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The Global Crackdown On BDS Is Not About Solidarity with Jews

Israeli politics have moved into uncharted territory over the past several months, as Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu found himself unable to form a coalition large enough to claim victory in last spring’s elections. However, even as the Israeli state enters into political turmoil at home, it is becoming increasingly immune to criticism from the international community abroad. 

In May, Germany’s government passed an anti-BDS resolution condemning the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement, a nonviolent campaign to protest Israel’s military occupation of Palestine, as anti-Semitic, and vowed that the country would not participate in any boycotts of Israeli products. The law is similar to an anti-BDS resolution that was just passed by the U.S. House of Representatives, and to several even more severe laws previously passed by U.S. states. 

More broadly, measures like these protect the Israeli government from facing any economic consequences for isolating and discriminating against its Palestinian population. And the German measure shows that the campaign to ensure this impunity is going global, particularly as Israel makes common cause with far-right governments around the world (even, in some cases, those with well documented anti-Semitic sympathies).

Netanyahu, who is facing charges of corruption, has been prime minister for the past 10 years. During his tenure, he has moved Israel increasingly to the right politically, with severe consequences for Palestinian rights. Under his leadership, the expansion of Israeli settlements has led to what many have called the death of a two-state solution. Meanwhile, his government has instituted policies that legalize discrimination against non-Jews and strengthen Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza.

I, for one, am scared of a world where the Israeli government can continue to advance these discriminatory policies — especially as it goes unquestioned by the international powers that provide it with ongoing financial and ideological support. And as a Jew dedicated to fighting for Palestinian rights, I’m scared of a world where dissenting movements are silenced, and accusations of anti-Semitism overwhelm critiques of a powerful government. 

Finally, I’m scared of a world where the attitudes of a United States headed by Donald Trump can worm their way into the international community — and I’m scared to watch as the uncritical U.S. support for Israel is exported to Germany, the rest of Europe, and around the world.

In reality, supporters of Israel and anti-BDS legislation are often those who do the least to advocate for Jewish safety. In a striking example, white nationalist Richard Spencer has self-identified as a “white Zionist.” Steve Bannon’s appearance at a Zionist Organization of America event seems out of place as well, given that his tenure as an editor at the alt-right Breitbart News was marked by the use of anti-Semitic language. Most recently, President Trump justified his racist attack on Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) with his support for Israel. However, his 2016 campaign was also marked by the use of anti-Semitic rhetoric, from campaign ads referencing “global special interests” to the invocation of stereotypes that portray Jews as greedy and money-obsessed. In Europe, Hungary’s right-wing government has undergone scrutiny for the seeming contradiction between its close relationship with Israel and its denial of Hungary’s role in the Holocaust. 

Instances like these make it clear that the voices most ardently in favor of Israel are often the same voices that make their careers preaching hate against Jews and people of color. We should all be concerned when the U.S. government aligns itself with authoritarian or fascist ideologues on any issue — and Israel is no exception.

Germany’s anti-BDS legislation offers yet another example of seemingly incongruous support of Israel from notorious anti-Semites. The far-right party Alternative for Germany, whose sympathy for the Nazi party has led to its denunciation by German Jewish leaders, proposed the strictest version of the bill— a total ban on BDS-related actions within Germany. Contradictions like these make it clear that, unlike far-right politicians would have you believe, support for Israel has no connection to solidarity with Jewish people.

Instead of a genuine rejection of anti-Semitism, the right’s championing of Israel stems from its love of nationalist rhetoric. To these figures, support for Israel acts as a convenient pass to continue espousing hate. Instead of defending the Jewish people, members of the right are embracing something altogether different: ethno-nationalism, whether it involves the removal of immigrants at America’s southern border or the colonization of Palestinians in Israel.

The question then becomes whether we, as Jewish communities, want to align ourselves with these ideologies — ideologies held by people who have open disgust for our beliefs and our humanity, not to mention the humanity of Muslims, immigrants and people of color around the world.

Meanwhile, the BDS movement, which was launched in 2005 by a coalition of 170 organizations representing Palestinian civil society, has never advocated for anti-Semitism. Instead, it is brave enough to call the Israeli state what it is: a perpetuation of apartheid in a country that has a segregated road system to facilitate the separation of Israelis and Palestinians. Instead of opposing BDS, Jewish leaders and their allies should be focusing on the real threat to Jewish communities: white nationalism in all its forms.

If the international community wants to advocate for Jewish safety, the solution does not lie in wholesale support of the Israeli state. In fact, the violent actions of Israel make us all less safe.

It’s time for the United States to acknowledge the global consequences of our uncritical endorsement of the Israeli state, which includes everything from unchecked violence against Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank to anti-BDS laws like Germany’s. And it’s time for Germany to hold itself accountable for the white supremacy still present within its political landscape, rather than leveling vitriol at human rights campaigns like BDS. 

And it’s time for everyone, from the U.S. to Germany to members of Israel’s own government, to stand against injustice in Palestine wherever and whenever it occurs.

This article was produced in partnership with Foreign Policy In Focus.

Who dominates the discourse of the past?

Male academics, who comprise less than 10% of North American archaeologists, write the vast majority of the field's high impact, peer-reviewed literature.

TESS discovers three new planets nearby, including temperate 'sub-Neptune'

NASA's Transiting Exoplanet Survey Satellite, or TESS, has discovered three new worlds that are among the smallest, nearest exoplanets known to date. The planets orbit a star just 73 light years away and include a small, rocky super-Earth and two sub-Neptunes -- planets about half the size of our own icy giant.

What you need to know about today's #EarthOvershootDay via @ScienceAlert@twitter.com ➡️ 'We just used up all of Earth's resources for the year, and it's only July' ➡️ https://bit.ly/312PIDi

We're looking for Minetest-related educational projects and resources to feature on the official website. Please point us to them! They don't have to be in the English language

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Lagwagon announce new album “Railer”, release new single and announce tour dates

Good news! Lagwagon will release “Railer”, their ninth full length album on October 4 through Fat Wreck Chords. Alongside the announcement, the band have released “Bubble” – the first single from the album – today. “The idea of that song was to embrace and appreciate what you have,” explains frontman Joey Cape on “Bubble”, “I really specifically tried […]

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We are proud to unveil the final hardware specifications for the Librem 5 smartphone, set to begin shipping in Q3 of 2019.

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Compound found in red wine opens door for new treatments for depression, anxiety

A new study has revealed that the plant compound resveratrol, which is found in red wine, displays anti-stress effects by blocking the expression of an enzyme related to the control of stress in the brain.

Hong Kong Protesters and Militant Chinese Workers Point the Way to a New Kind of Internationalism

Just as the “Made in China” label insinuated itself into our retail stores in the 1980s, China today insinuates itself into most of our mainstream news coverage, as one of the largest global markets, the top carbon emitter, the biggest workforce, and the biggest geopolitical rival to the United States in recent memory. For Americans, seeing U.S. dominance in the headlines displaced by an upstart rival superpower can be humbling—or terrifying.

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Violence Has Spiked in Africa Since the Military Founded AFRICOM, Pentagon Study Finds

Despite a sharp increase in U.S. military operations, militant Islamist activity there has doubled on the continent since 2012.

The post Violence Has Spiked in Africa Since the Military Founded AFRICOM, Pentagon Study Finds appeared first on The Intercept.

Toxic Shock Stream Cover “Onward to Destruction from Forthcoming Split EP with Reproach

Two of Belgium’s finest hardcore acts have been working together on a split EP. Antwerp’s Toxic Shock has contributed three new tracks and a cover of a Reproach classic. Meanwhile, Ghent’s Reproach will add four original tracks and a Toxic Shock cover. It is unclear when the full release will happen but there has already […]

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Dissonance & Dissent (Ska, IN) Stream “World Stage Crescendo”

Lafayette-based Dissonance & Dissent have just released their first album. It’s called World Stage Crescendo and features 12 skank-ready tracks from the ska punk ensemble.  On Dissonance & Dissent’s bandcamp page, the group explain the origins of some of the tunes featured: “Some songs on this album date from the present day to the early 2000’s; sadly enough, […]

The post Dissonance & Dissent (Ska, IN) Stream “World Stage Crescendo” appeared first on Dying Scene.

Making it Personal

Why you REALLY need to protect your information online.

Ten Foot Pole release video for “Everything Dies”

Southern California skate-punk legends Ten Foot Pole have released a video for their song “Everything Dies”. The song comes from the band’s latest release Escalating Quickly, released through Thousand Islands Records, came out back in May. The new video features a montage of footage captured at the inaugural Red Bridge Fest over in La Belle Province earlier […]

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100 Years Ago Today, Farmers and Socialists Established the Country’s First Public Bank

One hundred years ago July 28, a bank in Bismarck, N.D., opened its doors for the very first time. This would have been an unremarkable event, likely lost to history, except for the fact that it was a public bank, owned by all the residents of the state. A century on, the Bank of North Dakota (BND) is still the only publicly owned bank in the continental United States (a second public bank was recently established in American Samoa)—though potentially not for long.

The BND is enjoying renewed time in the limelight as activists look to the institution as an example of how to regain democratic control over finance, and in the process confront a myriad of pressing problems from the climate crisis to gentrification. Rather than having public funds be extracted from local communities to fuel Wall Street speculation, public banks can ensure that those funds are used to stabilize local economies and support local public priorities. As Ellen Brown, chair of the Public Banking Institute, writes in her new book, Banking on the People, “a public banking system … can fund the goods, services and infrastructure required to satisfy the needs of the people and the economy without unsustainable debt, taxation or environmental degradation."*

That a public bank is resonating with people across the United States today shouldn’t be surprising. If we look back at the conditions that led a diverse group of farmers, socialists and populists to struggle against the odds to create the BND in the first place—corporate domination, an economy hobbled by debt burdens, gaping inequalities, ineffective reformists, bought politicians —we find they are remarkably similar to those we face today in our new “gilded age.”

At the dawn of the 20th century, the remote and relatively new state of North Dakota was firmly under the control of corporate interests. Heavily indebted small farmers and small businesspeople were beholden to terms set by out-of-state railroad companies and grain monopolies (both backed by big corporate banks) in order to access broader markets. The railroads in particular (which owned vast swathes of land in the state) were pernicious tax avoiders, depriving the government of desperately needed development funds. The state government was easily captured by these powerful interests and was, for a time, essentially under the control of a corrupt former railroad agent named Alexander McKenzie and the Republican political machine he ran. Early activist efforts to break this political and economic stranglehold through regulation and legal action were undermined by threatened capital strikes (for example, corporate owners threatened to close their grain elevators when faced with regulation in 1891).  Ultimately, these reform efforts had no answer to the central problem: that the large corporations of the day had the power to dictate economic conditions and relationships and the state lacked the financial means to advance alternatives.

In 1915, former Socialist Party organizer and flax farmer Arthur C. Townley formed the Nonpartisan League (NPL), which, among other things, advocated for worker’s compensation, a graduated state income tax, and public ownership of banks, mills, warehouses, insurance programs and other enterprises as a way of wresting economic power from the corporations. Buoyed by widespread support among farmers, NPL-backed candidates won elections in 1916 and 1918, gaining control of the state legislature and governorship. Once in office, they began to implement their radical yet popular economic agenda.

In July 1919, the BND was launched with $2 million in capital and a requirement that all state and local government funds be deposited in the bank. With these funds and popular support, the BND was able to endure an early Wall Street counterattack, namely a boycott of the state’s bonds. The BND survived, and ultimately thrived, despite the fact that the NPL was not able to withstand the political reaction to its success. Opponents organized the Independent Voters Association, a corporate-funded effort that hoped to see the experiment dashed, declaring during the 1920 race that “the real issue in the campaign in the state is between Americanism and socialism.” NPL candidates lost control of the lower house of the legislature after those elections, the new lawmakers passed measures undermining NPL policies and governor Lynn Frazier was narrowly recalled in 1921.

While the NPL’s political fortunes revived during the depression of the 1930s and the party exists to this day as part of the state’s official Democratic Party affiliate, the important lesson for activists today is how successful, popular and ultimately resilient institutions like the BND (and the accompanying publicly owned grain mill and elevator) became once they were established.   

Between 1919 and 1933 the BND lent almost $41 million to more than 16,000 farmers in the state, and during the Great Depression the bank helped the state uniquely sustain itself and recover quickly (foreshadowing similar success in helping the state withstand the 2008/09 financial crisis). While school teachers across the country were being paid essentially in IOUs that were typically redeemed with a 15% loss, the BND was able to pay them in full. In the 1940s, farmland that was foreclosed on during the Depression was sold back, in many cases, to the same families that lost them.

In 1945, the bank began to return a portion of its profits to North Dakota’s general fund—the first of more than $1 billion total that has been returned to the state over the decades, helping to fund various state services. In 1967 it made its first federally insured student loan, and today the bank administers its own student loan program that provides North Dakota residents (and those attending North Dakota colleges) with a variety of benefits (including low/competitive interest rates, no fees and refinancing options after college). Today, BND may not be the socialist engine many NPL planners had in mind (it works with rather than competes with or displaces private sector banks, for instance), but it is, as Gov. William Guy (D-NPL) advocated for in the 1960s, an “engine for economic development” in the public interest. Last year, BND reported $159 million in net earnings, with a total $7 billion in assets and a loan portfolio of $4.5 billion.

While the Bank of North Dakota’s record is impressive, it is important not to lose perspective. As a public institution, it is ultimately accountable to the democratic institutions of the state, a state that has changed considerably in the past 100 years and is now dominated by the Republican Party politically and increasingly by the oil and gas industry economically. Recently, the BND was widely, and rightly, criticized for lending the state as much as $10 million to cover the costs of policing the American Indian-led Standing Rock protests against the Dakota Access Pipeline.

Yet despite these risks, it is this promise of democratic control of finance that is most appealing to today’s activists.

In the years since the financial crisis, vibrant campaigns for public banks have emerged all across the country, seeking to resist corporate domination and elite control and build new, more equitable and sustainable institutions. Some of the most advanced campaigns are in California. Following a 2018 referendum loss in Los Angeles (where 42%—nearly half a million people—voted in favor of a public bank), activists have taken their fight to the state legislature. Recently, a statewide bill to clear some roadblocks for the establishment of local and regional public banks passed the General Assembly and has moved on to the State Senate (where it passed two key committees in June and July).

Whatever the bill’s ultimate fate, the campaign that the California Public Banking Alliance has put together is truly remarkable. More than 100 organizations representing 3.3 million Californians have endorsed the bill. These include labor unions (such as the California Nurses Association, SEIU California, AFSCME California and UFCW Western States Council), community groups (such as People Organizing To Demand Environmental and Economic Rights and Healthcare for All- California), environmental groups (such as 350.org, Friends of the Earth and the Local Clean Energy Alliance) and political organizations (such as the California Democratic Party and the Green Party of California). Moreover, 10 city governments have backed the effort, including Los Angeles, San Francisco, Oakland, and San Diego.      

In California and elsewhere in the country, public banking has very quickly moved from a fringe interest to a mainstream political issue. This is testament to both the long-term success of examples like the Bank of North Dakota and to the efforts of a new generation of activists and movement builders who, like their predecessors 100 years ago, understand how critically important control of finance and capital is to the hope of building a more equitable, just and democratic world.  

*Ellen Brown is also a fellow at The Democracy Collaborative, where the authors work, and Banking on the People was published by The Democracy Collaborative.

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The Bolsonaro Government’s Aggressive Response Shows Why Our Reporting on the Secret Brazil Archive Is So Vital

Justice Minister Moro and his defenders are trying to distract attention away from their own misconduct by fixating on the actions of those who revealed it.

The post The Bolsonaro Government’s Aggressive Response Shows Why Our Reporting on the Secret Brazil Archive Is So Vital appeared first on The Intercept.