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<font size="1"><a href="http://www.ramzybaroud.net/freedom-is-never-voluntarily-given-palestinian-boycott-of-israel-is-not-racist-it-is-anti-racist/">http://www.ramzybaroud.net/freedom-is-never-voluntarily-given-palestinian-boycott-of-israel-is-not-racist-it-is-anti-racist/</a>
</font><h1 class="gmail-reader-title">‘Freedom is Never Voluntarily Given’: Palestinian Boycott of Israel is Not Racist, It is Anti-Racist - Politics For The People</h1>
</div>February 3, 2021, 3:28 pm
<div class="gmail-content"><div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><div><p><strong>By Ramzy Baroud</strong></p>
<p>Claims made by Democratic New York City mayoral <a href="https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/andrew-yang-officially-launches-nyc-mayoral-campaign/2830731/">candidate</a>, Andrew Yang, in a recent <a href="https://forward.com/opinion/462603/andrew-yang-mayoral-race-new-york-city-jewish-community/">op-ed</a>
in the Jewish weekly, ‘The Forward’, point to the prevailing ignorance
that continues to dominate the US discourse on Palestine and Israel.</p>
<p>Yang, a former Democratic Presidential candidate, is vying for the
Jewish vote in New York City. According to the reductionist assumption
that all Jews must naturally support Israel and Zionism, Yang <a href="https://forward.com/opinion/462603/andrew-yang-mayoral-race-new-york-city-jewish-community/">constructed</a> an argument that is entirely based on a tired and false mantra equating criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism.</p>
<p>Yang’s pro-Israel logic is not only unfounded, but confused as well.
“A Yang administration will push back against the BDS movement which
singles out Israel for unfair economic punishment,” he wrote, referring
to the Palestinian Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement.</p>
<p>Yang compared the BDS movement to the “fascist boycotts of Jewish businesses”, most likely a reference to the infamous <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/1933-anti-nazi-boycott">Nazi boycott</a> of Jewish businesses in Germany, starting in April 1933.</p>
<p>Not only does Yang fail to construct his argument in any historically
defensible fashion, he claims that BDS is “rooted in anti-Semitic
thought and history.”</p>
<p>BDS is, in fact, rooted in history, not that of Nazi Germany, but of the Palestinian <a href="https://www.jstor.org/stable/4284312?seq=1">General Strike</a>
of 1936, when the Palestinian Arab population took collective action to
hold colonial Britain accountable for its unfair and violent treatment
of Palestinian Muslims and Christians. Instead of helping Palestine
achieve full sovereignty, colonial Britain backed the political
aspirations of White European Zionists who aimed to establish a ‘Jewish
homeland’ in Palestine.</p>
<p>Sadly, the efforts of the Palestinian natives failed, and the new
State of Israel became a reality in 1948, after nearly one million
Palestinian refugees were uprooted and <a href="https://www.theatlantic.com/international/archive/2018/05/the-meaning-of-nakba-israel-palestine-1948-gaza/560294/">ethnically cleansed</a> as a result of a decidedly violent campaign, the aftershocks of which <a href="https://www.unrwa.org/palestine-refugees">continue</a> to this day. Indeed, today’s ongoing military occupation and apartheid are all rooted in that tragic history.</p>
<p>This is the reality that the boycott movement is fighting to change.
No anti-Semitic, Nazi – or, according to Yang’s ahistorical account,
‘fascist’ – love affair is at work here; just a beleaguered and
oppressed nation fighting for its most basic human rights.</p>
<p>Yang’s ignorant and self-serving comments were duly answered most
appropriately, including by many anti-Zionist Jewish intellectuals and
activists throughout the US and the world. Alex Kane, a writer in
‘Jewish Currents’ <a href="https://twitter.com/alexbkane/status/1352623125062688768">tweeted</a>
that Yang made “a messed up, wrong comparison”, and that the politician
“comes across as deeply ignorant about Palestine, Palestinians and
BDS”. US Muslim Congresswoman, <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-ilhan-omar-spars-with-pro-israel-democrats-after-andrew-yang-s-bds-nazi-comparison-1.9483042">Ilhan Omar</a>, and the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee (ADC) <a href="https://www.adc.org/adc-demands-yang-redact-apologize-for-bds-comments/?fbclid=IwAR0wbEFzLtBbujMZlujz34BHp9DbPSoRrAAG8VBtXDeeLOivwkA3DCOJnt0">added</a> their voices to numerous others, all pointing to Yang’s opportunism, lack of understanding of history and distorted logic.</p>
<p>But this goes beyond Yang, as the debate over BDS in the US is almost
entirely rooted in fallacious comparisons and ignorance of history.</p>
<p>Those who had hoped that the unceremonious end of the Donald Trump
Administration would bring about a measure of justice for the
Palestinian people will surely be disappointed, as the American
discourse on Palestine and Israel rarely changes, regardless which
President resides in the White House and what political party dominates
the Congress.</p>
<p>So, reducing the boycott debate to Yang’s confused account of history
and reality is, itself, a reductionist understanding of US politics.
Indeed, similar language is regularly infused, like that <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-bds-verges-on-antisemitism-biden-s-pick-for-un-envoy-says-1.9488357?fbclid=IwAR26AtKJo4KBBvxTBEQyrRJRSJt11nJ49VpdKO-xLNJflwQqezdBr4I_0-Q">used</a>
by President Joe Biden’s nominee for United Nations envoy, Linda
Thomas-Greenfield while addressing her confirmation hearing at the
Senate’s Foreign Relations Committee on January 27. Like Yang,
Thomas-Greenfield also found boycotting Israel an “unacceptable” act
that “verges on anti-Semitism.”</p>
<p>While the presumptive envoy supported the return of the US to the
Human Rights Council, UNESCO and other UN-affiliated organizations, her
reasoning for such a move is merely to ensure the US has a place “at the
table” so that Washington may monitor and discourage any criticism of
Israel.</p>
<p>Yang, Thomas-Greenfield and others perpetuate such inaccurate
comparisons with full confidence that they have strong support among the
country’s ruling elites from the two dominant political parties.
Indeed, <a href="https://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/anti-bds-legislation">according to</a>
the latest count produced by the pro-Israel Jewish Virtual Library
website, “32 states have adopted laws, executive orders or resolutions
that are designed to discourage boycotts against Israel.”</p>
<p>In fact, the criminalization of the boycott movement has taken center
stage of the federal government in Washington DC. Anti-boycott
legislation was passed with overwhelming majorities in both the <a href="https://www.haaretz.com/us-news/.premium-u-s-senate-passes-anti-bds-legislation-with-strong-majority-1.6912547">Senate</a> and the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2019/07/23/us/politics/house-israel-boycott-bds.html">House of Representatives</a> in recent years and more are expected to follow.</p>
<p>The popularity of such measures prompted former Secretary of State, Mike Pompeo, to <a href="https://www.cbsnews.com/news/israel-pompeo-labels-bds-movement-anti-semitic/">declare</a>
the Israel boycott movement to be anti-Semitic, describing it at as ‘a
cancer’ at a press conference in November, alongside Israeli Prime
Minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, while in the illegal settlement of Psagot.</p>
<p>While Pompeo’s position is unsurprising, it behooves Yang and
Thomas-Greenfield, both members of minority groups that suffered immense
historical racism and discrimination, to brush up on the history of
popular boycott movements in their own country. The weapon of boycott
was, indeed, a most effective platform to translate political dissent
into tangible achievements for oppressed Black people in the US during
the civil rights movement in the mid-20th century. Most memorable, and
consequential of these boycotts was the <a href="https://kinginstitute.stanford.edu/encyclopedia/montgomery-bus-boycott">Montgomery Bus Boycott</a> of 1955.</p>
<p>Moreover, outside the US, numerous volumes have been written about
how the boycott of the White supremacist apartheid government in South
Africa ignited a global movement which, combined with the sacrifices of
Black South Africans, brought apartheid to an <a href="https://www.nationalgeographic.com/culture/2019/04/how-south-africa-changed-since-apartheid-born-free-generation/">end</a> in the early 1990s.</p>
<p>The Palestinian people do not learn history from Yang and others, but
from the collective experiences of oppressed peoples and nations
throughout the world. They are guided by the wisdom of Martin Luther
King Jr., who once said that “We know through painful experience that
freedom is never voluntarily given by the oppressor, it must be demanded
by the oppressed.”</p>
<p>The boycott movement aims at holding the oppressor accountable as it
places a price tag on military occupation and apartheid. Not only is the
Palestinian boycott movement not racist, it is essentially a rallying
cry against racism and oppression.</p>
<p><em>– Ramzy Baroud is a journalist and the Editor of The Palestine Chronicle. He is the author of five books. His latest is “</em><a href="https://www.amazon.com/These-Chains-Will-Broken-Palestinian/dp/1949762092"><em>These Chains Will Be Broken</em></a><em>:
Palestinian Stories of Struggle and Defiance in Israeli Prisons”
(Clarity Press). Dr. Baroud is a non-resident Senior Research Fellow at
the Center for Islam and Global Affairs (CIGA) and also at the
Afro-Middle East Center (AMEC). His website is </em><a href="http://www.ramzybaroud.net/"><em>www.ramzybaroud.net</em></a></p>
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