UK academic union rejects EU definition of anti-Semitism

What have I done?

We are having a debate about whether a boycott is a good strategy to help create a democratic outcome in Israel and in Palestine. We are discussing antisemitism in Palestine, racism in Israel and both in the wider world. We make arguments and we adduce evidence.

But Ran keeps coming back to this ad hominem stuff.

He speaks “as a Jew”.

Robert Fine is an “idiot”.

Hirsh is an apologist for Israeli human rights abuses.

Neve Gordon has excellent “progressive credentials”.

Hirsh doesn’t have excellent “progressive credentials”.

Thse kinds ad hominem questions do not have any bearing at all on who is right or wrong on the questions at hand.

Your point is again to say that I raise the issue of antisemitism in bad faith in order to de-legitimise criticism of the occupation.

I reject the idea that a person needs to have “done” something against the occupation before s/he is qualified to speak out against antisemitism.

I think we should defend Jews, and also defend the labour movement, against antisemitism unconditionally. I don’t think we should make defence conditional upon having established “progressive credentials”.

What have I done about the occupation? Well, mainly what I have done is speak out, make arguments, written, gone on demonstrations, and, as a teacher, I have taught, and as an academic I have done research and written.

In the 80s I spent a lot of time in the student movement and in the Labour Party arguing for an end to the occupation, for a 2 state solution, for support for the Israeli peace movement and for the recognition of the PLO as a legitimate leadership of the Palestinians.

I drove Adam Keller of Gush Shalom around the UK when he came on a speaking tour and I was involved in organising his tour.

I speak out against the occupation, in academia, in my union and within the Jewish community.

I have taken part in demonstrations, most recently the one in Tel Aviv against the occupation and against the Israeli action against the flotilla.

Engage has consistently highlighted the plight of Palestinian academics and students whose life is made extremely difficult by the occupation. We have argued for our academic union to make links with Palestinian and Israeli colleagues.

I have written in public against the occupation:

For example here, on the Guardian website:

“Everybody serious supports a two state solution; an Israeli withdrawal to borders based on the 1967 ceasefire line, the foundation of an independent Palestinian state and a deal done between the two parties on Jerusalem and the Palestinian refugees and their descendents.”

In the South African press:

“Palestinians are not free. They suffer under an Israeli occupation that is sustained by a regime of violence, surveillance and control.”

“As well as a military occupation, successive Israeli governments have tolerated and supported the efforts of settlers to take Palestinian land for themselves in violation of the Fourth Geneva Convention.”

“Palestinians and settlers live under unequal legal regimes. Settlers have incomparably greater freedom of movement, democratic and legal rights as well as access to resources.”

http://www.mg.co.za/article/2008-10-09-occupation-not-apartheid

In the Israeli press:

“One reason that the loathing of Israel is becoming respectable in British society is that the Israeli state often acts wrongly. Israel still hangs on to the West Bank, encourages Jews to build settlements there, and rules it as a colony. The Israeli government acts as though it plans to annex a significant proportion of the West Bank to Israel. Within pre-1967 Israel, there is still discrimination against Arab citizens, some of it formalized in law. Because Israel is the occupying power, and because it is vastly more powerful than Palestine, it must accept a major share of responsibility for squandering the opportunities for peace in the 1990s. ”

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=206

Within the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs at the Global Forum against Antisemitism:

“One of the reasons why so many people around the world are angry with Israel is because of the continuing occupation of Palestinian land and because Israel, which has state power, has not done enough to end the occupation. Such an occupation cannot be sustained without racism, violence and humiliation against the people who are occupied. ”

http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1683

I feel a bit dirty for having obeyed your injunction to answer “what I have done” because I think that “what I have done” against the occupation is irrelevent to the arguments that I make.