A friend wrote to ask me to sign on to a petition demanding that the Modern Language Association, a scholarly society with “over 26,000 members in 100 countries,” apply the policies of the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions) movement toward Israeli universities and academics. I wrote back as follows:
I’ve been meaning to write you back but haven’t found the time or the words to do it right. I’m more than a little ambivalent about BDS. I share in the signers’ horror and anger about the occupation, continued settlement-building, harassment, denial of basic rights and necessities, etc., that have been the daily lot of most Palestinians for decades now. And Netanyahu’s promise to kill the two-state solution, which resulted in his reelection, just slams the door on the reasonable aspirations of all Palestinians. In all of this I’m with the proponents of BDS. But I can’t see myself as a co-signer because I don’t believe in boycotts based on nationality. In denying a platform to Israeli academics generally, a boycott would deny a platform to the “good Israelis” (the ones who are for peace, diplomacy, and neighborly relations with a Palestinian state) no less than to the “bad Israelis”; and since the “good Israelis” are in the disadvantaged position just now (the “bad Israelis” won’t give a damn about our boycott and will continue to appear in such fora as joint sessions of the US Congress), BDS would have the perverse effect of strengthening the dominance of the “bad Israelis” over political discourse concerning the future of Israel-Palestine. Although the statement says that it is directed at the Israeli state and not at individual Israeli academics, how is one to tell an Israeli colleague who has, let’s say, applied to give a paper at the MLA annual meeting that “it’s nothing personal” but s/he is not going to be accepted because of his/her nationality? I don’t think this is a good path for the MLA or any scholarly organization to go down. Free and open discourse, that’s what we should be about. I know that Palestinian intellectuals are routinely denied a platform for their views, and I am ready to protest and agitate for their freedom to travel, speak and have normal relations with their colleagues across the world.
You’ve probably heard all this before.
Anyway, that’s how I feel about it– it’s a little more complicated than “yes” or “no.”
We are living in horrible times. I don’t have a solution. But I can recognize a counterproductive measure.