The subtleties beneath Scarlett Johansson’s controversial endorsement of SodaStream products should blunt the euphoria of pro-Israel advocates, who celebrate the Hollywood star’s choice to abandon Oxfam in favor of her new West Bank-based patron. More fundamentally, the fallout in this case reveals the all-out assault on Israel’s very existence, and should give everyone pause about making facile judgments about right and wrong in a complex situation. The world is never black and white, and it's just such binary, zero-sum thinking that perpetuates the Israeli-Palestinian impasse in the Middle East.
Scarlett chose to stick with a model of Jewish-Palestinian coexistence within the West Bank, rather than accept the dogma against conducting any business involving Israeli settlements over the 1949 Green Line. The reactions against her decision demonstrate that the sophisticated effort to condemn and boycott Israel’s West Bank settlements without demonizing pre-1967 Israel has largely failed, both in the popular imagination and in the pronouncements of other high-profile celebrities. Any well-intentioned supporters of the West Bank boycott must realize that the so-called “BDS” movement (pushing for boycott, divestment, sanctions) against the entire State of Israel is coopting their message for a greater cause – eliminating the Jewish state.
I vehemently disagree with those choosing to deny Israel their patronage for items produced in the West Bank until the entire dispute is resolved, but I can also understand their moral premise. But as the SodaStream controversy has highlighted, many BDS activists see Jewish independence anywhere in historical Israel as illegitimate and offensive. What could have been a principled abstaining from the fruits of the West Bank is now a witch hunt, boycotting or intimidating anyone who sees the world differently, or without the same black-and-white filter.
Well-meaning people who support Palestinian rights in the West Bank while accepting Israel's right to exist within secure and negotiated borders should understand that this level of nuance is beyond the comprehension of many Israel-haters. Possibly against its own better judgment, BDS has seamlessly conflated a boycott against Jewish settlements over the Green Line with boycotting all Israeli people and products.
Make no mistake: Plenty of BDS activists would attack Scarlett for representing SodaStream even if it were based in the heart of Tel Aviv. An official BDS website, representing two dozen groups identified as Palestinian, celebrated the fact that Scarlett Johansson stepped down as an Oxfam Ambassador, “following public outcry,” and
Every entity which agrees to boycott Israeli companies doing business with the West Bank represents a victory for the BDS movement. And such a secondary boycott is hardly some new innovation meant to punish Israel’s current right-wing government for not moving fast enough to abandon the West Bank. The boycott of Israeli products, and of companies that do business with Israeli companies or use Israeli products, goes back decades. It gathered steam after the 1973 surprise attack against Israel by Egypt and Syria, when the Arab Gulf states imposed an oil embargo against countries dealing with Israel.
It’s not just Palestinians or Arabs who recognize no Green Line. For Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters, Israel is illegitimate and unjust on either side of the Green Line, so it doesn't even matter that SodaStream is based in the West Bank. In an open letter on Facebook, he lectures Johansson about Israeli human rights violations against non-Jews inside the Green Line – which international law recognizes as Israel – and champions the return of a Palestinian refugees, not to the West Bank but to Israel proper. He also objectifies people like Scarlett, having once pegged her as "anti-neo-con" and now labeling her a turncoat, all because of personal choices she has made. When the world, and the people in it, disappoint our neatly tailored expectations, that's not necessarily a crime against humanity.
Beyond Waters, for years hundreds of intellectuals and artists have also been promoting a “cultural boycott of Israel”. While only comprising a slender minority of the Western cultural elite, led by such notables as Booker Prize winner John Berger, this movement (also titled “The Electronic Intifada”) promotes the isolation of Israel – not as an extension of the West Bank-related campaign, but as a continuation of the longstanding boycott of Israel.
More recently, the American Studies Association (ASA) joined the list of academic groups boycotting Israel for its West Bank policies, its actions in Lebanon, and even this shocking reason: “Armed soldiers patrol Israeli university campuses, and some have been trained at Israeli universities in techniques to suppress protesters.” Such twisted reasoning should offend anyone who’s seen the long list of terror attacks on Israeli institutions, from which many Palestinian BDS leaders received their own degrees. Anyone who thinks Israelis enjoy needing soldiers to patrol their universities… should probably join the ASA.
In its ultimatum to Scarlett Johansson, Oxfam comes across as anti-Israel, or at least as anti-occupation, and its overt political style has overshadowed its record of feeding millions sound the world. Now, its political choices have definitely tarnished the hunger brand in ways that could impact a million or more innocent, hungry humans who depend on voluntary donations via Oxfam.
One humane West Bank factory does not undo all the grievances of Palestinians, but that also doesn't make the company (or its spokesperson) a villain for coloring outside the lines imposed by one ideology or the other. Ironically, SodaStream is a rare example of how Jewish-Palestinian coexistence could actually succeed. Including this company among Israel’s crimes against Palestinians undermines the already dubious case for a single bi-national state as advocated by Waters and so many others would-be do-gooders. And yes, there are many.
The American Jewish Congress has made it a high priority on our current agenda to challenge the BDS movement to de-legitimize and isolate Israel, as we continue the agency’s efforts to bring about peace in the Middle East.
One lesson we might all take from this latest ripple is that, even if SodaStream and BDS remain problematic, most Jews and Palestinians on the ground are increasingly seeing their grievances and aspirations in full color, not as a take-no-prisoners battle to the death. Anyone who claims to want peace in that part of the world should not be allowed to think any less broadly than they do.
Scarlett chose to stick with a model of Jewish-Palestinian coexistence within the West Bank, rather than accept the dogma against conducting any business involving Israeli settlements over the 1949 Green Line. The reactions against her decision demonstrate that the sophisticated effort to condemn and boycott Israel’s West Bank settlements without demonizing pre-1967 Israel has largely failed, both in the popular imagination and in the pronouncements of other high-profile celebrities. Any well-intentioned supporters of the West Bank boycott must realize that the so-called “BDS” movement (pushing for boycott, divestment, sanctions) against the entire State of Israel is coopting their message for a greater cause – eliminating the Jewish state.
I vehemently disagree with those choosing to deny Israel their patronage for items produced in the West Bank until the entire dispute is resolved, but I can also understand their moral premise. But as the SodaStream controversy has highlighted, many BDS activists see Jewish independence anywhere in historical Israel as illegitimate and offensive. What could have been a principled abstaining from the fruits of the West Bank is now a witch hunt, boycotting or intimidating anyone who sees the world differently, or without the same black-and-white filter.
Well-meaning people who support Palestinian rights in the West Bank while accepting Israel's right to exist within secure and negotiated borders should understand that this level of nuance is beyond the comprehension of many Israel-haters. Possibly against its own better judgment, BDS has seamlessly conflated a boycott against Jewish settlements over the Green Line with boycotting all Israeli people and products.
Make no mistake: Plenty of BDS activists would attack Scarlett for representing SodaStream even if it were based in the heart of Tel Aviv. An official BDS website, representing two dozen groups identified as Palestinian, celebrated the fact that Scarlett Johansson stepped down as an Oxfam Ambassador, “following public outcry,” and
Every entity which agrees to boycott Israeli companies doing business with the West Bank represents a victory for the BDS movement. And such a secondary boycott is hardly some new innovation meant to punish Israel’s current right-wing government for not moving fast enough to abandon the West Bank. The boycott of Israeli products, and of companies that do business with Israeli companies or use Israeli products, goes back decades. It gathered steam after the 1973 surprise attack against Israel by Egypt and Syria, when the Arab Gulf states imposed an oil embargo against countries dealing with Israel.
It’s not just Palestinians or Arabs who recognize no Green Line. For Pink Floyd front man Roger Waters, Israel is illegitimate and unjust on either side of the Green Line, so it doesn't even matter that SodaStream is based in the West Bank. In an open letter on Facebook, he lectures Johansson about Israeli human rights violations against non-Jews inside the Green Line – which international law recognizes as Israel – and champions the return of a Palestinian refugees, not to the West Bank but to Israel proper. He also objectifies people like Scarlett, having once pegged her as "anti-neo-con" and now labeling her a turncoat, all because of personal choices she has made. When the world, and the people in it, disappoint our neatly tailored expectations, that's not necessarily a crime against humanity.
Beyond Waters, for years hundreds of intellectuals and artists have also been promoting a “cultural boycott of Israel”. While only comprising a slender minority of the Western cultural elite, led by such notables as Booker Prize winner John Berger, this movement (also titled “The Electronic Intifada”) promotes the isolation of Israel – not as an extension of the West Bank-related campaign, but as a continuation of the longstanding boycott of Israel.
More recently, the American Studies Association (ASA) joined the list of academic groups boycotting Israel for its West Bank policies, its actions in Lebanon, and even this shocking reason: “Armed soldiers patrol Israeli university campuses, and some have been trained at Israeli universities in techniques to suppress protesters.” Such twisted reasoning should offend anyone who’s seen the long list of terror attacks on Israeli institutions, from which many Palestinian BDS leaders received their own degrees. Anyone who thinks Israelis enjoy needing soldiers to patrol their universities… should probably join the ASA.
In its ultimatum to Scarlett Johansson, Oxfam comes across as anti-Israel, or at least as anti-occupation, and its overt political style has overshadowed its record of feeding millions sound the world. Now, its political choices have definitely tarnished the hunger brand in ways that could impact a million or more innocent, hungry humans who depend on voluntary donations via Oxfam.
One humane West Bank factory does not undo all the grievances of Palestinians, but that also doesn't make the company (or its spokesperson) a villain for coloring outside the lines imposed by one ideology or the other. Ironically, SodaStream is a rare example of how Jewish-Palestinian coexistence could actually succeed. Including this company among Israel’s crimes against Palestinians undermines the already dubious case for a single bi-national state as advocated by Waters and so many others would-be do-gooders. And yes, there are many.
The American Jewish Congress has made it a high priority on our current agenda to challenge the BDS movement to de-legitimize and isolate Israel, as we continue the agency’s efforts to bring about peace in the Middle East.
One lesson we might all take from this latest ripple is that, even if SodaStream and BDS remain problematic, most Jews and Palestinians on the ground are increasingly seeing their grievances and aspirations in full color, not as a take-no-prisoners battle to the death. Anyone who claims to want peace in that part of the world should not be allowed to think any less broadly than they do.
Originally Published: The Allgemeiner
