Boycotters of Israel are often silent about greater violations of human rights
Last week over 300 British university academics decided to boycott Israel over ‘commitment to Palestinian rights’. The writers vowed to maintain the boycott ‘until Israel complies with international law, and respects human rights’, in a pro-BDS (Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions) demonstration against violence in the West Bank and Gaza.
Similarly the European Union is being pushed by NGOs to boycott all Israeli products made in ‘Judea and Samaria’ (West Bank) as ‘part of a larger economic war’.
The rise in Palestinian knife attacks and ensuing Israeli retaliation has left 11 Israelis and 69 Palestinians dead in the latest insurgency, mirroring the historically skewed number of casualties in the conflict. Those calling for Israeli boycott cite this numerical disparity, while calling out ‘apartheid state’ Israel’s ‘illegal occupation’ of Palestinian territory.
While it’s hard to argue against the discrepancy in force and violence, it should be equally hard to counter that violations of a much greater degree are being exercised by states around the world. And so one wonders why those jumping the gun on Israeli boycott remain silent on other states’ brutalities.
For instance, no one seems interested in boycotting China for its ‘illegal occupation’ of Tibet, or its blatant anti-Muslim policies in its largest province Xinjiang. There are not many protests against China’s ‘Islamophobia’ when it bars Muslims from fasting during Ramadan, or bans beards and ‘Islamic dressing’.
China’s ‘cultural genocide’ uses the actions of fringe Uighur radicals as justification for a broader state clampdown against all Muslims. The province itself has been occupied territory since 1949, with a separatist movement for self-recognition brimming over for decades.
For those wanting to demonstrate against colonial occupation, the recently signed Sino-Pak agreement over the $46 billion economic corridor should be a good rallying cause, considering it connects Xinjiang with Pakistan-occupied Balochistan, primarily benefiting Islamabad and Beijing. Just like China usurped Islamic Republic of East Turkestan (Xinjiang), Pakistan took over Balochistan immediately after the Indo-Pak partition.
Balochistan is witnessing its fourth insurgency since 1947 as it continues fighting for autonomy. Meanwhile, Pakistan Army continues to lift and dump Baloch citizens at will, in one of the goriest examples of human rights violations in the world, which has left over 23,000 missing persons.
Another mutual Sino-Pak occupation was that of the Kashmir region. While Beijing majorly withdrew, the occupied region has become a point scoring tool for India and Pakistan, with not much heed paid to locals’ rights. Even though the Pakistan-occupied Kashmir is still relatively peaceful, albeit without actual autonomy, India’s only Muslim-majority state has suffered savage human rights abuses since 1947.
The recent surge in Hindu radicalism, following right-wing BJP’s return to power in India, has seen Hindu mobs lynching Muslims over beef, as the state ups the ante on torture in Kashmir.
Meanwhile, Bangladesh’s ruling Awami Party is acquiescing to a killing spree targeting atheist and secular bloggers because it isn’t sure about the viewpoint of the ‘moderate Muslims’ – a significant vote bank. A little eastwards Myanmar is engaged in ethnic cleansing of indigenous Rohingya Muslims.
In addition to these South (east) Asians countries, another broader category of ‘Muslim world’ witnesses mass human rights violations. These 13 countries punish atheism by death – all Muslim majority states. While multiple factors – including Western imperialism – have marred progress in the Muslim world, most of these states have their own decades-long policies to blame for their volatility.
These include democracies and Western allies like Turkey, which occupies Cyprus and targets Kurds in the garb of the anti-ISIS fight, and Pakistan whose multi-pronged apartheid belittles Israel’s ostensible apartheid. In fact the uncanny semblance between the ugliest shades of Pakistan and Israel should be worthy of some attention from the anti-Israel protestors.
While the majority of the Muslim world doesn’t recognise the Israeli state anyway, all Muslims who seriously consider boycott as a means of protest, should actually self-reflect and start with Muslim countries. This year’s Hajj stampede death toll in Saudi Arabia should’ve instigated a mass boycott movement of the Saudi kingdom and the Muslim pilgrimage itself.
None of these wrongs make Israel’s injustices right. However, a complete lack of nuance and perspective in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict obviously aggravates the historical crisis.
While the Palestinian clerics and leaders’ incitement to violence is given a pass, and genocidal Islamists like Hamas are deemed freedom fighters, while global activists don’t even know – or care – about what’s going on in Balochistan, Kashmir, Xinjiang or Kurdistan, it’s easy to understand the common Israelis’ sense of victimhood.
Blatant depiction of Israel as evil and Palestinians as victims strengthens right-wings (Likud and Hamas) in both territories. Paranoid citizens worrying about their security don’t care much for ideologies, as Erdogan-led AKP’s return to a majority in this week’s Turkish elections testifies.
Anyone who doesn’t accept a two-state answer to the conflict can’t obviously be a part of the Palestinian solution. The same is true for all those who paint either of the two sides as the sole culprit.
An Israeli-Palestinian peaceful solution can only be reached via strengthening the inward-looking moderates who acknowledge and highlight their own side’s wrongs. An Israeli boycott that dubs the Jewish state as the ultimate evil would silence actual peacemakers on both sides.
Kunwar Khuldune Shahid is a Friday Times journalist. Follow him on Twitter
227 Responses to “Comment: The hypocrisy of boycotting Israel”
BlueApesRevolt
There are of course historical patterns to left wing thought and these patterns are very evident when it comes to the Israeli – Palestinian conflict.The left favours the perceived underdog ..and that is a good thing ,but there is also a historical tendency to see the world in black and white terms ..as heroes and villains .So that meant ignoring the crimes of the Bolseheviks and even Stalin ,That was until Stalin made a pact with Hitler .Stalin had been a racist repressive zealot before this and even under Lenin the Bolsheviks had acted in a brutal dictatorial self enriching way but much of the left had chosen to ignore this . The tendency towards binary thinking also manifests towards the perceived villians .They must be painted as evil thus the positive aspects of Israel must be ignored or denied .it’s greater intolerance of homophobia it’s egalitarian treatment of women ..the widespread progressive attitudes towards animal rights .Until the 70s every Israeli Prime Minister had connections to the Labour movement but this has to be ignored also ..because every Israeli is a vile neo-con in the mind of some hardline groups and individuals on the left .Today’s hardcore pro-Palestinian left have made similar thinking errors to Stalin’s apologists ..they ignore the far right theocratic ,homophobic ,sexist tendencies of Hamas ,while downplaying the effects on the Jewish consciousness of centuries of pogroms and the recent Holocaust .because “the Jews are just milking it “and as bad guys they cannot be allowed to elicit sympathy .I would never pretend that Israel has not at times acted in a racist murderous inhumane manner towards the Palestinians whose lands they take and whose cities they occupy ..but lets not pretend that everything Israel does is evil and that Hamas is a benign and humane organisation .Even towards Palestinians Hamas is more an oppressor than a saviour .When it comes to Israelis some on the left sound like similar to the far right .This is the endpoint of a dangerously rigid ideology ,that fails to see subtleties and fails to uphold humanistic left wing values i.e. by failing to challenge the repressive nature of Bolshevism and by failing to speak out when Hamas talk of murdering Jews or gays .
BlueApesRevolt
What even when the people in question are Holocaust deniers who express a wish to slaughter Jewish people !?.
Ned Hamson
So, how come I knew about it, as did many others? There has been no page one in reality for years, except for trying to pretend that one crisis hides another. Could be that conflict in Palestine and Israel involves more nations and potential combatants?
Cole
Huge? A small number of hard lefties…
Cole
But you’re clearly not interested – nor are the academics- in much worse regimes, eg the Sudanese – who’ve killed millions of their fellow citizens in Darfur, S Sudan. And many orthers…