The following is a guest post by Joel R. Pruce, a post-doctoral fellow in human rights studies at the University of Dayton.
The transnational movement for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) against Israel continues to capture headlines and prompt crucial debate on the status of Palestinian claims to national self-determination and individual human rights protection, and the global public’s moral responsibility with respect to the ongoing conflict. Recent episodes, including the academic boycott passed by the American Studies Association and the SodaStream/ScarJo/Oxfam love triangle, signal that BDS is penetrating discourse and influencing decisions of prominent actors. Since sufficient vitriolic ink on this topic has been spilled prior to the current contribution, the approach here is to propose a critique of the BDS movement from a universal human rights perspective, in order to provide a consensus-based reference point with which to orient reasonable debate, while engaging with the movement itself in its own terms.
The BDS movement and its major spokespersons communicate fluently and comfortably in human rights vernacular and in order to evaluate its conception of human rights, I suggest focusing on the movement’s claims in the area of the right to self-determination. The baseline metric for conducting this analysis should be whether or not BDS’s human rights claims adhere to universal principles: do their claims value all people’s human rights equally? Since at the heart of the BDS movement is the desire to see a sovereign Palestinian state, we would want to see universal support for self-determination. However, while BDS traffics heavily in human rights talk, the substance and consequence of its policy demands do not reflect a universal position.
The Israeli-Palestinian conflict is at its core a conflict about opposing claims to national self-determination. If we recognize Zionism as the Jewish nationalist project (rather than a colonial or racist ideology) and the goals of BDS as gaining recognition and implementation of the Palestinian nationalist project, then transcending the conflict from a univeralist perspective entails reconciling both claims. If both groups express legitimate claims as historically oppressed peoples and, therefore, deserve and require self-government for survival, then the mission becomes to negotiate along these lines, which is generally how these negotiations proceed. The BDS movement does not recognize Jewish claims to self-determination—not on the territory-formerly-known-as-the-British-Mandate-of-Palestine or anywhere else. I do not see BDS goals as compatible with a universal vision of the right to self-determination, but rather express a narrow, specific set of interests and priorities at the expense of the welfare of others.
And that’s fine. Interest groups are perfectly entitled to advocate for their causes, but to use universal language in the process is disingenuous, suggesting that their discursive use of human rights norms should be modified to accurately account for its particularism. BDS is the transnational face of Palestinian rights, which, in this articulation, contradict Jewish/Israeli rights. If rights-claims have the consequence of privileging one group over another, they are not universal in character and they are not human rights. More importantly, the outcomes proposed by BDS could well negatively impact Israeli rights in such a way that would call their current interventions into question. If BDS is successful in ending the occupation, then a plan should be in place for protecting the rights of Jews. A human rights perspective dictates that any outcome safeguard the rights of those most vulnerable, who upon this hypothetical future event would be the demographic minority within Palestine and the region. It is possible that certain versions of a one-state solution could respect Jewish self-determination, while providing minority rights accommodations, and those would have to be front and center in any democratic transition (although BDS does not take a stand on a future solution, which makes having this conversation more complicated). A politically salient and morally sound human rights perspective must have an outlook that accounts for all factors—past, present, and future—and proposes a comprehensive solution that is internally coherent and genuinely faithful to the norms it espouses.
The strength of universal human rights is their capacity to highlight arbitrariness and particularism in practice. If Israel and the United States deploy human rights language, but fail to live up to their rhetorical promises, then it is beholden on activists to expose and leverage those gaps (as they regularly do). It stands to reason that activists should be held up to the same scrutiny. BDS utilizes human rights discourse for its ability to cut through partisan noise, transcend ideological barriers, and assume the high ground in heated debates. Yet, If BDS seeks to operationalize the moral force of human rights, but evades the robust commitments of this claim, then the movement is susceptible to critique along those lines.
The degree to which BDS has heightened the status of their cause and the urgent need to see Palestinian rights realized is important and undeniable. Developments on the divestment side attest to the fortitude of their position. Centrally, I take issue here with their deployment of human rights language and the way it exposes the movement to accusations of hypocrisy and particularism. I hope at least that conceptualizing the dilemma in terms of universal human rights provides a reasonable starting point from which to move forward on these complex issues.
I disagree with the assertion that the BDS-movement is hypocritical. Two groups
have the right to self-determination in international law: the people of a
state and the people of a territory outside the state.
The first category is in this case irrelevant because Gaza and the West Bank are
not part of a state.
Who has the right to self-determination?
The people outside of a state are generally people in one of those cases:
* In a Western or Ottoman colony;
* In a Non-Self-Governing territory (meaning a mandate or a trustship territory or such a territory);
* Under alien domination or military occupation;
* And people living under racist regimes, such as in South Africa.
What is a people?
The word ‘people’ means the whole group living within a territory, no matter how many nationalities and minorities it may consist of. Thus the whole population has the right and minorities do not have a separate right. (Some minorities within states have the right to internal self-determination, meaning a certain level of self-government).
During the decolonization the minorities had to accept being part of the new independent state and the new states became independent in the whole administrative territory of the former colony (mandate or trustship or other nsg-territory).
What?
The peoples have the right to determine the future of the territory. They may freely:
* determine their political status;
* dispose of their natural wealth and resources;
* pursue their economic, social and cultural development.
How?
The peoples can realize their right to self-determination in four ways, by:
* independence;
* association with a State;
* integration with a State;
* any other political status freely determined by the people.
The Palestinians have the right to self-determination
The Palestinians qualify for such a right in Gaza and West Bank, because those
territories have more than one of the qualities:
* It is a people in a non-self-governing territory;
* It is a people under foreign domination;
* It is a people under and military occupation;
* It is a people that was part of a mandate;
* It is a people that was a part of an Ottoman colony.
What about the Zionists/Jews?
The Zionist movement does not qualify for such a right. The Zionists were scattered all over the Europe and that means that whatever right they might have, they certainly do not have the right to external self-determination.
What about the Jews that might live legitimately within the Palestinian territories?
They do not have a separate right to self-determination, but they would have a
join right to self-determination together with the Palestinians.
Off course, the people in the state of Israel has the right to self-determination and this means two things:
* They have the right to be free from outside interference;
* They have the right to participate in the decisions of their government (including the right to change the government)
In short the BDS is not hypocrite, because there is no separate right to external self-determination for the zionists/Jews living in Gaza of West Bank.
Has any political movement ever lived up to a reality of its lofty universalizing aspirations? Seems like the bar might be set a bit high…
Hasbara-much?
OK firstly you are internally self-contradicting. You say that “at the heart of the BDS movement is the desire to see a sovereign Palestinian state.” A few paragraphs later you link to an article stating that the BDS holds no position on this, then you yourself say that “BDS does not take a stand on a future solution.”
But the real problem here is the your claim that the “BDS movement does not recognize Jewish claims to self-determination.” This is patently false. The BDS movement is perfectly happy for their to exist Jewish self-determination. The problem is that the Israeli position is that “Jewish self-determination” = a homogenous “Jewish state.” What is the problem with this? It relegates 20% of the Israeli population, and I mean ISRAELI, who are Palestinians holding the Israeli passport post-48, to second-class citizenship. The apartheid that BDS opposes is not only in the West Bank/Gaza but also internal to Israel where its Palestinian citizens are routinely discriminated against. Thus, logically, supporting “Jewish self-determination” as meaning a de-facto ethnically cleansed Jewish state violates principals of universal rights. If you accept this point and there is no reason not to, the evidence is their in heaps on the oppression of Palestinian-Israelis, and the obvious contradiction in having a “Jewish state” with very large non-Jewish minority, then this whole post fades away into nothingness!
A few more precise problems in your statements:
“BDS is the transnational face of Palestinian rights, which, in this articulation, contradict Jewish/Israeli rights.” How exactly is this true? BDS as you say makes no stand on the final status of Israel/Palestine, all it says is that 1) the occupation must end, and 2) all Palestinians (Israeli passport holders included) must have equal rights with Jewish Israelis. Where is the conflict here?
“If rights-claims have the consequence of privileging one group over another, they are not universal in character and they are not human rights.” Precisely. Thus the very new Israeli claim (this was never mentioned in Oslo, it is a post-second intifada invention) that they must be ‘recognised’ as a ‘Jewish state’ privileges Jewish Israelis over Palestinians living in their state, it also means that millions of Palestinian refugees have no rights.
“If BDS is successful in ending the occupation, then a plan should be in place for protecting the rights of Jews.” That plan is already there: the state of Israel which is so insistent on claiming itself so democratic that there should be no problem with equal rights for Jews and Palestinians, no?
In sum, your piece, when the empirics aren’t distorted, supports the BDS movement: Palestinians do not have equal rights, in the West Bank, Gaza, or Israel: BDS merely wants them to have equal rights with Israelis.
One should also note that there is no need to distinguish between “nationalist” and “colonialist” and “racist” projects: historically these all come together. Israel is all three. Nationalist/racist internal to its borders, and colonialist in the WBGS. Colonialist also in the Yishuv but for more noble reasons; at the time when the first-Aliyah immigrants actually wanted to work with their Palestinian neighbours peacefully to build a new land. Second/Third-Aliyah this changed dramatically, of course.
No. You must distinguish between the status of (1) Arab/Palestinian citizens of the State of Israel and (2) state-less Palestinians living in the WBGS. The former (1) DO have equal rights under the law and they are protected by the constitution. It doesn`t matter if Israel defines itself as a Jewish state or not, these are citizens with equal rights akin to those in the US or Canada. The comparison to Apartheid here is not only absurd but hatefully dismissive of the true brutality and oppression of real Apartheid. The latter (2) is a more problematic instance, and more closely resembles an apartheid situation, especially the longer time goes on. Israel`s occupation of these lands and people should come to an end but the BDS movement does not serve the interests of any future Palestinian state — which will need to engage in economic cooperation and integration (Europe, anyone) with Israel in order to survive. Can we have a little neo-functionalism here, please, instead of economic conflict and competition? Aside from this utilitarian argument, the BDS movement is also Wrong, as it’s starting-in assumption is the premise that Israel itself is illegitimate. Not right.
Currently yes under Israeli law Palestinian-Israelis (do not call them Arab-Israelis, please) have equal rights. In practice they do not. This lack of rights in practice relates to the privileging of Israel as ‘Jewish state’ and the myth of a ‘land without a people for a people without a land.’ This is a simple empirical point: count who is in the Knesset bar the few token Palestinians, count who can get housing permits, count who can get government jobs, count whose homes are destroyed, count who is arrested. The numbers are heavily skewed against terms of Palestinian-Israelis, irrelevant equal rights. The failure to translate formal legal rights into actual equality results in de facto apartheid with the fig leaf of democracy. In other words, defining Israel as a Jewish state necessarily relegates non-Jews to second-class status. Thus being Jewish gives the automatic right to immigration whereas being Palestinian does not: this is just one example, additionally, of non-equality. At present the best chance for a ‘democratic’ Israel, which I do not dismiss, this is Israel’s virtue, is equality before the law and either 1) no reference to ethnicity/religion or 2) equal recognition of Jewish and Palestinian national rights in Israel: the national home of the Jewish and Palestinian peoples (one state solution). To claim that one group within this state has special privileges or protections constitutionally, even if these are supposedly counterbalanced by equality before the law in criminal/civic terms is absurd. It is also, and this is the crucial point, a new demand. Israel in the original Zionist vision would be a secular state, gradually with the rise of the right-wing increasing movement has been made away from this ‘modern’ vision of the nation-state toward the privileging of Jewish rights: could those who are demanding that Israel be recognised as the ‘Jewish state’ explain why this demand was never made until 10 years ago? The reason is simple: it is a demand that the Israelis know the Palestinians cannot accept without fatally compromising the rights of Palestinians inside Israel and the refugees.
Also, the claim that Israel is ‘illegitimate’ is not a problematic one: this understanding emerges only from those who view any accusation of illegitimacy to be an existential question. Israel is illegitimate because of its actions not its existence: if it gives equal rights to Palestinian-Israelis (not before the law, but in practice), ends the occupation and the siege on Gaza, and recognises the rights of refugees, then the source of its ‘illegitimacy’ disappears. The problem, of course, is an ideational one: Israelis who take this view that criticizing it equates to its existential deligitimization are opposed to any action that would challenge the dream of Eretz Israel. If Israel wishes to be a ‘pure’ Jewish state then it accepts a self-definition that is illegitimate. This is the challenge for Israel: democracy and a new post-Zionist Israel (as the brave Israeli academics in Tel Aviv University are quietly pushing for, despite being shunned) entails a redefinition of Israel, the alternative is the end of Israel as a democracy. Nation states evolve, there is nothing wrong in claiming that they must, Israel’s future and its ability to act as the protector of Jewish rights, depends on such an evolution. We can only hope that this will occur, currently Israel is on the path to SELF-destruction. For those who recognize the historical contingencies that resulted in the violence perpetrated by Israel today, the true route to peace is this evolution, not accepting the current and awful status quo.
The fact is that a ‘one-state solution,’ however good it sounds in theory, is a complete non-starter if one is interested in a resolution of the I/P conflict in the foreseeable future (i.e., the next couple of decades). From that pragmatic standpoint, a 2-state solution is the only one with a chance of realization. The U.S. shd be doing more to pressure both sides, esp Israel on which it has real leverage, to reach an agreement. Obama and Kerry are trying but they need to try harder and w more courage w/r/t US domestic politics.
Btw it’s not correct to say that the notion of Israel as a Jewish state is a recent thing. It isn’t. A Jewish state needn’t be an overtly religious state in which the Orthodox establishment wields disproportionate power/influence (as is the case today), but the notion of Israel as a Jewish state is not a recent invention. If you maintain that the idea of a 2-state solution is inherently racist or illegitimate or something like that, you are as a practical matter condemning the region to more conflict, since, as I said, a ‘one-state solution’ is not going anywhere.
I did not say the notion of a “Jewish state” is a recent thing. What is new is the demand that Israel be recognized by others as such is a new thing. The two things are distinct. All nation states have some internal mythology as to who they are ‘for’ but that is quite different to demanding they be recognized as such. The rhetoric is comparable to White British people demanding their state be recognized as the homeland for said ethnicity. A non-starter.
The *real* two-state solution is the non-starter. This is why Israel nominally likes the idea so much. The extent of settlement activity in the West Bank is mind-boggling (check OCHA maps): why do you think it takes so long to travel from Ramallah to Bethlehem? Because Israel has built a wall of settlements in between them. What people are proposing (now we are apparently expected to accept that Israel can ‘retain’ ‘some’ settlements) is that the state of Palestine be a series of bantustans without an army, without control of its Eastern border, without control of its natural resources (water, minerals), and so on. This is the real utopian ‘solution’ because the idea is that all these circumstances can somehow be resolved to make a viable state: they cannot. If Israel were willing to withdraw all settlements, return natural resource rights, give up the Jordan Valley, etc., then the solution might be viable. Does that sound likely to you? Moreover: Gaza? Well, of course no one cares about that hotbed of war crimes. And the refugees? And Jerusalem?
What will inevitably happen is that Israel and the U.S. will force an illegitimate Palestinian Authority (outside Ramallah Palestinians hate the PA) to accept a ‘solution’ in which they act as a de-facto proxy for Israeli rule. This is the unstable solution that will result in more violence: over Gaza, Jerusalem, refugees, settlements blocking access to Palestinian lands. This will be a disaster.
The problem is that Israel and Palestine are populated by two people have been historically victimized (on the circulation of evils that this causes see Adi Ophir) and the only solution is their national reconciliation. Outsiders should stop thinking it is a good idea to find a solution ‘soon.’ The one state solution might seem utopian but the two-state solution is dystopian: better go for the utopia then, even if does take a few decades. This is not so unlikely. Most Israeli Jews are descended from Arab nations: they are Arab Jews. Israel has adapted to Arab culture in many ways (food, argilla, family, etc.) because of this.
The two-state solution, if you actually visit Palestine, and please, do, is obviously an awful idea. The one-state solution is the only moral stance. The state of Israel and Palestine in 50 years: why not?
If the PA had risen to the occasion and taken the pretty reasonable offer that was on the table in 1999/2000, the world would have had approx. 14 years to see whether a 2-state solution could work. Instead, the PA rejected it, and in the intervening years settlements expanded further, Op. Cast Lead happened, etc etc, and the now the whole situation is worse. No use crying over spilled milk, but worth remembering what was prob. a missed opportunity, mainly b/c Arafat lacked the political courage to seize it.
correction: “and now the whole situation…”
If they had accepted that agreement, a ‘reasonable offer’: then Israel would control the Jordan valley, retain all of Jerusalem, deny the refugees any right of return, and retain settlement blocks.
This is one of the oldest Israeli-hasbara cards on the book; look we offered a good deal and they said no! The facts look different however.
Can you please explain to me why the Palestinians, who are the ones being stolen from every day, are expected to give stuff up to make peace, and if they don’t, then they are the problem? Seriously: refugees, jerusalem, occupation, equal rights to citizens: these are all covered under international law, which Israel is in violation of.
If Israel withdraws it shows it is illegitimate. I mean, has any country ever left territory it occupies except by force? The answer is no. Would the US leave Texas California or Manhatten. Its absurd.
It’s not absurd. Israel has already withdrawn from the Gaza Strip and there’s no reason it cannot withdraw from (the vast majority of) the West Bank as part of a 2-state settlement. It’s actually the opposite of what you say: the continued occupation of the WB, in violation of intl law, is what decreases Israel’s ‘legitimacy’.
Israel withdrew the settlements from Gaza (check what Sharon said about this at the time: I am doing this so we keep the West Bank), but it has not withdrawn from Gaza. Please.
What decreases Israel’s legitimacy for U.S./European populations is the ‘West Bank.’ For the Arab world and the Palestinians, however: it is its brutalisation of Gaza, theft of Jerusalem, violation of Palestinian-Israeli rights, denial of the Palestinian right of return, support for countless dictators, AND the occupation of the West Bank that is problematic.