix the system by which it has so far failed
successfully to conduct it, although this may take years.29
He recommends doing this by working through the Foreign Ministry and Prime
Minister’s Office.
Governmental Implementation: Assessing the effects of actions on national
image; exposing the double standard whereby Israel must behave better than
others; all legations will have to be equipped with trained personnel whereby to
increase their PD activities of all kinds.
Professional Training: Intensive PD training for all relevant personnel
for all kinds of audiences is required, especially for the Israeli Foreign
Service, and including academic university-based PD programs. Speaking and media
skills are of the essence.
Focus on the Arab World and Europe: These two areas are the most
important geographically and most biased against Israel’s arguments and
position, whose interest, relevance and value they have to see. Proficiency in
Arabic language, culture, and norms is essential to appear on Arabic television.
Israel should consider satellite and radio channels in Arabic (as it has
successfully managed a Persian radio program). It is important to explain the
clash with the Arabs against many various hostile media and intellectual
elites.
Cyber-PD: Ministries and agencies have been too limited in their web site
content and presentation and are not consistent with one another and also not
multilingual. For so technological a heavyweight as Israel, this is an area that
can be and must be improved upon.
Funding: This is grossly under funded at $9 million and needs to be
perhaps ten times that. Planning and thinking through are essential so as not to
waste funding.
Utilization of Non-Governmental PD Programs: CAMERA, Honest Reporting,
MEMRI, PMW, The Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs and NGO Monitor have all
done specialist work in their respective areas of expertise and demonstrated
that Israel need not depend solely on its government PD (or lack of it).
Branding: PR experts in the USA have suggested Israel change from the
focus on the PIW (Palestinian Israeli War) to information on daily life and
achievements in science and technology, which may save lives and improve them
throughout the world. These then are positive images which are put out by groups
such as Israel at Heart, Israel 21C, and The Israel Project. Jewish and
Christian community support needs to be used effectively for PD work.
Increasing Domestic Awareness: A private US–Israeli initiative through
Israel’s Channel 2 television (in cooperation with Israel at Heart) produced
“The Ambassador”, a very popular reality television show, in 2004, which helped
to educate the Israeli public about Israel’s deteriorating reputation abroad and
the need for aggressive PD but this still remains a major priority. Such
programs mainly occur in the USA whereas the main challenge to Israel lies in
the Arab world and Europe. Furthermore, it is from the official channels that
the main thrust must come, rather than the private ones.
Conclusion
There are two fundamental issues here. One is the historic failure of Israeli
hasbara and the other the collapse of the necessary conditions in Britain
and Europe to give Israel anything even close to a fair hearing. Explaining how
Britain became a nation of boycotters is prerequisite for Israel engaging it on
every level and being free from the limitations of Anglo-Jewry. The implications
go far further than Britain, however, and reveal starkly the place of Israel in
the world, its place among the nations and the necessity to address its failing
image and the dangers to which that exposes it.
Lady Deech, former head of St. Anne’s College, Oxford and the independent
adjudicator for higher education, told the House of Lords:
Academic freedom is the first target of tyrannies, and those
who ignore attacks on academic pursuits are cooperating with tyranny. They
must ask themselves why Jewish students and Israeli academics, alone in the
world, are chosen as the targets. ...as early as 1923 Vienna University was
the focus of assaults on Jewish students and curbs on Jewish professors and on
the right to learn; followed by Warsaw University which imposed racial
restrictions in the 1930s. British universities have to learn from the history
of pusillanimity in the face of racism.30
It is indeed they and not Israelis who are now, actually, on trial.
Endnotes
1 Zvi Shtauber, interviewed by Manfred
Gerstenfeld, “British Attitudes toward Israel and the Jews”, in Manfred
Gerstenfeld, Israel and Europe: An Expanding Abyss?, Jerusalem Center
for Public Affairs, 2005, at <http://www.jcpa.org/israel-europe/ier-shtauber-05.htm>.
2 See Israel 21c Staff, Israel 21c,
Opinion, “Do They Really Want to Boycott This?”,
June 24, 2007, at <http://www.israel21c.org:80/bin/en.jsp?enDispWho=
Views%5El309&enPage=BlankPage&enDisplay=view&enDispWhat=object&
enVersion =0&enZone=Views>.
3 Terence Prittie and Walter Henry Nelson, The
Economic War Against The Jews, Corgi Edition, 1979, p. 130 citing
footnote 1, p. 245; Ray Vicker, in The Wall Street Journal, December
30, 1974.
4 Zeev Schiff and Raphael Rothstein, Fedayeen The Story of
the Palestinian Guerrillas, Vallentine, Mitchell, 1972,
especially pp. 156-162, for examples.
5 Shtauber,
interview, supra.
6 Melanie Phillips. Londonistan How Britian is Creating a
Terror State Within, Gibson Square, 2006, p. 185.
7 They need to be explored in greater depth than can be managed
in this space, although Professor Gilboa’s recommendations are very
apposite, as cited below.
8 Anthony Browne, The Retreat of Reason Political Correctness
and the Corruption of Public Debate in Modern Britain, CIVITAS,
Institute for the Study of Civil Society, 2006, p. 2, citing Peter Coleman,
“What is Political Correctness? The Pros and Cons”, Quadrant Magazine,
March 2000.
9 “New Israeli Task Force Will Confront British Academic
Boycott”, Israel Ministry of Foreign Affairs, MFA Newsletter:
(Communicated by the Foreign Minister’s Bureau), June 10, 2007. Please see
Professor Gilboa’s prescription, below.
10 Maureen Ramsay, “Justifications for Lying in Politics”, in
Lionel Cliffe, Maureen Ramsay and Dave Bartlett, The Politics of Lying
The Implications for Democracy, Palgrave Macmillan, 1999, p. 5.
11 Melanie Phillips, “The Death of Politics”, The Daily Mail,
September 24, 2005, <http://www.melaniephillips.com/articles-new/?p=356>.
12 Melanie Phillips, “The Eclipse of Reason”,
The Jewish Chronicle,
June 15, 2007.
13 Peter Oborne, The Rise of Political Lying, The Free
Press, 2005, p. 85.
14 Ibid.,
p. 122.
15 Colin Crouch, Post-Democracy, Polity Press, 2004.
(Used and cited by Oborne, supra.).
16 Oborne,
ibid., p. 125.
17 For this and what follows, see Eytan Gilboa, “British
Anti-Semitism”, Ynetnews.com, May 31, 2006, <http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3257290,00.html>.
18 On this, see for example, Ron Schleifer, Psychological
Warfare in the Intifada Israel and Palestinian Media Politics and
Military Strategies, Sussex Academic Press, 2006. especially pp. 191-192
and his “Jewish and Contemporary Origins of Israeli Hasbara”, Jewish
Political Studies Review, 15: 1-2, Spring, 2003. I am grateful to Dr.
Schliefer for sending me a copy of this very valuable article.
19 On June 17, 2007, The Sunday Times reported on the
“institutionally biased” nature of the BBC and its “‘Roneo
mentality’ where staff ape each other’s common liberal values”, See <http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/politics/article1942948.ece>.
20 See NGO Monitor at <http://www.ngo-monitor.org/index.php>.
21 Margaret Beckett, Speech to
the Seminar: “Trans-national Terrorism: Defeating
the Threat”, delivered to the Royal United Services Institute, at <http://www.fco.gov.uk/servlet/Front?pagename=OpenMarket/Xcelerate/ShowPage&
c=Page&cid=1007029391647&a=KArticle&aid=1161596135654>.
22 Palestinians have used
ambulances for weapons smuggling and in November 2006 at Beit Hanoun the
Izzedine al-Qassam Brigades summoned 1,500 women to shield some 60 gunmen
hiding in a mosque. Little humiliation seems to attach to this sort of
behavior. Such kinds of activities have been defended, for example, by Helena
Cobban, a journalist and academic, fluent in Arabic and French, and perhaps
the only Quaker who is a member of the London-based International Institute of
Strategic Studies. She sits on the Middle East advisory committee of Human
Rights Watch and an example of her understanding may be found at <http://justworldnews.org/archives/002238.html>.
23 “University and College Union
and an Academic Boycott of Israel”, dated June 5, 2007, to be found at
<http://edmi.parliament.uk/EDMi/EDMDetails.aspx?EDMID=
33409&SESSION=885>.
24 See Itamar Marcus, “Promoting
Hatred: The Systematic Use of Lies in the Palestinian Media”,
Palestinian Media Watch, Special Report,
No. 16, February 24, 1999, at <http://www.pmw.org.il/specrep-16.html>.
25 Rachel Ehrenfeld and Sarah
Zebaida, “EU Funds for PA Terror”, WorldNetDaily,
January 24, 2003, at <http://www.wnd.com/news/article.asp?ARTICLE_ID=30653>.
26 Witness the long history of
the Arab boycott.
27 At <http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6755579.stm>.
Italics are the present author’s.
28 Melanie Phillips,
‘Beyond Belief’, at <http://www.melaniephillips.com/diary/?
p=1554>.
29 Eytan Gilboa, “Public
Diplomacy: The Missing Component in Israel’s Foreign Policy”, Israel
Affairs, Volume 12, Number 4, October 2006, pp. 714-747.
30 Tuesday, June 12, 2007, as
reported in the Education Guardian, by Donald MacLeod, “Universities
Urged to Combat Campus Anti-Semitism”, June 13, 2007, <http://education.guardian.co.uk/>.
