Are Boycotts Still Useful?

After Israel’s latest assault on Palestine, it seems there has been greater interest in Palestinian solidarity groups and movements like Boycott, Divest, Sanctions (BDS). The idea of the latter is to treat Israel as the World Community treated South Africa during its Apartheid years, hoping that the results will be similar. There are two interrelated matters to take in to consideration when it comes to BDS: Israel’s role in the global hierarchy and the value of boycotts in general in the modern world.

The position of Israel is the most crucial issue, so I will start there. Not infrequently, both in unofficial forums in the U.S. and the whole gamut of “officialness” in foreign media sources, I have come across people from the Middle East (and sometimes other parts of the world as well) express the almost-cliched anti-Semitic truisms: Jews control the banks and the media, they pull the strings of Western foreign policy, there is a reason why “everyone” has a problem with the Jews, etc. Obviously there are many Jewish anti-Zionists and anti-Zionists who are in no way anti-Semitic; however, in denouncing Zionism one must take great care not to unintentionally provide support for or feed into the misconceptions of the anti-Semites. When one emphasizes the power of Israel and isolates its evil from the global capitalist system of which it is a part, then one runs the risk of reinforcing the ideas about Jews Running the World and Jews as an Evil People.

It is certainly important to call attention to the reality of the situation in Palestine, as Western media and public discourse are very one-sided. Yet, this attention should also highlight the context of European colonialism, American neocolonialism, and global capitalism. These forces are responsible for nurturing Zionism, guiding it in particular directions, using it to secure global structures of power, and of course, funding and arming it. Just like poor whites in the American South who were inculcated with racism to suit the needs of politicians, Israel is in a sense “only a pawn in the game” (lyrics courtesy of Bob Dylan).

So the question (which can apply to all boycotts) is, why Israel? It seems a bit like cherry-picking. The U.S. has enslaved more people (particularly if you include the humungous prison population) and caused more death and suffering worldwide (including direct support for the Israeli occupation). Why not boycott all goods produced by U.S. companies? In fact, since all corporations exploit human beings (and are complicit to varying degrees with slavery and poverty), why not boycott all capitalist-produced goods? Once again, to single out Israel is to make the Jewish nation appear as the greatest evil in this world when it certainly is not.

But those questions bring me to my second point. One of the first instances of the boycott was employed by Quakers and free blacks in the United States as a reaction to slavery. At that time, it probably was not possible to see the development of capitalism, and certainly the institution of slavery was (and still is) foundational to the capitalist system. In that sense, the boycott really was aiming high. The participants did not want to personally profit off of slavery; thus, it was a general, principled stand rather than a fight against anyone or anything in particular. The problem with boycotts now is that they are directed at specific actors: a certain corporation or set of corporations. All capitalists play by the same rules. If you do not want to personally benefit from capitalist exploitation, then it doesn’t make any sense to single anyone out. In fact, it may end up just putting impoverished people in a more vulnerable position (as I once heard a Bangladeshi Walmart employee say, “But we need the jobs!”). What we need is an effective way to challenge the entire global capitalist system – a way to extricate ourselves from it and call attention to the reality of its mechanisms. When we boycott these days, we are sending the message that we are just concerned about “bad guys,” but the truth is that we are fight against a bad system.

Will Statehood Help the Palestinians?

The hope that Palestinians pin on the UN and statehood status is just another example of the pitfalls of trying to create change within the system.

The Palestinians are not being screwed by Israel. They are being screwed by a global system, of which Israel is merely one component.

Do the Palestinians really believe that having the status of a sovereign state will protect them from being occupied or invaded? Do they think that, in obtaining statehood, they will suddenly be freed from their open-air prisons and no longer be deprived of basic necessities? The answer, of course, is no, but the hope is that any steps toward statehood will give them certain rights under international law and perhaps some leverage via the UN.

Then I must ask, do you really think the UN is going to deliver? We're talking about the same UN, right?

The fact of the matter is that the UN serves the interests of the global capitalist elite who control its institutional machinery. So long as Palestinian subjugation is useful in the capitalist system, it will continue.

The Palestinians would be better served by recognizing the way in which all modern institutions (including the system of nation-states and international law) functioning together with capitalism as an integrated whole. If the Palestinians want their freedom, they will not find it in the international legal system. Perhaps the only way out of captivity is the path (more or less) of the Zapatistas.

Israel's Role In Foreign Affairs

It is clear that Israel is a key player in world affairs. To many in the West, Israel is seen as an indispensible ally, while to others, particularly in the Middle East, it is viewed as a provocateur and invoked as a justification for violence. In fact, some people (generally those in the latter camp) believe that Israel is pulling all the strings of Western foreign policy. And there are people who think that Jews secretly run the world. Clearly, a lot is attributed to Israel/the Jews.

While I do think that the West, and in particular the U.S., are very vested in Israel’s security and exhibit a public bias toward the nation in their handling of regional conflicts, I don’t think that it’s fair to say that Israel is calling all of the shots. And the idea that Jews control the world does not even deserve comment. In fact, I would say, quite contrarily, that Israel has more often been used as a tool by the West in pursuit of their own goals, and that a general anger over colonialism/neo-colonialism has to some extent been unfairly (I will admit, also to some extent fairly) displaced onto Israel, as the visible arm of Western colonialism in the Middle East.

For example, let’s look at the creation of this nation-state. The establishment of the state of Israel could not have occurred if Britain, the occupier of the territory, did not will it. And Britain did not will it because of its sympathy for the victims of Nazi genocide. It had been planning the creation of a Jewish state prior to WW2 as a strategy to counter any potential expansionary aims of the new Egyptian regime. The British took advantage of the Zionist attitudes and devastation felt by the Jews in order to place colonial agents in the region.  And they continued to use Israel as a check against the emergence of any regional power that could threaten Western hegemony.

It is true that Israel lobbies, both directly and through its organized American supporters, for particular foreign policy interventions whose strategic aim is to prevent the rise of any regional power that could rival Israel. This is rational. It is also true that the U.S. often seems to bend to the sway of this influence. However, that is only because the U.S.'s own strategic objectives happen to dovetail, in large part, with Israel's. The U.S., as world hegemonic power and chief instrument of neocolonialism for the capitalist class, also does not want any regional power to emerge in the Middle East. But the U.S. interest is in maintaining control over as much of the region as possible, and the rise of any hostile power would threaten that control. Israel just happens to be a useful ally.

Israel may have a lot of nukes, but the global elite is strong and globally integrated.  And the bottom line, under capitalism, is always the bottom line:  profit.